ΤΟ THOMAS HEWITT KEY, M.A., F.R.S. AS THE CONSISTENT UPHOLDER AND TEACHER OF THE CRUDE FORM SYSTEM, THIS LITTLE BOOK 18 (BY PERMISSION) Dedicated IN TOKEN OF RESPECT BY THE AUTHOR. PREFACE. I CANNOT better explain the object of the following pages than by quoting from the Diary of Henry Crabb Robinson the following anecdote of the school-days of Horne Tooke, who, as is well known, became in afterlife a distinguished scholar, and who may justly be called the Father of English Etymology. At school Tooke was one day asked why he put a word in some particular case or mood, and answered, "I do not know," for which he was instantly flogged. Another boy was then asked the same question: he repeated the grammatical rule, and took his place in the class. On this Tooke cried. His master asked him what he meant, and Tooke said, "I knew the rule as well as he did; but you did not ask for the rule, but for the reason. You asked why it is so, and I do not know that now." The master is said to have taken him aside and given him a Virgil in memory of the injustice done him, of which Virgil, Tooke was very proud' (vol. ii. p. 62). Being myself strongly convinced of the importance of the distinction thus drawn between the reason of a |