The Theory of Moral Sentiments: Or, an Essay Towards an Analysis of the Principles by Which Men Naturally Judge Concerning the Conduct and Character, First of Their Neighbours, and Afterwards of Themselves. to Which Is Added, a Dissertation on the Origin of Languages.Smith, Adam
Philosophy
The Theory of Moral Sentiments: Or, an Essay Towards an Analysis of the Principles by Which Men Naturally Judge Concerning the Conduct and Character, First of Their Neighbours, and Afterwards of Themselves. to Which Is Added, a Dissertation on the Origin of Languages.
Smith, Adam
Ethics -- Early works to 1800; Language and languages -- Early works to 1800
are verses which it is impossible to interpret by any rules of our
language. There are no rules in our language, by which any man could
discover, that, in the first line, _credulous_ referred to _who_, and
not to _thee_; or, that _all gold_ referred to any thing; or, that in
the fourth line, _unmindful_, referred to _who_, in the second, and not
to _thee_ in the third; or, on the contrary, that, in the second line
_always vacant, always amiable_, referred to _thee_ in the third, and
not to _who_ in the same line with it. In the Latin, indeed, all this is
abundantly plain.
_Qui nunc te fruitur credulus aureâ,
Qui semper vacuam, semper amabilem
Sperat te; nescius auræ fallacis._
Because the terminations in the Latin determine the reference of each
adjective to its proper substantive, which it is impossible for any
thing in the English to do. How much this power of transposing the order
of their words must have facilitated the composition of the ancients,
both in verse and prose, can hardly be imagined. That it must greatly
have facilitated their versification it is needless to observe; and in
prose, whatever beauty depends upon the arrangement and construction of
the several members of the period, must to them have been acquirable
with much more ease, and to much greater perfection, than it can be to
those whose expression is constantly confined by the prolixness,
constraint and monotony of modern languages.
FINIS.
[Illustration]
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
spelling.
2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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