ABSTRACT
This tripartition no doubt corresponds with the actual !0rm8 found in the best-known languages, in which the "positive" is the fundamental form from which the two others are derived either by means of endings or by the addition of adverbs (subjuncts) like more and most. In some well-known instances the two higher degrees are taken from other stems than the positive: good, better, best I bonus, melior, optimus, etc.l
The way in which the three degrees are generally given makes us imagine that they represent a graduated scale, as if old : older: oldest formed a progression like, say, the numbers 1 : 2 : 3 (arithmetical progression) or 1: 2 : 4 (geometrical progression). But this is only exceptionally the case, as in "The clowne bore it [my sonnet], the foole sent it, and the lady hath it: sweete clowne, sweeter foole, sweetest lady (Sh.) I We dined yesterday on dirty
COMPARATIV E AND SUPERLATIV E 245
bacon, dirtier eggs, and dirtiest potatoes (Keats). This way of placing the three forms together 1 may really be due to the teaching of grammar; but it is important to insist on the fact that in ordinary usage the superlative does not indicate a higher degree than the comparative, but really states the same degree, only looked a t from a different point of view. If we compare the ages of four boys, A, B, 0, and D, we may state the same fact in two different ways :
A is older than the other boys, or A is the oldest boy (the oldest of, or among, all the boys).
