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attributed to the Greek Verb..
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the other, in which the penultima of the latter was modified according to the rules followed in the formation of the second aorist active. Nevertheless as it has been constantly regarded and spoken of under a distinct name from the time of the Greek grammarians downward, as every verb which has this form has the other also, and as the analogy of the second aorist active must unquestionably have been present to the mind of the Greeks when they framed it, I cannot help thinking that it is best in a matter so immaterial as a name, when that name entails no ulterior consequences, to conform to establisht usage. " The great esteem (says Buttmann, Vol. I. p. 371, speaking on one of the points we have been discussing,) which one cannot but entertain for whatever has existed for centuries, partly from the fear lest one should oneself have to retract an idea of ones own, after having set it up and in a manner forced it upon others, without however having viewed it under a sufficient variety of aspects,—partly for the sake of offering as little disturbance as possible to our common inheritance of knowledge, and to the general mutual understanding among the learned,—this esteem I have always manifested in my elementary works, and shall continue to observe the same course, as the best counterpoise to the prevalent tendency to new-fashion the whole system of education according to our own individual notions." In every department of human activity indeed the wise and the good will strive to adhere to the same principle, will feel the same reverence for antiquity; and, while they are anxious to get rid of whatever is wrong or vicious, they will be scrupulous not to do more, not to be misled by fanaticism, or that selfconceit which makes us pamper and dote on the offspring of our own brain, into changing beyond what is necessary for the establishment of right and of truth. But if a reverence for antiquity be in all things seemly, of Philology it is the very vital principle. Indeed the great business and office of Philology is to preserve and uphold the union of the past with the present and the future, to secure the records of the human mind from being effaced or disfigured by time, to search out and trace the pedigree of all our thoughts and feelings, and to set forth the whole history of mankind as in a map, with its mountain-chains of