1883.] G. Hnglies — Are there Tenses in Arabic ? 131 



" If you bad done so and so, I should have done so and so." Neither is 

 wrong ; neither would seem to be right. Each adds of his own a degree 

 of definition wanting in the detached original. 



So tremendous a disparity between the verbal apparatus of Aryan and 

 Semite naturally and necessarily cannot have failed of large external results. 

 The Aryan tense system is rigidly demarcated on its surface. Mr. Cope 

 could not " agree with Mr. Sliilleto, crit. not. on Demosth. de F. L 228, 

 in thinking that the addition of temporal particles such as dpri, iroXXaKLs, 

 ov TTWTroTc, can make any difference whatever in the ' nature ' or sense of the 

 tense : the translation of the Greek aorist by our perfect in such cases is 

 a mere matter of idiom." The Semite has one form for perfect past, pre- 

 sent and future ; another form for imperfect past, present and future. 

 That is all. The most illustrious instances of the disparity emerge when 

 a Semitic thinker expresses himself in an Aryan tongue. Professor Jovvett's 

 dissertation on Modes of Time and Place in Scripture is very instructive 

 upon this point, and I venture to think that the demonstrated lack of 

 tenses in the Semitic verb offers a simple solution of the facts he has 

 observed. I append some extracts. 



" The general result of our enquiry thus far is that the modes of time 

 in the New Testament converge towards the present moment. Not, of course, 

 that there is no past or no future ; but that they met in the TeXr] rcov atcovwv, 

 which are at once the revelation of both." " These mixed modes of time 

 and place are no longer mixed to us, but clear and distinct. "We live in the 

 light of history and of nature, and can never mingle together what is in- 

 ward and what is without us. We cannot but imagine, everywhere, and at 

 all times, heaven to be different from earth, the past from the future and 

 present. No inward conscience can ever efface the limits that separate 

 them. No 'contemplation of things under the form of eternity ' will take 

 us from the realities of life." 



All this may be so, but it will be well to remember that these modes 

 are the essential modes of the Semitic tongues and not peculiar to the New 

 Testament. With the Semites speech meant thought ; thought was at 

 once an act and a fact, and from that act and fact they dated and deduced 

 things in time and space. The Aryan reverses the process, subordinating 

 the manifestation of thought to the assumed externality of the objects of 

 thought. 



The Chairman announced that the next meeting would be held on 

 Wednesday, the 7th November, 1883. 



