98 



THE POPULAR EDUCATOB. 



retina as to bo conscious of only one, as we are though we have 

 two eyes, must remain a secret. 



The simple eyes of insects seem to be used for distant objects, 

 for if these be painted over with red sealing-wax dissolved in 

 strong spirit, so as to blind them, the insect has no power of 

 directing: its flight, but towers straight upward towards the sky. 

 The curious compound eyes must be used, therefore, for near 

 objects, and as they stretch round the head and look every way, 

 they must save the insect much trouble in turning the head as it 

 runs in and out the bells and tubes of flowers searching for 

 honey and pollen. 



Lobsters and crabs, belonging to another order of the jointed 

 animals, have similar eyes, but they are set on a two-jointed 

 stem, and the facets are square, and not six-sided. 



This kind of eye, however, is by no means found in all animals 

 of this sub-kingdom. The whole tribe of spiders has only 

 simple eyes ; but there are usually eight of them set in two 

 rows on the front part of the head. 



It is singular to find also that caterpillars, though they 

 exhibit beneath the skin of the head indications of the com- 

 pound eye, which as butterflies they afterwards possess, have 

 totally different temporary eyes, six on each side placed in a 

 half-circle just above the jaws. 



Some of the lower families of jointed animals have but one 

 eye, in the middle of their heads, and this of peculiar structure, 

 intermediate between a simple and a compound eye. One of 

 these is hence called cyclops. 



Among the animals of lower grade than those of the soft slug- 

 like and the jointed sub-kingdom, little has been made out about 

 the organ of vision. In many of them specks of colour with a 

 nerve running to them are found ; but as wo cannot ask these 

 animals what their sensations are, and their intelligence is of so 

 low an order that we can infer but little from their movements, 

 we can only conjecture them to be eyes. 



Thus, the star-fish has specks at the ends of its rays, and the 

 reader may have noticed the beautiful blue knobs which appear 

 round the outside of the base of the arms of the common sea 

 anemone when it has fully opened. The great floating jelly-fish, 

 which, as it is seen from a ship, reminds one of an animated 

 umbrella, has specks round the edge, where the whalebone 

 knobs should be. All these and a thousand other structures 

 seem to be made in. reference to light ; but probably the impres- 

 sions they receive are as faint and dull compared to the vivid 

 pictures presented to the sense of the higher animals, as the 

 information which light brings to the infant, whose eye is not yet 

 sufficiently educated to guide its wandering hands, is crude when 

 compared with the ideas which are presented to the mind of a 

 man by means of wondrous light, its marvellous recipient 

 the eye, and its yet more marvellous interpreter the mind. 



LESSONS IN LATIN. IV. 



NOUNS, SUBSTANTIVE AND ADJECTIVE. 

 OUR English nouns remain unchanged, whether they form the 

 subject or the object of a proposition. 



Header, do you know the exact meaning of these terms, 

 namely, "the subject or the object of a proposition?" I will 

 endeavour to explain them. You probably know what in 

 English grammar is meant by the nominative case, and the 

 objective case. Well, the subject of a proposition or statement 

 corresponds to the English nominative case, and the object of 

 a proposition corresponds to the English objective case. What 

 in English grammar you call the objective case, is in Latin 

 grammar called the accusative case. 



View the matter in another way. Here is a proposition 



The dog bit a man. 



In this proposition or sentence, dog is the subject, and man is 

 the object. If you will study the proposition you will see that 

 dog is the doer or actor, and man is that which is acted upon. 

 Hence you may form the general rule, that the subject is the 

 doer, the actor, or agent, and the object is the being or thing 

 'which is acted upon. You may put the same rule in these 

 words : the subject originates the action spoken of in the verb ; 

 the object receives the action spoken of in the verb. Or, again, 

 you may say, the subject is that from which the action comes ; 

 the object is that on which the action falls. The act of biting 

 caino from tho dog, and fell upon the man. 



As I wish to make everything clear as we proceed, I -wail 

 enter here a little more into this matter. 



A proposition is the enunciation or statement of a thought or 

 a fact. Thus, fire burns ; you are good ; boys love play, are 

 each a proposition. Of course the statement must be complete, 

 or there is no proposition. What you say must make sense in 

 itself, or there is no proposition, but only .one word or more. 

 Thus, if, instead of saying fire burns, you say merely fire, or burns, 

 you do not utter a proposition, for you do not make a statement. 

 If yeu affirm you are, I naturally ask, what ? for you have left 

 the sentence unfinished. So if you declare that boys love, tho 

 question arises, what ? and only when you have added the 

 word play, do you finish the sentence by maiding the sense 

 complete. 



Now, of the three propositions given above, the first is thr 

 shortest. It is indeed a specimen of the simplest proposition 

 there is, or can be. Less than two words, then, cannot in 

 English form a proposition. But of what does this proposition 

 consist ? It consists of the noun fire, and the verb bums. 

 Hence you learn that in every sentence there must be at least 

 a noun or pronoun, and a verb. The noun, you see, is the 

 subject of the proposition, for it is the agent or the cause of 

 action. In grammar, we have also a designation for the verb ; 

 we say the verb burns is the predicate. By the predicate of a 

 proposition, we mean that which is asserted or declared of the 

 subject. What is here asserted ? this, namely, that fire bums ; 

 bums, then, is the predicate. 



In this case, the predicate is one word, a verb. Sometimes 

 tho predicate consists of two words. It may even comprise 

 several words. In the instance given above, you are good, the 

 predicate is, are good. Hence, the predicate consists of the verb 

 are, and the adjective good. The former predicate, bums, was a 

 simple predicate ; this predicate is a compound predicate. Now, 

 this compound predicate has two parts; first, the verb are, 

 which is called the copula, or link ; and the adjective good, 

 which is called the attribute, or that quality which is ascribed 

 to the subject you. Thus explained, the sentence stands as 

 follows : 



Subject. 



You 



Predicate. 



Copula. 

 are 



Attribute. 

 good. 



Yon will easily see how this sentence may receive additions 

 to modify the sense. It is, as it stands, an affirmative sentence. 

 By adding not to are, you make it a negative sentence. You 

 may also qualify the attribute good by prefixing an adverb, as, 

 very good. If you wish to make it interrogative, you have only 

 to invert the copula and the subject, and say, are you good ? 



In the third of the instances given above, there is a rather 

 different kind of sentence, boys love play. 



Now, according to what I have just said, boys is the subject, 

 love the copula, or verb, and play the object. The difference 

 here is, that instead of an attribute in the predicate, you have 

 an object. The proposition, viewed legically, stands thus : 



Subject. 



Boys 



Predicate. 



Copula, 

 love 



Object. 

 play. 



Observe, too, here, how, having got the main parts, the essential 

 parts of a sentence or proposition, you may at will add others. 

 Thus, for boys, you may say the boys ; or bad boys ; or the bad 

 boys. The verb, too, you may qualify by an adverb, thus, 

 always love. Or you may qualify play, by putting an adjective 

 before it, as much play. But whatever words you thus insert, 

 the essential parts of the sentence remain the same, as you may 

 see in this arrangement : 



Subject. Predicate. 



The bad boys 



Copula, 

 always love 



Object. 

 much play. 



The bad boys. Which lad boys? Something is implied or 

 understood, that is, there is something in the speaker's mind 

 which is not expressed in his words. Say that he means tJie 

 bad boys wliom I mentioned, then, you see, the sense is complete, 

 thus : 



Tho bad boys whom I mentioned always love much play. 



