3IO MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN. 



grammarians have been accustomed to represent this element 

 as forming the basis of all verbal expression, and as a neces- 

 sary ingredient in every logical proposition. It would seem 

 to follow, from this statement, that nations so unfortunate 

 as to be without it, could neither employ verbal expression 

 nor frame a logical proposition. How far this is the case 

 will be seen hereafter : at present we shall make some brief 

 remarks on this verb, and on the substitutes usually employed 

 in dialects where it is formally wanting. It will be sufficient 

 to produce a few prominent instances, as the multiplying of 

 examples from all known languages would be a mere repe- 

 tition of the same general phenomena. 



" In the portion of the essay relating to the Coptic, it was 

 observed : ' What are called the auxiliary and substantive 

 verbs in Coptic are still more remote from all essential verbal 

 character (than the so-called verbal roots). On examination 

 they w^ill almost invariably be found to be articles, pronouns, 

 particles, or abstract nouns, and to derive their supposed 

 verbal functions entirely from their accessories, or from what 

 they imply.' In fact any one who examines a good Coptic 

 grammar or dictionary will find that there is nothing formally 

 corresponding to our am, art, is, was, &c., though there is a 

 counterpart to Lat. fieri {st/wpi) and another to p07ii {chiy 

 neuter passive of che) ; both occasionally rendered to be^ 

 which, however, is not their radical import. The Egyptians 

 were not, however, quite destitute of resources in this matter, 

 but had at least half a dozen methods of rendering the 

 Greek verb-substantive when they wished to do so. The 

 element most commonly employed is the demonstrative pe^ 

 te, ne ; used also in a slightly modified form for the definite 

 article ; pe = is, having reference to a subject in the singular 

 masculine ; te, to a singular feminine ; and ne = are, to both 

 genders in the plural. The past tense is indicated by the 

 addition of a particle expressing remoteness. Here, then, we 

 find as the counterpart of the verb-substantive an element 

 totally foreign to all the received ideas of a verb ; and that 

 instead of its being deemed necessary to say in formal terms 



