CHAPTER X. 
THE FINAL INFINITIVE. 
A. THE ACTIVE INFINITIVE. 
2. With Active Finite Verb. 
The active infinitive denoting Purpose after active verbs is quite common, 
being found about 983 times. Of these infinitives about 442 are uninflected, 
and 541 are inflected. The total number of final infinitives in prose is about 
849, of which 323 are uninflected, and 526 are inflected; the total number in 
poetry is about 134, of which 119 are uninflected, and 15 are inflected. As a 
rule, therefore, the final infinitive is inflected in prose, and is uninflected in 
poetry. 
To me the final infinitive, both inflected and uninflected, seems dominantly, 
if not exclusively, active in sense as well as in form. Dr. Farrar, 1 however, 
holds that in sentences like the following the inflected infinitive is passive in 
sense: Bede 22.18: Daet . . . cyning to gefullianne com to Rome = 292.9: Ut 
. . . rex . . . baptizandus Romam uenerit; ib. 124.3: his dohtor to gehalgienne 
Criste bam biscope to wedde gesealde = 99.30: filiam suam Christo consecrandam 
. . . episcopo adsignavit; Greg. 277.17: suelce he . . . sua nacodne hine selfne 
eowige to wundigeanne his feondum = 210.2: Totam vero se insidiantis hostis 
vulneribus detegit; JElf. Horn. I. 46.35: hine ... of baere byrig gelceddon to 
stcenenne. Personally I think that in such sentences the infinitive is possibly, 
but not probably, passive in sense; and it may be that this is what Dr. Farrar 
intends to assert. The grounds of my own opinion are these: (1) In most, if 
not all, of such sentences, an active translation is allowable, though a passive 
translation is more common. (2) We find in the original Latin an interchange 
between gerund and gerundive, as in Bede 76.34: bas wiif, ba be heora beam 
. . . obrum to fedenne sellad = 55.13: quae filios suos . . . aliis ad nutriendum 
tradunt; ib. 150.8: ba [= these] eft seo modor sefter bon onsende ... in Gallia 
rice to fedanne Daegbrehte bsem cyninge = 126.4: quos . . . misit in Galliam 
nutriendos regi Daegberecto. (3) We find the final infinitive not infrequently 
translating a Latin active infinitive or subjunctive. (4) The Anglo-Saxon 
had little feeling for a genuine passive infinitive, as I tried to show in the dis¬ 
cussion of the voice of the objective infinitive. This conclusion tallies with 
that of Dr. Shearin, 1 who, l. c., p. 28, writes as follows of the voice of the prepo¬ 
sitional infinitive of purpose: “It is doubtful whether this can ever be with 
certainty called passive, since the infinitive may be felt as a mere verbal noun, 
as in John 17.4: baet weorc baet bu me sealdest to donne, where the Latin quod 
dedisti ut faciam, and the concurrent Lind, and Rush, glosses, &cette ic gedoe r 
show plainly that to donne = not ‘ to be done/ but ‘ for doing.’ ” 
When uninflected, the infinitive is far less frequently of doubtful voice. 
While, again, I believe, that the infinitive is prevailingly, perhaps exclusively, 
1 L. c., pp. 16, 19, 25. 
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