Lectures on Language, as Particularly Connected with English Grammar.

To apply this illustration you have only to reverse the case—turn the knife and needle over—and see all things attracted to the earth by the law of gravitation, a principle abiding in all matter. All that renders the exhibition of the magnet curious or wonderful is that it is an uncommon condition of things, an apparent counteraction of the regular laws of nature. But we should know that the same sublime principle is constantly operating thro out universal nature. Let that be suspended, cease its active operations for a moment, and our own earth will be decomposed into particles; the sun, moon and stars will dissolve and mingle with the common dust; all creation will crumble into atoms, and one vast ocean of darkness and chaos will fill the immensity of space.

Are you then prepared to deny the principles for which we are contending? I think you will not; but accede the ground, that such being the fact, true in nature, language, correctly explained, is only the medium by which the ideas of these great truths, may be conveyed from one mind to another, and must correspond therewith. If language is the sign of ideas, and ideas are the impressions of things, it follows of necessity, that no language can be employed unless it corresponds with these natural laws, or first principles. The untutored child cannot talk of these things, nor comprehend our meaning till clearly explained to it. But some people act as tho they thought children must first acquire a knowledge of words, and then begin to learn what such words mean. This is putting the "cart before the horse."

Much, in this world, is to be taken for granted. We can not enter into the minutiæ of all we would express, or have understood. We go upon the ground that other people know something as well as we, and that they will exercise that knowledge while listening to our relation of some new and important facts. Hence it is said that "brevity is the soul of wit." But suppose you should talk of surds, simple and quadratic equations, diophantine problems, and logarithms, to a person who knows nothing of proportion or relation, addition or subtraction. What would they know about your words? You might as well give them a description in Arabic or Esquimaux. They must first learn the simple rules on which the whole science of mathematics depends, before they can comprehend a dissertation on the more abstruse principles or distant results. So children must learn to observe things as they are, in their simplest manifestations, in order to understand the more secret and sublime operations of nature. And our language should always be adapted to their capacities; that is, it should agree with their advancement. You may talk to a zealot in politics of religion, the qualities of forbearance, candor, and veracity; to the enthusiast of science and philosophy; to the bigot of liberality and improvement; to the miser of benevolence and suffering; to the profligate of industry and frugality; to the misanthrope of philanthropy and patriotism; to the degraded sinner of virtue, truth, and heaven; but what do they know of your meaning? How are they the wiser for your instruction? You have touched a cord which does not vibrate thro their hearts, or, phrenologically, addressed an organ they do not possess, except in a very moderate degree, at least. Food must be seasoned to the palates of those who use it. Milk is for babes and strong meat for men. Our instruction must be suited to the capacities of those we would benefit, always elevated just far enough above them to attract them along the upward course of improvement.

But it should be remembered that evils will only result from a deviation from truth, and that we can never be justified in doing wrong because others have, or for the sake of meeting them half way. And yet this very course is adopted in teaching, and children are learned to adopt certain technical rules in grammar, not because they are true, but because they are convenient! In fact, it is said by some, that language is an arbitrary affair altogether, and is only to be taught and learned mechanically! But who would teach children that seven times seven are fifty, and nine times nine a hundred, and assign as a reason for so doing, that fifty and a hundred are more easily remembered than forty-nine and eighty-one? Yet there would be as much propriety in adopting such a principle in mathematics, as in teaching for a rule of grammar that when an objective case comes after a verb, it is active; but when there is none expressed, it is intransitive or neuter.

The great fault is, grammarians do not allow themselves to think on the subject of language, or if they do, they only think intransitively, that is, produce no thoughts by their cogitations.

This brings us to a more direct consideration of the subject before us. All admit the correctness of the axiom that every effect must have a cause, and that every cause will have an effect. It is equally true that "like causes will produce like effects," a rule from which nature itself, and thought, and language, can never deviate. It is as plain as that two things mutually equal to each other, are equal to a third. On this immutable principle we base our theory of the activity of all verbs, and contend that they must have an object after them, either expressed or necessarily understood. We can not yield this position till it is proved that causes can operate without producing effects, which can never be till the order of creation is reversed! There never was, to our knowledge, such a thing as an intransitive action, with the solitary exception of the burning bush.13 In that case the laws of nature were suspended, and no effects were produced; for the bush burned, but there was nothing burnt; no consequences followed to the bush; it was not consumed. The records of the past present no instance of like character, where effects have failed to follow, direct or more distantly, every cause which has been set in operation.

It makes no difference whether the object of the action is expressed or not. It is the same in either case. But where it is not necessarily implied from the nature and fitness of things, it must be expressed, and but for such object or effect the action could not be understood. For example, I run; but if there is no effect produced, nothing run, how can it be known whether I run or not. If I write, it is necessarily understood that I write something—a letter, a book, a piece of poetry, a communication, or some other writing. When such object is not liable to be mistaken, it would be superfluous to express it—it would be a redundancy which should be avoided by all good writers and speakers. All languages are, in this respect, more or less eliptical, which constitutes no small share of their beauty, power, and elegance.

This elipsis may be observed not only in regard to the objects of verbs, but in the omission of many nouns after adjectives, which thus assume the character of nouns; as, the Almighty, the Eternal, the Allwise, applied to God, understood. So we say the wise, the learned, the good, the faithful, the wicked, the vile, the base, to which, if nouns, it would sound rather harsh to apply plurals. So we say, take your hat off (   ); put your gloves on (   ); lay your coat off (   ); and pull your boots on (   ); presuming the person so addressed knows enough to fill the elipsis, and not take his hat off his back, pull his gloves on his feet, or his boots on his head.

In pursuing this subject farther, let us examine the sample words which are called intransitive verbs, because frequently used without the object expressed after them; such as run, walk, step, fly, rain, snow, burn, roll, shine, smiles, &c.

"I run."

That here is an action of the first kind, none will deny. But it is contended by the old systems that there is no object on which the action terminates. If that be true then there is nothing run, no effect produced, and the first law of nature is outraged, in the very onset; for there is a cause, but no effect; an action, but no object. How is the fact? Have you run nothing? conveyed nothing, moved nothing from one place to another? no change, no effect, nothing moved? Look at it and decide. It is said that a neuter or intransitive verb may be known from the fact that it takes after it a preposition. Try it by this rule. "A man run against a post in a dark night, and broke his neck;" that is, he run nothing against a post—no object to run—and yet he broke his neck. Unfortunate man!

The fact in relation to this verb is briefly this: It is used to express the action which more usually terminates on the actor, than on any other object. This circumstance being generally known, it would be superfluous to mention the object, except in cases where such is not the fact. But whenever we desire to be definite, or when there is the least liability to mistake the object, it is invariably expressed. Instances of this kind are numerous. "They ran the boat ashore." "The captain ran his men to rescue them from the enemy." "They ran the gauntlet." "They run a stage to Boston." "He ran himself into discredit." "One bank runs another." "The man had a hard run of it." "Run the account over, and see if it is right." "They run forty looms and two thousand spindles." "He runs his mill evenings." Such expressions are common and correct, because they convey ideas, and are understood.

Two men were engaged in argument. The believer in intransitive verbs set out to run his opponent into an evident absurdity, and, contrary to his expectation, he ran himself into one. Leave out the objects of this verb, run, and the sense is totally changed. He set out to run into an evident absurdity, and he ran into one; that is, he did the very absurd thing which he intended to do.14

"I walk."

The action expressed by this verb is very similar in character to the former, but rather slower in performance. Writers on health tell us that to walk is a very healthy exercise, and that it would be well for men of sedentary habits to walk several miles every day. But if there is no action in walk, or if it has no object necessarily walked, it would be difficult to understand what good could result from it.

"Did you have a pleasant walk this morning?" says a teacher to his grammar class.

"We did have a very pleasant one. The flowers were blooming on each side of the walk, and sent forth their sweetest aroma, perfuming the soft breezes of the morning. Birds were flitting from spray to spray, carolling their hymns of praise to Deity. The tranquil waters of the lake lay slumbering in silence, and reflected the bright rays of the sun, giving a sweet but solemn aspect to the whole scene. To go thro the grove, down by the lake, and up thro the meadow, is the most delightful walk a person can take."

"How did you get your walk?"

"We walked it, to be sure; how did you think we got it?"

"Oh, I did not know. Walk, your books tell you, is an intransitive verb, terminating on no object; so I supposed, if you followed them, you obtained it some other way; by riding, running, sailing, or, may be, bought it, as you could not have walked it! Were you tired on your return?"

"We were exceedingly fatigued, for you know it is a very long walk, and we walked it in an hour."

"But what tired you? If there are no effects produced by walking, I can not conceive why you should be fatigued by such exercise."

Who does not perceive what flagrant violations of grammar rules are committed every day, and every hour, and in almost every sentence that is framed to express our knowledge of facts.

To step.

This verb is the same in character with the two just noticed. It expresses the act of raising each foot alternately, and usually implies that the body is, by that means, conveyed from one place to another. But as people step their feet and not their hands, or any thing else, it is entirely useless to mention the object; for generally, that can not be mistaken any more than in the case of the gloves, boots, and hat. But it would be bad philosophy to teach children that there is no objective word after it, because it is not written out and placed before their eyes. They will find such teaching contradicted at every step they take. Let a believer in intransitive verbs step on a red hot iron; he will soon find to his sorrow, that he was mistaken when he thought that he could step without stepping any thing. It would be well for grammar, as well as many other things, to have more practice and less theory. The thief was detected by his steps. Step softly; put your feet down carefully.

Birds fly.

We learned from our primers, that

"The eagle's flightIs out of sight,"

How did the eagle succeed in producing a flight? I suppose he flew it. And if birds ever fly, they must produce a flight. Such being the fact, it is needless to supply the object. But the action does not terminate solely on the flight produced, for that is only the name given to the action itself. The expression conveys to the mind the obvious fact, that, by strong muscular energy, by the aid of feathers, and the atmosphere, the bird carries itself thro the air, and changes its being from one place to another. As birds rarely fly a race, or any thing but themselves and a flight, it is not necessary to suffix the object.

It rains.

This verb is insisted on as the strongest proof of intransitive action; with what propriety, we will now inquire. It will serve as a clear elucidation of the whole theory of intransitive verbs.

What does the expression signify? It simply declares the fact, that water is shed down from the clouds. But is there no object after rains? There is none expressed. Is there nothing rained? no effect produced? If not, there can be no water fallen, and our cisterns would be as empty, our streams as low, and fields as parched, after a rain as before it! But who that has common sense, and has never been blinded by the false rules of grammar, does not know that when it rains, it never fails to rain rain, water, or rain-water, unless you have one of the paddy's dry rains? When it hails, it hails hail, hail-stones, or frozen rain. When it snows, it snows snow, sometimes two feet of it, sometimes less. I should think teachers in our northern countries would find it exceeding difficult to convince their readers that snow is an intransitive verb—that it snows nothing. And yet so it is; people will remain wedded to their old systems, and refuse to open their eyes and behold the evidences every where around them. Teachers themselves, the guides of the young—and I blush to say it, for I was long among the number—have, with their scholars, labored all the morning, breaking roads, shovelling snow, and clearing paths, to get to the school-house, and then set down and taught them that to snow is an intransitive verb. What nonsense; nay, worse, what falsehoods have been instilled into the youthful mind in the name of grammar! Can we be surprised that people have not understood grammar? that it is a dry, cold, and lifeless business?

I once lectured in Poughkeepsie, N. Y. In a conversation with Miss B., a distinguished scholar, who had taught a popular female school for twenty years; was remarking upon the subject of intransitive verbs, and the apparent inconsistency of the new system, that all verbs must have an object after them, expressed or understood; she said, "there was the verb rain, (it happened to be a rainy day,) the whole action is confined to the agent; it does not pass on to another object; it is purely intransitive." Her aged mother, who had never looked into a grammar book, heard the conversation, and very bluntly remarked, "Why, you fool you, I want to know if you have studied grammar these thirty years, and taught it more than twenty, and have never larned that when it rains it always rains rain? If it didn't, do you s'pose you'd need an umbrella to go out now into the storm? I should think you'd know better. I always told you these plaguy grammars were good for nothing, I didn't b'lieve." "Amen," said I, to the good sense of the old lady, "you are right, and have reason to be thankful that you have never been initiated into the intricate windings, nor been perplexed with the false and contradictory rules, which have blasted many bright geniuses in their earliest attempts to gain a true knowledge of the sublime principles of language, on which depends so much of the happiness of human life." The good matron's remark was a poser to the daughter, but it served as a means of her entire deliverance from the thraldom of neuter verbs, and the adoption of the new principles of the exposition of language.

The anecdote shows us how the unsophisticated mind will observe facts, and employ words as correctly, if not more so, than those schooled in the high pretensions of science, falsely taught. Who does not know from the commonest experience, that the direct object of raining must follow as the necessary sequence? that it can never fail? And yet our philologists tell us that such is not always the case; and that the exception is to be marked on the singular ground, whether the word is written out or omitted! What a narrow view of the sublime laws of motion! What a limited knowledge of things! or else, what a mistake!

"Then the Lord said unto Moses, behold, I will rain bread for you from heaven."

"Then the Lord rained down, upon Sodom and Gomorrah, brimstone and fire, from the Lord out of heaven."—Bible.

The fire burns.

The fire burns the wood, the coal, or the peat. The great fire in New-York burned the buildings which covered fifty-two acres of ground. Mr. Experiment burns coal in preference to wood. His new grate burns it very finely. Red ash coal burns the best; it makes the fewest ashes, and hence is the most convenient. The cook burns too much fuel. The house took fire and burned up. Burned what up? Burn is an intransitive verb. It would not trouble the unfortunate tenant to know that there must be an object burned, or what it was. He would find it far more difficult to rebuild his house. Do you suppose fires never burn any thing belonging to neuter verb folks? Then they never need pay away insurance money. With the solitary exception I have mentioned—the burning bush—this verb can not be intransitive.

The sun shines.

This is an intransitive verb if there ever was one, because the object is not often expressed after it. But if the sun emits no rays of light, how shall it be known whether it shines or not? "The radiance of the sun's bright beaming" is produced by the exhibition of itself, when it brightens the objects exposed to its rays or radiance. We talk of sun shine and moon shine, but if these bodies never produce effects how shall it be known whether such things are real? Sun shine is the direct effect of the sun's shining. But clouds sometimes intervene and prevent the rays from extending to the earth; but then we do not say "the sun shines." You see at once, that all we know or can know of the fact we state as truth, is derived from a knowledge of the very effects which our grammars tell us do not exist. Strange logic indeed! It is a mark of a wiser man, and a better scholar, not to know the popular grammars, than it is to profess any degree of proficiency in them!

To smile.

The smiles of the morning, the smiles of affection, a smile of kindness, are only produced by the appearance of something that smiles upon us. Smiles are the direct consequence of smiling. If a person should smile ever so sweetly and yet present no smiles, they might, for aught we could know to the contrary, be sour as vinegar.

But this verb frequently has another object after it; as, "to smile the wrinkles from the brow of age," or "smile dull cares away." "A sensible wife would soon reason and smile him into good nature."

But I need not multiply examples. When such men as Johnson, Walker, Webster, Murray, Lowthe, and a host of other wise and renowned men, gravely tell us that eat and drink, which they define, "to take food; to feed; to take a meal; to go to meals; to be maintained in food; to swallow liquors; to quench thirst; to take any liquid;" are intransitive or neuter verbs, having no objects after them, we must think them insincere, egregiously mistaken, or else possessed of a means of subsistence different from people generally! Did they eat and drink, "take food and swallow liquors," intransitively; that is, without eating or drinking any thing? Is it possible in the nature of things? Who does not see the absurdity? And yet they were great men, and nobody has a right to question such high authority. And the "simplifiers" who have come after, making books and teaching grammar to earn their bread, have followed close in their footsteps, and, I suppose, eaten nothing, and thrown their bread away! Was I a believer in neuter verbs and desired to get money, my first step would be to set up a boarding house for all believers in, and practisers of, intransitive verbs. I would board cheap and give good fare. I could afford it, for no provisions would be consumed.

Some over cautious minds, who are always second, if not last, in a good cause, ask us why these principles, if so true and clear, were not found out before? Why have not the learned who have studied for many centuries, never seen and adopted them? It is a sufficient answer to such a question, to ask why the copernican system of astronomy was not sooner adopted, why the principles of chemistry, the circulation of the blood, the power and application of steam, nay, why all improvement was not known before. When grammar and dictionary makers, those wise expounders of the principles of speech, have so far forgotten facts as to teach that eat and drink, "express neither action nor passion," or are "confined to the agents;" that when a man eats, he eats nothing, or when he drinks, he drinks nothing, we need not stop long to decide why these things were unknown before. The wisest may sometimes mistake; and the proud aspirant for success, frequently passes over, unobserved, the humble means on which all true success depends.

Allow me to quote some miscellaneous examples which will serve to show more clearly the importance of supplying the elipses, in order to comprehend the meaning of the writers, or profit by their remarks. You will supply the objects correctly from the attendant circumstances where they are not expressed.

"Ask (   ) and ye shall receive (   ); seek (   ) and ye shall find (   ); knock (   ) and it shall be opened unto you."

Ask what? Seek what? Knock what? That it may be opened? Our "Grammars Made Easy" would teach us to ask and seek nothing! no objectives after them. What then could we reasonably expect to receive or find? The thing we asked for, of course, and that was nothing! Well might the language apply to such, "Ye ask (   ) and receive not (naught) because ye ask (   ) amiss." False teaching is as pernicious to religion and morals as to science.