this is doubtless what has commended them to the minds of thoughtful theologians. And this, too, is an illustration of that fulness of grace and truth (John 1: 16, 17), which has come to us, not merely in Christianity as a whole, but also in its separate confessions and doctrines; that every one can look at them in the point of view which best corresponds with his wants and peculiarities; and that error usually first enters in, when one considers that aspect of the truth, in which it is first presented to his own mind, as the only one under which it can be viewed, and denies everything which does not come within his own sphere of vision.

ARTICLE III.

THE MOOD IN LANGUAGE.

By Henry N. Day, Professor of Sacred Rhetoric in Western Reserve College, Hudson, Ohio.

LANGUAGE is the body of thought. It is something more than the mere dress of thought. It has an internal, vital connection with it. As the living spirit, in assuming to itself a body, penetrates what was before inert, dead matter with its own peculiar life, fashions, organizes and animates it according to its own proper nature, so thought enters sounds in speech with a vital, determining, organizing power. It exists before language in order of nature. It makes language what it is. In order to determine the properties and laws of language, the nature and uses of its various functions or members, we must accordingly, first go to the thought which is the organic principle of speech, and ascer certain what are the actual or possible characters of thought which may be incorporated and expressed in speech. It is in this view of the relations of language to thought that the follow

to all being; or Hase (Lehrbuch d. Dogmatik, S. 527), the doctrine of God the Father over all, with whom humanity was united in new love through the Son of Man, who becaine (rather, was) a Son of God, so that all men might become sons through the Holy Spirit that binds together the church; or Wegscheider (Institutt. S. 93), that God as Father, through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, has revealed himself to man, so that he, being redeemed from the bondage of sin, might become holy and blessed.

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Mood as the Expression of the Copula.

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ing theory of mood has been conceived and developed; and from this view it must derive, to some extent at least, its justification and support.

We shall present our views under the following heads: The proper function of the mood in speech; The possible kinds of moods as determined by this view of their functions; The forms of moods in their proper import in actual use in speech; The abnormal use of moods.

1. The proper Function of the Mood.

Thought never properly appears in speech but as an expressed judgment; and logic teaches us that a judgment necessarily contains three members, the subject, the predicate and the copula. In every thought expressed in speech, there must necessarily be these three members. If each of these essential members have not an actual form appropriated to itself in every uttered sentence, it must be ever implied. It was to be expected that in expressing itself, thought would ever seek to secure for each of these independent and yet essential members its apppropriate form; and that we should find in language the proper sign and expression of each. The mood is the proper expression of the copula. This is its distinctive office.

The copula has no other proper expression. If it may sometimes express its peculiar character through the use of other functions of speech, of adverbs, tenses, by periphrastic expressions, it does this only as other specific functions sometimes borrow help of their fellows to do their own work. There is no form of periphrastic expression appropriated to the expression of the copula. Adverbs and tenses have their own office-work.

The mood, further, actually expresses the copula. The indicative mood as truly expresses that form of the copula which appears in a real judgment, as truly expresses the reality of the judgment, and the potential mood the possible in the judgment, as the preterite tense expresses past time. All the uses of the mood to express anything else than the form of the copula, may be clearly explained as abnormal and derived uses. The copula, for the most part, for reasons which will hereafter appear, except when the speaker would throw an emphasis on the copula or assertion rather than on the subject or predicate, is found in combination with the predicate in the form of the verb. In almost all principal sentences, where a judgment is enounced, the verb

combines in itself the expression of the copula and also of an ac tivity.

The various relations of the activity, are indicated by means of the other inflections of the verb. The voice indicates the direction of the activity as to or from the subject or the object; the tense the time of the activity; the personal inflections, the relations to the speaker, person addressed, or person or thing spoken of; the gender, these latter relations more specifically; and number, the repetition of the activity. The mood expresses no relation of the activity on the one hand; and the copula, on the other, has no other inflection through which its modifications can be expressed.

The proper and distinctive function of the mood, then, is to indicate the modifications of the copula.

If this be received as settled, then we should expect that the words actually occurring in speech would correspond to the diverse forms of the copula or modes of the judgment. Further, if this be true, then the normal use of the word is confined to such sentences as express a complete judgment, to what in other words, are called principal sentences. The occurrence of modal inflections of verbs in dependent clauses, must then be explained as derived from the proper functions of the mood; and such use of the mood must be regarded as an abnormal use.

2. The possible Kinds of Moods.

If the mood is the proper expression of the copula, then the possible modes of the judgment will determine the possible moods in language. The modes of the judgment are all reducible to three classes,

viz: those of existence and non-existence;

of possibility and impossibility; and

of necessity and contingency.

As the modes of necessity and contingency cannot always be distinguished from each other by a mere negative, there seems to be a ground furnished in the very nature of the case, for a distinction of moods in this last class, which does not exist in the two former. Hence there can be but four proper moods in language. If in any particular dialect more are in use, we should expect that two or more would be reducible to one class, or perhaps be specifically but not generically distinct.

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Modifications of the Copula.

3. The Moods in actual use.

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Before considering the various kinds of modal expression in actual use in speech, a preparatory remark or two seems to be needful in explanation. In the first place, the modal relation is a purely intellectual relation. In this respect it differs from all the other inflections of the verb. All the others originally indicate relations in time or space, or in both. Assuming, what will probably be questioned by no one, that the verb originally expresses a sensible activity, that is, motion in space, it may be easily shown, that voice, tense, number and the other inflections of the verb all denote relations of the activity or motion which lie in time or space. As such they are more easily reducible to forms of language. But the modifications of the judgment or the copula, as real, possible, necessary or contingent, are in their own nature entirely independent of time and space. They have no direct relation to any thing outward. They are pure intellectual abstractions. Hence it is with some difficulty that they are introduced into language at all. In some early languages, we find but two moods, as in the Hebrew. Hence, too, the copula is easily omitted even in more fully developed languages; as "Happy the man," instead of "Happy is the man." "Nulla salus bello." Hence, moreover, a wide diversity in the forms and varieties of modal expression introduced into particular languages. Even when introduced in full, the modal inflection is, sometimes as in the Greek, indicated only by a vowel, the most slippery and unstable of letters, which itself easily vanishes away when euphony will allow, as in the conjugation of Greek verbs in -u.

In the next place, it should be remarked that the modifications of the copula are expressed in language in various ways, as by adverbs, by proper tense-forms, by periphrastic expressions, as by auxiliaries and inflections.

We find in the Greek language the most philosophically complete and accurate modal system. For the expression of the real and its opposite we have the indicative;-for that of the possible, the subjunctive, as rí now; quid faciam? what can I do?-for that of the necessary, the imperative ;-and for the contingent, the optative, as déws är egoíuny. The infinitive, as it expresses no ἡδέως ἂν ἐροίμην. copula, has no proper modal force. It is used in dependent clauses to express a mere conception of an activity.

The subjunctive is so named from its more common use, as it occurs most frequently in dependent clauses, although that use

is, strictly, abnormal. The proper denomination of this mood is, the potential. The potential judgment, however, as compared with the real or indicative, needs but rarely to be expressed in speech. The different shades of possibility which it is necessary to express, have readily led to a periphrastic manner of expressing this form of the judgment.

As the potential is closely allied with the future, a possible event being in its nature ever future, absolutely or relatively, we find that the form approaches to that of the future tense, as is still more strikingly the case in the Latin. We discover, moreover, in this view of the subjunctive, the explanation of the fact, that while the subjunctive is used in the first person in exhortation and incitation, in the second and third persons, the optative is preferred in such cases.

The optative is likewise so named from its more frequent use. Yet desire is but a species of the conditional. In the Sanscrit, a still more subordinate species of the conditional judgment, has a particular mood for its expression-the precative. The optative mood in Greek expresses various conditional judgments besides the strictly optative.

As the potential is naturally allied to the future, so the conditional bears a close affinity to the past in time. Thus the opta. tive in Greek takes the inflections of the historical tenses; and in other languages which have no proper conditional, the tenseforms denoting past time are used; as in Latin, "at fuerat melius, si te puer iste tenebat;" in English, "it would have been better,"

etc.

The imperative, on the other hand, as expressing a necessary judgment, looks more to the future; and its inflections and uses indicate this. It affirms the connection between the subject and the activity of the verb as necessary. In the second person, such a judgment would generally convey a command. In the third person, it is used not only to communicate an order, but, also, to predict a future event with emphatic affirmation. It is likewise used in certain kinds of concession, as οὕτως ἐχέτω, ὡς σὺ λέγεις. This is much stronger than the indicative or the potential mood would express. It carries the will with the expression as the cause of the effect, which hence must necessarily follow.

The Latin language has no peculiar form for the conditional. The subjunctive is used for the most part to express this as well as the potential form of the judgment. Quid faciat?" what can he do? "Facerem, si possem," I would do it, if I could. The