220 THEORY of the 



fition, which, though fomewhat different, are very near akin r 

 are among the moft frequent meanings of the fubjunctive mood- 

 This meaning, or mood of. thought, may be refolved, to a cer- 

 tain degree, into an imperative mood (the refolution of which 

 hath already been fhewn) and the primary verb. An ingeni- 

 ous etymologifl* has fhewn, that the Greek particle u, and 

 the Roman Ji, are but contractions of certain parts or in- 

 flections of the fubftantive verbs, hpi andfu?nj which parts 

 of thofe verbs have an imperative meaning, Be it fo. The 

 fame author fhows, that our Englifh particle if is juft a con- 

 traction of the imperative of the verb give, anciently written 

 and pronounced gif. Si vis me fiere. Sit, ejlo, quod vis, or 

 velis me fere. Fac, pone, te velle me fiere. The imperative fac 

 was often ufed by the ancient writers of Latin in this fenfe ; 

 pone feldom by them, but often by modern writers ; rrfei was 

 ufed in the fame fenfe by the Greeks. Indeed, different parts, 

 both of ndtifAi and of pono, were ufed for this purpofe ; the 

 Romans, I prefume, imitating the Greeks. It is worthy of 

 obfervation, that in French, the ufe of the conditional particle 

 fi fuperfedes completely the ufe, either of the fubjunctive or of 

 the conditional mood. Si in French always governs the indica- 

 tive mood. Si je peux, fi je pouvois, fi je pourrai; never Si je- 

 puiffe, fi je ptffe, in the fubjunclive, nor even ft je pourro'u in the 

 conditional mood. 



As to the circumftance of being fubjoined to a preceding 

 member of a fentence, and commonly to a verb in the indica- 

 tive mood, from which the fubjunctive has got its name, the 

 difference of meaning between the fubjunctive £o employed, 

 and that of the indicative in fome cafes, and between it and 

 the bare infinitive in others, is fo minute, that it is difficult to 

 afcertain it, and perhaps impoffible to exprefs it in words. Ac- 

 cordingly, we often find, that in tranllating from one lan- 

 guage into another, thofe three grammatical moods may and 



perhaps 

 * Mr Horne Tooke. 



