that are presumed hereafter. For example: I observe as far back as my memory can carry me, how every day has been succeeded by a night; that night, by another day; that day, by another night; and so downwards in order to the day that is now. Hence, then, I anticipate a similar succession from the present day, and thus gain the idea of days and nights in futurity. After the same manner, by attending to the periodical returns of new and full moons; of springs, summers, autumns, and winters, all of which, in time past, I find never to have failed, I anticipate a like orderly and diversified succession, which makes months, and seasons, and years, in time future.

We go further than this, and not only thus anticipate in these natural periods, but even in matters of human and civil concern. For example having observed in many past instances how health had succeeded to exercise, and sickness to sloth; we anticipate future health to those, who, being now sickly, use exercise; and future sickness to those, who, being now healthy, are slothful. It is a variety of such observations, all respecting one subject, which when systematized by just reasoning, and made habitual by due practice, form the character of a masterartist, or man of practical wisdom. If they respect the human body, (as above,) they form a physician; if matters military, the general; if matters national, the statesman; if matters of private life, the moralist; and the same in other subjects. All these several characters, in their respective ways, may be said to possess a kind of prophetic discernment, which not only presents them the barren prospect of futurity, (a prospect not hid from the meanest of men,) but shews withal those events which are likely to attend it, and thus enables them to act with superior certainty and rectitude. And hence it is, that (if we except those who have had diviner assistances) we may justly say, was said of old,

He's the best prophet who conjectures well.

• Μάντις δ ̓ ἄριστος, ὅστις εἰκάζει καλῶς.
So Milton:

Till old experience do attain
To something like prophetic strain.
Et facile existimari potest, prudentiam esse
quodammodo divinationem.

Corn. Nep. in Vit. Attici. There is nothing appears so clearly an object of the mind or intellect only, as the future does, since we can find no place for its existence anywhere else. Not but the same, if we consider, is equally true of the past. For though it may have once had another kind of being, when (according to common phrase) it actually was, yet was it then something present, and not something past. As past, it has no existence but in the mind or memory, since, had it in fact any other, it could not properly be called

as

past. It was this intimate connexion between time and the soul, that made some philosophers doubt, whether, if there was no soul, there could be any time, since time appears to have its being in no other region. Πότερον δὲ μὴ οὔσης ψυχῆς εἴη ἂν ὁ χρόνος, ἀπορήσειεν ἄν τις, κ. τ. λ. Natur. Auscult. 1. iv. c. 20. Themistius, who comments the above passage, expresses himself more positively. Ei Tolvov dix@s λέγεται τότε ἀριθμητὸν καὶ τὸ ἀριθμοίμενον, τὸ μὲν τὸ ἀριθμητὸν δηλαδὴ δυνάμει, τὸ δὲ ἐνεργείᾳ, ταῦτα δὲ οὐκ ἂν ὑποσταίη, μὴ ὄντος τοῦ ἀριθμήσοντος μήτε δυνάμει μήτε ἐνεργείᾳ, φανερὸν ὡς οὐκ ἂν ὁ χρόνος ein, un ovons vuxns. Them. p. 48. edit. Aldi. Vid. etiam ejusd. Comm. in Lib. de An. p. 94.

From what has been reasoned it appears, that knowledge of the future comes from knowledge of the past; as does knowledge of the past from knowledge of the present; so that their order to us is that of the present, past, and future,

Of these species of knowledge, that of the present is the lowest, not only as first in perception, but as far the more extensive, being necessarily common to all animal beings, and reaching even to Zoophytes, as far as they possess sensation. Knowledge of the past comes next, which is superior to the former, as being confined to those animals that have memory as well as senses. Knowledge of the future comes last, as being derived from the other two, and which is, for that reason, the most excellent as well as the most rare, since nature in her superadditions rises from worse always to better, and is never found to sink from better down to worse.t

And now having seen how we acquire the knowledge of time past and time future; which is first in perception, which first in dignity; which more common, which more rare; let us compare them both to the present now or instant, and examine what relations they maintain towards it.

In the first place, there may be times both past and future, in which the present now has no existence; as, for example, in yesterday and to-morrow.

Again, the present now may so far belong to time of either sort, as to be the end of the past, and the beginning of the future; but it cannot be included within the limits of either. For if it were possible, let us suppose C the present now included

within the limits of the past time A D. In such case, CD, part of the first time A D, will be subsequent to C, the present now, and so of course be future. But by the hypothesis it is past, and so will be both past and future at once, which is absurd. In the same manner we prove that C cannot be included within the limits of a future time, such as B E.

What, then, shall we say of such times, as this day, this month, this year, this century, all which include within them the present now? They cannot be past times or future, from what has been proved; and present time has no existence, as has been proved likewise." Or shall we allow them to be present, from the present now, which exists within them; so that from the presence of that we call these also present, though the shortest among them has infinite parts always absent? If so, and in conformity to custom, we allow such times present, as present days, months, years, and centuries, each must of necessity be a compound of the past and the future, divided from each other by some present See below, note of this chapter, p. 157. " Sup. p. 147.

now or instant, and jointly called present, while that now remains within them. Let us suppose, for example, the time X Y, which

let us call a day, or a century; and let the present now or instant exist at A. I say, inasmuch as A exists within XY, that therefore X A is time past, and AY time future, and the whole X A, AY, time present. The same holds, if we suppose the present now to exist at B, or C, or D, or E, or anywhere before Y. When the present now exists at Y, then is the whole XY time past, and still more so, when the now gets to g, or onwards. In like manner, before the present now entered X, as, for example, when it was at f, then was the whole X Y time future; it was the same, when the present now was at X. When it had passed that, then XY became time present. And thus it is that time is present, while passing, in its present now or instant. It is the same indeed here, as it is in space. A sphere passing over a plane, and being for that reason present to it, is only present to that plane in a single point at once, while during the whole progression its parts absent are infinite."

From what has been said, we may perceive that all time, of every denomination, is divisible and extended. But if so, then whenever we suppose a definite time, even though it be a time present, it must needs have a beginning, a middle, and an end. And so much for time.

Now from the above doctrine of time we propose, by way of hypothesis, the following theory of tenses.

▾ Place, according to the ancients, was either mediate or immediate. I am (for example) in Europe, because I am in England ; in England, because in Wiltshire; in Wiltshire, because in Salisbury ; in Salisbury, because in my own house ; in my own house, because in my study. Thus far mediate place. And what is my immediate place? It is the internal bound of that containing body (whatever it be) which coincides with the external bound of my own body. Τοῦ περιέχοντος πέρας, καθ ̓ ὁ περιέχει τὸ περιεχόμενον. Now as this immediate place is included within the limits of all the former places, it is from this relation that those mediate places also are called, each of them, my place, though. the least among them so far exceed my magnitude. To apply this to time. The present century is present in the present year; that, in the present month; that, in the present day; that, in the present hour; that, in the present minute. It is thus by circumscription within circumscription that we arrive at that real and indivisible instant, which, by being itself the very essence of the present, diffuses presence throughout all, even the largest of times, which are found to include

it within their respective limits. Nicephorus Blemides speaks much to the same purpose. Ενεστὼς οὖν χρόνος ἐστὶν ὁ ἐφ ̓ ἑκάτερα παρακείμενος τῷ κυρίως νῦν... χρόνος με ρικός, ἐκ παρεληλυθότος καὶ μέλλοντος συνεστὼς, καὶ διὰ τὴν πρὸς τὸ κυρίως νῦν γειτνίασιν, νῦν λεγόμενος καὶ αὐτός: “Present time, therefore, is that which adjoins to the real now or instant on either side, being a limited time made up of past and future, and from its vicinity to that real now, said to be now also itself.” Επιτ. φυσικής, Κεφ. θ'. See also Arist. Physic. 1. vi. c. 2, 3, &c.

In the above note, mention is made of
the real now, or instant, and its efficacy.
To which we may add, that there is not
only a necessary connexion between exist-
ence and the present instant, because no
other point of time can properly be said to
be, but also between existence and life, be-
cause whatever lives, by the same reason
necessarily is. Hence Sophocles, speaking
of time present, elegantly says
of it,

Χρόνῳ τῷ ζώντι, καὶ παρόντι νῦν.
The living and now present time.

Trachin. v. 1185.

The tenses are used to mark present, past, and future time, either indefinitely without reference to any beginning, middle, or end; or else definitely, in reference to such distinctions.

If indefinitely, then have we three tenses; an aorist of the present, an aorist of the past, and an aorist of the future. If definitely, then have we three tenses to mark the beginnings of these three times; three to denote their middles; and three to denote their ends; in all nine.

The three first of these tenses we call the inceptive present, the inceptive past, and the inceptive future. The three next, the middle present, the middle past, and the middle future. And the three last, the completive present, the completive past, and the completive future.

And thus it is that the tenses in their natural number appear to be twelve; three to denote time absolute, and nine to denote it under its respective distinctions.

AORIST OF THE PRESENT.

Tpápw. Scribo. I write.

AORIST OF THE PAST.

"Eypaya. Scripsi. I wrote.

AORIST OF THE FUTURE.

Tpáfa. Scribam. I shall write.

INCEPTIVE PRESENT.

Μέλλω γράφειν. Scripturus sum. I am going to write.

MIDDLE OR EXTENDED PRESENT,

Τυγχάνω γράφων. Scribo or scribens sum.

COMPLETIVE PRESENT.

Téypapa. Scripsi. I have written.

INCEPTIVE PAST.

I am writing.

Ἔμελλον γράφειν. Scripturus eram. I was beginning to write.

MIDDLE OR EXTENDED PAST.

Ἔγραφον οι ἐτύγχανον γράφων. Scribebam. I was writing.

COMPLETIVE PAST.

'Eyeypápeıv. Scripseram. I had done writing.

"Eooμai yeypapás. Scripsero. I shall have done writing.

It is not to be expected that the above hypothesis should be justified through all instances in every language. It fares with tenses as with other affections of speech; be the language upon the whole ever so perfect, much must be left, in defiance of all analogy, to the harsh laws of mere authority and chance.

It may not, however, be improper to inquire, what traces may be discovered in favour of this system, either in languages themselves, or in those authors who have written upon this part of grammar, or lastly in the nature and reason of things.

In the first place, as to aorists. Aorists are usually by grammarians referred to the past; such are ov, "I went;" TeσOV, "I fell," &c. We seldom hear of them in the future, and more rarely still in the present. Yet it seems agreeable to reason, that wherever time is signified without any further circumscription than that of simple present, past, or future, the tense is an aorist.

Thus Milton:

Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth

Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep. Par. Lost, iv. 277. Here the verb walk means, not that they were walking at that instant only, when Adam spoke, but dopíorws, "indefinitely," take any instant whatever. So when the same author calls hypocrisy,

the only evil that walks Invisible, except to God alone,

the verb walks hath the like aoristical or indefinite application. The same may be said in general of all sentences of the gnomologic kind, such as

Ad pœnitendum properat, cito qui judicat.
Avarus, nisi cum moritur, nil recte facit, &c.

All these tenses are so many aorists of the present. Gnomologic sentences after the same manner make likewise aorists of the future:

Tu nihil admittes in te, formidine pœnæ.

Hor.

So too legislative sentences, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, &c.; for this means no one particular future time, but is a prohibition extended indefinitely to every part of time future.*

We pass from aorists to the inceptive tenses.

These may be found in part supplied (like many other tenses) by verbs auxiliar. Méxλw ypúpeiv. Scripturus sum. "I am

* The Latin tongue appears to be more than ordinarily deficient as to the article of aorists. It has no peculiar form even for an aorist of the past, and therefore (as Priscian tells us) the præteritum is forced to do the double duty both of that aorist and of the perfect present, its application in

particular instances being to be gathered from the context. Thus it is that feci means (as the same author informs us) both we

oinka and eroínoa, “I have done it," and "I did it ;" vidi both wpaka and eîdov, “I have just seen it," and "I saw it once." Prisc. Gram. 1. viii. p. 814, 838. edit. Putsch.