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"Sleep, sleep to-day, tormenting cares."
"And sleep dull cares away."
 

Was your sleep refreshing last night? How did you procure it? Let a person who still adheres to his neuter verbs, that sleep expresses no action, and has no object on which it terminates, put his theory in practice; he may as well sleep with his eyes open, sitting up, as to lie himself upon his bed.

A man lodged in an open chamber, and while he was sleeping (doing nothing) he caught a severe cold (active transitive verb) and had a long run of the fever. Who does not see, not only the bad, but also the false philosophy of such attempted distinctions? How can you make a child discover any difference in the act of sleeping, whether there is an object after it, or not? Is it not the same? And is not the object necessarily implied, whether expressed or not? Can a person sleep, without procuring sleep?

"I stand."

The man stands firm in his integrity. Another stands in a very precarious condition, and being unable to retain his hold, falls down the precipice and is killed. Who is killed? The man, surely. Why did he fall? Because he could not stand. But there is no action in standing, say the books.

"Stand by thyself, come not near me?" "Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free, and be not again entangled in the yoke of bondage." "Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall." If it requires no act to stand, there can be no danger of falling.

"Two pillars stood together; the rest had fallen to the ground. The one on the right was quite perfect in all its parts. The other resembled it very much, except it had lost its capital, and suffered some other injuries." How could the latter column, while performing no action in standing, act transitively, according to our grammars, and do something to resemble the other? or, what did it do to lose its capital, and suffer other injury?

"To lie, or lay."

It has been admitted that the verbs before considered are often used as active verbs, and that there is, in truth, action expressed by them. But when the man has fallen from his seat and lies upon the floor, it is contended that he no longer acts, and that lie expresses no action. He has ceased from physical, muscular action regulated by his will, and is now subject to the common laws which govern matter.

Let us take a strong example. The book lies or lays on the desk. Now you ask, does that book perform any action in laying on the desk? I answer, yes; and I will prove it on the principles of the soundest philosophy, to the satisfaction of every one present. Nor will I deviate from existing grammars to do it, so far as real action is concerned.

The book lies on the desk. The desk supports the book. Will you parse supports? It is, according to every system, an active transitive verb. It has an objective case after it on which the action terminates. But what does the desk do to support the book? It barely resists the action which the book performs in lying on it. The action of the desk and book is reciprocal. But if the book does not act, neither can the desk act, for that only repels the force of the book in pressing upon it in its tendency towards the earth, in obedience to the law of gravitation. And yet our authors have told us that the desk is active in resisting no action of the book! No wonder people are unable to understand grammar. It violates the first principles of natural science, and frames to itself a code of laws, unequal, false, and exceptionable, which bear no affinity to the rest of the world, and will not apply in the expression of ideas.

I was once lecturing on this subject in one of the cities of New-York. Mrs. W., the distinguished teacher of one of the most popular Female Seminaries in our country, attended. At the close of one lecture she remarked that the greatest fault she had discovered in the new system, was the want of a class of words to express neutrality. Children, she said, conceived ideas of things in a quiescent state, and words should be taught them by which to communicate such ideas. I asked her for an example. She gave the rock in the side of the mountain. It had never moved. It could never act. There it had been from the foundation of the earth, and there it would remain unaltered and unchanged till time should be no longer. I remarked, that I would take another small stone and lay it on the great one which could never act, and now we say the great rock upholds, sustains or supports the small one—all active transitive verbs with an object expressed.

She replied, she would give it up, for it had satisfied her of a new principle which must be observed in the exposition of all language, which accords with facts as developed in physical and mental science.

I continued, not only does that rock act in resisting the force of the small one which lays upon it, but, by the attraction of gravitation it is able to maintain its position in the side of the mountain; by cohesion it retains its distinct identity and solidity, and repels all foreign bodies. It is also subject to the laws which govern the earth in its diurnal and annual revolutions, and moves in common with other matter at the astonishing rate of a thousand miles in an hour! Who shall teach children, in these days of light and improvement, the grovelling doctrine of neutrality, this relic of the peripatetic philosophy? Will parents send their children to school to learn falsehood? And can teachers be satisfied to remain in ignorance, following with blind reverence the books they have studied, and refuse to examine new principles, fearing they shall be compelled to acknowledge former errors and study new principles? They should remember it is wiser and more honorable to confess a fault and correct it, than it is to remain permanent in error.

Let us take another example of the verb "to lie." A country pedagogue who has followed his authorities most devotedly, and taught his pupils that lie is a "neuter verb, expressing neither action nor passion, but simply being, or a state of being," goes out, during the intermission, into a grove near by, to exercise himself. In attempting to roll a log up the hill, he makes a mis-step, and falls (intransitive verb, nothing falls!) to the ground, and the log rolls (nothing) on to him, and lies across his legs. In this condition he is observed by his scholars to whom he cries (nothing) for help. "Do (nothing) come (intransitive) and help me." They obey him and remain neuter, or at least act intransitively, and produce no effects. He cries again for help and his cries are regarded. They present themselves before him. "Do roll this log off; it will break my legs." "Oh no, master; how can that be? The log lies on you, does it not?" "Yes, and it will press me to death." "No, no; that can never be. The log can not act. Lies is a neuter verb, signifying neither action nor passion, but simply being or a state of being. You have a state of being, and the log has a state of being. It can not harm you. You must have forgotten the practical application of the truths you have been teaching us." It would be difficult to explain neuter verbs in such a predicament.

"Now I lay me down to sleep."

"She died and they laid her beside her lover under the spreading branches of the willow."

"They laid it away so secure that they could never find it."

They laid down to rest themselves after the fatigue of a whole day's journey.

We have now considered the model verbs of the neuter kind, with the exception of the verb to be, which is left for a distinct consideration, being the most active of all verbs. It is unnecessary to spend much time on this point. The errors I have examined have all been discovered by teachers of language, long ago, but few have ventured to correct them. An alleviation of the difficulty has been sought in the adoption of the intransitive verb, which "expresses an action that is confined to the actor or agent."

The remarks which have been given in the present lecture will serve as a hint to the course we shall adopt in treating of them, but the more particular examination of their character and uses, together with some general observation on the agents and objects of verbs, will be deferred to our next lecture.

LECTURE IX.
ON VERBS

Neuter and intransitive. – Agents. – Objects. – No actions as such can be known distinct from the agent. – Imaginary actions. – Actions known by their effects. – Examples. – Signs should guide to things signified. – Principles of action. – Power. – Animals. – Vegetables. – Minerals. – All things act. – Magnetic needle. – Cause. – Explained. – First Cause. – Means. – Illustrated. – Sir I. Newton's example. – These principles must be known. – Relative action. – Anecdote of Gallileo.

We resume the consideration of verbs. We closed our last lecture with the examination of neuter verbs, as they have been called. It appears to us that evidence strong enough to convince the most skeptical was adduced to prove that sit, sleep, stand and lie, stand in the same relation to language as other verbs, that they do not, in any case, express neutrality, but frequently admit an objective word after them. These are regarded as the most neutral of all the verbs except to be, which, by the way, expresses the highest degree of action, as we shall see when we come to inquire into its meaning.

Grammarians have long ago discovered the falsity of the books in the use of a large portion of verbs which have been called neuter. To obviate the difficulty, some of them have adopted the distinction of Intransitive verbs, which express action, but terminate on no object; others still use the term neuter, but teach their scholars that when the object is expressed, it is active. This distinction has only tended to perplex learners, while it afforded only a temporary expedient to teachers, by which to dodge the question at issue. So far as the action is concerned, which it is the business of the verb to express, what is the difference whether "I run, or run myself?" "A man started in haste. He ran so fast that he ran himself to death." I strike Thomas, Thomas strikes David, Thomas strikes himself. Where is the difference in the action? What matters it whether the action passes over to another object, or is confined within itself?

"But," says the objector, "you mistake. An intransitive verb is one where the 'effect is confined within the subject, and does not pass over to any object.'"

Very well, I think I understand the objection. When Thomas strikes David the effects of the blow passes over to him. And when he strikes himself, it "is confined within the subject," and hence the latter is an intransitive verb.

"No, no; there is an object on which the action terminates, in that case, and so we must call it a transitive verb."

Will you give me an example of an intransitive verb?

"I run, he walks, birds fly, it rains, the fire burns. No objects are expressed after these words, so the action is confined within themselves."

I now get your meaning. When the object is expressed the verb is transitive, when it is not it is intransitive. This distinction is generally observed in teaching, however widely it may differ from the intention of the makers of grammars. And hence children acquire the habit of limiting their inquiries to what they see placed before them by others, and do not think for themselves. When the verb has an objective word after it expressed, they are taught to attach action to it; but tho the action may be even greater, if the object is not expressed, they consider the action as widely different in its character, and adopt the false philosophy that a cause can exist without an effect resulting from it.

We assume this ground, and we shall labor to maintain it, that every verb necessarily presupposes an agent or actor, an action, and an object acted upon, or affected by the action.

No action, as such, can be known to exist separate from the thing that acts. We can conceive no idea of action, only by keeping our minds fixed on the acting substance, marking its changes, movements, and tendencies. "The book moves." In this case the eye rests on the book, and observes its positions and attitudes, alternating one way and the other. You can separate no action from the book, nor conceive any idea of it, as a separate entity. Let the book be taken away. Where now is the action? What can you think or say of it? There is the same space just now occupied by the book, but no action is perceivable.

The boy rolls his marble upon the floor. All his ideas of the action performed by it are derived from an observation of the marble. His eye follows it as it moves along the floor. He sees it in that acting condition. When he speaks of the action as a whole, he thinks where it started and where it stopped. It is of no importance, so far as the verb is concerned, whether the marble received an impulse from his hand, or whether the floor was sufficiently inclined to allow it to roll by its own inherent tendency. The action is, in this case, the obvious change of the marble.

Our whole knowledge of action depends on an observance of things in a state of motion, or change, or exerting a tendency to change, or to counteract an opposing substance.

This will be admitted so far as material things are concerned. The same principle holds good in reference to every thing of which we form ideas, or concerning which we use language. In our definition of nouns we spoke of immaterial and imaginary things to which we gave names and which we consider as agencies capable of exerting an influence in the production of effects, or in resisting actions. It is therefore unimportant whether the action be real or imaginary. It is still inseparably connected with the thing that acts; and we employ it thus in the construction of language to express our thoughts. Thus, lions roar; birds sing; minds reflect; fairies dance; knowledge increases; fancies err; imagination wanders.

This fact should be borne in mind in all our attempts to understand or explain language. The mind should remain fixed to the acting substance, to observe its changes and relations at different periods, and in different circumstances. There is no other process by which any knowledge can be gained of actions. The mind contemplates the acting thing in a condition of change and determines the precise action by the altered condition of the thing, and thus learns to judge of actions by their effects. The only method by which we can know whether a vegetable grows or not is by comparing its form to-day with what it was some days ago. We can not decide on the improvement of our children only by observing the same rule.

"By their fruits ye shall know them," will apply in physics as well as in morals; for we judge of causes only by their effects. First principles can never be known. We observe things as they are, and remember how they have been; and from hence deduce our conclusions in reference to the cause of things we do not fully understand, or those consequences which will follow a condition of things as now existing. It is the business of philosophy to mark these effects, and trace them back to the causes which produced them, by observing all the intermediate changes, forms, attitudes, and conditions, in which such things have, at different times, been placed.

We say, "trees grow." But suppose no change had ever been observed in trees, that they had always been as they now are; in stature as lofty, in foliage as green and beautiful, in location unaltered. Who would then say, "trees grow?"

In this single expression a whole train of facts are taken into the account, tho not particularly marked. As a single expression we imply that trees increase their stature. But this we all know could never be effected without the influence of other causes. The soil where it stands must contain properties suited to the growth of the tree. A due portion of moisture and heat are also requisite. These facts all exist, and are indispensable to make good the expression that the "tree grows." We might also trace the capabilities of the tree itself, its roots, bark, veins or pores, fibres or grains, its succulent and absorbent powers. But, as in the case of the "man that killed the deer," noticed in a former lecture, the mind here conceives a single idea of a complete whole, which is signified by the single expression, "trees grow."

Let the following example serve in further illustration of this point. Take two bricks, the one heated to a high temperature, the other cold. Put them together, and in a short time you will find them of equal temperature. One has grown warm, the other cool. One has imparted heat and received cold, the other has received heat and imparted cold. Yet all this would remain forever unknown, but for the effects which must appear obvious to all. From these effects the causes are to be learned.

It must, I think, appear plain to all who are willing to see, that action, as such, can never exist distinct from the thing that acts; that all our notions of action are derived from an observance of things in an acting condition; and hence that no words can be framed to express our ideas of action on any other principle.

I hope you will bear these principles in mind. They are vastly important in the construction of language, as will appear when we come to speak of the agents and objects of action. We still adhere to the fact, that no rules of language can be successfully employed, which deviate from the permanent laws which operate in the regulation of matter and mind; a fact which can not be too deeply impressed on your minds.

In the consideration of actions as expressed by verbs, we must observe that power, cause, means, agency, and effects, are indispensable to their existence. Such principles exist in fact, and must be observed in obtaining a complete knowledge of language; for words, we have already seen, are the expression of ideas, and ideas are the impression of things.

In our attempts at improvement, we should strip away the covering, and come at the reality. Words should be measurably forgotten, while we search diligently for the things expressed by them. Signs should always conduct to the things signified. The weary traveller, hungry and faint, would hardly satisfy himself with an examination of the sign before the inn, marking its form, the picture upon it, the nice shades of coloring in the painting. He would go in, and search for the thing signified.

It has been the fault in teaching language, that learners have been limited to the mere forms of words, while the important duty of teaching them to look at the thing signified, has been entirely disregarded. Hence they have only obtained book knowledge. They know what the grammars say; but how to apply what they say, or what is in reality meant by it, they have yet to learn. This explains the reason why almost every man who has studied grammar will tell you that "he used to understand it, but it has all gone from him, for he has not looked into a book these many years." Has he lost a knowledge of language? Oh, no, he learned that before he saw a grammar, and will preserve it to the day of his death. What good did his two or three years study of grammar do him? None at all; he has forgotten all that he ever knew of it, and that is not much, for he only learned what some author said, and a few arbitrary rules and technical expressions which he could never understand nor apply in practice, except in special cases. But I wander. I throw in this remark to show you the necessity of bringing your minds to a close observance of things as they do in truth exist; and from them you can draw the principles of speech, and be able to use language correctly. For we still insist on our former opinion, that all language depends on the permanent laws of nature, as exerted in the regulation of matter and mind.

To return. I have said that all action denotes power, cause, means, agency, and effects.

Power depends on physical energy, or mental skill. I have hinted at this fact before. Things act according to the power or energy they possess. Animals walk, birds fly, fishes swim, minerals sink, poisons kill. Or, according to the adopted theories of naturalists:

Minerals grow.

Vegetables grow and live.

Animals grow, and live, and feel.

Every thing acts according to the ability it possesses. Man, possessed of reason, devises means and produces ends. Beasts change locations, devour vegetables, and sometimes other beasts. The lowest grade of animals never change location, but yet eat and live. Vegetables live and grow, but do not change location. They have the power to reproduce their species, and some of them to kill off surrounding objects. "The carraguata of the West Indies, clings round," says Goldsmith, "whatever tree it happens to approach; there it quickly gains the ascendant, and, loading the tree with a verdure not its own, keeps away that nourishment designed to feed the trunk, and at last entirely destroys its supporter." In our country, many gardens and fields present convincing proof of the ability of weeds to kill out the vegetables designed to grow therein. You all have heard of the Upas, which has a power sufficient to destroy the lives of animals and vegetables for a large distance around. Its very exhalations are death to whatever approaches it. It serves in metaphor to illustrate the noxious effects of all vice, of slander and deceit, the effects of which are to the moral constitution, what the tree itself is to natural objects, blight and mildew upon whatever comes within its reach.

Minerals are possessed of power no less astonishing, which may be observed whenever an opportunity is offered to call it forth. Active poisons, able to slay the most powerful men and beasts, lie hid within their bosoms. They have strong attractive and repelling powers. From the iron is made the strong cable which holds the vessel fast in her moorings, enabling it to outride the collected force of the winds and waves which threaten its destruction. From it also are manufactured the manacles which bind the strong man, or fasten the lion in his cage. Gold possesses a power which charms nearly all men to sacrifice their ease, and too many their moral principles, to pay their blind devotions at its shrine.

Who will contend that the power of action is confined to the animal creation alone, and that inanimate matter can not act? That there is a superior power possessed by man, endowed with an immaterial spirit in a corporeal body, none will deny. By the agency of the mind he can accomplish wonders, which mere physical power without the aid of such mental skill, could never perform. But with all his boasted superiority, he is often made the slave of inanimate things. His lofty powers of body and soul bend beneath the weight of accumulated sorrows, produced by the secret operations of contagious disease, which slays his wife, children, and friends, who fall like the ripened harvest before the gatherers scythe. Nay, he often submits to the controlling power of the vine, alcohol, or tobacco, which gain a secret influence over his nobler powers, and fix on him the stamp of disgrace, and throw around him fetters from which he finds it no easy matter to extricate himself. By the illusions of error and vice he is often betrayed, and long endures darkness and suffering, till he regains his native energies, and finds deliverance in the enjoyment of truth and virtue.

What is that secret power which lies concealed beyond the reach of human ken, and is transported from land to land unknown, till exposed in conditions suited to its operation, will show its active and resistless force in the destruction of life, and the devastation of whole cities or nations? You may call it plague, or cholera, or small pox, miasma, contagion, particles of matter floating in the air surcharged with disease, or any thing else. It matters not what you call it. It is sufficient to our present purpose to know that it has the ability to put forth a prodigious power in the production of consequences, which the highest skill of man is yet unable to prevent.

I might pursue this point to an indefinite length, and trace the secret powers possessed by all created things, as exhibited in the influence they exert in various ways, both as regards themselves and surrounding objects. But you will at once perceive my object, and the truth of the positions I assume. A common power pervades all creation, operating by pure and perfect laws, regulated by the Great First Cause, the Moving Principle, which guides, governs, and controls the whole.¹¹

Degrading indeed must be those sentiments which limit all action to the animal frame as an organized body, moved by a living principle. Ours is a sublimer duty; to trace the operations of the Divine Wisdom which acts thro out all creation, in the minutest particle of dust which keeps its position secure, till moved by some superior power; or in the needle which points with unerring skill to its fixed point, and guides the vessel, freighted with a hundred lives, safe thro the midnight storm, to its destined haven; tho rocked by the waves and driven by the winds, it remains uninfluenced, and tremblingly alive to the important duties entrusted to its charge, continues its faithful service, and is watched with the most implicit confidence by all on board, as the only guide to safety. The same Wisdom is displayed thro out all creation; in the beauty, order, and harmony of the universe; in the planets which float in the azure vault of heaven; in the glow worm that glitters in the dust; in the fish which cuts the liquid element; in the pearl which sparkles in the bottom of the ocean; in every thing that lives, moves, or has a being; but more distinctly in man, created in the moral image of his Maker, possessed of a heart to feel, and a mind to understand—the third in the rank of intelligent beings.

I cannot refuse to favor you with a quotation from that inimitable poem, Pope's Essay on Man. It is rife with sentiment of the purest and most exalted character. It is direct to our purpose. You may have heard it a thousand times; but I am confident you will be pleased to hear it again.

 
Ask for what end the heavenly bodies shine,
Earth for whose use? Pride answers, "'Tis for mine:
"For me kind nature wakes her genial pow'r,
"Suckles each herb, and spreads out every flow'r;
"Annual for me, the grape, the rose renew
"The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew;
"For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings;
"For me health gushes from a thousand springs;
"Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise;
"My footstool earth, my canopy the skies."
 
 
But errs not nature from this gracious end,
From burning suns when livid deaths descend,
When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep
Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep?
"No," ('tis replied,) "the first Almighty Cause
Acts not by partial, but by general laws;
Th' exceptions few; some change since all began:
And what created perfect?" Why then man?
If the great end be human happiness,
Then nature deviates—and can man do less?
As much that end a constant course requires
Of show'rs and sunshine, as of man's desires;
As much eternal springs and cloudless skies,
As man forever temp'rate, calm, and wise.
If plagues or earthquakes break not heaven's design.
Why then a Borgia, or a Cataline?
Who knows but He whose hand the lightning forms,
Who heaves old ocean, and who wings the storms;
Pours fierce ambition in a Cæsar's mind;
Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind?
From pride, from pride our very reas'ning springs;
Account for moral as for nat'ral things:
Why charge we heaven in those, in these acquit?
In both, to reason right, is to submit.
 
 
Better for us, perhaps, it might appear,
Were there all harmony, all virtue here;
That never air or ocean felt the wind;
That never passion discomposed the mind.
But all subsists by elemental strife;
And passions are the elements of life.
The general order, since the whole began,
Is kept in nature, and is kept in man.
 
 
Look round our world, behold the chain of love.
Combining all below and all above;
See plastic nature working to this end,
The single atoms each to other tend;
Attract, attracted to, the next in place
Formed and impelled its neighbor to embrace,
See matter next, with various life endued,
Press to one center still the gen'ral good.
See dying vegetables life sustain,
See life dissolving, vegetate again;
All forms that perish, other forms supply,
(By turns we catch the vital breath, and die)
Like bubbles on the sea of matter borne,
They rise, they break, and to that sea return,
Nothing is foreign—parts relate to whole;
One all-extending, all-preserving soul
Connects each being greatest with the least;
Made beast in aid of man, and man of beast;
All served, all serving; nothing stands alone;
The chain holds on, and where it ends, unknown.
 

But power alone is not sufficient to produce action. There must be a cause to call it forth, to set in operation and exhibit its latent energies. It will remain hid in its secret chambers till efficient causes have set in operation the means by which its existence is to be discovered in the production of change, effects, or results. There is, it is said, in every created thing a power sufficient to produce its own destruction, as well as to preserve its being. In the human body, for instance, there is a constant tendency to decay, to waste; which a counteracting power resists, and, with proper assistance, keeps alive.

The same may be said of vegetables which are constantly throwing off, or exhaling the waste, offensive, or useless matter, and yet a restoring power, assisted by heat, moisture, and the nourishment of the earth, resists the tendency to decay and preserves it alive and growing. The air, the earth, nay, the ocean itself, philosophers assure us, contain powers sufficient to self-destruction. But I will not enlarge here. Let the necessary cause be exerted which will give vent to this hidden power and actions the most astonishing and destructive would be the effect. These are often witnessed in the tremendous earthquakes which devastate whole cities, states, and empires; in the tornados which pass, like the genius of evil, over the land, levelling whatever is found in its course; or in the waterspouts and maelstroms which prove the grave of all that comes within their grasp.