are so we may assure ourselves, both by observation of the same tendency in other languages, and also in other words of our own language. In Latin res and causa have moved on a like path, and have generated rien and chose in French. In German the word Ding has had the same history, except that its field has been narrowed by the rival word Sache, a forensic word, like causa and thing, and familiar to us through the old Saxon legal jargon, sac and soc.' In Hebrew DABHAR had a like career: as a presentive it meant ‘word,' as a symbolic it signified 'thing.' A variety of words in English have partially graduated in the same faculty, and have attained a symbolic degree in certain connections. Let the student consider the following substantives, and probably he will be able to fit most of them to phrases in which they shall figure symbolically:-account, affair, article, behalf, business, case, circumstance, concern, course, deal, gear, hand, lot, manner, matter, part, party, person, question, regard, respect, score, sort, stuff, wise.

235. Some. As in Mrs. Barbauld's apostrophe to Life :— Say not good night, but in some brighter clime,

Bid me good morning.

More. This is now generally known to us as a symbolic word, a mere sign of the comparative degree. But it is presentive in Acts xix. 32, 'The more part knew not wherefore they were come together;' and in that sentence of Bacon's discretion in speech is more than eloquence.'

Now. In this word we may illustrate the aërial perspective which exists in symbolism. At first it appeared as an adverb of time, signifying at the present time.' Even in this character it is a symbolic word, but it is one that lies very near the presentive frontier. It is capable of light emphasis, as in 'Now is the accepted time!' Then it moves off another stage, as, 'Now faith is the confidence of things hoped for,

the evidence of things not seen.' Here the now is incapable of accent; one hardly imagines the rhetorical emergency which would impose an emphasis on this now. Thus we see there is in symbolism a near and a far distance. And this second now, the more rarefied and symbolic of the two, is gradually undermining the position of the other. The careful writer will often have found it necessary to strike out a now which he had with the weightier meaning set at the head of a sentence, because of its liability to be accepted by the reader for the toneless now.

Symbolism of Auxiliary Verbs.

236. But a signal example of the growth of symbolism is afforded by the auxiliary verbs; and these are a class of words so important in so many aspects, that we gladly seize all convenient occasions for bringing them forward. It is difficult to say when they are most interesting, whether in those more numerous specimens which we possess in common with German, and which we derive from the old ancestral pangothic stock; or whether in those fewer examples which are of our own several and insular development.

Shall, should; will, would. The word shall offers a good example of the movement from presentiveness to symbolism. When it flourished as a presentive word, it signified to owe. Of this ancient state of the word a memorial exists in the German adjective schuldig, indebted. From this state it passed by slow and unperceived movements to that sense which is now most familiar to us, in which it is a verbal auxiliary, charging the verb with a sense fluctuating between the future tense and the imperative mood.

There are intermediate uses of shall which belong neither to the presentive state when it signified 'owe,' nor to the sym

bolic state in which it is a mere imponderable auxiliary. In the following quotation it has a sense which lies between these two extremes.

If the Reformers saw not how or where to draw the fine and floating and long-obscured line between religion and superstition, who shall dare to arraign them?—Henry Hart Milman, The Annals of St. Paul's, p. 231. What has been said about shall applies equally to its preterite should. Its common symbolic use is illustrated in

the following quotation:

Labourers indeed were still striving with employers about the rate of wages as they have striven to this very day, and will continue to strive to the world's end, unless some master mind should discover the true principle for its settlement.-William Longman, Edward III, vol. ii. ch. iii.

Let the reader fully comprehend the nature of this should, that he may be prepared to appreciate the contrast of the examples which follow. I found the first near my own home. I was 'borneing' out some allotment ground, and Farmer Webb having driven a corner 'borne' into the ground very effectively, exclaimed, 'There, that one 'll stand for twenty years, if he should!' To a person who knows only the English of literature, the condition would seem futile-if he should! It would seem to mean that the 'borne' would stand if it happened to stand. But this was not our neighbour's meaning. The person who should so misunderstand him, would do so for want of knowing that the word should has still something extant of its old presentive power. In this instance it would have to be translated into Latin, not thus-si forte ita evenerit; but thus-si debuerit, si fuerit opus: if it ought; if it be required to stand so long; or, in the brief colloquial, if required.

237. Connected with this thread of usage, and equally derived from the radical sense of 'owe,' is another power of shall and should, which is of a very subtle nature. It is one of the native traits of our mother tongue of which we have

been deprived by the French influence. German scholars well know that soll has a peculiar use to express something which the speaker does not assert but only reports. Er soll es gethan haben, literally, he shall have done it,' signifies, 'he is said to have done it.' In Saxon this use was well known. Thus in the Peterborough Chronicle, A.D. 1048 (p. 178), we read: for pan Eustatius hæfde gecydd þam cynge þet hit SCEOLDE beon mare gylt þære burhwara ponne his'—' forasmuch as Eustace had told the king that it was (forsooth!) more the townsfolk's fault than his.' Twice in the same Chronicle it is recorded that a spring of blood had issued from the earth in Berkshire, namely, under the years 1998 and 1200. In both places it is added, 'swa swa manige sædan þe hit geseon SCEOLDAN'—'as many said who professed to have seen it, or were believed to have seen it.' But now this usage is only provincial. It is very common in Devonshire, and indeed in all the west. 'I'm told such a one should say.'

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238. How ancient it is, we may form an estimate by observing that it exists not only in German but in Danish also. In Holberg's Erasmus Montanus, the pedantic student is at home for vacation, and complaining that there is no one in the town who has learning enough to be a fit associate for himself. At this point he says, according to an anonymous translator, who is substantially correct: The clerk and the schoolmaster, it is reported, have studied; but I know not to what extent.' The original Danish is, 'Degnen og Skolemesteren SKAL have studeret, men jeg veed ikke hvorvidt det strækker sig'-literally, 'the clerk and the schoolmaster shall have studied, but I know not how far it reaches.' These illustrations are so many traces of the course which this ancient verb has described in its passage from the presentive to the symbolic state.

We proceed now to will, would. How greatly the word will is felt to have lost presentive power in the last three centuries may be judged from the following. In Matthew xv. 32, where our Bible has 'I will not send them away fasting,' it is proposed by Dean Alford as a correction to render ‘I am not willing to.' Again, in Matthew xx. 14, 'I will give unto this last even as unto thee,' the same critic finds it desirable to substitute 'It is my will to give.' It should be noticed that in neither of these criticisms is there any question of Greek involved. It is simply an act of fetching up the expression of our Bible to the level of modern English; and it furnishes the best evidence that a change has come over the word will.

And yet it has still a good deal of presentive power left. Wilt thou have, &c.? I will!

This verb in its presentive sense retains a pair of old flexional forms which are never found in the symbolic sense. These are willest, willeth, 'God willeth Samuel to yeeld vnto the importunitie of the people' (1 Sam. viii, Contents); 'It is not of him that willeth' (Rom. ix. 16).

Willest be asked, and thou shalt answer then.

Frederic W. H, Myers, St. Paul.

This verb has also an infinitive as, 'to will and to do'; and in this respect differs from the more highly symbolic shall, of which an infinitive was never heard in our language.

We see in the verb will the graduated movement from the presentive to the symbolic state well displayed. And not unfrequently the transition is played upon, as in the following dialogue :

Cres. Doe you thinke I will?

Troy. No, but something may be done that we wil not.

Shakspeare, Troylus and Cressida, iv. 4. 91.