Note 57 — Chapter VI · OF THE PARTICIPLE.

If it should be said, that the participle may properly be considered as a verb, since it implies an attribute with time, I would ask, whether affirmation, the most important of all circumstances, and without which no communication could take place, should be overlooked in our classification of words agreeably to their import, or the offices which they perform. If the verb and participle be referred to one class, the principal part of speech which has been pre-eminently distinguished by the name of verb, or the word, is degraded from its rank, and confounded with a species of words which are not even necessary to the communication of thought. Surely, if any circumstance can entitle any sort of words to a distinct reference, it is that of affirmation.

If it should be objected that the participle, like the verb, governs a case, I would ask, because lectio, tactio, and many other substantives, are found sometimes joined with an accusative case, were they ever on this account considered as verbs? Besides, if the government of a case be urged as an argument, what becomes of those participles which govern no case? Nay, if the government of a case be deemed the criterion of a verb, what name shall we assign to those verbs which have no regimen at all? If any species of words is to be distinguished from another, the characteristic difference must surely belong, not to part only, but to the whole.