Lectures on Language As Particularly Connected with English Grammar.

LECTURE X.

ON VERBS.

A philo­soph­ical ax­iom.--Man­ner of ex­press­ing ac­tion.--Things tak­en for grant­ed.--Sim­ple facts must be known.--Must nev­er de­vi­ate from the truth.--Ev­ery _cause_ will have an _ef­fect_.--An ex­am­ple of an in­tran­si­tive verb.--Ob­jects ex­pressed or im­plied.--All lan­guage elip­ti­cal.--In­tran­si­tive verbs ex­am­ined.--I run.--I walk.--To step.--Birds fly.--It rains.--The fire burns.--The sun shines.--To smile.--Eat and drink.--Mis­cel­la­neous ex­am­ples.--Evils of false teach­ing.--A change is de­mand­ed.--These prin­ci­ples ap­ply uni­ver­sal­ly.--Their im­por­tance.

We have made some gen­er­al re­marks on the pow­er, cause, and means, nec­es­sary in the pro­duc­tion of ac­tion. We now ap­proach near­er to the ap­pli­ca­tion of these prin­ci­ples as ob­served in the im­me­di­ate _agen­cy_ and _ef­fects_ which pre­cede and fol­low ac­tion, and as con­nect­ed with the verb.

It is an ax­iom in phi­los­ophy which can­not be con­tro­vert­ed, that ev­ery _ef­fect_ is the prod­uct of a pri­or _cause_, and that ev­ery _cause_ will nec­es­sar­ily pro­duce a cor­re­spond­ing _ef­fect_. This fact has al­ways ex­ist­ed and will for­ev­er re­main un­changed. It ap­plies uni­ver­sal­ly in phys­ical, men­tal, and moral sci­ence; to God or man; to an­gels or to atoms; in time or thro eter­ni­ty. No lan­guage can be con­struct­ed which does not ac­cord with it, for no ideas can be gained but by an ob­ser­vance of its man­ifes­ta­tions in the ma­te­ri­al or spir­itu­al uni­verse. The man­ner of _ex­press­ing_ this cause and ef­fect may dif­fer in dif­fer­ent na­tions or by peo­ple of the same na­tion, but the fact re­mains un­al­tered, and so far as un­der­stood the idea is the same. In the case of the horse men­tioned in a for­mer lec­ture,[12] the idea was the same, but the man­ner of ex­press­ing it dif­fer­ent. Let that horse _walk_, _lay_ down, _roll_ over, _rise_ up, _shake_ him­self, _rear_, or _stand_ still, all present will ob­serve the same at­ti­tude of the horse, and will form the same ideas of his po­si­tions. Some will doubt­less in­quire more minute­ly in­to the _cause_ and _means_ by which these var­ious ac­tions are pro­duced, what mus­cles are em­ployed, what sup­ports are ren­dered by the bones; and the whole reg­ulat­ed by the will of the horse, and their con­clu­sions may be quite op­po­site. But this has noth­ing to do with the ob­vi­ous fact ex­pressed by the words above; or, more prop­er­ly, it is not nec­es­sary to en­ter in­to a minute de­tail of these mi­nor con­sid­er­ations, these se­cret springs of mo­tion, in or­der to re­late the ac­tions of the horse. For were we to do this we should be re­quired to go back, step by step, and find the caus­es still more nu­mer­ous, la­tent, and per­plex­ing. The pur­suit of caus­es would lead us be­yond the mere or­ga­ni­za­tion of the horse, his mus­cu­lar en­er­gy, and vol­un­tary ac­tion; for grav­ita­tion has no small ser­vice to per­form in the ac­com­plish­ment of these re­sults; as well as oth­er prin­ci­ples. Let grav­ita­tion be re­moved, and how could the horse _lay_ down? He could _roll_ over as well in the air as up­on the ground. But the par­tic­ular no­tice of these things is un­nec­es­sary in the con­struc­tion of lan­guage to ex­press the ac­tions of the horse; for he stands as the ob­vi­ous _agent_ of the whole, and the _ef­fects_ are seen to fol­low--the _horse_ is laid down, _his body_ is rolled over, _the fore part_ of it is _reared up_, _him­self_ is shak­en, and the whole _feat_ is pro­duced by the di­rec­tion of his mas­ter.

Al­low me to re­cal an idea we con­sid­ered in a for­mer lec­ture. I said no ac­tion as such could be known dis­tinct from the thing which acts; that ac­tion as such is not per­cep­ti­ble, and that all things act, ac­cord­ing to the abil­ity they pos­sess. To il­lus­trate this idea: Take a mag­net and low­er it down over a piece of iron, till it at­tracts it to it­self and holds it sus­pend­ed there. If you are not in pos­ses­sion of a mag­net you can make one at your plea­sure, by the fol­low­ing pro­cess. Lay your knife blade on a flat iron, or any hard, smooth sur­face; let an­oth­er take the old tongs or oth­er iron which have stood erect for a con­sid­er­able length of time, and draw it up­on the blade for a minute or more. A mag­net­ic pow­er will be con­veyed from the tongs to the blade suf­fi­cient to take up a com­mon nee­dle. The tongs them­selves may be man­ufac­tured in­to a most per­fect mag­net. Now as the knife _holds_ the nee­dle sus­pend­ed be­neath it you per­ceive there must be an ac­tion, a pow­er, and cause ex­ert­ed be­yond our com­pre­hen­sion. Let the mag­net­ic pow­er be ex­tract­ed from the blade, and the nee­dle will drop to the floor. A com­mon un­mag­ne­tized blade will not _raise_ and _hold_ a nee­dle as this does. How those tongs come in pos­ses­sion of such as­ton­ish­ing pow­er; by what pro­cess it is there re­tained; the pow­er and means of trans­mis­sion of a part of it to the knife blade, and the rea­son of the phe­nom­ena you now be­hold--an inan­imate blade draw­ing to it­self and there hold­ing this nee­dle sus­pend­ed--will prob­ably long re­main un­known to mor­tals. But that such are the facts, in­con­testibly true, none will de­ny, for the ev­idence is be­fore us. Now fix your at­ten­tion on that nee­dle. There is an ac­tive and _act­ing_ prin­ci­ple in that as well as in the mag­ne­tized blade; for the blade will not at­tract a splin­ter of wood, of whale­bone, or piece of glass, tho equal in size and weight. It will have no op­er­ation on them. Then it is by a sort of mu­tu­al affin­ity, a reci­procity of at­tach­ment, be­tween the blade and nee­dle, that this phe­nom­ena is pro­duced.

To ap­ply this il­lus­tra­tion you have on­ly to re­verse the case--turn the knife and nee­dle over--and see all things at­tract­ed to the earth by the law of grav­ita­tion, a prin­ci­ple abid­ing in all mat­ter. All that ren­ders the ex­hi­bi­tion of the mag­net cu­ri­ous or won­der­ful is that it is an un­com­mon con­di­tion of things, an ap­par­ent coun­ter­ac­tion of the reg­ular laws of na­ture. But we should know that the same sub­lime prin­ci­ple is con­stant­ly op­er­at­ing thro out uni­ver­sal na­ture. Let that be sus­pend­ed, cease its ac­tive op­er­ations for a mo­ment, and our own earth will be de­com­posed in­to par­ti­cles; the sun, moon and stars will dis­solve and min­gle with the com­mon dust; all cre­ation will crum­ble in­to atoms, and one vast ocean of dark­ness and chaos will fill the im­men­si­ty of space.

Are you then pre­pared to de­ny the prin­ci­ples for which we are con­tend­ing? I think you will not; but ac­cede the ground, that such be­ing the fact, true in na­ture, lan­guage, cor­rect­ly ex­plained, is on­ly the medi­um by which the ideas of these great truths, may be con­veyed from one mind to an­oth­er, and must cor­re­spond there­with. If lan­guage is the sign of ideas, and ideas are the im­pres­sions of things, it fol­lows of ne­ces­si­ty, that no lan­guage can be em­ployed un­less it cor­re­sponds with these nat­ural laws, or first prin­ci­ples. The un­tu­tored child can­not talk of these things, nor com­pre­hend our mean­ing till clear­ly ex­plained to it. But some peo­ple act as tho they thought chil­dren must first ac­quire a knowl­edge of words, and then be­gin to learn what such words mean. This is putting the “cart be­fore the horse.”

Much, in this world, is to be tak­en for grant­ed. We can not en­ter in­to the minu­ti­ae of all we would ex­press, or have un­der­stood. We go up­on the ground that oth­er peo­ple know some­thing as well as we, and that they will ex­er­cise that knowl­edge while lis­ten­ing to our re­la­tion of some new and im­por­tant facts. Hence it is said that “brevi­ty is the soul of wit.” But sup­pose you should talk of surds, sim­ple and quadrat­ic equa­tions, dio­phan­tine prob­lems, and log­arithms, to a per­son who knows noth­ing of pro­por­tion or re­la­tion, ad­di­tion or sub­trac­tion. What would they know about your words? You might as well give them a de­scrip­tion in Ara­bic or Es­quimaux. They must first learn the sim­ple rules on which the whole sci­ence of math­emat­ics de­pends, be­fore they can com­pre­hend a dis­ser­ta­tion on the more ab­struse prin­ci­ples or dis­tant re­sults. So chil­dren must learn to ob­serve things as they are, in their sim­plest man­ifes­ta­tions, in or­der to un­der­stand the more se­cret and sub­lime op­er­ations of na­ture. And our lan­guage should al­ways be adapt­ed to their ca­pac­ities; that is, it should agree with their ad­vance­ment. You may talk to a zealot in pol­itics of re­li­gion, the qual­ities of for­bear­ance, can­dor, and ve­rac­ity; to the en­thu­si­ast of sci­ence and phi­los­ophy; to the big­ot of lib­er­al­ity and im­prove­ment; to the miser of benev­olence and suf­fer­ing; to the prof­li­gate of in­dus­try and fru­gal­ity; to the mis­an­thrope of phi­lan­thropy and pa­tri­otism; to the de­grad­ed sin­ner of virtue, truth, and heav­en; but what do they know of your mean­ing? How are they the wis­er for your in­struc­tion? You have touched a cord which does not vi­brate thro their hearts, or, phreno­log­ical­ly, ad­dressed an or­gan they do not pos­sess, ex­cept in a very mod­er­ate de­gree, at least. Food must be sea­soned to the palates of those who use it. Milk is for babes and strong meat for men. Our in­struc­tion must be suit­ed to the ca­pac­ities of those we would ben­efit, al­ways el­evat­ed just far enough above them to at­tract them along the up­ward course of im­prove­ment.

But it should be re­mem­bered that evils will on­ly re­sult from a de­vi­ation from truth, and that we can nev­er be jus­ti­fied in do­ing wrong be­cause oth­ers have, or for the sake of meet­ing them half way. And yet this very course is adopt­ed in teach­ing, and chil­dren are learned to adopt cer­tain tech­ni­cal rules in gram­mar, not be­cause they are _true_, but be­cause they are _con­ve­nient_! In fact, it is said by some, that lan­guage is an ar­bi­trary af­fair al­to­geth­er, and is on­ly to be taught and learned me­chan­ical­ly! But who would teach chil­dren that _sev­en times sev­en_ are _fifty_, and _nine times nine_ a _hun­dred_, and as­sign as a rea­son for so do­ing, that _fifty_ and a _hun­dred_ are more eas­ily re­mem­bered than _forty-​nine_ and _eighty-​one_? Yet there would be as much pro­pri­ety in adopt­ing such a prin­ci­ple in math­emat­ics, as in teach­ing for a rule of gram­mar that when an ob­jec­tive case comes af­ter a verb, it is ac­tive; but when there is none ex­pressed, it is in­tran­si­tive or neuter.

The great fault is, gram­mar­ians do not al­low them­selves to _think_ on the sub­ject of lan­guage, or if they do, they on­ly think in­tran­si­tive­ly, that is, pro­duce no _thoughts_ by their cog­ita­tions.

This brings us to a more di­rect con­sid­er­ation of the sub­ject be­fore us. All ad­mit the cor­rect­ness of the ax­iom that ev­ery ef­fect must have a cause, and that ev­ery cause will have an ef­fect. It is equal­ly true that “_like caus­es will pro­duce like ef­fects_,” a rule from which na­ture it­self, and thought, and lan­guage, can nev­er de­vi­ate. It is as plain as that two things mu­tu­al­ly equal to each oth­er, are equal to a third. On this im­mutable prin­ci­ple we base our the­ory of the ac­tiv­ity of all verbs, and con­tend that they must have an ob­ject af­ter them, ei­ther ex­pressed or _nec­es­sar­ily un­der­stood_. We can not yield this po­si­tion till it is proved that _caus­es_ can op­er­ate with­out pro­duc­ing ef­fects, which can nev­er be till the or­der of cre­ation is re­versed! There nev­er was, to our knowl­edge, such a thing as an in­tran­si­tive ac­tion, with the soli­tary ex­cep­tion of the burn­ing bush.[13] In that case the laws of na­ture were sus­pend­ed, and no ef­fects were pro­duced; for the _bush burned_, but there was noth­ing burnt; no con­se­quences fol­lowed to the bush; it was not con­sumed. The records of the past present no in­stance of like char­ac­ter, where ef­fects have failed to fol­low, di­rect or more dis­tant­ly, ev­ery cause which has been set in op­er­ation.

It makes no dif­fer­ence whether the ob­ject of the ac­tion is ex­pressed or not. It is the same in ei­ther case. But where it is not nec­es­sar­ily im­plied from the na­ture and fit­ness of things, it must be ex­pressed, and but for such ob­ject or ef­fect the ac­tion could not be un­der­stood. For ex­am­ple, _I run_; but if there is no ef­fect pro­duced, _noth­ing_ run, how can it be known whether I run or not. If I write, it is nec­es­sar­ily un­der­stood that I write _some­thing_--a _let­ter_, a _book_, a _piece_ of po­et­ry, a _com­mu­ni­ca­tion_, or some oth­er _writ­ing_. When such ob­ject is not li­able to be mis­tak­en, it would be su­per­flu­ous to ex­press it--it would be a re­dun­dan­cy which should be avoid­ed by all good writ­ers and speak­ers. All lan­guages are, in this re­spect, more or less elip­ti­cal, which con­sti­tutes no small share of their beau­ty, pow­er, and el­egance.

This elip­sis may be ob­served not on­ly in re­gard to the ob­jects of verbs, but in the omis­sion of many nouns af­ter ad­jec­tives, which thus as­sume the char­ac­ter of nouns; as, the Almighty, the Eter­nal, the All­wise, ap­plied to God, un­der­stood. So we say the wise, the learned, the good, the faith­ful, the wicked, the vile, the base, to which, if nouns, it would sound rather harsh to ap­ply plu­rals. So we say, take your hat off ( ); put your gloves on ( ); lay your coat off ( ); and pull your boots on ( ); pre­sum­ing the per­son so ad­dressed knows enough to fill the elip­sis, and not take his hat off his back, pull his gloves on his feet, or his boots on his head.

In pur­su­ing this sub­ject far­ther, let us ex­am­ine the sam­ple words which are called _in­tran­si­tive_ verbs, be­cause fre­quent­ly used with­out the ob­ject ex­pressed af­ter them; such as run, walk, step, fly, rain, snow, burn, roll, shine, smiles, &c.

“_I run._”

That here is an ac­tion of the first kind, none will de­ny. But it is con­tend­ed by the old sys­tems that there is no ob­ject on which the ac­tion ter­mi­nates. If that be true then there is _noth­ing_ run, no ef­fect pro­duced, and the first law of na­ture is out­raged, in the very on­set; for there is a _cause_, but no _ef­fect_; an _ac­tion_, but no _ob­ject_. How is the fact? Have you run noth­ing? con­veyed noth­ing, moved noth­ing from one place to an­oth­er? no change, no ef­fect, noth­ing moved? Look at it and de­cide. It is said that a neuter or in­tran­si­tive verb may be known from the fact that it takes af­ter it a prepo­si­tion. Try it by this rule. “A man run _against_ a post in a dark night, and broke his neck;” that is, he run noth­ing against a post--no ob­ject to run--and yet he broke his neck. Un­for­tu­nate man!

The fact in re­la­tion to this verb is briefly this: It is used to ex­press the ac­tion which more usu­al­ly ter­mi­nates on the ac­tor, than on any oth­er ob­ject. This cir­cum­stance be­ing gen­er­al­ly known, it would be su­per­flu­ous to men­tion the ob­ject, ex­cept in cas­es where such is not the fact. But when­ev­er we de­sire to be def­inite, or when there is the least li­abil­ity to mis­take the ob­ject, it is in­vari­ably ex­pressed. In­stances of this kind are nu­mer­ous. “They _ran_ the _boat_ ashore.” “The cap­tain _ran_ his _men_ to res­cue them from the en­emy.” “They _ran_ the _gaunt­let_.” “They _run_ a _stage_ to Boston.” “He _ran him­self_ in­to dis­cred­it.” “One bank _runs_ an­oth­er.” “The man had a hard _run_ of it.” “_Run_ the _ac­count_ over, and see if it is right.” “They _run forty looms_ and two thou­sand spin­dles.” “He _runs_ his _mill_ evenings.” Such ex­pres­sions are com­mon and cor­rect, be­cause they con­vey ideas, and are un­der­stood.

Two men were en­gaged in ar­gu­ment. The be­liev­er in in­tran­si­tive verbs set out to _run his op­po­nent_ in­to an ev­ident ab­sur­di­ty, and, con­trary to his ex­pec­ta­tion, he _ran him­self_ in­to one. Leave out the ob­jects of this verb, run, and the sense is to­tal­ly changed. He set out to _run_ in­to an _ev­ident ab­sur­di­ty_, and he ran in­to one; that is, he did the very ab­surd thing which he in­tend­ed to do.[14]

“_I walk._”

The ac­tion ex­pressed by this verb is very sim­ilar in char­ac­ter to the for­mer, but rather _slow­er_ in per­for­mance. Writ­ers on health tell us that _to walk_ is a very healthy ex­er­cise, and that it would be well for men of seden­tary habits _to walk_ sev­er­al miles ev­ery day. But if there is no ac­tion in walk, or if it has no _ob­ject_ nec­es­sar­ily _walked_, it would be dif­fi­cult to un­der­stand what good could re­sult from it.

“Did you have a pleas­ant _walk_ this morn­ing?” says a teach­er to his gram­mar class.

“We did have a very pleas­ant one. The flow­ers were _bloom­ing_ on each side of the _walk_, and _sent_ forth their sweet­est aro­ma, _per­fum­ing_ the soft breezes of the morn­ing. Birds were _flit­ting from_ spray to spray, _car­olling_ their hymns of praise to De­ity. The tran­quil wa­ters of the lake lay _slum­ber­ing_ in si­lence, and _re­flect­ed_ the bright _rays_ of the sun, _giv­ing_ a sweet but solemn _as­pect_ to the whole scene. _To go_ thro the grove, down by the lake, and up thro the mead­ow, is the most de­light­ful _walk_ a per­son can take.”

“How did you get your _walk_?”

“We walked it, to be sure; how did you think we got it?”

“Oh, I did not know. _Walk_, your books tell you, is an in­tran­si­tive verb, ter­mi­nat­ing on no ob­ject; so I sup­posed, if you fol­lowed them, you ob­tained it some oth­er way; by _rid­ing_, _run­ning_, _sail­ing_, or, may be, _bought_ it, as you could not have _walked it_! Were you tired on your re­turn?”

“We were ex­ceed­ing­ly fa­tigued, for you know it is a very long _walk_, and we _walked it_ in an hour.”

“But _what_ tired you? If there are no ef­fects pro­duced by walk­ing, I can not con­ceive why _you_ should be fa­tigued by such ex­er­cise.”

Who does not per­ceive what fla­grant vi­ola­tions of gram­mar rules are com­mit­ted ev­ery day, and ev­ery hour, and in al­most ev­ery sen­tence that is framed to ex­press our knowl­edge of facts.

_To step._

This verb is the same in char­ac­ter with the two just no­ticed. It ex­press­es the act of _rais­ing_ each foot al­ter­nate­ly, and usu­al­ly im­plies that the body is, by that means, con­veyed from one place to an­oth­er. But as peo­ple _step_ their _feet_ and not their hands, or any thing else, it is en­tire­ly use­less to men­tion the ob­ject; for gen­er­al­ly, that can not be mis­tak­en any more than in the case of the gloves, boots, and hat. But it would be bad phi­los­ophy to teach chil­dren that there is no ob­jec­tive word af­ter it, be­cause it is not writ­ten out and placed be­fore their eyes. They will find such teach­ing con­tra­dict­ed at ev­ery _step_ they take. Let a be­liev­er in in­tran­si­tive verbs _step_ on a red hot iron; he will soon find to his sor­row, that he was mis­tak­en when he thought that he could _step_ with­out step­ping any thing. It would be well for gram­mar, as well as many oth­er things, to have more prac­tice and less the­ory. The thief was de­tect­ed by his steps. Step soft­ly; put your feet down care­ful­ly.

_Birds fly._

We learned from our primers, that

“The ea­gle's _flight_ Is out of sight,”

How did the ea­gle suc­ceed in pro­duc­ing a _flight_? I sup­pose he _flew_ it. And if birds ev­er fly, they must pro­duce a flight. Such be­ing the fact, it is need­less to sup­ply the ob­ject. But the ac­tion does not ter­mi­nate sole­ly on the flight pro­duced, for that is on­ly the name giv­en to the ac­tion it­self. The ex­pres­sion con­veys to the mind the ob­vi­ous fact, that, by strong mus­cu­lar en­er­gy, by the aid of feath­ers, and the at­mo­sphere, the bird car­ries it­self thro the air, and changes its be­ing from one place to an­oth­er. As birds rarely fly a race, or any thing but _them­selves_ and a _flight_, it is not nec­es­sary to suf­fix the ob­ject.

_It rains._

This verb is in­sist­ed on as the strongest proof of in­tran­si­tive ac­tion; with what pro­pri­ety, we will now in­quire. It will serve as a clear elu­ci­da­tion of the whole the­ory of in­tran­si­tive verbs.

What does the ex­pres­sion sig­ni­fy? It sim­ply de­clares the fact, that _wa­ter is shed_ down from the clouds. But is there no ob­ject af­ter _rains_? There is none ex­pressed. Is there noth­ing rained? no ef­fect pro­duced? If not, there can be no wa­ter fall­en, and our cis­terns would be as emp­ty, our streams as low, and fields as parched, af­ter a rain as be­fore it! But who that has com­mon sense, and has nev­er been blind­ed by the false rules of gram­mar, does not know that when _it rains_, it nev­er fails to _rain rain_, _wa­ter_, or _rain-​wa­ter_, un­less you have one of the pad­dy's dry rains? When it hails, it hails _hail_, _hail-​stones_, or frozen _rain_. When it snows, it _snows snow_, some­times two feet of it, some­times less. I should think teach­ers in our north­ern coun­tries would find it ex­ceed­ing dif­fi­cult to con­vince their read­ers that snow is an in­tran­si­tive verb--that it snows _noth­ing_. And yet so it is; peo­ple will re­main wed­ded to their old sys­tems, and refuse to open their eyes and be­hold the ev­idences ev­ery where around them. Teach­ers them­selves, the guides of the young--and I blush to say it, for I was long among the num­ber--have, with their schol­ars, la­bored all the morn­ing, break­ing roads, _shov­el­ling snow_, and clear­ing paths, to get to the school-​house, and then set down and taught them that _to snow_ is an _in_tran­si­tive verb. What non­sense; nay, worse, what false­hoods have been in­stilled in­to the youth­ful mind in the name of gram­mar! Can we be sur­prised that peo­ple have not un­der­stood gram­mar? that it is a dry, cold, and life­less busi­ness?

I once lec­tured in Pough­keep­sie, N. Y. In a con­ver­sa­tion with Miss B., a dis­tin­guished schol­ar, who had taught a pop­ular fe­male school for twen­ty years; was re­mark­ing up­on the sub­ject of in­tran­si­tive verbs, and the ap­par­ent in­con­sis­ten­cy of the new sys­tem, that all verbs must have an ob­ject af­ter them, ex­pressed or un­der­stood; she said, “there was the verb _rain_, (it hap­pened to be a rainy day,) the whole ac­tion is con­fined to the agent; it does not pass on to an­oth­er ob­ject; it is pure­ly in­tran­si­tive.” Her aged moth­er, who had nev­er looked in­to a gram­mar book, heard the con­ver­sa­tion, and very blunt­ly re­marked, “Why, you fool you, I want to know if you have stud­ied gram­mar these thir­ty years, and taught it more than twen­ty, and have nev­er _larned_ that when it rains it _al­ways_ rains _rain_? If it didn't, do you s'pose you'd need an um­brel­la to go out now in­to the storm? I should think you'd know bet­ter. I al­ways told you these plaguy gram­mars were good for noth­ing, I didn't b'lieve.” “Amen,” said I, to the good sense of the old la­dy, “you are right, and have rea­son to be thank­ful that you have nev­er been ini­ti­at­ed in­to the in­tri­cate wind­ings, nor been per­plexed with the false and con­tra­dic­to­ry rules, which have blast­ed many bright ge­nius­es in their ear­li­est at­tempts to gain a true knowl­edge of the sub­lime prin­ci­ples of lan­guage, on which de­pends so much of the hap­pi­ness of hu­man life.” The good ma­tron's re­mark was a pos­er to the daugh­ter, but it served as a means of her en­tire de­liv­er­ance from the thral­dom of neuter verbs, and the adop­tion of the new prin­ci­ples of the ex­po­si­tion of lan­guage.

The anec­dote shows us how the un­so­phis­ti­cat­ed mind will ob­serve facts, and em­ploy words as cor­rect­ly, if not more so, than those schooled in the high pre­ten­sions of sci­ence, false­ly taught. Who does not know from the com­mon­est ex­pe­ri­ence, that the di­rect ob­ject of _rain­ing_ must fol­low as the nec­es­sary se­quence? that it can nev­er fail? And yet our philol­ogists tell us that such is not al­ways the case; and that the ex­cep­tion is to be marked on the sin­gu­lar ground, whether the word is writ­ten out or omit­ted! What a nar­row view of the sub­lime laws of mo­tion! What a lim­it­ed knowl­edge of things! or else, what a _mis­take_!

“Then the Lord said un­to Moses, be­hold, I will _rain_ bread for you from heav­en.”

“Then the _Lord rained_ down, up­on Sodom and Go­mor­rah, _brim­stone_ and _fire_, from the Lord out of heav­en.”--_Bible._

_The fire burns._

The fire _burns_ the wood, the coal, or the peat. The great fire in New-​York _burned_ the build­ings which cov­ered fifty-​two acres of ground. Mr. Ex­per­iment _burns_ coal in pref­er­ence to wood. His new grate _burns it_ very fine­ly. Red ash coal _burns_ the best; it _makes_ the fewest _ash­es_, and hence _is_ the most con­ve­nient. The cook _burns_ too much fu­el. The house took fire and _burned_ up. _Burned what_ up? Burn is an in­tran­si­tive verb. It would not trou­ble the un­for­tu­nate ten­ant to know that there must be an _ob­ject burned_, or what _it_ was. He would find it far more dif­fi­cult to re­build his _house_. Do you sup­pose fires nev­er burn any thing be­long­ing to neuter verb folks? Then they nev­er need pay away in­sur­ance mon­ey. With the soli­tary ex­cep­tion I have men­tioned--the burn­ing bush--this verb can not be in­tran­si­tive.

_The sun shines._

This is an in­tran­si­tive verb if there ev­er was one, be­cause the ob­ject is not of­ten ex­pressed af­ter it. But if the sun _emits_ no _rays_ of light, how shall it be known whether it shines or not? “The _ra­di­ance_ of the sun's bright beam­ing” is pro­duced by the _ex­hi­bi­tion_ of _it­self_, when it _bright­ens_ the ob­jects ex­posed to its _rays_ or _ra­di­ance_. We talk of _sun shine_ and moon shine, but if these bod­ies nev­er pro­duce _ef­fects_ how shall it be known whether such things are re­al? _Sun shine_ is the di­rect ef­fect of the sun's _shin­ing_. But clouds some­times in­ter­vene and pre­vent the rays from ex­tend­ing to the earth; but _then_ we do not say “the sun _shines_.” You see at once, that all we know or can know of the fact we state as truth, is de­rived from a knowl­edge of the very _ef­fects_ which our gram­mars tell us do not ex­ist. Strange log­ic in­deed! It is a mark of a wis­er man, and a bet­ter schol­ar, not to know the pop­ular gram­mars, than it is to pro­fess any de­gree of pro­fi­cien­cy in them!

_To smile._

The _smiles_ of the morn­ing, the _smiles_ of af­fec­tion, a _smile_ of kind­ness, are on­ly pro­duced by the ap­pear­ance of some­thing that _smiles_ up­on us. _Smiles_ are the di­rect con­se­quence of _smil­ing_. If a per­son should _smile_ ev­er so _sweet­ly_ and yet present no _smiles_, they might, for aught we could know to the con­trary, be _sour_ as vine­gar.

But this verb fre­quent­ly has an­oth­er ob­ject af­ter it; as, “to _smile_ the _wrin­kles_ from the brow of age,” or “_smile_ dull _cares_ away.” “A sen­si­ble wife would soon _rea­son_ and _smile him_ in­to good na­ture.”

But I need not mul­ti­ply ex­am­ples. When such men as John­son, Walk­er, Web­ster, Mur­ray, Lowthe, and a host of oth­er wise and renowned men, grave­ly tell us that _eat_ and _drink_, which they de­fine, “to _take food_; _to feed_; _to take a meal_; _to go to meals_; to be main­tained in food; _to swal­low liquors_; _to quench thirst_; to take any liq­uid;” are _in­tran­si­tive_ or _neuter_ verbs, hav­ing no ob­jects af­ter them, we must think them in­sin­cere, egre­gious­ly mis­tak­en, or else pos­sessed of a means of sub­sis­tence dif­fer­ent from peo­ple gen­er­al­ly! Did they _eat_ and _drink_, “take food and swal­low liquors,” _in_tran­si­tive­ly; that is, with­out _eat­ing_ or _drink­ing_ any thing? Is it pos­si­ble in the na­ture of things? Who does not see the ab­sur­di­ty? And yet they were _great_ men, and no­body has a right to ques­tion such _high_ au­thor­ity. And the “_sim­pli­fiers_” who have come af­ter, mak­ing books and teach­ing gram­mar to _earn_ their _bread_, have fol­lowed close in their foot­steps, and, I sup­pose, _eat­en_ noth­ing, and thrown their bread away! Was I a be­liev­er in neuter verbs and de­sired to get mon­ey, my first step would be to set up a board­ing house for all be­liev­ers in, and _prac­tis­ers_ of, in­tran­si­tive verbs. I would board cheap and give good fare. I could af­ford it, for no pro­vi­sions would be con­sumed.

Some over cau­tious minds, who are al­ways sec­ond, if not last, in a good cause, ask us why these prin­ci­ples, if so true and clear, were not found out be­fore? Why have not the learned who have stud­ied for many cen­turies, nev­er seen and adopt­ed them? It is a suf­fi­cient an­swer to such a ques­tion, to ask why the coper­ni­can sys­tem of as­tron­omy was not soon­er adopt­ed, why the prin­ci­ples of chem­istry, the cir­cu­la­tion of the blood, the pow­er and ap­pli­ca­tion of steam, nay, why all im­prove­ment was not known be­fore. When gram­mar and dic­tio­nary mak­ers, those wise ex­pounders of the prin­ci­ples of speech, have so far for­got­ten facts as to teach that _eat_ and _drink_, “ex­press nei­ther ac­tion nor pas­sion,” or are “con­fined to the agents;” that when a man eats, he eats noth­ing, or when he drinks, he drinks noth­ing, we need not stop long to de­cide why these things were un­known be­fore. The wis­est may some­times mis­take; and the proud as­pi­rant for suc­cess, fre­quent­ly pass­es over, un­ob­served, the hum­ble means on which all true suc­cess de­pends.

Al­low me to quote some mis­cel­la­neous ex­am­ples which will serve to show more clear­ly the im­por­tance of sup­ply­ing the elipses, in or­der to com­pre­hend the mean­ing of the writ­ers, or prof­it by their re­marks. You will sup­ply the ob­jects cor­rect­ly from the at­ten­dant cir­cum­stances where they are not ex­pressed.

“Ask ( ) and ye shall re­ceive ( ); seek ( ) and ye shall find ( ); knock ( ) and _it_ shall be opened un­to you.”

Ask _what_? Seek _what_? Knock _what_? That _it_ may be opened? Our “Gram­mars Made Easy” would teach us to _ask_ and _seek_ noth­ing! no ob­jec­tives af­ter them. What then could we rea­son­ably ex­pect to _re­ceive_ or _find_? The _thing_ we _asked_ for, of course, and that was noth­ing! Well might the lan­guage ap­ply to such, “Ye ask ( ) and _re­ceive not_ (naught) be­cause ye ask ( ) amiss.” False teach­ing is as per­ni­cious to re­li­gion and morals as to sci­ence.

“Charge them that are rich in this world--that they _do good_, that they be rich in good works, ready to _dis­tribute_ ( ), will­ing to _com­mu­ni­cate_ ( ).”--_Paul to Tim­othy._

The hear­er is to ob­serve that there is no ob­ject af­ter these words--_noth­ing_ dis­tribut­ed, or com­mu­ni­cat­ed! There is too much such char­ity in the world.

“He spoke ( ), and _it_ was done; he com­mand­ed ( ), and _it_ stood fast.”

“_Bless_ ( ), and _curse_ ( ) not.”--_Bible._

“_Strike_ ( ) while the iron is hot.”--_Proverb._

“I _came_ ( ), I _saw_ ( ), I _con­quered_ ( ).”--_Cae­sar's Let­ter._

He lives ( ) con­tent­ed and hap­py.

“The _life_ that I now _live_, in the flesh, I _live_ by the faith of the son of God.”--_Paul._

“Let me _die_ the _death_ of the righ­teous, and let my last _end be_ like his.”--_Num­bers._

As bod­ily ex­er­cise par­tic­ular­ly strength­ens ( ), as it in­vites ( ) to sleep ( ), and se­cures ( ) against great dis­or­ders, it is to be gen­er­al­ly en­cour­aged. Gym­nas­tic ex­er­cis­es may be es­tab­lished for all ages and for all class­es. The Jews were or­dered to _take a walk_ out of the city on the Sab­bath day; and here rich and poor, young and old, mas­ter and slave, met ( ) and in­dulged ( ) in in­no­cent mirth or in the plea­sures of friend­ly in­ter­course.--_Spurzheim on Ed­uca­tion._

“Men will wran­gle ( ) for re­li­gion; write ( ) for it; fight ( ) for it; die ( ) for it; any thing but live ( ) for it.”--_La­con._

“I have ad­dressed this vol­ume to those that think ( ), and some may ac­cuse me of an os­ten­ta­tious in­de­pen­dence, in pre­sum­ing ( ) to in­scribe a book to so small a mi­nor­ity. But a vol­ume ad­dressed to those that think ( ) is in fact ad­dressed to all the world; for al­tho the pro­por­tion of those who _do_ ( ) think ( ) be ex­treme­ly small, yet ev­ery in­di­vid­ual _flat­ters him­self_ that he is one of the num­ber.”--_Idem._

What is the dif­fer­ence whether a man _thinks_ or not, if he pro­duces no _thoughts_?

“He that _thinks him­self_ the hap­pi­est man, re­al­ly is so; but he that _thinks him­self_ the wis­est, is gen­er­al­ly the great­est fool.”--_Idem._

“A man _has_ many _work­men em­ployed_; some to plough ( ) and sow ( ), oth­ers to chop ( ) and split ( ); some to mow ( ) and reap ( ); one to score ( ) and hew ( ); two to frame ( ) and raise ( ). In his fac­to­ry he has per­sons to card ( ), spin ( ), reel ( ), spool ( ), warp ( ), and weave ( ), and a clerk to de­liv­er ( ) and charge ( ), to re­ceive ( ) and pay ( ). They eat ( ), and drink ( ), hearti­ly, three times a day; and as they work ( ) hard, and feel ( ) tired at night, they lay ( ) down, sleep ( ) sound­ly, and dream ( ) pleas­ant­ly; they rise ( ) up ear­ly to go ( ) to work ( ) again. In the morn­ing the chil­dren wash ( ) and dress ( ) and pre­pare ( ) to go ( ) to school, to learn ( ) to read ( ), write ( ), and ci­pher ( ).” All neuter or in­tran­si­tive verbs!!

“The cel­ebrat­ed horse, Cory­don, will per­form ( ) on Tues­day evening in the cir­cus. He will leap ( ) over four bars, sep­arate­ly, in im­ita­tion of the en­glish hunter. He will lie ( ) down, and rise ( ) up in­stant­ly at the _word of com­mand_. He will move ( ) back­wards and side­ways, rear ( ) and stand ( ) on his hind feet; he will sit ( ) down, like a Turk, on a cush­ion. To con­clude ( ), he will leap ( ), in a sur­pris­ing man­ner, over two hors­es.”--_Cardell's Gram­mar._

The gym­nas­tic is not a moun­te­bank; he palms off no leg­erde­main up­on the pub­lic. He will stretch a line across the room, sev­er­al feet from the floor, over which he will leap ( ) with sur­pris­ing dex­ter­ity. He will stand ( ) on his head, bal­ance, ( ) on one foot, and swing ( ) from side to side of the room; lay ( ) cross­wise, and side­ways; spring ( ) up­on his feet; bound ( ) up­on the floor; dance ( ) and keel ( ) over with out touch­ing his hands. He will sing ( ), play ( ), and mim­ic ( ); look ( ) like a king, and act ( ) like a fool. He will laugh ( ) and cry ( ), as if re­al; roar ( ) like a li­on, and chirp ( ) like a bird. To con­clude ( ): He will do all this to an au­di­ence of neuter gram­mar­ians, with­out ei­ther “_ac­tion_ or _pas­sion_,” all the while hav­ing a “_state of be­ing_,” mo­tion­less, in the cen­ter of the room!!

What a lie! say you. _A lie?_ I hope you do not ac­cuse _me_ of ly­ing. If there is any thing false in this mat­ter it all _lies_ in the quo­ta­tion, at the con­clu­sion, from the stan­dard gram­mar. If that is false, whose fault is it? Not mine, cer­tain­ly. But what if I should _lie_ ( ), in­tran­si­tive­ly? I should tell no false­hoods.

But enough of this. If there is any thing ir­ra­tional or in­con­sis­tent, any thing false or ridicu­lous, in this view of the sub­ject, it should be re­mem­bered that it has been long taught, not on­ly in com­mon schools, but in our academies and col­leges, as se­ri­ous, prac­ti­cal truth; as the on­ly means of ac­quir­ing a cor­rect knowl­edge of lan­guage, or fit­ting our­selves for use­ful­ness or re­spectabil­ity in so­ci­ety. You smile at such trash, and well you may; but you must bear in mind that gram­mar is not the on­ly thing in which we may turn round and _laugh_ ( ) at past fol­lies.

But I am dis­posed to con­sid­er this mat­ter of more se­ri­ous con­se­quence than to de­serve our _laugh­ter_. When I see the ris­ing gen­er­ation spend months and years of the best and most im­por­tant part of their lives, which should be de­vot­ed to the ac­qui­si­tion of that which is true and use­ful, study­ing the dark and false the­ory of lan­guage as usu­al­ly taught, I am far from feel­ing any de­sire to laugh at the fol­ly which im­pos­es such a task up­on them. I re­mem­ber too dis­tinct­ly the years that have just gone by. I have seen too many blight­ed hopes, too many weari­some hours, too many sad coun­te­nances, too many bro­ken res­olu­tions; to say noth­ing of cor­po­re­al chas­tise­ments; to think it a small mat­ter that chil­dren are er­ro­neous­ly taught the rudi­ments of lan­guage, be­cause sanc­tioned by age, or great names. A change, an im­por­tant change, a rad­ical change, in this de­part­ment of ed­uca­tion, is im­pe­ri­ous­ly de­mand­ed, and teach­ers must obey the call, and ef­fect the change. There is a spir­it abroad in the land which will not bow tame­ly and with­out com­plaint, to the un­war­rant­ed dic­ta­tion of ar­bi­trary, false, and con­tra­dic­to­ry rules, mere­ly from re­spect to age. It de­mands rea­son, con­sis­ten­cy and plain­ness; and yields as­sent on­ly where they are found. And teach­ers, if they will not lead in the ref­or­ma­tion, must be sat­is­fied to fol­low af­ter; for a ref­or­ma­tion is loud­ly called for, and will be had. None are sat­is­fied with ex­ist­ing gram­mars, which, in prin­ci­ple, are near­ly alike. The sev­en­ty-​three at­tempts to im­prove and sim­pli­fy Mur­ray, have on­ly act­ed _in­tran­si­tive­ly_, and ac­com­plished very lit­tle, if any good, save the em­ploy­ment giv­en to print­ers, pa­per mak­ers, and book­sellers.

But I will not en­large. We have lit­tle oc­ca­sion to won­der at the er­rors and mis­takes of gram­mar mak­ers, when our lex­icog­ra­phers tell us for sober truth, that =to act=, _to be in ac­tion_, _not to rest_, to be in _mo­tion_, to _move_, is _v. n._ a verb neuter, sig­ni­fy­ing _no ac­tion_!! or _v. i._ verb in­tran­si­tive, pro­duc­ing _no ef­fects_; and that a "_neuter verb_ =ex­press­es= (ac­tive tran­si­tive verb) _a state of be­ing_!! There are few minds ca­pa­ble of adopt­ing such premis­es, and draw­ing there­from con­clu­sions which are ra­tio­nal or con­sis­tent. Truth is rarely elict­ed from er­ror, beau­ty from de­for­mi­ty, or or­der from con­fu­sion. While, there­fore, we al­low the neuter sys­tems to sink in­to for­get­ful­ness, as they usu­al­ly do as soon as we leave school and shut our books, let us throw the man­tle of char­ity over those who have thought­less­ly (with­out _think­ing thoughts_) and in­no­cent­ly lead us many months in dark and dole­ful wan­der­ings, in paths of er­ror and con­tra­dic­tion, mis­tak­en for the road to knowl­edge and use­ful­ness. But let us re­solve to save our­selves and fu­ture gen­er­ations from fol­low­ing the same un­pleas­ant and un­prof­itable course, and en­deav­or to _re­flect_ the _light_ which may _shine_ up­on our minds, to dis­pel the sur­round­ing dark­ness, and se­cure the light and knowl­edge of truth to those who shall come af­ter us.

Many philol­ogists have un­der­tak­en to ex­plain our lan­guage by the aid of for­eign tongues. Be­cause there are gen­itive cas­es, dif­fer­ent kinds of verbs, six tens­es, etc. in the Latin or Greek, the same dis­tinc­tions should ex­ist in our gram­mars. But this ar­gu­ment will not ap­ply, ad­mit­ting that oth­er lan­guages will not al­low of the plan of ex­po­si­tion we have adopt­ed, which we very se­ri­ous­ly ques­tion, tho we have not time to go in­to that in­ves­ti­ga­tion. We be­lieve that the prin­ci­ples we have adopt­ed are ca­pa­ble of uni­ver­sal ap­pli­ca­tion; that what is ac­tion in Eng­land would be ac­tion in Greece, Rome, Turkey, and ev­ery where else; that “_like caus­es will pro­duce like ef­fects_” all the world over. It mat­ters not by whom the ac­tion is seen, it is the same, and all who gath­er ideas there­from will de­scribe it as it ap­pears to them, let them speak what lan­guage they may. But if they have no ideas to ex­press, they need no lan­guage to speak. Mon­keys, for aught I know to the con­trary, can speak as well as we; but the rea­son they do not, is be­cause they have noth­ing to say.

Let Maelza­el's au­toma­ton chess-​play­er be ex­hib­it­ed to a promis­cu­ous mul­ti­tude. They would all at­tempt a de­scrip­tion of it, so far as they were able to gain a knowl­edge of its con­struc­tion, each in his own lan­guage. Some might be un­able to trace the _cause_, the mov­ing _pow­er_, thro all the cu­ri­ous­ly ar­ranged _means_, to the _agent_ who act­ed as prime mover to the whole af­fair. Oth­ers, less cau­tious in their con­clu­sions, might think it a per­pet­ual mo­tion. Such would find a _first cause_ short of the Cre­ator, the great orig­inal of all things and ac­tions; and thus vi­olate the sound­est prin­ci­ples of phi­los­ophy. Heav­en has nev­er left a vac­uum where a new and _self_ sus­tain­ing pow­er may be set in op­er­ation in­de­pen­dent of his ev­er-​present su­per­vi­sion; and hence the long talked of _per­pet­ual mo­tion_ is the vainest chimera which ev­er oc­cu­pied the hu­man brain. It may well ap­pear as the op­po­site ex­treme of neuter verbs; for, while one would give no ac­tion to mat­ter ac­cord­ing to the phys­ical laws which reg­ulate the world, the oth­er would make mat­ter act of it­self, in­de­pen­dent of the Almighty. Be it ours to take a more ra­tio­nal and con­sis­tent stand; to view all things and be­ings as oc­cu­py­ing a place du­ly pre­scribed by In­fi­nite Wis­dom, _act­ing_ ac­cord­ing to their sev­er­al abil­ities, and sub­ject to the reg­ula­tion of the all-​per­vad­ing laws which guide, pre­serve, and har­mo­nize the whole.

If there is a sub­ject which teach­es us be­yond con­tro­ver­sy the ex­is­tence of a Supreme Pow­er, a Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, an all-​wise and ev­er-​present God, it is found in the or­der and har­mo­ny of all things, pro­duced by the reg­ula­tion of Di­vine laws; and man's su­pe­ri­or­ity to the rest of the world is most clear­ly proved, from the pos­ses­sion of a pow­er to adapt lan­guage to the com­mu­ni­ca­tion of ideas in free and so­cial con­verse, or in the trans­mis­sion of thought, drawn from an ob­ser­va­tion and knowl­edge of things as pre­sent­ed to his un­der­stand­ing.

There is no sci­ence so di­rect­ly im­por­tant to the growth of in­tel­lect and the fu­ture hap­pi­ness of the child, as the knowl­edge of lan­guage. With­out it, what is life? Where­in would man be el­evat­ed above the brute? And what is lan­guage with­out ideas? A sound with­out har­mo­ny--a shad­ow with­out a sub­stance.

Let lan­guage be taught on the prin­ci­ples of true phi­los­ophy, as a sci­ence, in­stead of an ar­bi­trary, me­chan­ical busi­ness, a mere art, and you will no longer hear the com­plaint of a “_dry_, _cold_, un­in­ter­est­ing study.” Its rules will be sim­ple, plain, and easy; and at ev­ery step the child will in­crease in the knowl­edge of more than _words_, in an ac­quain­tance with prin­ci­ples of nat­ural and moral sci­ence. And if there is any thing that will car­ry the mind of the child above the low and grov­el­ling things of earth, and fill the soul with rev­er­ence and de­vo­tion to the Holy Be­ing who fills im­men­si­ty with his pres­ence, it is when, from ob­serv­ing the laws which gov­ern mat­ter, he pass­es to ob­serve the pow­ers and ca­pa­bil­ities of the mind, and thence as­cends to the In­tel­lec­tu­al Source of _light_, _life_, and _be­ing_, and con­tem­plates the peren­ni­al and ec­stat­ic joys which flow from the pres­ence of De­ity; soul min­gling with soul, love ab­sorbed in love, and God all in all.