“For not to have been dip’d in Lethe’s lake
Could save the Son of Thetis from to die.”
Spenser.
Perhaps therefore the Infinitive and the Participle might be more properly called the Substantive Mode and the Adjective Mode[51].
The Participle with a Preposition before it, and still retaining its Government, answers to what is called in Latin the Gerund: as, “Happiness is to be attained, by avoiding evil, and by doing good; by seeking peace, and by pursuing it.”
The Participle, with an Article before it, and the Preposition of after it, becomes a Substantive, expressing the action itself which the Verb signifies[52]: as, “These are the Rules of Grammar, by the observing of which you may avoid mistakes.” Or it may be expressed by the Participle, or Gerund; “by observing which:” not, “by observing of which;” nor, “by the observing which:” for either of those two Phrases would be a confounding of two distinct forms.
I will add another example, and that of the best authority: “The middle station of life seems to be the most advantageously situated for the gaining of wisdom. Poverty turns our thoughts too much upon the supplying of our wants, and riches upon enjoying our superfluities.” Addison, Spect. Nᵒ 464.
The Participle frequently becomes altogether an Adjective; when it is joined to a Substantive merely to denote its quality; without any respect to time; expressing, not an Action, but a Habit; and as such it admits of the degrees of Comparison: as, “a learned, a more learned, a most learned, man; a loving, more loving, most loving, father.”
Simple Sentences are 1. Explicative, or explaining: 2. Interrogative, or asking: 3. Imperative, or commanding[53].