It is also only another way of saying, that, in the oblique cases, _I_, and, in the nominative case, _me_, are _defective_. Now the same is the case with _good, better_, _bad, worse_, &c. _Good_ and _bad_ are defective in the comparative and superlative degrees; _better_ and _worse_ are defective in the positive; whilst between _good_ and _better_, _bad_ and _worse_, there is a sequence in logic, but no sequence in etymology. § 247. To return, however, to the word _better_; no absolute positive degree is found in any of the allied languages, and in none of the allied languages is there found any comparative form of _good_. Its root occurs in the following adverbial forms: Mœso-Gothic, _bats_; Old High German, _pats_; Old Saxon and Anglo-Saxon, _bet_; Middle High German, _baz_; Middle Dutch, _bat_, _bet_. § 248. _Worse_.--This word is one of two things. 1. It is a positive form with a comparative sense; in which case s is part of the root. 2. It is a comparative degree from the positive form wor- (vair-, wir-, vyr-), in which case s is the s of the Old Mœso-Gothic inflexion preserved in this single word. § 249. _More_.--In Anglo-Saxon this is _mâ_; in the English of the reign of Elizabeth it is _moe_; and in certain provincial dialects it is _mo_, at the present time. Notwithstanding this, i.e., the form being positive, the _power_ of the word has always been comparative, and meant _more_ rather than _much_, or _many_. § 250. _Less_.--In Anglo-Saxon _læssa_ and _læs_. Here there is no _unequivocal_ sign of the comparative degree; what, then, is the nature of the word? Is it a positive form with a comparative power like _moe_? or is it an old comparative in -s? This is undecided. What does it come from? Grimm derives it from the Mœso-Gothic root _lasiv_ = _weak_. His doctrine is doubtful. I cannot but believe that it comes from the same root as _litt-le_; where the old Frisian form _litich_, shows that the -l is no essential part of the word, and the Danish form _lille_ gets rid of the t. Still the word is difficult; indeed it is unexplained. § 251. _Near_, _nearer_.--Anglo-Saxon, _neah_; comparative, _nearre_, _near_, _nyr_; superlative, _nyhst_, _nehst_. Observe, in the Anglo-Saxon positive and superlative, the absence of the r. This shows that the English positive _near_ is the Anglo-Saxon comparative _nearre_, and that in the secondary comparative _nearer_, we have an _excess of expression_. It may be, however, that the r in _near_ is a mere point of orthography, and that it is not pronounced; since, in the English language the words _father_ and _farther_ are, for the most part, pronounced alike. § 252. _Farther_.--Anglo-Saxon _feor, fyrre, fyrrest_. The th seems euphonic, inserted by the same process that gives the δ in ἀνδρὸς, from ἀνὴρ = man. _Further_.--Confounded with _farther_, although in reality from a different word, _fore_. Old High German, _furdir_; New High German, _der vordere_; Anglo-Saxon, _fyrðre_.