Such are the contrivances to make the marks or names of action, by their connotative powers, a more and more effectual instrument of notation. Accurately speaking, they are adjectives, so fashioned as to connote, a threefold distinction of agents, with a twofold distinction of their number, a threefold distinction of the manner of the action, and a threefold distinction of its time; and, along with all this another important particular, about to be explained, namely, the COPULA in PREDICATION.[47]
[47] The imperfection of this theory of Verbs is sufficiently apparent. They are, says the author, a particular kind of Adjectives. Adjectives, according to the preceding Section, are words employed to enable us, without inconvenient multiplication of names, to subdivide great classes into smaller ones. Can it be said, or would it have been said by the author, that the only, or the principal reason for having Verbs, is to enable us to subdivide classes of objects with the greatest economy of names?
Neither is it strictly accurate to say that Verbs are always marks of motion, or of action, even including, as the author does, by an extension of the meaning of those terms, every process which is attended with a feeling of effort. Many verbs, of the kind which grammarians call neuter or intransitive verbs, express rest, or inaction: as sit, lie, and in some cases, stand. It is true however that the verbs first invented, as far as we know anything of them, expressed forms of motion, and the principal function of verbs still is to affirm or deny action. Or, to speak yet more generally, it is by means of verbs that we predicate events. Events, or changes, are the most important facts, to us, in the surrounding world. Verbs are the resource which language affords for predicating events. They are not the names of events; all names of events are substantives, as sunrise, disaster, or infinitives, as to rise, and infinitives are logically substantives. But it is by means of verbs that we assert, or give information of, events; as, The sun rises, or, Disaster has occurred. There is, however, a class of neuter verbs already referred to, which do not predicate events, but states of an unchanging object, as lie, sit, remain, exist. It would be incorrect, therefore, to give a definition of Verbs which should limit them to the expression of events. I am inclined to think that the distinction between nouns and verbs is not logical, but merely grammatical, and that every word, whatever be its meaning, must be reputed a verb, which is so constructed grammatically that it can only be used as the predicate of a proposition. Any meaning whatever is, in strictness, capable of being thrown into this form: but it is only certain meanings, chiefly actions or events, which there is, in general, any motive for putting into this particular shape.—Ed.
156 6. We have, last of all, under this head, to consider the marking power of a very peculiar, and most comprehensive word, the SUBSTANTIVE VERB, as it has been called by grammarians, or the word expressive of BEING. The steps, which we have already traced, in the process of naming, will aid us in obtaining a true conception of this, which is one of the most important steps, in that process.
We have seen that, beside the names of particular species of motions, as walking, running, flying, there was occasion for a general name which might include 157 the whole of those motions. For this purpose, the names Action and Acting were employed. It is now to be remembered, that those sensations which we mark by the names of action, as walking, running, &c., are but part of the sensations which we derive from objects; that we have other sensations, and clusters of sensations, from them, on account of which we apply to them other names; as when we call a man tall, on account of certain sensations; dark, on account of certain other sensations, and so on. Now, as we had occasion for a name to include the separate clusters, called walking, running, flying, rolling, falling, and so on, and for that purpose adopted the name Acting; so, having from objects other sensations than those marked by the word acting, we have occasion for a name which shall include both those sensations, and those comprehended in the word acting along with them: in short, a word that shall embrace all sensations, of whatever kind, which any object is capable of exciting in us. This purpose is effected by the word affirmative of Existence. When we affirm of any thing that it EXISTS, that it IS: what we mean, is, that we may have sensations from it; nothing, without ourselves, being known to us, or capable of being known, but through the medium of our senses.
There is the same occasion for making the Substantive Verb connote the three distinctions of TIME PAST, TIME PRESENT, and TIME FUTURE, as in the case of other verbs; also to connote the distinctions of PERSONS and NUMBERS; and, lastly, to connote the THREE MODES, that in which there is no reference to any thing preceding, that in which there is a reference to something preceding, and that in which reference 158 is made to the will of one of the PERSONS. Accordingly the Substantive Verb has TENSES, MOODS, NUMBERS, and PERSONS, like any other verb.
Such is the nature and object of the Substantive Verb. It is the most GENERICAL of all the words, which we have characterized, as marks upon marks. These are the words usually called ATTRIBUTIVES. According to the view which we have given of them, they may be more appropriately denominated, SECONDARY MARKS. The names of the larger classes, as tree, horse, strength, we may call PRIMARY MARKS. The subsidiary names by which smaller classes are marked out of the larger; as when we say, tall tree, great strength, running horse, walking man; that is, all attributives, or marks applied upon marks; we may call SECONDARY MARKS.