After men have learned to employ words for exciting one another to those actions by which reciprocal services are pci formed, the extent of the uses to which language may be applied must be soon more fully perceived. Alen contrive to describe to each other various surrounding phe nomena. Sonic of the most interesting of these consist of the actions of their fellow creatures.
The same sign by which we desire a person to perform a particular action, is naturally retained as a symbol of that action in describing any series of events of which it forms a part. After we have used the words " come," " go," " stand," " sit," " run," as imperatives, we spontaneously apply the same words, either in the same form, or with some slight addition or alteration, in affirmative sentences, such as " John stands," " John sits," or " John runs." It has been already remarked that these indicative forms may be resolved into the copula with a participle, and are equivalent to " John is standing," " John is sitting," and "John is running." The connexions expressed by the par ticiple are observed in the operations of the solitary mind before we are capable of using language, and form an ex tensive series of relations among the objects of our know ledge. But the earliest use that arises for connecting the significant words is the conveyance of information. On this account the copula and the participial sign are not originally separate, but condensed into one word with the name of the action specified. This early date of the con densed phrase is the cause of a comparative simplicity in the indicative form. It is prior in formation to the parti ciple. \Ve have occasion to say that a man " walks," sooner than we have occasion to use the compound desig nation " the man walking," as the subject of a different pro position. It follows a fortiori that the simple indicative is prior to that indicative which is formed by the participle and the copula. The divizion of it into these two parts might make the indicative appear more complicated in metaphysical analysis, and some might be disposed, on this view of the subject, to consider the usual indicative as a species of contraction. But this is not its character. The act which consists in the union of the meaning of these two signs is spontaneous, and of an early origin. On this ac count the indicative has even less complexity of form than the participle.
IT most frequently happens that, in describing an event, whether consisting of a voluntary human action or not, we have occasion to bring into view, by means of a noun, some object which has a conspicuous concern in it. The occa sions on which no inclination to do this exists are but few, and the events which arc described in a manner so simple are not of the most interesting kind. They occur in Latin
in the use of such verbs as ningit and /dun, 4, it snows," " it rains." Each of these verbs, without any nominative, contains a full account of an event.
When we describe an action which has an intimate con nection with some other objects, we generally have occa to extend our description by the mention of the ob ject or objects so situated. We may either mention one or more of the agents who perform the action, or an object affected by it. If the noun expressing this object is put in the nominative case, it becomes the leading subject of the sentence.
When the nominative is the name of an agent, the verb is said to be active. When it is the name of an object af fected, it is said to be natmive. (This mode of expression is somewhat illogical. It is the noun that becomes active in the one instance, and passive in the other. 'File dif ference of these two uses of the verb is, that they give these differences of character to the noun. \Ve shall, how ever, adhere to the established nomenclature, as establish ed by common usage, and possessing the advantage of a convenient briefness.) There are not in every language two separate forms ol the verb for these two applications of it. In modern English, some verbs are used in the same form in an active and in a passive application. We can use the verb " cut" in any one of the three following ways : " They cut the tree ;" ° These tools cut smoothly ;" " Fir cuts more easily than oak." We say, " Look at that person's face ;" also" He looks ;" " Drink some wine;" and " This wine drinks pleasantly." Some grammarians, impressed with the prominent dis tinction existing in the Latin language betwixt the verb in the active and the passive voice, would insist that " to drink" and " to cut" are essentially active, and therefore that the phrases " fir cuts easily" and "this wine drinks pleasantly" are ungrammatical. But we shall probably entertain a more enlarged as well as a more correct idea of the verb, by conceiving that those which we call active verbs are in their earliest application of no particular voice, though, from the agent generally appearing in the mind ol the speaker more important than any object acted on, the active application of them is the most frequent. The original indicative of the verb thus points out a connection betwixt an object and an event, without specifying the na ture of this connection. The circumstance of agency or any other may be safely left to the inferences formed by the understanding of the hearer.