Various disputes have arisen respecting the existence and the use of this mood; nor is there, perhaps, any other point in grammar, on which respectable authorities are so much divided.
That there is not in English, as in Latin, a potential mood properly so called, appears to me unquestionable. Amarem signifies ability or liberty[67], involving the verbs possum and licet, and may therefore be termed a potential mood; but in English these accessary circumstances are denoted by the preterites of the verbs may and can; as, I might or could love.
That there is no subjunctive mood, we have, I conceive, equal authority to assert. If I say in Latin, cum cepisset, “when he had taken,” the verb is strictly in the subjunctive mood; for, were not the verb subjoined to cum, it must have taken the indicative form; but I hesitate not to assert, that no example can be produced in English, where the indicative form is altered merely because the verb is preceded by some conjunctive particle. If we say, “though he were rich, he would not despise the poor,” was is not here turned into were because subjoined to though; for though is joined to the indicative mood, when the sentiment requires it; the verb therefore is not in the subjunctive mood.
In respect to what has been denominated the conditional form of the verb, I observe, that the existence of this form appears to me highly questionable. My reasons are these:
1st. Several of our grammarians have not mentioned it; among these are the celebrated Dr. Wallis, and the author of the British Grammar.
2dly. Those, who admit it, are not agreed concerning its extent. Lowth and Johnson confine it to the present tense, while Priestley extends it to the preterite.
3dly. The example which Priestley adduces of the conditional preterite, if thou drew, with a few others which might be mentioned, are acknowledged by himself to be so stiff and so harsh, that I am inclined to regard them rather as anomalies, than as constituting an authority for a general rule.
4thly. If then this form be, agreeably to the opinions of Lowth and Johnson, confined to the present tense, I must say that I have not been able to find a single example, in which the present conditional, as it is termed, is anything but an ellipsis of the auxiliary verb.
5thly. Those who admit this mood make it nothing but the plural number of the correspondent indicative tense without variation; as I love, thou love, he love, &c. Now as this is, in fact, the radical form of the verb, or what may be deemed the infinitive, as following an auxiliary, it forms a presumption that it is truly an infinitive mood, the auxiliary being suppressed.
The opinion here given will, I think, be confirmed by the following examples.