We must now glance briefly at the results of a scientific investigation of English grammar and the modifications they necessitate in our conception of it. The idea that the free use of speech is tied down by the rules of the grammarian must first be given up; all that the grammarian can do is to formulate the current uses of his time, which are determined by habit and custom, and are accordingly in a perpetual state of flux. We must next get rid of the notion that English grammar should be modelled after that of ancient Rome; until we do so we shall never understand even the elementary principles upon which it is based. We cannot speak of declensions, since English has no genders except in the pronouns of the third person, and no cases except the genitive and a few faint traces of an old dative. Its verbal conjugation is essentially different from that of an inflexional language like Latin, and cannot be compressed into the same categories. In English the syntax has been enlarged at the expense of the accidence; position has taken the place of forms. To speak of an adjective "agreeing" with its substantive is as misleading as to speak of a verb "governing" a case. In fact, the distinction between noun and adjective is inapplicable to English grammar, and should be replaced by a distinction between objective and attributive words. In a phrase like "this is a cannon," _cannon_ is objective; in a phrase like "a cannon-ball," it is attributive; and to call it a substantive in the one case and an adjective in the other is only to introduce confusion. With the exception of the nominative, the various forms of the noun are all attributive; there is no difference, for example, between "doing a thing" and "doing badly." Apart from the personal pronouns, the accusative of the classical languages can be represented only by position; but if we were to say that a noun which follows a verb is in the accusative case we should have to define "king" as an accusative in such sentences as "he became king" or "he is king." In conversational English "it is me" is as correct as "c'est moi" in French, or "det er mig" in Danish; the literary "it is I" is due to the influence of classical grammar. The combination of noun or pronoun and preposition results in a compound attribute. As for the verb, Sweet has well said that "the really characteristic feature of the English finite verb is its inability to stand alone without a pronominal prefix." Thus "dream" by itself is a noun; "I dream" is a verb. The place of the pronominal prefix may be taken by a noun, though both poetry and vulgar English frequently insert the pronoun even when the noun precedes. The number of inflected verbal forms is but small, being confined to the third person singular and the special forms of the preterite and past participle, though the latter may with more justice be regarded as belonging to the province of the lexicographer rather than to that of the grammarian. The inflected subjunctive (_be, were, save_ in "God save the King," &c.) is rapidly disappearing. New inflected forms, however, are coming into existence; at all events, we have as good a right to consider _wont, shant, cant_ new inflected forms as the French _aimerai (amare habeo), aimerais (amare habebam)_. If the ordinary grammars are correct in treating forms like "I am loving," "I was loving," "I did love," as separate tenses, they are strangely inconsistent in omitting to notice the equally important emphatic form "I do love" or the negative form "I do not love" ("I don't love"), as well as the semi-inflexional "I'll love," "he's loving." It is true that these latter contracted forms are heard only in conversation and not seen in books; but the grammar of a language, it must be remembered, is made by those who speak it and not by the printers.