fate] 
THE argument is ftill further confirmed by Lord Monboddo’s 
extenfion of Dr. Clark’s theory of the preterperfeé. 
In the total inefficacy of the preterperfett of grammarians to 
exprefs the real paft perfect time, Lord Monboddo agrees with 
me, though not in the mode of remedying it. He draws a ftill 
more accurate line about the preterperfect than Dr. Clark, and 
endeavours to fhew that in every inftance that tenfe is compound, 
and relates to the prefent time. The apparent exceptions to Dr. 
Clark’s idea of its exprefling a continuing action, he removes, 
by infifting that in thofe cafes it is made ufe of becaufe the effects 
and confequences are continued to the prefent time; and that 
whenever it is ufed, we fhall find, either that the ation or its 
effets are continued to the prefent time. ‘ There are actions, 
fays he, ‘ which end in energy, and produce no work that re- 
‘ mains after them. What fhall we fay of fuch ations? cannot 
‘ we fay, we have danced a dance, taken a walk, &c. and how 
* can fuch actions be faid in any fenfe tobe prefent? My anfwer 
* is, that the confequences of fuch actions, refpecting the fpeaker 
‘ or fome other perfon or thing, are prefent, and what thefe 
* confequences are, appear from the tenor of the difcourfe; I 
« have taken a walk, and am much the better for it. I have danced 
* one dance, axd am inclined to dance no more. So in Demof- 
¢ thenes’s oration againft Ariftocrates, whom he accufes of tranf- 
‘ grefling a decree, when he confiders the tranfgreflion of the 
* decree 
appear that the fecond alfo may not exprefs this paft and perfect a€tion ? The anfwer 
is, that we fet out with fhewing that it failed in exprefling the perfection of the 
action. ‘The preterperfeét does not exprefs that it is zotally paf?. The fecond aorift 
does not exprefs that it is perfected. The firft aorift. alone expreffes both. 
