MOODS of VERBS, i\\ 



which tenfes are uniformly underftood by all mankind. While 

 the prefent, the imperfect, the aorift, the perfect, the plufquam- 

 perfect, and the future, are really different tenfes, or expreflions 

 of different notions of the relation of the general import of the 

 verb to time ; which expreflions and notions are by no means 

 convertible, and certainly may be underftood by all mankind, 

 though they are not found diftinguiflied in all languages. In 

 fhort, we mud draw no inference with refpect to the nature, 

 the number, the affinities, or the arrangements of the moods 

 of verbs, from the inflections or other variations employed in 

 language, without taking into confideration alfo the relation 

 which thofe inflections bear to human thought. 



I have further to add to thefe remarks on the import of the 

 moods of verbs, that fuch is the affinity or mutual relation 

 among them, that they may often, by circumlocution, and the 

 introduction of an additional verb, and fometimes without any 

 fuch addition to the principal verb, and merely by a kind of 

 metaphor, be interchanged, or fubflituted one for another, 

 without materially affecting the fenfe of the paflages wherein 

 they occur, and fometimes with the manifefl effect of giving a 

 more full and particular expofition of the meaning of fuch paf- 

 fages. This I mention, not for the fake of any advantage that 

 can in general be obtained by fuch interchange, or fubftitution, 

 but that I may point out that it is not properly a refolution or 

 decompofition of the meaning of the feveral moods, as fome 

 philologifts have fuppofed, and have thought an important dis- 

 covery in grammar, but a mere circumlocution, and a kind of 

 paraphrafe of the fhorter and more common expreflion, and 

 fometimes a mere metaphor, inftead of a literal expreflion of 

 thought. That it can be no refolution of a more complicated 

 into feveral Ampler meanings, appears plainly from this confi- 

 deration, that it is mutual among the moods ; the fuppofed 

 Ampler being as eafily refolvable into the fuppofed complicated, 

 as thefe are into them. But of this afterwards. In general, 



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