A history of the English Language

201.
Methods of Approach.
The considerations by which these questions were settled were three in number: reason, 
etymology, and the example of Latin and Greek. 
Dryden had asserted that “the foundation of the rules is reason.” But reason covered a 
multitude of sins. Johnson argued from it when he condemned 
the grammar is now 
printing,
37
because the active participle was “vulgarly used in a passive sense.” By 
similar logic Lowth objected to 
I am mistaken,
since it should properly mean 
I am 
misunderstood
and not 
I am wrong
. But reason was commonly taken to mean consistency 
or, as it was called, analogy. Analogy appeals to an instinct very common at all times in 
matters of language, the instinct for regularity. Even Priestley was influenced by it. “The 
chief thing to be attended to in the improvement of a language,” he says, “is the 
analogy
of it. The more consistent are its principles, the more it is of a piece with itself, the more 
commodious it will be for use.” Consequently, where one expression could be paralleled 
by another in the language it was commonly preferred for that reason. Campbell erects 
this into one of his general “canons.” He says: “If by the former canon the adverbs 
backwards 
and
 for-
35
See Charles C.Fries, “The Periphrastic Future with 
shall
and 
will
in Modern English,” 
PMLA,
40 
(1925), 963–1024. 
36 
For evidence drawn from letters of a preference for 
shall 
in the first person in simple future 
statements, see J.R.Hulbert, “On the Origin of the Grammarians’ Rules for the Use of
 shall
and 
will,” 
PMLA,
62 (1947), 1178–82. For evidence that the grammarians’ rules for direct statements, 
indirect statements, and questions had a basis in usage, see J.Taglicht, “The Genesis of the 
Conventional Rules of 
Shall
and 
Will,
”
 English Studies,
51 (1970), 193–213. 
37 
On this construction see § 210. 
A history of the english language 264

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wards
are preferable to 
backward 
and 
forward;
by this canon, from the principle of 
analogy, 
afterwards
and 
homewards
should be preferred to 
afterward
and 
homeward
. Of 
the two adverbs 
thereabout
and 
thereabouts,
compounded of the particle 
there
and the 
preposition, the former alone is analogical, there being no such word in the language as 
abouts
. The same holds of 
hereabout
and 
whereabout
. In the verbs 
to dare
and 
to need,
many say, in the third person present singular, 
dare
and 
need,
as ‘he 
need
not go’; ‘he 
dare
not do it’ Others say, 
dares
and 
needs
. As the first usage is exceedingly irregular, 
hardly any thing less than uniform practice could authorize it.”
38
It was also reasoned, 
however, that where two expressions often used interchangeably could be differentiated, 
it was better to make a distinction. Accordingly Campbell argued: “In the preposition 
toward
and 
towards,
and the adverbs 
forward 
and 
forwards, backward
and 
backwards,
the two forms are used indiscriminately. But as the first form in all these is also an 
adjective, it is better to confine the particles to the second. Custom, too, seems at present 
to lean this way.”
39
The same consideration led Priestley to say, “As the paucity of 
inflections is the greatest defect in our language, we ought to take advantage of every 
variety that the practice of good authors will warrant; and therefore, if possible, make a