Lectures on Language As Particularly Connected with English Grammar.

LECTURE XIII.

ON VERBS.

Per­son and num­ber in the agent, not in the ac­tion.--Sim­ilar­ity of agents, ac­tions, and ob­jects.--Verbs made from nouns.--Ir­reg­ular verbs.--Some ex­am­ples.--Reg­ular Verbs.--_Ed_.--_Ing_.--Con­ju­ga­tion of verbs.--To love.--To have.--To be.--The in­dica­tive mood var­ied.--A whole sen­tence may be agent or ob­ject.--Im­per­ative mood.--In­fini­tive mood.--Is al­ways fu­ture.

I have said be­fore that ac­tion can nev­er be known sep­arate from the ac­tor; that the verb ap­plies to the agent in an _act­ing_ con­di­tion, as that term has been de­fined and should be un­der­stood. Hence Per­son and Num­ber can nev­er at­tach to the verb, but to the agent with which, of course, the ac­tion must, in ev­ery re­spect, agree; as, “_I write_.” In this case the ac­tion cor­re­sponds with my­self. But to say that _write_ is in the “first per­son, sin­gu­lar num­ber,” would be wrong, for no such num­ber or per­son be­longs to the verb, but is con­fined to my­self as the agent of the ac­tion.

The form of the verb is changed when it agrees with the sec­ond or third per­son sin­gu­lar; more on ac­count of habit, I ap­pre­hend, than from any rea­son, or pro­pri­ety as to a change of mean­ing in the word. We say, when us­ing the reg­ular _sec­ond_ per­son sin­gu­lar, “_thou writest_,” a form rarely ob­served ex­cept in ad­dress­es to De­ity, or on solemn oc­ca­sions. In the _third_ per­son, an _s_ is added to the reg­ular form; as, “_he writes_.” The old form, which was in gen­er­al use at the time the com­mon ver­sion of the Bible was pub­lished, was still dif­fer­ent, end­ing in _eth_; as, _he thin­keth_, _he writeth_. This style, al­tho con­sid­er­ably used in the last cen­tu­ry, is near­ly ob­so­lete. When the verb agrees with the plu­ral num­ber it is usu­al­ly the same as when it agrees with the first per­son; as, “_We write_, _you write_, _they write_.” There are few ex­cep­tions to these rules.

Some peo­ple have been very tena­cious about re­tain­ing the old forms of words, and our books were long print­ed with­out al­ter­ation; but change will break thro ev­ery bar­ri­er, and book-​mak­ers must keep pace with the times, and put on the dress that is catered for them by the pub­lic taste; bear­ing in mind, mean­while, that great and prac­ti­cal truths are more es­sen­tial than the garb in which they ap­pear. We should be more care­ful of our health of body and pu­ri­ty of morals than of the cos­tume we put on. Many gen­teel coats wrap up cor­rupt hearts, and fine hats cov­er sil­ly heads. What is the chaff to the wheat?

Even our good friends, the quak­ers, who have par­tic­ular­ly la­bored to re­tain old forms--“the plain lan­guage,”--have failed in their at­tempt, and have sub­sti­tut­ed the _ob­ject_ form of the pro­noun for the _agent_, and say, “_thee thinks_,” for _thou think­est_. Their mis­take is even greater than the sub­sti­tu­tion of _you_ for _thou_.

So far as lan­guage de­pends on the con­ven­tion­al reg­ula­tion of those who use it, it will be con­stant­ly chang­ing; new words will be in­tro­duced, and the spelling of old ones al­tered, so as to agree with mod­ern pro­noun­ci­ation. We have all lived long enough to wit­ness the truth of this re­mark. The on­ly rule we can give in re­la­tion to this mat­ter is, to fol­low our own judg­ments, aid­ed by our best writ­ers and speak­ers.

The words which ex­press ac­tion, are in many cas­es very sim­ilar to the agents which pro­duce them; and the ob­jects which are the di­rect re­sults pro­duced by such ac­tion, do not dif­fer very ma­te­ri­al­ly. I will give you a few ex­am­ples.

_Agent._ _Verb._ _Ob­ject._ Ac­tors Act Ac­tions Breathers Breathe Breath Builders Build Build­ings Coin­ers Coin Coins Cast­ers Cast Casts or cast­ings Drinkers Drink Drink Dream­ers Dream Dreams Earn­ers Earn Earn­ings Fish­ers Fish Fish­es Gain­ers Gain Gain Hew­ers Hew Hew­ings Innkeep­ers Keep Inns Light or lighters Light or shed Lights Min­ers Mine or dig Mines Plead­ers Plead or make Pleas Pro­duc­ers Pro­duce Prod­ucts Rais­ers Raise Rais­ings or hous­es Run­ners or rac­ers Run Runs or races Suf­fer­ers Suf­fer Suf­fer­ings Speak­ers Speak Speech­es Thinkers Think Thoughts Writ­ers Write Writ­ings Work­ers Work Works

I give you these ex­am­ples to show you the near al­liance be­tween _ac­tors_, ( ,) and _ac­tions_; or agents, _ac­tions_, and ob­jects. Such ex­pres­sions as the above are in­el­egant, be­cause they are un­com­mon; but for no oth­er rea­son, for we, in num­ber­less cas­es, em­ploy the same word for agent and verb; as, _painters paint_ build­ings, and _artists_ paint paint­ings; _book­binders bind books_; _print­ers print_ books, and oth­er _prints_. A lit­tle ob­ser­va­tion will en­able you to car­ry out these hints, and prof­it by them. You have ob­served the dis­po­si­tion in chil­dren, and for­eign­ers, who are par­tial­ly ac­quaint­ed with our lan­guage, to make verbs out of al­most ev­ery noun, which ap­pears to us very auk­ward; but was it com­mon, it would be just as cor­rect as the verbs now used. There are very few verbs which have not a noun to cor­re­spond with them, for we make verbs, that is, we use words to ex­press ac­tion, which are near­ly al­lied to the agent with which such ac­tion agrees.[17] From botany we have made _botanize_; from Mr. McAdam, the in­ven­tor of a par­tic­ular kind of road, _macadamize_, which means to make roads as he made them. Words are formed in this way very fre­quent­ly. The word _church_ is of­ten used as a noun to ex­press a build­ing used for pub­lic wor­ship; for the ser­vices per­formed in it; for the whole con­gre­ga­tion; for a por­tion of be­liev­ers as­so­ci­at­ed to­geth­er; for the Epis­co­pal or­der, etc. It is al­so used as a verb. Mr. Web­ster de­fines it, “To per­form with any one the of­fice of re­turn­ing thanks in the church af­ter any sig­nal de­liv­er­ance.” But the word has tak­en quite a dif­fer­ent turn of late. _To church_ a per­son, in­stead of re­ceiv­ing him in­to com­mu­nion, as that term would seem to im­ply, sig­ni­fies to deal with an of­fend­ing mem­ber, to ex­com­mu­ni­cate, or turn him out.

But I will not pur­sue this point any far­ther. The brief hints I have thrown out, will en­able you to dis­cov­er how the mean­ing and forms of words are changed from their orig­inal ap­pli­ca­tion to suit the no­tions and im­prove­ments of af­ter ages. A field is here pre­sent­ed which needs cul­ti­va­tion. The young should be taught to search for the et­ymol­ogy of words, to trace their changes and mean­ing as used at dif­fer­ent times and by dif­fer­ent peo­ple, keep­ing their minds con­stant­ly di­rect­ed to the ob­ject sig­ni­fied by such ver­bal sign. This is the busi­ness of phi­los­ophy, un­der what­ev­er name it may be taught; for gram­mar, rhetoric, log­ic, and the sci­ence of the mind, are in­ti­mate­ly blend­ed, and should al­ways be taught in con­nex­ion. We have al­ready seen that words with­out mean­ing are like shad­ows with­out re­al­ities. And per­sons can not em­ploy lan­guage “cor­rect­ly,” or “with pro­pri­ety,” till they have ac­quaint­ed them­selves with the im­port of such lan­guage--the ideas of things sig­ni­fied by it. Let this course be adopt­ed in the ed­uca­tion of chil­dren, and they will not be re­quired to spend months and years in the study of an “_art_” which they can not com­pre­hend, for the sim­ple rea­son that they can not ap­ply it in prac­tice. Gram­mar has been taught as a mere _art_, de­pend­ing on ar­bi­trary rules to be me­chan­ical­ly learned, rather than a sci­ence in­volv­ing the sound­est and plainest prin­ci­ples of phi­los­ophy, which are to be known on­ly as de­vel­oped in com­mon prac­tice among men, and in ac­cor­dance with the per­ma­nent laws which gov­ern hu­man thought.

Verbs dif­fer in the man­ner of form­ing their _past_ tens­es, and par­tici­ples, or ad­jec­tives. Those end­ing in _ed_ are called _reg­ular_; those which take any oth­er ter­mi­na­tion are _ir­reg­ular_. There are about two hun­dred of the lat­ter in our lan­guage, which dif­fer in var­ious ways. Some of them have the _past_ tense and the past par­tici­ple the same; as,

Bid Bid Bid Knit Knit Knit Shut Shut Shut Let Let Let Spread Spread Spread, etc.

Oth­ers have the past tense and par­tici­ple alike, but dif­fer­ent from the present; as,

Lend Lent Lent Send Sent Sent Bend Bent Bent Wend Went Went Build Built or build­ed Built Think Thought Thought, etc.

Some have the present and past tense and par­tici­ple dif­fer­ent; as,

Blow Blew Blown Grow Grew Grown Be­gin Be­gan Be­gun See Saw Seen Write Wrote Writ­ten Give Gave Giv­en Speak Spoke Spo­ken Rise Rose Risen Fall Fell Fall­en, etc.

There are a few which are made up of dif­fer­ent rad­icals, which have been wed­ded to­geth­er by habit, to avoid the fre­quent and un­pleas­ant re­cur­rence of the same word; as,

Am Was Been Go (wend) Went Gone, etc.

Some which were for­mer­ly ir­reg­ular, are now gen­er­al­ly used with the reg­ular ter­mi­na­tion, in ei­ther the past tense or par­tici­ple, or both; as,

Hang Hung or hanged Hung or hanged Dare Dared or durst Dared Clothe Clad or clothed Clad or clothed Work Worked or wrought Worked Shine Shined or shone Shone or shined Spill Spilled or spilt Spilt or spilled, etc.

The syl­la­ble _ed_ is a con­trac­tion of the past tense of _do_; as, I _loved_, love _did_, _did_ love, or love-_ed_. He learn_ed_, learn did, did learn, or learned. It sig­ni­fies ac­tion, _did_, done, or ac­com­plished. You have all lived long enough to have no­ticed the change in the pro­noun­ci­ation of this syl­la­ble. Old peo­ple sound it full and dis­tinct; and so do most oth­ers in read­ing the scrip­tures; but not so gen­er­al­ly as in for­mer times. In po­et­ry it was usu­al­ly ab­bre­vi­at­ed so as to avoid the full sound; and hence we may ac­count for the _ir­reg­ular_ ter­mi­na­tion of many words, such as _heard_, for _heared_; _past_, for _passed_; _learnt_, for _learned_; _built_, for _build­ed_. In mod­ern po­et­ry, how­ev­er, the _e_ is re­tained, tho sound­ed no more than for­mer­ly.

_Ing_ is de­rived from the verb to _be_, and sig­ni­fies _be­ing_, _ex­ist­ing_; and, at­tached to a verb, is used as a noun, or ad­jec­tive, re­tain­ing so much of its for­mer char­ac­ter as to have an ob­ject af­ter it which is af­fect­ed by it; as, “I am _writ­ing_ a lec­ture.” Here _writ­ing_, the present par­tici­ple of _write_, de­scribes my­self in my present em­ploy­ment, and yet re­tains its ac­tion as a verb, and ter­mi­nates on _lec­ture_ as the thing writ­ten. “The man was tak­en in the act of _steal­ing_ some mon­ey.” In this case _steal­ing_ names the ac­tion which the man was per­form­ing when de­tect­ed, which ac­tion thus named, has _mon­ey_ for the ob­ject on which it ter­mi­nates.

I bare­ly al­lude to this sub­ject in this place to give you an idea of the method we adopt to ex­plain the mean­ing and use of par­tici­ples. It de­serves more at­ten­tion, per­haps, to make it plain to your minds; but as it is not an es­sen­tial fea­ture in the new sys­tem, I shall leave it for con­sid­er­ation in a fu­ture work. Who­ev­er is ac­quaint­ed with the for­ma­tion of the present par­tici­ple in oth­er lan­guages, can car­ry out the sug­ges­tions I have made, and ful­ly com­pre­hend my mean­ing.

I will present you with an ex­am­ple of the con­ju­ga­tions of a few verbs which you are re­quest­ed to com­pare with the “_might could would should have been loved_” sys­tems, which you were re­quired to learn in for­mer times. You will find the verb in ev­ery _form_ or po­si­tion in which it ev­er oc­curs in our lan­guage, writ­ten or spo­ken.

Con­ju­ga­tion of the reg­ular verb =to love=.

IN­DICA­TIVE MOOD.

_Sin­gu­lar_ _Plu­ral_

I _love_ We _love_ Present tense Thou _lovest_ You _love_ He, she, or it _loves_ They _love_

I _loved_ We _loved_ Past tense Thou _lovedst_ You _loved_ He, she, or it _loved_ They _loved_

IM­PER­ATIVE MOOD.

_Love._

IN­FINI­TIVE MOOD.

_To love._

PAR­TICI­PLES.

Present, _Lov­ing_ Past, _Loved_

The ir­reg­ular verb =to have=, is thus con­ju­gat­ed.

IN­DICA­TIVE MOOD.

I _have_ We _have_ Present tense Thou _hast_ You _have_ He _has_ They _have_

I _had_ We _had_ Past tense Thou _hadst_ You _had_ He _had_ They _had_

IM­PER­ATIVE MOOD.

_Have._

IN­FINI­TIVE MOOD.

_To have._

PAR­TICI­PLES.

Present, _Hav­ing_ Past, _Had_

The ir­reg­ular verb =to be=, stands thus:

IN­DICA­TIVE MOOD.

I _am_ We _are_ Present tense Thou _art_ You _are_ He _is_ They _are_

I _was_ We _were_ Past tense Thou _wast_ You _were_ He _was_ They _were_

IM­PER­ATIVE MOOD.

_Be._

IN­FINI­TIVE MOOD.

_To be._

PAR­TICI­PLES.

Present, _Be­ing_ Past, _Been_

These ex­am­ples will suf­fice to give you an idea of the ease and sim­plic­ity of the con­struc­tion of verbs, and by a com­par­ison with old sys­tems, you can, for your­selves, de­ter­mine the su­pe­ri­or­ity of the prin­ci­ples we ad­vo­cate. The above tab­ular views present ev­ery form which the verb as­sumes, and ev­ery po­si­tion in which it is found. In use, these words are fre­quent­ly com­pound­ed to­geth­er;[18] but with a knowl­edge of the above prin­ci­ples, and the _mean­ing_ of the words--a most es­sen­tial con­sid­er­ation--you will al­ways be able to an­alyze any sen­tence, and parse it cor­rect­ly. I have not time to en­large on this point, to show how words are con­nect­ed to­geth­er. Nor do I think it nec­es­sary to en­able you to un­der­stand my views. To chil­dren such a work would be in­dis­pens­able, and shall be at­tend­ed to if we are able to pub­lish a gram­mar con­tain­ing the sim­ple prin­ci­ples of lan­guage.

* * * * *

The in­dica­tive mood is var­ied four ways. 1st, af­fir­ma­tive­ly, _he writes_; 2d, neg­ative­ly, _he writes not_; 3d, in­ter­rog­ative­ly, _does_ he write? or _writes_ he? 4th, sup­pos­itive­ly, if _he writes_, _sup­pose he writes_, al­low _he writes_.

The _first_ is a sim­ple af­fir­ma­tion of a fact, and is eas­ily un­der­stood. The _sec­ond_ is formed by an­nex­ing a term to ex­press nega­tion. _Not_ is a con­trac­tion from _nought_ or _naught_, which is a com­pound of _ne_, neg­ative, and ought or aught, _ne-​aught_, mean­ing _no-​thing_. _He writes not_; he writes noth­ing. He does _not_ write; he does _noth­ing_ to write. _Nei­ther_ is a com­pound of _ne_ and _ei­ther_, _not ei­ther_. He _can not_ read; he _can_, _kens_, _knows noth­ing_, has no abil­ity _to read_.

The third is con­struct­ed in­to a ques­tion by plac­ing the verb be­fore the agent, or by pre­fix­ing an­oth­er word be­fore the agent, and then plac­ing the for­mer verb as an in­fini­tive af­ter it; as, _Does_ he write? or _writes_ he? When an­oth­er verb is pre­fixed, one is al­ways cho­sen which will best de­cide the query. Does he _any thing_ to write? Does he make any mo­tions or show any in­di­ca­tions to write? When the _will_ or dis­po­si­tion of a per­son is con­cerned, we choose a word ac­cord­ing­ly. _Will_ he write? Has he the _will_ or dis­po­si­tion to write? _Can_ he write? Is he able--_knows_ he how to write? A lit­tle ob­ser­va­tion will en­able you to un­der­stand my mean­ing.

In the fourth place, a sup­po­si­tion is made in the im­per­ative mood, in ac­cor­dance with which the ac­tion is per­formed. “_If_ ye _love_ me, keep my com­mand­ments.” _Give_, _grant_, _al­low_, _sup­pose_ this fact--you _love_ me, keep my com­mand­ments. I will go if I can. I _re­solve_, _will_, or _de­ter­mine_ to go; _if_, _gif_, _give_, grant, al­low this fact, I _can_, _ken_, _know_ how, or _am_ able _to go_. But more on this point when we come to the con­sid­er­ation of con­trac­tions.

In this mood the verb must have an agent and ob­ject, ex­pressed or im­plied; as, “_farm­ers_ cul­ti­vate the _soil_.” But a whole sen­tence, that is, an idea writ­ten out, may per­form this du­ty; as, “The study of gram­mar, on false prin­ci­ples, is pro­duc­tive of no good.” What is pro­duc­tive of no good? What is the agent of _is_? “The _study_,” our books and teach­ers tell us. But does such a con­struc­tion give the true mean­ing of the sen­tence? I think not, for _study_ is in­dis­pens­able to knowl­edge and use­ful­ness, and _the study_ of gram­mar, prop­er­ly di­rect­ed, is a most use­ful branch of lit­er­ature, which should nev­er be dis­pensed with. It is the study of gram­mar _on false prin­ci­ples_, which _is pro­duc­tive of no good_. You dis­cov­er my mean­ing, and will not ques­tion its cor­rect­ness. You must al­so see how er­ro­neous it would be to teach chil­dren that “_to study_ is pro­duc­tive of no good.” The force of the sen­tence rests on the “false prin­ci­ples” taught. Hence the whole state­ment is tru­ly the agent of the verb.

The ob­ject on which the ac­tion ter­mi­nates is fre­quent­ly ex­pressed in a sim­ilar man­ner; as, “He wrote to me, that he will adopt the new sys­tem of gram­mar, if he can pro­cure some books to give his schol­ars to learn.” Will you parse _wrote_? Most gram­mar­ians will call it an _in­tran­si­tive_ verb, and make out that “he wrote” _noth­ing_ to me, be­cause there is no reg­ular ob­jec­tive word af­ter it. Will you parse _that_? It is a “con­junc­tion _cop­ula­tive_.” What does it con­nect? “_He wrote_” to the fol­low­ing sen­tence, ac­cord­ing to Rule 18 of Mr. Mur­ray; “con­junc­tions con­nect the _same_ moods and tens­es of verbs and cas­es of nouns and pro­nouns.” Un­luck­ily you have two dif­fer­ent tens­es con­nect­ed in this case. Will you parse _if_? It is a _cop­ula­tive_ con­junc­tion, con­nect­ing the two mem­bers of the sen­tence--_he will adopt_ if _he can pro­cure_: Rule, as above. How ex­ceed­ing un­for­tu­nate! You have _two_ dif­fer­ent moods, and too dif­fer­ent tens­es, con­nect­ed by a _cop­ula­tive_ con­junc­tion which the rule says “con­nects _the same_ moods and tens­es! What non­sense! What a false­hood! What a fine thing to be a gram­mar­ian! And yet, I ven­ture the opin­ion, and I judge from what I have seen in my­self and oth­ers, there is not one teach­er in a hun­dred who will not learn chil­dren to parse as above, and ap­ply the same rule to it. ”I _will go_ if I _can_.“ ”I _do_ and _will_ con­tend.“ ”As it _was_ in the be­gin­ning, _is_ now, _and_ ev­er _shall be_.“ ”I _am_ here and _must_ re­main.“ ”He _will do_ your busi­ness _if_ he _has_ time.“ ”I _am_ re­solved _to ex­pose_ the er­rors of gram­mar, _and will do_ it thoroly _if_ I _can_."

In these ex­am­ples you have dif­fer­ent moods and tens­es, in­dis­crim­inate­ly, yet cor­rect­ly cou­pled to­geth­er, de­spite the rules of syn­tax which teach us to ex­plain lan­guage “with pro­pri­ety.”

_That_, in the sen­tence be­fore us, is an ad­jec­tive, re­fer­ring to the fol­low­ing sen­tence, which is the _ob­ject_ of _wrote_, or is the thing writ­ten. “He wrote to me _that_” fact, sen­ti­ment, opin­ion, de­ter­mi­na­tion, or res­olu­tion, that writ­ing, let­ter, or word--“he will adopt the new sys­tem of gram­mar, if he can pro­cure some books.”

This sub­ject prop­er­ly be­longs to that de­part­ment of lan­guage called syn­tax; but as I shall not be able to treat of that in this course of lec­tures, I throw in here these brief re­marks to give you some gen­er­al ideas of the ar­range­ment of words in­to sen­tences, ac­cord­ing to their true mean­ing, as ob­tained from a knowl­edge of their et­ymol­ogy. You can­not fail to ob­serve this method of con­struct­ing lan­guage if you will pay a lit­tle at­ten­tion to it when read­ing; keep­ing all the time in view the fact that words are on­ly the signs of ideas, de­rived from an ob­ser­va­tion of things. You all know that it is not mere­ly the steam that pro­pels the boat, but that it is steam _ap­plied to ma­chin­ery_. Steam is the more la­tent cause; and the en­gine with its com­pli­cat­ed parts is the di­rect means. In the ab­sence of ei­ther, the boat would not be pro­pelled. In the for­ma­tion of lan­guage, I may say cor­rect­ly, “Solomon _built_ the tem­ple;” for he stood in that re­la­tion to the mat­ter which sup­pos­es it would not have been built with­out his di­rec­tion and com­mand. To ac­com­plish such an ac­tion, how­ev­er, he need not raise a ham­mer or a gav­el, or draw a line on the tres­tle board. His com­mand made known to his min­is­ters was suf­fi­cient to _cause_ the work to be done. Hence the whole fact is _in­di­cat­ed_ or de­clared by the sin­gle ex­pres­sion, “Solomon _built_ the tem­ple.”

The Im­per­ative mood is un­changed in form. I can say to one man, _go_, or to a thou­sand, _go_. The com­man­der when drilling _one_ sol­dier, says, _march_; and he bids the whole bat­tal­ion, _march_. The agent who is _to per­form_ the ac­tion is un­der­stood when not ex­pressed; as, _go_, _go thou_, or _go you_. The agent is gen­er­al­ly omit­ted, be­cause the ad­dress is giv­en di­rect to the per­son who is ex­pect­ed to obey the in­struc­tion, re­quest, or com­mand. This verb al­ways agrees with an agent in the _sec­ond_ per­son. And yet our “gram­mars made easy” have giv­en us _three per­sons_ in this mood--“_Let me love_; _love_, _love thou_, or _do_ thou _love_; let him love.” In the name of com­mon sense, I ask, what can chil­dren learn by such in­struc­tion? “_Let me love_,” in the con­ju­ga­tion of the verb _to love_! To whom is this com­mand giv­en? To _my­self_ of course! I com­mand my­self to “_let me love_!” What non­sense! “Let _him_ love.” I stand here, you set there, and the _third_ per­son is in Philadel­phia. I ut­ter these words, “Let _him love_.” What is my mean­ing? Why, our books tell us, that the verb to _love_ is _third_ per­son. Then I com­mand _him_ to _let him­self love_! What jar­gon and false­hood! You all know that we can ad­dress the _sec­ond_ per­son on­ly. You would call me in­sane if I should em­ploy lan­guage ac­cord­ing to the rules of gram­mar as laid down in the stan­dard books. In my room alone, no per­son near me, I cry out, “_let me be qui­et_”--im­per­ative mood, first per­son of _to be_! Do I com­mand my­self to _let_ my­self _be_ qui­et? Most cer­tain­ly, if _be_ is the prin­ci­pal verb in the first per­son, and _let_ the aux­il­iary. The teach­er ob­serves one of his pupils take a pen­cil from a class­mate who sets near him. He says, “_let him have it_.” To whom is the com­mand giv­en? It is the im­per­ative mood, third per­son of the verb _to have_. Does he com­mand the third per­son, the boy who _has_ not the pen­cil? Such is the res­olu­tion of the sen­tence, ac­cord­ing to the au­thor­ity of stan­dard gram­mars. But where is there a child five years old who does not know bet­ter. Ev­ery body knows that he ad­dress­es the sec­ond per­son, the boy who has the pen­cil, to _let_ the oth­er _have_ it.

Teach­ers have learned their schol­ars the _first_ and _third_ per­sons of this mood when com­mit­ting the con­ju­ga­tion of verbs; but not one in ten thou­sand ev­er adopt­ed them in pars­ing. “_Let me love._” _Let_, all parse, Mr. Mur­ray not ex­cept­ed, in the _sec­ond_ per­son, and _love_ in the in­fini­tive mood af­ter it, with­out the sign _to_; ac­cord­ing to the rule, that “verbs which fol­low _bid_, _dare_, _feel_, _hear_, _let_, _needs_, _speak_,” etc. are in the in­fini­tive mood. It is strange peo­ple will not eat their own cook­ing.

There can be no trou­ble in un­der­stand­ing this mood, as we have ex­plained it, al­ways in the fu­ture tense, that is, fu­ture to the com­mand or re­quest, agree­ing with the _sec­ond_ per­son, and nev­er var­ied on ac­count of num­ber.

The on­ly vari­ation in the in­fini­tive mood is the omis­sion of _to_ in cer­tain cas­es, which is con­sid­ered as a part of the verb; tho in truth it is no more so than when used in the char­ac­ter of an old fash­ioned prepo­si­tion. In cer­tain cas­es, as we have be­fore ob­served, it is not ex­pressed. This is when the in­fini­tive verb fol­lows small words in fre­quent use; as, shall, will, let, can, must, may, bid, do, have, make, feel, hear, etc.

This mood is al­ways in the fu­ture tense; that is, it is fu­ture to the cir­cum­stances or con­di­tion of things up­on which it de­pends; as, they are mak­ing prepa­ra­tions _to raise_ the build­ing. Here _to raise_ is fu­ture to the prepa­ra­tions, for if they make no prepa­ra­tions, the build­ings will not be raised. The boy stud­ies his book _to learn_ his les­son. If he does not study, he will not be like­ly _to learn_ his les­son.

The al­lied pow­ers of Eu­rope com­bined their forces _to de­feat_ Napoleon. In this in­stance the whole ex­pres­sion is in the past tense; nev­er­the­less, the ac­tion ex­pressed in the in­fini­tive mood, _was fu­ture_ to the cir­cum­stance on which it de­pend­ed; that is, the _de­feat_ was _fu­ture_ to the _com­bi­na­tion_ of the forces. Abra­ham raised the knife _to slay_ his son. Not that he did _slay_ him, as that sen­tence must be ex­plained on the com­mon sys­tems, which teach us that _to slay_ is in the _present tense_; but he raised the fa­tal knife for that pur­pose, the ful­fil­ment of which was fu­ture; but the an­gel staid his hand, and avert­ed the blow. The pa­tri­ots of Poland _made_ a no­ble at­tempt _to gain_ their lib­er­ty. But they did not _gain it_, as our gram­mars would teach us. _To gain_ was fu­ture to the at­tempt, and failed be­cause the cir­cum­stances _in­di­cat­ed_ by the event, were in­suf­fi­cient to pro­duce so fa­vor­able a re­sult.

No per­son of com­mon dis­cern­ment can fail to ob­serve the ab­so­lute false­hood of ex­ist­ing sys­tems in re­spect to this mood. It is used by our au­thors of gram­mar in the _present_ and _past_ tens­es, but nev­er in the _fu­ture_. Let us give a mo­ment to the con­sid­er­ation of this mat­ter. Take the fol­low­ing ex­am­ple. He _will pre­pare_ him­self next week _to go_ to Eu­rope. Let the school mas­ter parse _will pre­pare_. It is a verb, in­dica­tive mood, _first fu­ture_ tense. _Next week_ is the point in fu­tu­ri­ty when the _prepa­ra­tion_ will be _made_. Now parse _to go_. It is a verb, in­fini­tive mood, _present tense_! Then _he_ is al­ready on his way to Eu­rope, when he is not _to pre­pare_ him­self till next week! An army is col­lect­ed _to fight_ the en­emy. Is the fight al­ready com­menced? _To fight_ is present tense, say the books. We shall study gram­mar next year, _to ob­tain_ a knowl­edge of the prin­ci­ples and use of lan­guage. Is _to ob­tain_ present tense? If so there is lit­tle need of spend­ing time and mon­ey to study for a knowl­edge we _al­ready pos­sess_.

“Hope springs eter­nal in the hu­man breast; Man nev­er _is_, but al­ways =to be= blest.” _Pope._

“Who _was_, and who _is_, and who _is_ =to come=.”--_Bible._ It is not that a man thinks him­self al­ready in pos­ses­sion of a suf­fi­cien­cy, but hopes =to be= qual­ified, etc.

I _am to go_ in an hour. He _is to go_ to-​mor­row. I _am_ ready _to hear_ you re­cite your les­son. He _has been wait­ing_ a long time _to see_ if some new prin­ci­ples will not be in­tro­duced. He is pre­pared _to ap­pear_ be­fore you when­ev­er you shall di­rect. We _are_ re­solved _to em­ploy_ neuter verbs, po­ten­tial and sub­junc­tive moods, im-​per­fect, plu-​per­fect, and sec­ond fu­ture tens­es, no longer. False gram­mars _are_ on­ly fit-_ted to be_ laid aside. We are in du­ty bound _to re­gard_ and _adopt_ truth, and _re­ject_ er­ror; and we _are_ de­ter­mined _to do_ it in gram­mar, and ev­ery thing else.

We are not sur­prised that peo­ple can­not com­pre­hend gram­mar, as usu­al­ly taught, for it is ex­ceed­ing­ly dif­fi­cult to make er­ror ap­pear like truth, or false teach­ing like sound sen­ti­ment. But I will not stop to mor­al­ize. The hints I have giv­en must suf­fice.

Much more might be said up­on the char­ac­ter and use of verbs; but as these lec­tures are not de­signed for _a sys­tem_ of gram­mar _to be taught_, but to ex­pose the er­rors of ex­ist­ing sys­tems, and pre­pare the way for a more ra­tio­nal and con­sis­tent ex­po­si­tion of lan­guage, I shall leave this de­part­ment of our sub­ject, pre­sum­ing you will be able to com­pre­hend our views, and ap­pre­ci­ate their im­por­tance. We have been some­what crit­ical in a part of our re­marks, and more brief than we should have been, had we not found that we were claim­ing too much of the time of the In­sti­tute, which is de­signed as a means of im­prove­ment on gen­er­al sub­jects. Enough has been said, I am sure, to con­vince you, if you were not con­vinced be­fore, why the study of gram­mar is so in­tri­cate and te­dious, that it is to be ac­count­ed for from the fact that the the­ories by which it is taught are false in prin­ci­ple, and can not be adopt­ed in prac­tice; and that some­thing ought to be done to make the study of lan­guage easy, in­ter­est­ing, and prac­ti­cal. Such a work is here at­tempt­ed; but it re­mains with the pub­lic to say whether these plain philo­soph­ical prin­ci­ples shall be sus­tained, ma­tured, per­fect­ed, and adopt­ed in schools, or the old round­about course of use­less and in­ef­fec­tu­al teach­ing be still pre­served.