Being and Not-Being, direct Assertion and Denial, find their grammatical representation in the Indicative Mode: I do or I do not; and in an Un-fin-it-ed or In-defi-nite way, as a mere naming of the idea, in The Infinitive Mode, to do, etc.
Necessity and Accidence are expressed in the Imperative Mode for the former and in the Subjunctive Mode for the latter. Necessary and Imperative are synonymes. To command absolutely, is to require, and The Required or The Requisite is again The Necessary.
Accidence is that which is under a condition, sub-joined, Sub-junctive; which may or may not happen, hence introduced by an if, equal to gif, give, grant, provided it so happen.
Elementality (Kant's Quality of Being) reappears in this domain of Relation in Connection with the Verb: Affirmation, in the Affirmative Propositions, as, I love; Negation, in Negative Propositions, as, I do not Love; and Limitation, wavering as between two, in the Dubitative or Questioning Forms of the Proposition, as, Do I love? Do I not love? The Celtic tongues have special modal forms to express these modifications of the Verb.
Number, the remaining one of Kant's Groups of the Categories, finds also its minor representative in this domain in the Numbers, Singular, Dual, and Plural, incorporated into the Conjugation of the Verb. This leads us to the consideration of Grammatical Agreement and Government; carries us over into Syntax, Prosody, Logic, and Rhetoric; back to Lexicology, the domain of the Dictionary or mere Vocabulary in Language; and thence upward to Music, and finally again to Song, the culmination of Speech.
The subject grows upon us, and it is impossible to complete it in a single paper.
The Portions of Language which we have been considering belong to the two Departments: 1. Elementismus (Kant's Quality), and 2. Relation (Grammar more properly). The treatment of these is not fully exhausted, and must be recurred to hereafter.
The two remaining ones of Kant's Groups of the Categories of the Understanding (here extended to be the Categories of all Being) are, 3. Quantity, and 4. Mode. The proper domain of these two is Music. The mere mention of the musical terms Unison, Discord (duism, diversity), the Spirit of One and the Spirit of Two; and of the Major and the Minor Mode, suggest Quantity and Modality as the reigning principles in that domain. The appearance of Number and Mode in the domain of Relation (Grammar), is, as already stated, a subordinate one, and has respect to the principle of overlapping, already adverted to, by which all the domains of Nature are intricated or con-creted with each other.
Quantity and Mode, in their own independent and separate development, will, therefore, be the special subjects of a subsequent treatment.