Lectures on Language As Particularly Connected with English Grammar.

LECTURE VIII.

ON VERBS.

Un­pleas­ant to ex­pose er­ror.--Verbs de­fined.--Ev­ery thing acts.-- Ac­tor and ob­ject.--Laws.--Man.--An­imals.--Veg­eta­bles.--Min­er­als.-- Neu­tral­ity de­grad­ing.--No­body can ex­plain a neuter verb.--_One_ kind of verbs.--_You_ must de­cide.--Im­por­tance of teach­ing chil­dren the truth.--Ac­tive verbs.--Tran­si­tive verbs false.--Sam­ples.--Neuter verbs ex­am­ined.--Sit.--Sleep.--Stand.--Lie.--Opin­ion of Mrs. W.--Anec­dote.

We now come to the con­sid­er­ation of that class of words which in the for­ma­tion of lan­guage are called _Verbs_. You will al­low me to be­speak your fa­vor­able at­ten­tion, and to in­sist most stren­uous­ly on the pro­pri­ety of a free and thoro ex­am­ina­tion in­to the na­ture and use of these words. I shall be un­der the ne­ces­si­ty of per­form­ing the thank­less task of ex­pos­ing the er­rors of hon­est, wise, and good men, in or­der to re­move dif­fi­cul­ties which have long ex­ist­ed in works on lan­guage, and clear the way for a more easy and con­sis­tent ex­pla­na­tion of this in­ter­est­ing and es­sen­tial de­part­ment of lit­er­ature. I re­gret the ne­ces­si­ty for such labors; but no per­son who wish­es the im­prove­ment of mankind, or is will­ing to aid the growth of the hu­man in­tel­lect, in its high as­pi­ra­tions af­ter truth, knowl­edge, and good­ness, should shrink from a frank ex­po­si­tion of what he deems to be er­ror, nor refuse his as­sis­tance, fee­ble tho it may be, in the es­tab­lish­ment of cor­rect prin­ci­ples.

In for­mer lec­tures we have con­fined our re­marks to things and a de­scrip­tion of their char­ac­ters and re­la­tions, so that ev­ery en­ti­ty of which we can con­ceive a thought, or con­cern­ing which we can form an ex­pres­sion, has been de­fined and de­scribed in the use of nouns and ad­jec­tives. Ev­ery thing in cre­ation, of which we think, ma­te­ri­al or im­ma­te­ri­al, re­al or imag­inary, and to which we give a name, to rep­re­sent the idea of it, comes un­der the class of words called nouns. The words which spec­ify or dis­tin­guish one thing from an­oth­er, or de­scribe its prop­er­ties, char­ac­ter, or re­la­tions, are des­ig­nat­ed as ad­jec­tives. There is on­ly one oth­er em­ploy­ment left for words, and that is the ex­pres­sion of the ac­tions, changes, or in­her­ent ten­den­cies of things. This im­por­tant de­part­ment of knowl­edge is, in gram­mar, classed un­der the head of =Verbs=.

* * * * *

_Verb_ is de­rived from the Latin _ver­bum_, which sig­ni­fies a _word_. By spe­cif­ic ap­pli­ca­tion it is ap­plied to those _words_ on­ly which ex­press ac­tion, cor­rect­ly un­der­stood; the same as Bible, de­rived from the Greek “_bib­los_” means lit­er­al­ly _the book_, but, by way of em­inence, is ap­plied to the sa­cred scrip­tures on­ly.

This in­ter­est­ing class of words does not de­vi­ate from the cor­rect prin­ci­ples which we have hith­er­to ob­served in these lec­tures. It de­pends on es­tab­lished laws, ex­ert­ed in the reg­ula­tion of mat­ter and thought; and who­ev­er would learn its sub­lime use must be a close ob­serv­er of things, and the mode of their ex­is­tence. The im­por­tant char­ac­ter it sus­tains in the pro­duc­tion of ideas of the changes and ten­den­cies of things and in the trans­mis­sion of thought, will be found sim­ple, and ob­vi­ous to all.

Things ex­ist; Nouns name them.

Things dif­fer; Ad­jec­tives de­fine or de­scribe them.

Things act; Verbs ex­press their ac­tions.

_All Verbs de­note ac­tion._

By ac­tion, we mean not on­ly per­ceiv­able mo­tion, but an in­her­ent ten­den­cy to change, or re­sist ac­tion. It mat­ters not whether we speak of an­imals pos­sessed of the pow­er of lo­co­mo­tion; of veg­eta­bles, which _send_ forth their branch­es, leaves, blos­soms, and fruits; or of min­er­als, which _re­tain_ their forms, po­si­tions, and prop­er­ties. The same prin­ci­ples are con­cerned, the same laws ex­ist, and should be ob­served in all our at­tempts to un­der­stand their op­er­ations, or em­ploy them in the pro­mo­tion of hu­man good. Ev­ery thing acts ac­cord­ing to the abil­ity it pos­sess­es; from the small par­ti­cle of sand, which _oc­cu­pies_ its place up­on the sea shore, up thro the var­ious gra­da­tion of be­ing, to the tall archangel, who _bows_ and _wor­ships_ be­fore the throne of the un­cre­at­ed Cause of all things and ac­tions which ex­ist thro out his vast do­min­ions.

As all ac­tions pre­sup­pose an _ac­tor_, so ev­ery ac­tion must re­sult on some _ob­ject_. No ef­fect can ex­ist with­out an ef­fi­cient cause to pro­duce it; and no cause can ex­ist with­out a cor­re­spond­ing ef­fect re­sult­ing from it. These mu­tu­al re­la­tions, helps, and de­pen­den­cies, are man­ifest in all cre­ation. Phi­los­ophy, re­li­gion, the arts, and all sci­ence, serve on­ly to de­ve­lope these pri­ma­ry laws of na­ture, which unite and strength­en, com­bine and reg­ulate, pre­serve and guide the whole. From the Eter­nal I AM, the un­cre­at­ed, self-​ex­is­tent, self-​sus­tain­ing =Cause= of all things, down to the min­utest par­ti­cle of dust, ev­idences may be traced of the ex­is­tence and in­flu­ence of these laws, in them­selves ir­re­sistible, ex­cep­tion­less, and im­mutable. Ev­ery thing has a place and a du­ty as­signed it; and har­mo­ny, peace, and per­fec­tion are the re­sults of a care­ful and ju­di­cious ob­ser­vance of the laws giv­en for its reg­ula­tion. Any in­fringe­ment of these laws will pro­duce dis­or­der, con­fu­sion, and dis­trac­tion.

Man is made a lit­tle low­er than the an­gels, pos­sessed of a mind ca­pa­ble of rea­son, im­prove­ment, and hap­pi­ness; an in­tel­lec­tu­al soul in­hab­it­ing a mor­tal body, the con­nect­ing link be­tween earth and heav­en--the ma­te­ri­al and spir­itu­al world. As a phys­ical be­ing, he is sub­ject, in com­mon with oth­er things, to the laws which reg­ulate mat­ter: as an in­tel­lec­tu­al be­ing, he is gov­erned by the laws which reg­ulate mind: as pos­sessed of both a body and mind, a code of moral laws de­mand his ob­ser­vance in all the so­cial re­la­tions and du­ties of life. Obe­di­ence to these laws is the cer­tain source of health of body, and peace of mind. An in­fringe­ment of them will as cer­tain­ly be at­tend­ed with dis­ease and suf­fer­ing to the one, and sor­row and an­guish to the oth­er.

Low­er grades of an­imals par­take of many qual­ities in com­mon with man. In some they are de­fi­cient; in oth­ers they are su­pe­ri­or. Some an­imals are pos­sessed of all but rea­son, and even in that, the high­est of them come very lit­tle short of the low­est of the hu­man species. If they have not rea­son, they pos­sess an in­stinct which near­ly ap­proach­es it. These qual­ities dwin­dle down grad­ual­ly thro the var­ious or­ders and va­ri­eties of an­imat­ed na­ture, to the low­est grade of an­imal­cu­lae, a mul­ti­tude of which may in­hab­it a sin­gle drop of wa­ter; or to the zoophytes and lytho­phytes, which form the con­nect­ing link be­tween the an­imal and veg­etable king­dom; as the star-​fish, the poly­pus, and spunges. Then strike off in­to an­oth­er king­dom, and ob­serve the laws veg­etable life. Mark the tall pine which has grown from a small seed which _sent_ forth its root down­wards and its trunk up­wards, draw­ing nour­ish­ment from earth, air, and wa­ter, till it now waves its top to the pass­ing breeze, a hun­dred feet above this dirty earth: or the oak or olive, which have _main­tained_ their re­spec­tive po­si­tions a dozen cen­turies de­spite the op­er­ations of wind and weath­er, and have shed their fo­liage and their seeds to prop­agate their species and ex­tend their kinds to dif­fer­ent places. While a hun­dred gen­er­ations have lived and died, and the coun­try of­ten changed mas­ters, they re­sist op­pres­sion, scorn mis­rule, and re­tain rights and priv­ileges which are slow­ly en­croached up­on by the in­roads of time, which will one day tri­umph over them, and they fall help­less to the earth, to sub­mit to the chem­ical op­er­ations which shall dis­solve their very be­ing and cause them to min­gle with the com­mon dust, yield­ing their strength to give life and pow­er to oth­er veg­eta­bles which shall oc­cu­py their places.[10] Or mark the liv­ing prin­ci­ple in the “sen­si­tive plant,” which with­ers at ev­ery touch, and suf­fers long ere it re­gains its for­mer vig­or.

De­scend from thence, down thro the var­ious gra­da­tions of veg­etable life, till you pass the nar­row bor­der and en­ter the min­er­al world. Here you will see dis­played the same sub­lime prin­ci­ple, tho in a mod­ified de­gree. Min­er­als _as­sume_ dif­fer­ent shapes, hues and re­la­tions; they in­crease and di­min­ish, at­tach and di­vide un­der var­ious cir­cum­stances, all the while _re­tain­ing_ their iden­ti­ty and prop­er­ties, and ex­ert­ing their abil­ities ac­cord­ing to the means they pos­sess, till com­pelled to yield to a su­pe­ri­or pow­er, and learn to sub­mit to the laws which op­er­ate in ev­ery de­part­ment of this mu­ta­ble world.

_Ev­ery_ thing _acts_ ac­cord­ing to the abil­ity God has be­stowed up­on it; and man can do no more. He has au­thor­ity over all things on earth, and yet he is made to de­pend up­on all. His au­thor­ity ex­tends no far­ther than a priv­ilege, un­der whole­some re­stric­tions, of mak­ing the whole sub­servient to his re­al good. When he goes be­yond this, he usurps a pow­er which be­longs not to him, and the de­struc­tion of his hap­pi­ness pays the for­feit of his im­pru­dence. The in­jured pow­er ris­es tri­umphant over the ag­gres­sor, and the glo­ry of God's gov­ern­ment, in the righ­teous and im­me­di­ate ex­ecu­tion of his laws, is clear­ly re­vealed. So long as man obeys the laws which reg­ulate health, ob­serves tem­per­ance in all things, us­es the things of this world as not abus­ing them, he is at rest, he is blessed, he is hap­py: but no soon­er has he vi­olat­ed heav­en's law than he be­comes the slave, and the ser­vant as­sumes the mas­ter. But I am di­gress­ing. I would glad­ly fol­low this sub­ject fur­ther, but I shall go be­yond my lim­its, and, it may be, your pa­tience.

I would in­sist, how­ev­er, on the facts to which your at­ten­tion has been giv­en, for it is im­pos­si­ble, as I have be­fore con­tend­ed, to use lan­guage cor­rect­ly with­out a knowl­edge of the things and ideas it is em­ployed to rep­re­sent.

Grov­el­ling, in­deed, must be the mind which will not trace the sub­lime ex­hi­bi­tions of Di­vine pow­er and skill in all the op­er­ations of na­ture; and false must be that the­ory which teach­es the young mind to think and speak of neu­tral­ity as at­tached to things which do ex­ist. As low and de­bas­ing as the spec­ula­tions of the school­men were, they gave to things which they con­ceived to be in­ca­pable of ac­tion, a prin­ci­ple which they called “_vis in­er­ti­ae_,” or, _pow­er to lie still_. Shall our sys­tems of in­struc­tion de­scend be­low them, throw an in­sur­mount­able bar­ri­er in the way of hu­man im­prove­ment, and teach the false prin­ci­ples that ac­tions can ex­ist with­out an ef­fect, or that there is a class of words which “ex­press nei­ther ac­tion or pas­sion.” Such a the­ory is at war with the first prin­ci­ples of phi­los­ophy, and de­nies that “like caus­es pro­duce like ef­fects.”

The ablest minds have nev­er been able to ex­plain the foun­da­tion of a “neuter verb,” or to find a sin­gle word, with a soli­tary ex­cep­tion, which does not, in cer­tain con­di­tions, ex­press a pos­itive ac­tion, and ter­mi­nate on a def­inite ob­ject; and that ex­cep­tion we shall see refers to a verb which ex­press­es the high­est de­gree of con­ceiv­able ac­tion. Still they have in­sist­ed on _three_ and some on _four_ kinds of verbs, one ex­press­ing ac­tion, an­oth­er pas­sion or suf­fer­ing, and the third neu­tral­ity. We pro­pose to of­fer a brief re­view of these dis­tinc­tions, which have so long per­plexed, not on­ly learn­ers, but teach­ers them­selves, and been the fruit­ful source of much dis­sention among gram­mar­ians.

It is to be hoped you will come up to this work with as great can­dor as you have hereto­fore man­ifest­ed, and as ful­ly re­solved to take noth­ing for grant­ed, be­cause it has been said by good or great men, and to re­ject noth­ing be­cause it ap­pears new or sin­gu­lar. Let truth be our ob­ject and rea­son our guide to di­rect us to it. We can not fail of ar­riv­ing at safe and cor­rect con­clu­sions.

Mr. Mur­ray tells us that “verbs are of three kinds, _ac­tive_, _pas­sive_, and _neuter_. In a note he ad­mits of ”ac­tive _tran­si­tive_ and in­tran­si­tive verbs,“ as a sub­di­vi­sion of his first kind. Most of his ”im­provers" have adopt­ed this dis­tinc­tion, and re­gard it as of es­sen­tial im­por­tance.

We shall con­tend, as be­fore ex­pressed, that _all_ verbs are of _one kind_, that they _ex­press ac­tion_, for the sim­ple yet sub­lime rea­son, that ev­ery thing acts, at all times, and un­der ev­ery pos­si­ble con­di­tion; ac­cord­ing to the true def­ini­tion of _ac­tion_ as un­der­stood and em­ployed by all writ­ers on gram­mar, and nat­ural and moral sci­ence. Here we are at is­sue. Both, con­tend­ing for prin­ci­ples so op­po­site, can not be cor­rect. One or the oth­er, how­ev­er pure the mo­tives, must be at­tached to a sys­tem wrong in the­ory, and of course per­ni­cious in prac­tice. You are to be the um­pires in the case, and, if you are faith­ful to your trust, you will not be bribed or in­flu­enced in the least by the opin­ions of oth­ers. If di­vest­ed of all for­mer at­tach­ments, if free from all prej­udice, there can be no doubt of the safe­ty and cor­rect­ness of your con­clu­sions. But I am ap­pre­hen­sive I ex­pect too much, if I place the _new_ sys­tem of gram­mar on a foot­ing equal­ly fa­vor­able in your minds with those you have been taught to re­spect, as the on­ly true ex­po­si­tions of lan­guage, from your child­hood up, and which are rec­om­mend­ed to you on the au­thor­ity of the learned and good of many gen­er­ations. I have to com­bat ear­ly prej­udices, and sys­tems long con­sid­ered as al­most sa­cred. But I have in my fa­vor the com­mon sense of the world, and a feel­ing of op­po­si­tion to ex­ist­ing sys­tems, which has been pro­duced, not so much by a de­tec­tion of their er­rors, as by a lack of ca­pac­ity, as the learn­er ver­ily thought, to un­der­stand their pro­found mys­ter­ies. I am, there­fore, will­ing to risk the fi­nal de­ci­sion with you, if _you_ will de­cide. But I am not will­ing to have you made the tools of the op­po­site par­ty, de­ter­mined, whether con­vinced or not, to hold to your old _neuter_ verb sys­tems, right or wrong, mere­ly be­cause oth­ers are do­ing so. All I ask is _your_ adop­tion of what is proved to be un­de­ni­ably true, and re­jec­tion of what­ev­er is found to be false.

Here is where the mat­ter must rest, for it will not be pre­tend­ed that it is bet­ter to teach false­hood be­cause it is an­cient and pop­ular, than truth be­cause it is nov­el. Teach­ers, in this re­spect, stand in a most re­spon­si­ble re­la­tion to their pupils. They should al­ways in­sist with an un­yield­ing per­ti­nac­ity, on the im­por­tance of truth, and the evils of er­ror. Ev­ery tri­fling in­ci­dent, in the course of ed­uca­tion, which will serve to show the con­trast, should be par­tic­ular­ly ob­served. If an er­ror can be de­tect­ed in their books, they should be so taught as to be able to cor­rect it; and they should be so in­clined as to be will­ing to do it. They should not be skep­tics, how­ev­er, but close ob­servers, orig­inal thinkers, and cor­rect rea­son­ers. It is de­grad­ing to the true dig­ni­ty and in­de­pen­dence of man, to sub­mit blind­ly to any propo­si­tion. Free­dom of thought is the province of all. Chil­dren should be made to breathe the free air of hon­est in­quiry, and to in­hale the sweet spir­it of truth and char­ity. They should not study their books as the end of learn­ing, but as a means of know­ing. Books should be re­gard­ed as lamps, which are set by the way side, not as the ob­jects to be looked at, but the aids by which we may find the ob­ject of our search. Knowl­edge and use­ful­ness con­sti­tute the lead­ing mo­tives in all study, and no oc­ca­sion should be lost, no means ne­glect­ed, which will lead the young mind to their pos­ses­sion.

Your at­ten­tion is now in­vit­ed to some crit­ical re­marks on the dis­tinc­tions usu­al­ly ob­served in the use of verbs. Let us care­ful­ly ex­am­ine the mean­ing of these _three kinds_ and see if there is any oc­ca­sion for such a di­vi­sion; if they have any foun­da­tion in truth, or ap­pli­ca­tion in the cor­rect use of lan­guage. We will fol­low the ar­range­ments adopt­ed by the most pop­ular gram­mars.

“A _verb ac­tive_ ex­press­es an ac­tion, and nec­es­sar­ily im­plies an agent, and an ob­ject act­ed up­on; as, to love, I love Pene­lope.” A very ex­cel­lent def­ini­tion, in­deed! Had gram­mar­ians stopped here, their works would have been un­der­stood, and proved of some ser­vice in the study of lan­guage. But when they di­verge from this bright spot in the con­sid­er­ation of verbs--this oa­sis in the midst of a desert--they soon be­come lost in the sur­round­ing dark­ness of con­jec­ture, and fol­low each their own dim light, to hit on a ran­dom track, which to fol­low in the pur­suit of their ob­ject.

We give our most hearty as­sent to the above def­ini­tion of a verb. It ex­press­es ac­tion, which nec­es­sar­ily im­plies an _ac­tor_, and an _ob­ject_ in­flu­enced by the ac­tion. In our es­ti­ma­tion it mat­ters not whether the ob­ject on which the ac­tion ter­mi­nates is ex­pressed or _un­der­stood_. If I _love_, I must love some ob­ject; ei­ther my neigh­bor, my en­emy, my fam­ily, _my­self_, or some­thing else. In ei­ther case the _ac­tion_ is the same, tho the ob­jects may be dif­fer­ent; and it is re­gard­ed, on all hands, as an ac­tive verb. Hence when the ob­ject on which the ac­tion ter­mi­nates is not ex­pressed, it is nec­es­sar­ily un­der­stood. All lan­guage is, in this re­spect, more or less elip­ti­cal, which adds much to its rich­ness and brevi­ty.

Ac­tive verbs, we are told, are di­vid­ed in­to _tran­si­tive_ and _in­tran­si­tive_. Mr. Mur­ray does not ex­act­ly ap­prove of this dis­tinc­tion, but prefers to class the in­tran­si­tive and neuter to­geth­er. Oth­ers, aware of the fal­la­cy of at­tempt­ing to make chil­dren con­ceive any thing like neu­tral­ity in the verbs, _run_, _fly_, _walk_, _live_, &c., have pre­ferred to mark the dis­tinc­tion and call them _in_tran­si­tive; be­cause, say they, they do not ter­mi­nate on any ob­ject ex­pressed.

A _tran­si­tive verb_ “ex­press­es an ac­tion which pass­es from the agent to the ob­ject; as, Cae­sar con­quered Pom­pey.” To this def­ini­tion we can not con­sent. It at­tempts a dis­tinc­tion where there is none. It is not true in prin­ci­ple, and can not be adopt­ed in prac­tice.

“Cae­sar con­quered Pom­pey.” Did the act of con­quer­ing pass _tran­si­tive­ly_ over from _Cae­sar_ to Pom­pey? They might not have seen each oth­er dur­ing the whole bat­tle, nor been with­in many miles of each oth­er. They, each of them, stood at the head of their armies, and alike gave or­ders to their sub­or­di­nate of­fi­cers, and they again to their in­fe­ri­ors, and so down, each man con­tend­ing valiant­ly for _vic­to­ry_, till, at last, the fate of the day sealed the down­fall of Pom­pey, and placed the crown of tri­umph on the head of Cae­sar. The ex­pres­sion is a cor­rect one, but the ac­tion ex­pressed by the verb “con­quered,” is not tran­si­tive, as that term is un­der­stood. A whole train of caus­es was put in op­er­ation which fi­nal­ly ter­mi­nat­ed in the de­feat of one, and the con­quest of the oth­er.

“Bona­parte _lost_ the bat­tle of Wa­ter­loo.” What did _he_ do to _lose_ the bat­tle? He ex­ert­ed his ut­most skill to _gain_ the bat­tle and es­cape de­feat. He did not do a sin­gle act, he en­ter­tained not a sin­gle thought, which lead to such a re­sult; but strove against it with all his pow­er. If the fault was _his_, it was be­cause he failed to act, and not be­cause he la­bored to _lose_ the bat­tle. He had too much at stake to adopt such a course, and no man but a teach­er of gram­mar, would ev­er ac­cuse him of _act­ing_ to _lose_ the bat­tle.

“A man was sick; he de­sired to re­cov­er (his health). He took, for medicine, opi­um by mis­take, and _lost_ his life by it.” Was he guilty of sui­cide? Cer­tain­ly, if our gram­mars are true. But he _lost_ his life in try­ing to get well.

“A man in Amer­ica _pos­sess­es_ prop­er­ty in Eu­rope, and his chil­dren _in­her­it_ it af­ter his death.” What do the chil­dren do to _in­her­it_ this prop­er­ty, of which they know noth­ing?

“The geese, by their gab­bling, _saved_ Rome from de­struc­tion.” How did the geese save the city? They made a noise, which waked the sen­tinels, who roused the sol­diers to arms; they fought, slew many Gauls, and de­liv­ered the city.

“A man in New-​York _trans­acts_ busi­ness in Can­ton.” How does he do it? He has an agent there to whom he sends his or­ders, and he trans­acts the busi­ness. But how does he get his let­ters? The clerk writes them, the post­man car­ries them on board the ship, the cap­tain com­mands the sailors, who work the ropes which un­furl the sails, the wind blows, the ves­sel is man­aged by the pi­lot, and af­ter a weary voy­age of sev­er­al months, the let­ters are de­liv­ered to the agent, who does the busi­ness that is re­quired of him.

The miser _de­nies_ him­self ev­ery com­fort, and spends his whole life in hoard­ing up rich­es; and yet he dies and _leaves_ his gold to be the pos­ses­sion of oth­ers.

Chris­tians _suf­fer_ in­sults al­most ev­ery day from the Turks.

Win­dows _ad­mit_ light and _ex­clude_ cold.

Who can dis­cov­er any thing like _tran­si­tive_ ac­tion--a pass­ing from the agent to the ob­ject--in these cas­es? What tran­si­tive ac­tion do the win­dows per­form to _ad­mit the light_; or the chris­tians, to _suf­fer in­sults_; or the miser, to _leave his mon­ey_? If there is neu­tral­ity any where, we would look for it here. The fact is, these words ex­press _rel­ative_ ac­tion, as we shall ex­plain when we come to the ex­am­ina­tion of the true char­ac­ter of the verb.

_Neu­tral­ity_ sig­ni­fies (tran­si­tive verb!) no ac­tion, and _neuter_ verbs _ex­press a state of be­ing_! A class of words which can not act, which ap­ply to things in a qui­es­cent state, _per­form_ the tran­si­tive ac­tion of “_ex­press­ing_ a state of be­ing!”

Who does not per­ceive the in­con­sis­ten­cy and fol­ly of such dis­tinc­tions? And who has not found him­self per­plexed, if not com­plete­ly be­wil­dered in the dark and in­tri­cate labyrinths in­to which he has been led by the false gram­mar books! Ev­ery at­tempt he has made to ex­tri­cate him­self, by the dim light of the “sim­pli­fiers,” has on­ly tend­ed to be­wil­der him still more, till he is ut­ter­ly con­found­ed, or else aban­dons the study al­to­geth­er.

* * * * *

An _in­tran­si­tive_ verb “de­notes ac­tion which is con­fined to the ac­tor, and does not pass over to an­oth­er ob­ject; as, I sit, he lives, they sleep.”

“A verb _neuter_ ex­press­es nei­ther ac­tion nor pas­sion, but be­ing, or a state of be­ing; as, I am, I sleep, I sit.”

These verbs are near­ly al­lied in char­ac­ter; but we will ex­am­ine them sep­arate­ly and fair­ly. The ex­am­ples are the same, with ex­cep­tion of the verb _to be_, which we will no­tice by it­self, and some­what at large, in an­oth­er place.

Our first ob­ject will be to as­cer­tain the _mean­ing_ and use of the words which have been giv­en as sam­ples of neu­tral­ity. It is un­for­tu­nate for the neuter sys­tems that they can not de­fine a “neuter verb” with­out mak­ing it ex­press an ac­tion which ter­mi­nates on some ob­ject.

* * *

“The man _sits_ in his chair.”

_Sits_, we are told, is a neuter verb. What does it mean? The man _places_ him­self in a sit­ting pos­ture in his _seat_. He _keeps_ him­self in his chair by mus­cu­lar en­er­gy, as­sist­ed by grav­ita­tion. The chair _up­holds_ him in that con­di­tion. Bring a small child and _sit_ it (ac­tive verb,) in a chair be­side him. Can it _sit_? No; it falls up­on the floor and is in­jured. Why did it fall? It was not able to _keep_ it­self from falling. The la­dy faint­ed and _fell_ from her _seat_. If there is no ac­tion in sit­ting, why did she not re­main as she was? A com­pa­ny of ladies and gen­tle­men from the board­ing school and col­lege, en­tered the par­lor of a teach­er of neuter verbs; and he asked them to _sit_ down, or be _seat­ed_. They were neu­tral. He called them im­po­lite. But they replied, that _sit_ “ex­press­es nei­ther ac­tion nor pas­sion,” and hence he could not ex­pect them to oc­cu­py his seats.

“_Sit_ or _set_ it away; _sit_ near me; _sit_ far­ther along; _sit_ still;” are ex­pres­sions used by ev­ery teach­er in ad­dress­ing his schol­ars. On the sys­tem we are ex­am­in­ing, what would they un­der­stand by such in­ac­tive ex­pres­sions? Would he not cor­rect them for dis­obey­ing his or­ders? But what did he or­der them to do? Noth­ing at all, if _sit_ de­notes no ac­tion.

“I _sat_ me down and wept.”

“He _sat him_ down by a pil­lar's base, And drew his hand athwart his face.” _By­ron._

“Then, hav­ing shown his wounds, he'd _sit him_ down, And, all the live long day, dis­course of war.” _Tragedy of Dou­glass._

“But where­fore _sits he_ there? Death on my state! _This act_ con­vinces me That this re­tired­ness of the duke and her, Is plain con­tempt.” _King Lear._

“_Sit­ting_, the _act of rest­ing_ on a seat. _Ses­sion_, the _act of sit­ting_.” _John­son's Dic­tio­nary._

* * *

“_I sleep._”

Is sleep a neuter verb? So we are grave­ly told by our au­thors. Can gram­mar­ians fol­low their own rules? If so, they may spend the “live long night” and “its wak­ing hours,” with­out re­sort­ing to “tired na­ture's sweet re­stor­er, balmy sleep;” for there is no pro­cess un­der heav­en where­by they can pro­cure sleep, un­less they _sleep_ it. For one, I can nev­er _sleep_ with­out sleep­ing _sleep_--some­times on­ly a short _nap_. It mat­ters not whether the ob­ject is ex­pressed or not. The ac­tion re­mains the same. The true ob­ject is nec­es­sar­ily un­der­stood, and it would be su­per­flu­ous to name it. Cas­es, how­ev­er, of­ten oc­cur where, both in speak­ing and writ­ing, it be­comes in­dis­pens­able to men­tion the ob­ject. “The stout heart­ed have _slept_ their sleep.” “They shall _sleep_ the _sleep_ of death.” “They shall _sleep_ the per­pet­ual _sleep_, and shall not awake.” “_Sleep_ on now and _take_ your rest.” The child was trou­ble­some and the moth­er sung it to sleep, and it _slept it­self_ qui­et. A la­dy took opi­um and _slept her­self_ to death. “Many per­sons sleep them­selves in­to a kind of un­nat­ural stu­pid­ity.” Rip Van Win­kle, ac­cord­ing to the leg­end, _slept_ away a large por­tion of a com­mon life.

“Sleep, sleep to-​day, tor­ment­ing cares.”

“And _sleep_ dull _cares_ away.”

Was your sleep re­fresh­ing last night? How did you pro­cure it? Let a per­son who still ad­heres to his _neuter_ verbs, that sleep ex­press­es no ac­tion, and has no ob­ject on which it ter­mi­nates, put his the­ory in prac­tice; he may as well sleep with his eyes open, sit­ting up, as to _lie him­self_ up­on his bed.

A man lodged in an open cham­ber, and while he was _sleep­ing_ (do­ing noth­ing) he _caught_ a se­vere _cold_ (ac­tive tran­si­tive verb) and had a long _run_ of the fever. Who does not see, not on­ly the bad, but al­so the false phi­los­ophy of such at­tempt­ed dis­tinc­tions? How can you make a child dis­cov­er any dif­fer­ence in the _act of sleep­ing_, whether there is an ob­ject af­ter it, or not? Is it not the same? And is not the ob­ject nec­es­sar­ily im­plied, whether ex­pressed or not? Can a per­son _sleep_, with­out procur­ing _sleep_?

* * *

“_I stand._”

The man _stands_ firm in his in­tegri­ty. An­oth­er stands in a very pre­car­ious con­di­tion, and be­ing un­able to re­tain his hold, _falls_ down the precipice and is killed. Who is killed? The man, sure­ly. Why did he fall? Be­cause he could not _stand_. But there is no _ac­tion_ in _stand­ing_, say the books.

“_Stand_ by thy­self, come not near me?” “_Stand_ fast in the lib­er­ty where­with Christ hath made you free, and _be_ not again en­tan­gled in the yoke of bondage.” “Let him that thin­keth he _standeth_, take heed lest he _fall_.” If it re­quires no act to _stand_, there can be no dan­ger of falling.

“Two pil­lars stood to­geth­er; the rest had fall­en to the ground. The one on the right was quite per­fect in all its parts. The oth­er _re­sem­bled it_ very much, ex­cept it had _lost_ its cap­ital, and _suf­fered_ some oth­er in­juries.” How could the lat­ter col­umn, while per­form­ing no ac­tion in _stand­ing_, act _tran­si­tive­ly_, ac­cord­ing to our gram­mars, and do some­thing to _re­sem­ble_ the oth­er? or, what did it do to _lose_ its cap­ital, and _suf­fer_ oth­er in­jury?

* * *

“To _lie_, or _lay_.”

It has been ad­mit­ted that the verbs be­fore con­sid­ered are of­ten used as ac­tive verbs, and that there is, in truth, ac­tion ex­pressed by them. But when the man has fall­en from his seat and _lies_ up­on the floor, it is con­tend­ed that he no longer acts, and that _lie_ ex­press­es no ac­tion. He has ceased from phys­ical, mus­cu­lar ac­tion reg­ulat­ed by his will, and is now sub­ject to the com­mon laws which gov­ern mat­ter.

Let us take a strong ex­am­ple. The book _lies_ or _lays_ on the desk. Now you ask, does that book per­form any ac­tion in lay­ing on the desk? I an­swer, yes; and I will prove it on the prin­ci­ples of the sound­est phi­los­ophy, to the sat­is­fac­tion of ev­ery one present. Nor will I de­vi­ate from ex­ist­ing gram­mars to do it, so far as re­al ac­tion is con­cerned.

The book _lies_ on the desk. The desk _sup­ports_ the book. Will you parse _sup­ports_? It is, ac­cord­ing to ev­ery sys­tem, an ac­tive tran­si­tive verb. It has an ob­jec­tive case af­ter it on which the ac­tion ter­mi­nates. But what does the desk do to _sup­port_ the book? It bare­ly re­sists the ac­tion which the book _per­forms_ in ly­ing on it. The ac­tion of the desk and book is re­cip­ro­cal. But if the book does not act, nei­ther can the desk act, for that on­ly re­pels the force of the book in press­ing up­on it in its ten­den­cy to­wards the earth, in obe­di­ence to the law of grav­ita­tion. And yet our au­thors have told us that the desk is _ac­tive_ in re­sist­ing no ac­tion of the book! No won­der peo­ple are un­able to un­der­stand gram­mar. It vi­olates the first prin­ci­ples of nat­ural sci­ence, and frames to it­self a code of laws, un­equal, false, and ex­cep­tion­able, which bear no affin­ity to the rest of the world, and will not ap­ply in the ex­pres­sion of ideas.

I was once lec­tur­ing on this sub­ject in one of the cities of New-​York. Mrs. W., the dis­tin­guished teach­er of one of the most pop­ular Fe­male Sem­inar­ies in our coun­try, at­tend­ed. At the close of one lec­ture she re­marked that the great­est fault she had dis­cov­ered in the new sys­tem, was the want of a class of words to ex­press neu­tral­ity. Chil­dren, she said, con­ceived ideas of things in a qui­es­cent state, and words should be taught them by which to com­mu­ni­cate such ideas. I asked her for an ex­am­ple. She gave the rock in the side of the moun­tain. It had nev­er moved. It could nev­er act. There it had been from the foun­da­tion of the earth, and there it would re­main un­al­tered and un­changed till time should be no longer. I re­marked, that I would take an­oth­er small stone and _lay_ it on the great one which could nev­er act, and now we say the great rock _up­holds_, _sus­tains_ or _sup­ports_ the small one--all ac­tive tran­si­tive verbs with an ob­ject ex­pressed.

She replied, she would give it up, for it had sat­is­fied her of a new prin­ci­ple which must be ob­served in the ex­po­si­tion of all lan­guage, which ac­cords with _facts as de­vel­oped in phys­ical and men­tal sci­ence_.

I con­tin­ued, not on­ly does that rock act in re­sist­ing the force of the small one which lays up­on it, but, by the at­trac­tion of grav­ita­tion it is able to _main­tain_ its _po­si­tion_ in the side of the moun­tain; by co­he­sion it _re­tains_ its dis­tinct iden­ti­ty and so­lid­ity, and re­pels all for­eign bod­ies. It is al­so sub­ject to the laws which gov­ern the earth in its di­ur­nal and an­nu­al rev­olu­tions, and moves in com­mon with oth­er mat­ter at the as­ton­ish­ing rate of a thou­sand miles in an hour! Who shall teach chil­dren, in these days of light and im­prove­ment, the grov­el­ling doc­trine of neu­tral­ity, this rel­ic of the peri­patet­ic phi­los­ophy? Will par­ents send their chil­dren to school to learn false­hood? And can teach­ers be sat­is­fied to re­main in ig­no­rance, fol­low­ing with blind rev­er­ence the books they have stud­ied, and refuse to ex­am­ine new prin­ci­ples, fear­ing they shall be com­pelled to ac­knowl­edge for­mer er­rors and study new prin­ci­ples? They should re­mem­ber it is wis­er and more hon­or­able to con­fess a fault and cor­rect it, than it is to re­main per­ma­nent in er­ror.

Let us take an­oth­er ex­am­ple of the verb “_to lie_.” A coun­try ped­agogue who has fol­lowed his au­thor­ities most de­vot­ed­ly, and taught his pupils that _lie_ is a “_neuter verb_, ex­press­ing nei­ther ac­tion nor pas­sion, but sim­ply be­ing, or a state of be­ing,” goes out, dur­ing the in­ter­mis­sion, in­to a grove near by, to _ex­er­cise him­self_. In at­tempt­ing to roll a log up the hill, he _makes_ a mis-​step, and _falls_ (in­tran­si­tive verb, _noth­ing_ falls!) to the ground, and the log _rolls_ (_noth­ing_) on to him, and _lies_ across his legs. In this con­di­tion he is ob­served by his schol­ars to whom he cries (noth­ing) for help. “Do (noth­ing) come (in­tran­si­tive) and help me.” They obey him and re­main _neuter_, or at least act _in­tran­si­tive­ly_, and pro­duce no ef­fects. He cries again for help and his _cries_ are re­gard­ed. They _present_ them­selves be­fore him. “Do roll this log off; it will break my legs.” “Oh no, mas­ter; how can that be? The log _lies_ on you, does it not?” “Yes, and it will _press me_ to death.” “No, no; that can nev­er be. The log can not act. =Lies= is a _neuter_ verb, sig­ni­fy­ing nei­ther _ac­tion_ nor pas­sion, but sim­ply be­ing or a state of be­ing. You have a _state_ of be­ing, and the log has a state of be­ing. It can not harm you. You must have for­got­ten the prac­ti­cal ap­pli­ca­tion of the truths you have been teach­ing us.” It would be dif­fi­cult to ex­plain neuter verbs in such a predica­ment.

“Now I _lay_ me down _to sleep_.”

“She died and they _laid her_ be­side her lover un­der the spread­ing branch­es of the wil­low.”

“They _laid it_ away so se­cure that they could nev­er find it.”

They _laid_ down to _rest them­selves_ af­ter the fa­tigue of a whole day's jour­ney.

We have now con­sid­ered the mod­el verbs of the neuter kind, with the ex­cep­tion of the verb =to be=, which is left for a dis­tinct con­sid­er­ation, be­ing the most ac­tive of all verbs. It is un­nec­es­sary to spend much time on this point. The er­rors I have ex­am­ined have all been dis­cov­ered by teach­ers of lan­guage, long ago, but few have ven­tured to cor­rect them. An al­le­vi­ation of the dif­fi­cul­ty has been sought in the adop­tion of the in­tran­si­tive verb, which “ex­press­es an ac­tion that is con­fined to the ac­tor or agent.”

The re­marks which have been giv­en in the present lec­ture will serve as a hint to the course we shall adopt in treat­ing of them, but the more par­tic­ular ex­am­ina­tion of their char­ac­ter and us­es, to­geth­er with some gen­er­al ob­ser­va­tion on the agents and ob­jects of verbs, will be de­ferred to our next lec­ture.