already advanced, for there is existing in practice nothing which may
not be accounted for in theory; as there can be no effect without an
efficient cause to produce it.

We may, however, long remain ignorant of the true explanation of the
principles involved; but the fault is ours, and not in the things
themselves. The earth moved with as much grandeur and precision around
its axis and in its orbit before the days of Gallileo Gallilei, when
philosophers believed it flat and stationary, as it has done since. So
the great principles on which depends the existence and use of all
language are permanent, and may be correctly employed by those who have
never examined them; but this does not prove that to be ignorant is
better than to be wise. We may have taken food all our days without
knowing much of the process by which it is converted into nourishment
and incorporated into our bodies, without ever having heard of
delutition chymification, chylification, or even digestion, as a whole;
but this is far from convincing me that the knowledge of these things is
unimportant, or that ignorance of them is not the cause of much disease
and suffering among mankind. And it is, or should be, the business of
the physiologist to explain these things, and show the great practical
benefit resulting from a general knowledge of them. So the grammarian
should act as a sort of physiologist of language. He should analyze all
its parts and show how it is framed together to constitute a perfect
whole.

Instead of exacting of you a blind submission to a set of technical
expressions, and arbitrary rules, I most urgently exhort you to
continue, with unremitting assiduity, your inquiries into the reason and
propriety of the positions which may be taken. It is the business of
philosophy, not to meddle with things to direct how they should be, but