[50] Προς το θεαθηναι τοις ανθρωποις. Matt. xxiii. 5. The following sentences seem defective either in the construction, or the order of the words: “Why do ye that, which is not lawful to do on the sabbath days?⸺The shew bread, which is not lawful to eat, but for the priests alone.” Luke vi. 2, 4. The Construction may be rectified by supplying it; “which it is not lawful to do; which it is not lawful to eat:” or the order of the words in this manner; “to do which, to eat which, is not lawful:” where the Infinitive to do, to eat, does the office of the Nominative Case, and the Relative which is in the Objective Case.
[51] “I am not like other men, to envy the talents I cannot reach.” Tale of a Tub, Preface. An improper use of the Infinitive.
[52] This Rule arises from the nature and idiom of our Language, and from as plain a principle as any on which it is founded: namely, that a word which has the Article before it, and a Noun, with the Possessive Preposition of, after it, must be a Noun; and if a Noun, it ought to follow the Construction of a Noun, and not have the Regimen of a Verb. It is the Participial Termination of this sort of words that is apt to deceive us, and make us treat them as if they were of an amphibious species, partly Nouns, and partly Verbs. I believe there are hardly any of our Writers, who have not fallen into this inaccuracy. That it is such, will perhaps more clearly appear, if we examine and resolve one or two examples in this kind.
“God, who didst teach the hearts of thy faithful people, by the sending to them the light of thy Holy Spirit:⸺” Collect, Whitsunday. Sending is in this place a Noun; for it is accompanied with the Article: nevertheless it is also a Transitive Verb, for it governs the Noun light in the Objective Case: but this is inconsistent; let it be either the one or the other, and abide by its proper Construction. That these Participial Words are sometimes real Nouns is undeniable; for they have a Plural Number as such: as, “the outgoings of the morning.” The Sending is the same with the Mission; which necessarily requires the Preposition of after it, to mark the relation between it and the light; the mission of the light; and so, the sending of the light. The Phrase would be proper either way, by keeping to the Construction of the Noun, by the sending of the light; or of the Participle, or Gerund, by sending the light.
Again:⸺“Sent to prepare the way of thy Son our Saviour, by preaching of Repentance:⸺” Collect, St. John Baptist. Here the Participle, or Gerund, hath as improperly the Preposition of after it; and so is deprived of its Verbal Regimen, by which as a Transitive it would govern the Noun Repentance in the Objective Case. Besides, the Phrase is rendered obscure and ambiguous: for the obvious meaning of it in its present form is, “by preaching concerning or on the Subject of Repentance;” whereas the sense intended is, “by publishing the Covenant of Repentance, and declaring Repentance to be a condition of acceptance with God.” The Phrase would have been perfectly right and determinate to this sense either way; by the Noun, by the preaching of repentance; or by the Participle, by preaching repentance.
[53] These are the three Primary Modes, or manners of expressing our thoughts concerning the being, doing, or suffering of a thing. If it comes within our knowledge, we explain it, or make a declaration of it; if we are ignorant or doubtful of it, we make an inquiry about it; if it is not immediately in our power, we express our desire or will concerning it. In Theory therefore the Interrogative form seems to have as good a Title to a Mode of its own, as either of the other two; but Practice has determined it otherwise; and has in all the Languages, with which we are most acquainted, supplied the place of an Interrogative Mode, either by Particles of Interrogation, or by a peculiar order of the words in the sentence. If it be true, as I have somewhere read, that the Modes of the Verbs are more numerous in the Lapland Tongue than in any other, possibly the Laplanders may be provided with an Interrogative Mode.
“The burning lever not deludes his pains.”
Dryden, Ovid. Metam. B. xii.
“I hope, my Lord, said he, I not offend.”