My own opinion is, that it would be convenient to determine cases by the _form_ of the word _alone_; so that, even if a word had a dative sense only once, where it had an accusative sense ten thousand times, such a word should be said to be in the dative case. Now the words _him_ and _them_ (to which we may add _whom_) were once dative cases;[48] -m in Anglo-Saxon being the sign of the dative case. In the time of the Anglo-Saxons their sense coincided with their form. At present they are dative forms with an accusative meaning. Still, as the word _give_ takes after it a dative case, we have, even now, in the sentence, _give it him_, _give it them_, remnants of the old dative sense. To say _give it to him_, _to them_, is unnecessary and pedantic: neither do I object to the expression, _whom shall I give it?_ If ever the _formal_ test become generally recognised and consistently adhered to, _him_, _them_, and _whom_ will be called datives with a latitude of meaning; and then the only true and unequivocal accusatives in the English language will be the forms _you_, _thee_, _us_, _me_, and _twain_. § 217. _Analysis of cases._--In the word _children's_ we are enabled to separate the word into three parts. 1. The root _child_. 2. The plural signs r and en. 3. The sign of the genitive case, s. In this case the word is said to be analysed, since we not only take it to pieces, but also give the respective powers of each of its elements; stating which denotes the case, and which the number. Although it is too much to say that the analysis of every case of every number can be thus effected, it ought always to be attempted. § 218. _The true nature of the genitive form in 's._--It is a common notion that the genitive form _father's_ is contracted from _father his_. The expression in our liturgy, _for Jesus Christ his sake_, which is merely a pleonastic one, is the only foundation for this assertion. As the idea, however, is not only one of the commonest, but also one of the greatest errors in etymology, the following three statements are given for the sake of contradiction to it. 1. The expression the _Queen's Majesty_ is not capable of being reduced to the _Queen his Majesty_. 2. In the form _his_ itself, the s has precisely the power that it has in _father's_, &c. Now _his_ cannot be said to arise out of _he_ + _his_. 3. In the Slavonic, Lithuanic, and classical tongues, the genitive ends in s, just as it does in English; so that even if the words _father his_ would account for the English word _father's_, it would not account for the Sanskrit genitive _pad-as_, of a foot; the Zend _dughdhar-s_, of a daughter; the Lithuanic _dugter-s_; the Greek ὀδόντ-ος; the Latin _dent-is_, &c. * * * * * CHAPTER V. THE PERSONAL PRONOUNS. § 219. _I_, _we_, _us_, _me_, _thou_, _ye_.--These constitute the true personal pronouns. From _he_, _she_, and _it_, they differ in being destitute of gender.