VI. :. - ' I'" . 



MIDDLK VOICE. 



041 



the aperture in the abutter. The mirror, by turning on 

 p3bi.of brfng fixed at any angle with the wall of the 

 "' whUethY ring to which it is attached can, by mcui of a 

 Pinion, be mado to turn on the horuontal axis of the instru- 

 asto pWtnit the rays of the .un, whoever be the P***<* 

 er,tobiweetod into the tube. By mean, of leiises disposed 

 for the P urpoe, theae rays ire made to converge on the < 

 and from theW after refraction through the syrtn of object,glaa>a, 

 Served to a scr~n on which they depict the *mfi* image. 



TfrbVth. object to trai-parent, the ray. of eolar hght are affowed 

 to pa. from the mirror directly through the lease, to the screen ; but 

 whenit U opaque, a convex lens placed at the aperture in th.- window- 

 ahutter causesthe lolar ray to condenae on a amall mirror placed in a 

 box at that end of the instrument which is within the room, and I 

 this mirror the ray. are reflected to the object. The condensed light 

 hus thrown on the object diverges from thence and passes through 

 the system of len.es. by refraction in which the magnifying power is 

 produced; thea. lenses being placed in a tube wh.ch, as wefl ss the 

 object, is within the box containing the mirror last mentioned, but a 

 little above the latter, ao that the ray. of ht prding *" ** 



'' 



vnrir. There are four tenses peculiar to the passive signification, 

 namely, the two futures in 0n<ropa4 sod qirojuu, and the two aorista in 

 and TJK (Twj>.*ri<fo^oi, Tirr-faofuu, irvf-trir. VT^T-KK). The future in 

 tiMi (rvT-aofMt, AfYvoMw), which is called in must grammars the 

 uture middle, has a passive signification, as well as a middle. (Monk 

 n Eurip. ' HippoL' L 1458 ; ' Quarterly Journal of Education. 

 v. p. 158.) The following table will make the matter clearer : 



Tana common to At pamn and middle tiynijicationi. 

 Present Tvrropoi. Perfect 



Imperfect i-rvrriiair. Past Perfect { 



Future ntycyuu Future Perfect T 



Tentet peculiar to the middle tignijtcation. 

 1st Aorist trv^iair. 2nd Aorist 



The mirror by wmcn ine sun iigui us ICUCVKTU m~o the instrument 

 is sometimes connected with a clockwork apparatus, by which its posi- 

 tion is continually varied oorrespondently to the apparent change of 

 the sun's place ; and thus the reflected light is made constantly to pass 

 through the tube. [HELIOSTAT.] 



Sir David Brewster has given, in his ' Treatise on New Philosophical 

 Instrument*.' p. 405, tc , a method of preparing objects of natural 

 history for observation by the microscope, that their parts may pre- 

 serve their proper shape and colour, and thus be seen to the greatest 

 advantage. 



In the oxy-hydrogcn microscope which is now more generally used, 

 the chief effect is to throw an intense light upon the object, which is 

 sometimes done by mirrors, and sometimes by lenses. 



In Pig. 26, L represents the cy Under of burning lime, n R the reflector, 



Fig. 26. 



which concentrates the light upon the object o o; the rays from which, 

 pairing through the two plano-convex lenses, are brought to foci upon 

 a screen placed at a great distance, and upon which is formed the mag 

 nified image. 



Pig. 27 shows a combination of lenses to condense the light upon the 



Fig. 27. 



object. In either case the optical arrangements by which the image is 

 formed admit of the same perfection as those which have been 

 described for the compound microscopes. A few achromatic glasses 

 for oxy -hydrogen microscopes have been made, and they will ultimate!; 

 become valuable instruments for illustrating lectures on natura 

 history and physiology. One made by Mr. Ross was exhibited a few 

 years ago at the Society of ArU to illustrate a lecture on the pbysiolog 

 of woods. It should be observed however that both the oxy-hydro 

 gen and solar microscopes require either a spherical screen, or that th 

 object* should be mounted between spherical glasses, in order t< 

 brine the whole into focus at one time. This latter plan was .. 

 on the occasion just mentioned with perfect success. 



MICROSCOPIUM (the Microscope), a constellation nf Lacaille 

 situated above Grus and Indus, at the junction mis am 



Sagittarius. The only star in it worth notice is a, of the 44 magnitude 

 (807) in the catalogue of Piazzi. 



Mini'i.K I.ATITI-IIKS.\II.INI!. [s.uuxo.] 



Mil 'I 'l. l. Vu|i K iii a term employed in Greek grammar to indicate 

 a class of verbs which are called reflective in some other languages. 

 The reflective meaning is supposed to be the original and main significa- 

 tion of the middle voice, but it is difficult in many of the middle verbs 

 in Urvk to trace the reflective notion. Although a separate voice, tha 

 is. a distinct mode of conjugation, has been assigned to verbs with 

 middle afenificatiun, there are only two tenses in the Greek verb whic 

 have a form peculiar to the middle notion, namely, the first and sccon 

 aorisU in ra*4r and <*r ; which in the model verb, are irvfrw an 



TeiiKt peculiar to Ac pattire tigxijitatio*. 

 1st Aorist TU^T)K. 2nd Aorist 



1st Future vvjpMiaoiuu. 2nd Future 



Since then so many tenses in the Greek verb have the same form 

 both for the middle and passive signification, it becomes an interesting 

 object of inquiry, whether we should assign the priority to the passive 

 or middle notion. This question has usually been answered by 

 ^ammarians in favour of the passive ; but the comparison of other 

 anguagea etymologically connected with the Greek, would lead us to 

 a contrary supposition. Very few of the Indo-Germanio languages 

 lave a form peculiar to the passive signification ; even in Sanskrit the 

 lassive verb is not considered by Hindu grammarians as a distinct 

 voice, but is classed among the derivative verbs. There are b< 

 two voices in the Sanskrit verb, answering to the Greek active and 

 middle, which are called respectively paraimaipadum and atmantiM- 



she former answering to the active in Greek, and the 

 laving generally a reflective or medial but never a passive signifies it>n. 

 The tenses of the passive verb are formed by prefixing the syllable ya 

 x> the person endings of the almantjuulum conjugation. These person 

 endings are evidently the same as those of the middle voice in Greek, 

 as the following table of the present tense will show : 



Sanskrit, 



Creek. 



Singular. < kship-a, s6 

 ( kship-a, to 



( kship-a, vahd 

 Dual. I kship-e, the 

 ( kship-ete 



l kslup-a, uiahd 

 Plural. < kship-a, dhfi 

 ( kf<hip-a, ntd 



fUU. 



, . 



-f, ftu (afterwards rvrr-fu = 

 rvrr-f, Tm. 



Tinrr*, o9ov. 

 rwrr-f , aOov. 



TVTT-O, 



TviT-o, rroi. 



That the passive signification should in course of time have taken 

 the place of the middle, will not appear surprising, when it is recol- 

 lected that a reflective verb U actually used in many languages, where 

 a passive is used in others to express the same thing. An instance 

 occurs in such a phrase as let bat te rtndait id, stockings sell themselves 

 here ; and in the same manner in Italian we have such phrases as ri 

 dicuxu nolle cote, many things say themselves, or are said; ri loda f MOBIO 

 modeito, a modest man praises himself, that is, is praised ; mi ti do- 

 maiu/a UNO tcudo, a dollar demands itself of me, that is, is demanded 

 of me. The same idiom occurs both in Spanish and Portuguese. 



It has been the practice to deny to the Latin language the possession 

 of a middle, except in the case of deponent verbs. But in such a 

 phrase as JUtenut Octane, mitcetur. the verb is rather of the middle than 

 the passive character, and this certainly must be allowed when it is 

 said of a soldier imivitur i/aleam, or when a general milita armari jubet ; 

 or as in the line of Virgil (' Georg.,' iii. 219) 



Fueitor In magn* irlra formou jurcnca. 



The above explanation of the middle form or voice is one which has 

 been proposed ; still the matter may require further discussion. The 

 truth is, that the classification of verbs into active and passive, or into 

 artivr, passive and middle, is a very imperfect one, and for the pur- 

 poses of a philosophical exhibition of grammar a new classification is 

 wanting. The expressions " I walk," " I eat," Ac., are in signification 

 allied to the middle voice, though the form of these words does not 

 i-.im the form " I kill," " 1 cut," &c. In order to express the 

 notion of the person " I " being " killed," some modification of the 

 primitive form " kill " must be made, and another modification may 

 be necessary to express the act of " self-killing." Thus in I'n'iicli we 

 have iV tut. U /i tut, and U t'at tut. In the last instance the act of 

 "self-killing" U distinguished from the act of " being killed" by the 

 I It] th- (Jreek language the present tense of the 

 passive form may be used to express either the act of the person being 

 killed, or killing himself. In the first and second aorist tenses a pecu- 

 liar form is used to express the act of self -killing ; but as this peculiar 

 form has the characteristic termination of what is called a passive 

 verb, and not of an active, it might be classed under the passive voice 



