i. Though the conclusion under head i. is actually inevitable, it seems, at first sight, improbable and doubtful; but, in addition to the use of the present tense discussed and exemplified above, there is much in modern English which may help to illustrate and enable us to realise it, while older languages afford much more material for the same purpose. A usage closely akin to that of the present tense for tense absolute occurs when the present is used for the future, and more especially when some other word in the sentence definitely refers the event to the future. Thus, in I am going to London to-morrow, we actually employ that specially English periphrasis which is never used in the absolute sense, but, as a rule, emphatically expresses that the action belongs to the present time.[154] Nay, where circumstances are sufficiently unequivocal to absolutely preclude the meaning of the present tense, the addition of such words as to-morrow, etc., is not even needed. If two friends, for instance, were speaking about some coming holidays, and the one had said, I think I will go to Wales, the other might answer, I don’t care for Wales, I am going to London; or, again, without such explanatory circumstances, or any special words, the present in a subordinate clause can stand for a future event, provided that the main clause grammatically expresses the future; e.g., I will call you when he comes.
We also sometimes use the PRESENT TENSE FOR THE PAST. This we do (a) where the event is equally true of the past as of the present; e.g., I know that = I know it, and knew it some time ago—a case in which the present tense expresses past AND present together: or (b) where the event belongs, indeed, entirely to the past, but the result is represented as actually present. Of (b) these are instances: ‘Master sends me to tell you,’ ‘He tells me that he is going away,’ ‘I hear he is better now.’ This usage approaches closely to a third (c), the so-called Historic present, which, however, we should probably not consider as a present tense expressing the past, but as a simple present, whose use is due to the vivid imagination of the speaker, when it leads him to regard the past as actually present.
We have said that the consciousness of the result of an action sometimes causes the use of a present tense for a past event. The same cause may also lead to an exactly opposite usage, viz., that of a past tense for an event in the present. Thus, as the result of seeing is knowing, it came to pass that a form originally signifying I have seen acquired the meaning I know; the Ger. Ich weisz means ‘I know,’ but is derived from the same root as the Lat. Video, ‘I see.’ Thus, again, the root which we find in Lat. gno-sco (= I begin to learn, I get to know) appears in the English I can, which, exactly as the Lat. novi (for *gnovi, cf. agnovi for ad-gnovi), meant I have got to know (= I know), has developed its present meaning, I am able, from one expressive of something like I have become able, or I have learned. It is thus that arose the so-called ‘præterito-presentia,’ can, must, will, shall, etc., which still betray, one and all, their origin from a former grammatical past tense, by absence of s as a characteristic termination of the third person singular—a termination which we add to the stem in the case of all other present tenses.
Logically, the relation between some tenses of the same verb, as, e.g., the present TENSE cognosco (‘I get to know’) and the perfect TENSE novi (‘I have got to know’), which is used as a present tense to express the result, is identical with that between many sets of verbs. In fact we might translate cognosco by I learn, and novi by I know. Similar sets are to step, to stand; to fall, to lie; etc. But here, again, this distinction need not to be expressed, or, at least, is not always expressed; the same form may serve for both. Not to refer to dead languages or obsolete forms, it is sufficient to quote the well-known schoolboy’s expression, He stood him on the form, for He made him stand on the form. So, also, He stood the candle on the floor (Dickens).[155]
Now, all this confusion of past for present, present for past, effect for cause, cause for effect, present for future, present for every relation, causes in practice, as we have already seen, little or no ambiguity. If we remember this, it becomes easy for us to realize how conversation and intelligible statement may once have been quite possible without further aid than that afforded by what we call the tense absolute, i.e. a form of the verb expressive of the action only, without any indication of its time. A glance at a tense system very different from our own, will enable us to do this even more fully, and at the same time will to some extent illustrate our statement that, in different languages, the actually existing tenses correspond variously with the logical scheme. In Hebrew, the verb has three different forms, called respectively (a) imperative, (b) perfect, (c) imperfect; which terms, however, might be replaced for the occasion by (a) command tense, (b) finished tense, (c) unfinished tense, lest they should mislead readers who have not studied Hebrew. Instead of ‘tense,’ we might as correctly call them ‘moods.’
The context is the sole guide as to whether the event spoken of belongs to past, present, or future. In narrative, the perfect and imperfect serve very much the same purposes as the tenses similarly named in Latin; but the imperfect, as tense or mood of unfinished action, serves also for our present and future, while a future which is to represent something as certainly expected, is supplied by the perfect or finished tense. Again, the imperfect serves for the optative (wish mood), and also sometimes replaces the imperative, since the latter is essentially a mood of action as yet unperformed. In this latter use of the imperfect there is sometimes a slight differentiation of form.
ii. a. The fact that the grammatical tenses correspond very incompletely with the logical distinctions, has already been very fully illustrated by all we have said in this chapter, and it only remains to add a few words on what are termed in our grammars ‘the compound tenses.’ Strictly speaking, these are not tenses at all of the verbs to which they are said to belong: of tenses, i.e. forms derived from the verb itself, and expressive of definite relations of time, there are but two in English—the present, and the past or imperfect. The enumeration of the so-called compound tenses amongst the tenses proper is due to a confusion between logic and grammar, only slightly removed from the fiction which gave us the still lingering potential mood (I can write), or which might with equal correctness have given us an obligatory mood (I must write), a desiderative mood (I like to write), an obstinate mood (I am determined to write), etc., etc. In English we now employ various periphrases for all relations but the present and that indicated by the imperfect; and the line which separates a ‘future tense’ I will write, from a phrase like I have the intention of writing, is a perfectly arbitrary one.
ii. b. Our short and necessarily very incomplete discussion of the Hebrew tenses furnished an instance of what we stated under ii. b, p. 256; and there is no need to further illustrate this, especially as any reader acquainted with a foreign language knows how much care is requisite in translating the various English tenses in their different applications. Any student of, say, French or German will recognise this; while, in the case of those who know English alone, no amount of illustration of the point in question could raise their knowledge above mere acceptance on authority, or belief at second hand.
To illustrate ii. c, we shall only give a few instances of (α) the use in English (Modern English and Anglo-Saxon) of a present tense where we should now employ a future (which latter was then, as now, non-existent as a tense, the only difference being that the present periphrasis had not then yet become customary), and of (β) the use of a simple past tense where we should now employ the plu-perfect:—
α. Æfter ðrím dagon ic áríse = ‘After three days I arise’ (Matt. xxvii. 63); Gá gé on mínne wíngeard, and ic sylle eow ðæt riht bið = ‘Go ye into my vineyard and I give (= shall give) you what right is’ (Matt. xx. 4).