A CENTURY OF METAPHYSICAL SYNTAX 197 



spun as a thread of a metaphysical web. It is wholly indefensible. 

 It is, of course, true that there are relative and temporal clauses 

 which are in effect conditions; but the great mass of these clauses, as 

 of the others referred to, are not conditions. They are mere, and 

 wholly simple, determinative clauses (to employ a term from my 

 Cum-Constructions and my Anticipatory Subjunctive in Greek and 

 Latin). They simply answer the question, "What man, what time, 

 what thing, etc., do you mean?" Thus in the sentence "happy he 

 at heart above all others who shall lead you home in marriage," 



/ccTvos 8'av -jrepl tajpi fio.Ka.pra.ro<: <[o\ov aAA.wv 05 KC <r' oi/cdvS' dyay^rai, Od. 



6, 159, the relative clause simply makes known to Nausicaa 

 who it is that the speaker pronounces happy. It is no more con- 

 ditional than the preterite Indicative in the corresponding "thrice 

 and four times happy the Danaans who perished then in broad Troy- 

 land," i-picr/m/capes Aavaoi KCU TcrpaKis, ot TOT' oXovTO Tpoo? ev evpet?;, said 

 by the same speaker in Od. 5, 306. Again in 11. 2, 33, " but keep this 

 in thy mind, nor let forgetfulness lay hold of thee when sweet sleep 

 shall leave thee," evr' av ere fj.f\i<f>p<av VTTVOS avT/r/, it is nothing short 

 of grotesque to explain the last clause as conditional. It is merely 

 a time-fixing clause, an anticipatory determinative clause, the 

 thing determined being here a time. 



Four years after the appearance of Dissen's dissertation, in 1812, 

 Thiersch published two Greek grammars. His mood-system is a 

 composite of those of his immediate predecessors. For the Optative, 

 he accepted Matthia's view. This mood expresses an act as merely 

 thought ("als bios gedacht"), as an idea (" Vorstellung"). A wish 

 is expressed by the Optative because it conveys a mere thought. A 

 clause of repeated action in the past takes the Optative, because 

 the putting together of many acts into one group is not an affair 

 of the things in themselves (which, as such, would be expressed by 

 the Indicative), but an act of the mind, and so a " Vorstellung," etc., 

 etc. 



For the Subjunctive, Thiersch adopts the view of Dissen, com- 

 bining all the phrases used about it in Dissen 's dissertation. The 

 Subjunctive is the mood of the dependent, the conditioned, the un- 

 certain. Whatever involves Dependency, Conditionality, or Uncer- 

 tainty must accordingly go into the Subjunctive. Thus in fw/iev 

 "let us go," the Subjunctive is used because there is no real going. 

 The going depends upon the will of the person addressed, is con- 

 ditioned by that will. Hence it must be expressed by the Subjunctive. 

 Similarly, the Subjunctive has to be used in clauses of purpose, 

 because a purpose presupposes a main act, and is dependent upon it. 



In spite of the wildness of these fancies, Thiersch reached several 

 helpful conceptions. Thus he recognized the rise of the relative 

 pronoun out of the demonstrative in Greek, and so established, 



