322 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. 
l 
y 
CHAPTER IV. 
CHOICE OF VERBAL FORMS. : 
Under this title I have in mind the field of inquiry sug¬ 
gested by the typical question: “Why is such and siuch a verb 
in the subjunctive mode ?” Without however intending to re¬ 
vive the torments of “oratio obliqua” or any other instrument 
of class-room inquisition, I wish to find for questions of this 
sort some answer other than “According to Rule so-and-so.” 
I used, when a school-boy, to be taught that, in dependent 
clauses, the Latin language uses the subjunctive after verbs 
of fearing, or—to speak a little more conveniently—that when 
a dependent verb expresses what is feared, it is put in the sub¬ 
junctive. This statement, as I plan to show a little later (pp. 
242-244), is by no means altogether true. Letting it however 
for the moment pose as true, I note that such a statement has 
no value as an explanation. Masquerading nevertheless as such 
in actual class-room practice, it illustrates a pernicious mental 
tendency, which it is—or ought to be—a principal effort of 
academic training to overcome. 
To clarify the situation by the aid of an objective illustra¬ 
tion, suppose that, starting for his office, Brown falls down the 
steps which lead from the door of his house to the sidewalk; 
and suppose you ask of me, who know him intimately, why he 
fell. If I now answer “His leaving the house is always fol¬ 
lowed by a fall,” it surely needs no argument to show that 
matters are by no means mended. All that I have done is to 
pluralize your observation; for it is not contemplated that one 
'house-leaving differ from another in explanatory value. What- 
