A CENTURY OF METAPHYSICAL SYNTAX 195 



The Subjunctive is necessarily a dependent mood. For since it 

 expresses that which in the nature of things in the given instance is 

 capable of taking place, there must always be something to give 

 the reason why the act can take place. But this can be furnished only 

 in a main sentence. Hence the Subjunctive must always be de- 

 pendent. Where it seems independent, this appearance is due to 

 ellipsis. Thus ?<O/ACV, "let us go," was originally aye u/a UO/ACV, "come, 

 in order that we may go." Tt n-otw stands for cn^uuvov ri TTOUO, "tell 

 me what I shall do," or OVK oI8a ri TTOIW, "I don't know what to 

 do," etc. 



Here we find a mixture of two influences. The one was the old 

 Greek error by which the Subjunctive had been made the mood of 

 dependency. The other was the error with regard to ellipsis, developed 

 especially in the period of Renaissance grammar. The actual inter- 

 pretation would be recognized by everybody to-day as impossible. 

 Yet a great deal of our prevailing syntax of the present time his- 

 torically goes back to precisely this reasoning of Hermann's. 



The uses of the Optative are, in Hermann's treatment, all to be 

 deduced from the idea of the Subjectively Possible, that is, of that 

 which may be thought as possible. Thus the mood used in expressing 

 wish is the Optative, because a wish is the thought of something as 

 possible. 



Hermann's book marked the firm establishment of a new method 

 in syntax, which we may call the metaphysical ; and it made syntax of 

 the Kantian type. 



We have now to trace the modifications of this first scheme. 

 Matthia, in two Greek grammars, 1807 and 1808, appears to have 

 desired to deal with his problems without a metaphysical leaning. 

 Nevertheless he did not escape the influence of Hermann. For the 

 Imperative, he followed the older treatment, and made it the Mood 

 of Command, not of Necessity. For the Optative he accepted Her- 

 mann's theory, with a modification. Hermann had made this the 

 mood of Subjective Possibility, of an act thought as possible. Matthia 

 threw the emphasis on the side of thought rather than on the side of 

 possibility, and accordingly defined the Optative as the Mood of 

 Thought. 



For the Subjunctive also he departed somewhat from Hermann's 

 interpretation. Hermann had made the Subjunctive express Ob- 

 jective Possibility, in contrast with the Optative, the mood of Sub- 

 jective Possibility. Matthia held that both moods expressed the 

 thought of an act as against reality, the difference being that the 

 Subjunctive expressed the act more definitely, as depending on ex- 

 ternal circumstances, while the Optative expressed it less definitely. 



Matthia also remarks in the book of 1807 that, the terminations 

 of the Subjunctive being primary, and those of the Optative second- 



