[§ 403]. But it is also stated, that, in the English language, the participle is used as a substantive in a greater degree than elsewhere, and that it is used in several cases and in both numbers, e.g.,
Rising early is healthy,
There is health in rising early.
This is the advantage of rising early.
The risings in the North, &c.
Archbishop Whately has some remarks on this substantival power in his Logic.
Some remarks of Mr. R. Taylor, in the Introduction to his edition of Tooke's Diversions of Purley, modify this view. According to these, the -ing in words like rising is not the -ing of the present participle; neither has it originated in the Anglo-Saxon -end. It is rather the -ing in words like morning, which is anything but a participle of the non-existent verb morn, and which has originated in the Anglo-Saxon substantival termination -ung. Upon this Rask writes as follows:—"Gitsung, gewilnung=desire; swutelung=manifestation; clænsung=a cleansing; sceawung=view, contemplation; eorð beofung=an earthquake; gesomnung=an assembly. This termination is chiefly used in forming substantives from verbs of the first class in -ian; as, hálgung=consecration, from hálgian=to consecrate. These verbs are all feminine."—Anglo-Saxon Grammar, p. 107.
Now, whatever may be the theory of the origin of the termination -ing in old phrases like rising early is healthy, it cannot apply to expressions of recent introduction. Here the direct origin in -ung is out of the question.
The view, then, that remains to be taken of the forms in question is this: