get to the door. We therefore make the sign that corresponds to the action of giving, then the sign for future, and then the sign for past; suppressing the one for present as superfluous, because common sense alone dictates, that, between the future and the past, there must have been a present.

We give the sign for a future imperfect tense to what Restaut terms the conditional present; with the following reason:

Having ordered a pupil to learn his lesson, I told him that I should return in two hours time to examine him; and I promised to give him a book, provided he were perfect in it. I return accordingly with the book in my hand, and show it to those who are by, telling them I shall give it to him if he is perfect in his lesson. Upon examining him it proves he has not learnt it. I show him the book, and then put it into my pocket with an air, telling him he shall not have it, because he has been idle. The will which I had to give it,

is repressed by want of the condition; and it appears to me, that the cause of restraint, which is anterior to my expression, ought to have the sign of the imperfect.

For the same reason we give the sign of a future past perfect to the tense called by Restaut, past conditional, (I should have given,) because in like manner there was an eventual or conditional futurition, when I set out with the intent of giving, if I found the condition fulfilled; and, in effect, if it had been so, the donation would be already in the past perfect, when I spoke of it, after performing other actions subsequent to the idleness of my pupil, which prevented me from giving him the book that I had promised him conditionally.

The pupil often sees the action signified by a verb expressed without any designation of the person who acts or who ought to act: the action of searching after, without discovering, the person or persons who act or who ought to act, becomes the sign of

the infinitive, or, more properly, the indefinitive, which has no person before it, neither of the singular nor of the plural, and is indicated by the particile to.

By doing as if I drew out a thread or little bit of stuff from each side of my coat, I express the nature of a participle, which takes part of a verb (partem capit) and part of a noun. It is really a noun adjective, because it expresses a quality that can be attributed to a noun substantive; while, at the same time, it has the same government as the verb from which it is formed, and of which it expresses the action.

The word conjugation, signifies the assemblage or series of all the persons, numbers, tenses, and moods of a verb. Languages differ very much with respect to the number and variety of the conjugations of their verbs. The English having but one regular conjugation, may be acquired by deaf and dumb persons with greater facility than the French or any other language.

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ART. III.

Of Active, Passive, Neuter, and Reciprocal Verbs.

THE verb active is that which represents the grammatical person of a verb as acting without.

The verb passive is that which represents one of these persons not as acting, but as receiving the action of another. In order to make deaf and dumb scholars sensible of this difference, we carry one of them in a chair. Our action is obvious, and we make them remark it. The scholar, who is carried, does not move; his arms, hands, legs, and feet are suspended, and remain as if they were paralytic; by these two signs, we distinguish these two species of verbs.

As to verbs neuter and reciprocal, their explication by signs is more difficult. We

give it here, in order that teachers may have recourse to it, when their pupils have attained a sufficient degree of scholarship to seize the grammatical application; but we pass it over at first, and confine ourselves within limits which we shall presently lay down with those who are yet in the rudiments of speech.

The word neuter, signifies neither the one nor the other. A neuter verb therefore is neither active nor passive. It is not active, because it does not represent a person acting without, and whose operation is carried to a foreign object. It is not passive, because it does not represent a person as submitting to an operation from a foreign power. It only represents a situation, a state, a quality, an habitude, or an interior operation, as, I sleep, I breakfast, I dine, I sup, I tremble,

&c. &c.

These verbs have each their particular sign conformable to their signification. The common sign for all such verbs con