This illustration, brief and simple although it be, is sufficient, I think, to make the great and essential distinction between English and Latin, and measurably between English and all other modern civilized tongues, clear to the readers of these articles. The essential difference is not one of words but of the construction of the sentence. In Latin and other languages that construction depends not upon the thought and the meaning of the words, but upon the forms of the words—their inflections. Now the distinctive trait of English is that it is a language without inflections—not absolutely so, but so to all intents and purposes; and, being without inflections, it is therefore without grammar, which, as we have seen, concerns the forms of words and their dependent relations in the sentence. _Nos habeo bonus mater_ is bad grammar because the forms of the words are incorrect according to the usage of the Latin language. _Bonus_ means good; but for the expression of the quality good in its barest, simplest idea _bonus_ takes on five forms in Latin; _bonus_ for masculine goodness in the singular, _bona_ for feminine singular, _bonum_ for neuter singular; _boni_ masculine plural; _bonæ_ feminine plural, _bona_ neuter plural. To be brief; for use in various relations, this word _bonus_ takes on no less than thirteen forms, of which more need not here be given. _Mater_—mother—takes on eight of these forms or inflections, which are called cases. But in English _good_ has but one form. Singular, plural, masculine, feminine, neuter, nominative, possessive, dative, objective, vocative—in whichever of these senses the word which it qualifies is used it has but one form—_good_. Thus it is with all English adjectives, and with articles (_an_ and _the_) which are a kind of adjective. In all other languages adjectives and articles have various forms adapted to the various numbers, genders, and cases of nouns. In English nouns have two cases (strictly but one, the nominative not being a true case), the second of which is the possessive: _e. g._, mother’s; and they have a singular and a plural form, _e. g._, _mother_, _mothers_.