Welsh Journals

503 Old Prices Remains. itself, with equal facility, adopt either the active or pas¬ sive signification of those two verbs ? and is it not more reasonable to explain the two propositions, respectively as follows :—The person represented by the sower, or the (so-called) sower—or the " sower," really is the Son of man ? And again : The Son of man really is the (above- named) " sower ?" " More reasonable," I say, because such fillings-up of ellipses, or expansions of abridgments, are merely such as you or I would be obliged to employ, if required to explain fully a great proportion of our or¬ dinary conversation. Whereas, the other method confers on the simplest and most importantly definite of all verbs, the power of assuming, to suit a good purpose, [and, therefore, equally to suit a bad one—why not ? if once you concede the power,] other far less definite significa¬ tions ; giving room to question the positiveness of every such assertion whatever! The one method takes no new liberty with language ; but gets out the truth by a method in constant and unavoidable use : the other gets out the same truth (nothing more, or better), by an innovation which seems to me replete with danger. If you say, "what danger ? sure there are plenty of words with two or more meanings," I answer, there are more than enough already ; and dictionaries needlessly multiply the meanings of words. Let us not then add to the list a word of all others, per¬ haps, the most fixed in all languages : the vehicle of every assertion : the answer of every such question as "what is this ?" The backbone of evety other verb, since "the Lord reigneth" resolves itself into " the Lord is reigning," or ' is King ;' the root of " Being," "Essence," "Entity," &c, the keystone in the arch of language! Your passage, " this is my body, can, I allow, be shortly disposed of in this way : but at a fearful expense, if you fairly allow all