It must, I think, appear plain to all who are willing to see, that action, as such, can never exist distinct from the thing that acts; that all our notions of action are derived from an observance of things in an acting condition; and hence that no words can be framed to express our ideas of action on any other principle.
I hope you will bear these principles in mind. They are vastly important in the construction of language, as will appear when we come to speak of the agents and objects of action. We still adhere to the fact, that no rules of language can be successfully employed, which deviate from the permanent laws which operate in the regulation of matter and mind; a fact which can not be too deeply impressed on your minds.
In the consideration of actions as expressed by verbs, we must observe that power, cause, means, agency, and effects, are indispensable to their existence. Such principles exist in fact, and must be observed in obtaining a complete knowledge of language; for words, we have already seen, are the expression of ideas, and ideas are the impression of things.
In our attempts at improvement, we should strip away the covering, and come at the reality. Words should be measurably forgotten, while we search diligently for the things expressed by them. Signs should always conduct to the things signified. The weary traveller, hungry and faint, would hardly satisfy himself with an examination of the sign before the inn, marking its form, the picture upon it, the nice shades of coloring in the painting. He would go in, and search for the thing signified.
It has been the fault in teaching language, that learners have been limited to the mere forms of words, while the important duty of teaching them to look at the thing signified, has been entirely disregarded. Hence they have only obtained book knowledge. They know what the grammars say; but how to apply what they say, or what is in reality meant by it, they have yet to learn. This explains the reason why almost every man who has studied grammar will tell you that "he used to understand it, but it has all gone from him, for he has not looked into a book these many years." Has he lost a knowledge of language? Oh, no, he learned that before he saw a grammar, and will preserve it to the day of his death. What good did his two or three years study of grammar do him? None at all; he has forgotten all that he ever knew of it, and that is not much, for he only learned what some author said, and a few arbitrary rules and technical expressions which he could never understand nor apply in practice, except in special cases. But I wander. I throw in this remark to show you the necessity of bringing your minds to a close observance of things as they do in truth exist; and from them you can draw the principles of speech, and be able to use language correctly. For we still insist on our former opinion, that all language depends on the permanent laws of nature, as exerted in the regulation of matter and mind.
To return. I have said that all action denotes power, cause, means, agency, and effects.
Power depends on physical energy, or mental skill. I have hinted at this fact before. Things act according to the power or energy they possess. Animals walk, birds fly, fishes swim, minerals sink, poisons kill. Or, according to the adopted theories of naturalists:
Minerals grow.
Vegetables grow and live.
Animals grow, and live, and feel.