214 THEORT of the 



of tafle and judgment will difpute, that, independently of the 

 verification, there is a beauty and force in Horace's expremon 

 far beyond what there would be in the fimple interrogation, 

 Lydia cur Sybarin properas amando perdere f 



The future of the indicative is employed in fome cafes 

 wherein the imperative mood would exprefs the literal meaning 

 of the fpeaker ; as for inftance, in the Decalogue, the expref- 

 fions, 'Thou Jhalt not kill, Thou flj alt not Jleal, Thou Jha It not com- 

 mit adultery ', have not the proper future meaning, but are the 

 mod abfolute commands, or rather prohibitions, much more 

 forcible, becaufe more folemn, than Kill not, Steal not, &c. 



The preceding obfervations on the nature and import of the 

 moods of verbs, are fo imperfect and fo defultory, that it may 

 appear very rafh to draw any formal inferences from them. I 

 hope, however, they are fo far at leaft intelligible and juft, 

 that the conclufions which I have in view, and which I think 

 might be fairly deduced from a more ample and more metho- 

 dical collection of fimilar obfervations, will neither appear ab- 

 furd nor paradoxical. 



They are chiefly the following. 



I. That the energies, or modifications of thought, exprefTed 

 by the moods of verbs, are fuch as may be exprefTed feparately 

 l}y other verbs, and chiefly by atlive verbs ; or, in the phrafeo- 

 logy of the author of the eflay on the Origin and Progrefs of 

 Language, That the energies of the mind of the fpeaker, denoted 

 by the moods of verbs, are truly accidents, and chiefly actions. 



This perhaps the learned author was not fully aware of, elfe 

 he would not have ufed, in his definition of a verb, a phrafe 

 which may be fairly tranflated, " A verb is a word chiefly fig- 

 " nificant of being and of action, of the action of the mind 

 " of the fpeaker relative to that action," &c. Or, if he had 

 been aware of this, he mult, I think, have been led to examine 



more 



