On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
support df this rule , I will observe , that several of my friends , as well as myself , have read . a good deal of Greek with a keen recollection of it , without being able to detect one undoubted
exception . And I beg leave to recommend it to your readers , to send you any exceptions which they may discover , that an important canon of criticism may be either established * or refuted
once for all . And the advocates of the pre-existence of Christ will , by the result , be obliged , if the rule be confinhied , to give up a
favourite text , or will be gratified with a degree of presumption in favour of their interpretation , if the maxim be confuted * I say presuftoption ; for other principles of fair criticism will still obstruct
any greater certainty * I will candidly state two objections to this axiom , besides the general metaphysical one above disposed oft
First , when the verb denotes cessation from action , the participle present ^ agreeing with its nominative case , refers , necessarily , to a previous time . Some such objection may be founded , perhaps , on verbs that signify
the continuance of an action , of which the time is not , of course , a precise and Specific one . Of the first , the following is an instance , furnished by an ingenious young friend who has a decided taste for Greek literature , Horn .
Ilias cy , 475 , 476 . . Niov 5 * cc < r *\ YiytY gdutity E < rQ& xat < rcivw * Here the grammarians assert , that thfc partid ^ Te is pttf fo r lift infinitive mood * I conceive that the Greeks , not attending to meta-
Untitled Article
physical exactness , did riot stop to change a common mode of expression , merely because ceasing to act must be $ in strictness , subsequent to the action . They were content , if no interval or portion of time came bet \ Ve £ n . Perhaps , to illustrate time by extension , the cessation ( which occupies no lime ) of an action , and th £ action itself may , with as much truHi , be said to be siirmltafieousy a $ that aline , which has no breadth or thickness is the termination of
a plane atfd identical with it * And here I must beg leave-to observe , that the gram marians seem to have had a distant g ! imps £ of the axiom whkrh I am
maintaining , or they would not have giveii the observation , verba d £ - szstendi , &c . And I will beg leave also to observe , that this axiom is , in reality , laid down now for the first time , after all the researches of thfe karned f&r
so-many agfes . It will bb found , I trust , equally tMe and origiiiaL Thd second objectioh arises from some passages which may seetti to contradict the rale- I
do nbt think that one , fiirriished by another equally ingehioiis arid literary young friend , does militate against iriy rfcle , aS I think that the time of the particijitej and the time of the vei * b cohiiected
with it , are fairly synchrotioiiiaf , or they ate divided by the ekjpre&s words , ftocKgct ) Xgbvco , only . Po . lyaen , Stratag . &a $ eeor $ TroXiopxooy fiatZvXcvi / a , % f ova ? jj ^ aycow , rt \ v ttohiv
etew ov % otO £ re tym But a passage in the N # I ! respecting the blind man w 4 * o r €± cdved * his sighty desetve * mot ^ considferaficiril JbHii ix ; ' * £ & * I' . d * < pjio $ ujy " agWP \ etcb . If t&fe force of this passage could not be re-
Untitled Article
Oh the Present Participle in the Greek * 101
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1810, page 191, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2403/page/31/
-