A Gerund is a verbal noun in -ing which, when formed from a transitive verb, can take after it an object.

159. Entirely different from all these noun-forms is the Participle in -ing. Participles are adjectives. To confound one of the preceding forms with a participle in -ing is to confound a noun with an adjective, a name of a thing with a word which limits the application of the name; and this is a very serious confusion indeed.

A Participle is a verbal adjective. The active participle of a transitive verb differs from an ordinary adjective in taking an object.

Thus in the sentence 'I saw a doctor healing his patients,' healing refers to 'doctor,' limiting the application of the name, and at the same time takes an object his patients, just as the verb in its finite forms would take as an object his patients: e.g. 'He healed his patients.'

Why are beginners inclined to describe every verbal form in -ing as a participle?

Because, as a fact, we do make use of a large number of present participles in the conjugation of our verbs. All the tenses expressing incomplete action are formed by the aid of this participle in -ing; 'I am writing,' 'You were speaking,' 'He will be waiting,' 'They will have been searching,' are examples, and the reader will realise on reflexion that they illustrate a very common form of expression. Except in conjugating the imperfect tenses of our verbs, however, the participle in -ing is not largely used. Thus, though we might possibly say 'Meeting Smith and hearing you were in town, I came to see you,' yet we should be more likely to say 'I met Smith and heard you were in town, so I have come to see you.'

The Participle in -ing is an active participle. It is usually called the Present Participle, and we shall give it

this name, though it would be more properly termed the Imperfect or Incomplete Participle, as it denotes not time but unfinished action,-action still in progress: writing, healing.

Our other Participle is the Perfect Participle, denoting action which is completed and no longer in progress. This is usually called the Past Participle, and we shall employ the ordinary though less accurate name for it. It ends in -en, -n, beaten, shown, or -ed, -d, -t, healed, loved, slept. If the verb is a transitive verb, this Participle is passive.

160. Notice these points connected with the Participles:

(i) The Passive Participle combined with the verb have forms tenses of the active verb: thus, 'He has stolen the watch,' 'I had eaten my dinner.' The explanation of the construction is this: 'He has stolen the watch' was once expressed thus, 'He has (or holds, or possesses) the watch stolen,' stolen being originally in agreement with watch. So, 'I had eaten my dinner' was once 'I had (or held, or possessed) my dinner eaten.' Then came a time when the real force of have in this connexion was lost, its notional meaning disappeared, and it became a mere auxiliary, so that no contradiction was apparent, as it would formerly have been apparent, in saying 'I have lost my watch,' though it is obvious that, if the watch is lost, we cannot correctly say 'I have (or hold, or possess) my watch lost,' as in such a case I hold or possess it no longer.

(ii) We have adopted this use of have with the Past Participle of intransitive verbs, and we say 'I have been,' 'I have stood,' 'I have dreamt,' 'I have slept,' though we cannot say 'I am been,' 'I am stood,' 'I am dreamt,' 'I am slept.' The Participle of intransitive verbs is Perfect, or Past, but it is not Passive.

161. The results of this discussion of the Verb Infinite may be summarized in a convenient form thus:

I.

(1. Simple Infinitive:

2. Gerundial Infinitive marking Purpose:

Verbal Noun with the... of...

Gerund.

1. Present Participle Active in -ing.

(2. Past Participle in -en, -n, -ed, -d, -t.

162. Illustrations of these forms.

Simple Infinitive: To work hard is the way to get on.' go.' 'We heard him call.' 'Better dwell in the midst of alarms 'Than reign in this horrible place.'

'I can

2. Gerundial Infinitive: 'The sower went forth to sow.' 'Bread to eat,' i.e. 'for eating.' 'Ears to hear,' i.e. 'for hearing.'

3. Verbal Noun: 'They brought flowers for the decorating of the altar.' 'The writing of the book was a protracted task.' The hunting of the fox is a national pastime.'

4. Gerund: Seeing is believing.' 'Seeing a conjuror is one thing and believing him is another.' 'I am fond of seeing a conjuror.' 'We were prevented from seeing the conjuror.' 'They asked about seeing the conjuror.'

5. The Participle in -ing. "The company sat watching the conjuror performing his tricks.' 'They are watching the conjuror.' 'Seeing the conjuror there, I went in.'

6. The Participle in -en, -d, -t. 'This is stolen.' 'He has stolen it.' 'This is mended.' 'He has mended it.'

Compound Gerund Forms. It should be noticed that we use combinations of the Gerunds of the verbs have and be with Participles, as we use the simple Gerunds: the following are examples of these compound gerund forms: 'I was afraid of his having gone away.' 'The master charged him with having been wasting his time.' 'My having been struck explains my being exasperated.'

Observe that in compound nouns the form in -ing is frequently gerundive. Thus a walking-stick is a stick for walking, a fishing-rod is a rod for fishing. If these forms in -ing were participles, a walking-stick would be a stick that walked and a fishing-rod a rod that fished, just as a talking-fish is a fish that talks and a laughing-hyæna a hyæna that laughs.

163. III. Tense.

Tense marks (i) the time at which we represent an action as occurring. Now time is either Present, Past, or Future. So far therefore as the time alone of an action is taken into account, we shall have three Tenses: I write, I wrote, I shall write.

But tense marks not only the time at which the action is described as occurring, but also (ii) its completeness or incompleteness at that time. An action must be either finished, done, completed, perfect, at any particular time, or it must be unfinished, not yet done, incomplete, imperfect, still in progress, at that time. But though the action itself must be either finished or not finished, we may speak of it without reference to its character as finished or not finished, and our mention of the action in this aspect will then be undetermined or indefinite.

Hence, as we may indicate that an action belongs to present, past, or future time, and may also describe it at each of those times (1) as in a finished condition, or (2) as in a progressive condition, or (3) may leave the fact of its being already finished or still in progress undetermined or indefinite, we shall have nine distinct tenses in which these differences are expressed. The following table presents these nine Primary Tenses in an intelligible form.

164. Remarks on the Tenses.

I. The Perfect Continuous Tenses. There is an additional set of tenses, by which we indicate that an action has been, had been, or will have been going on, and also that it still is, was, or will continue to be, in progress. Thus we may say 'I have been writing all the morning,' which signifies that my writing has been going on in the past and is not yet over but still continues. 'I have written all the morning' would imply that my writing was now completed or done. Similarly, 'I had been waiting an hour when he met me' means that my waiting was still in progress and had lasted some time when he arrived. 'I shall have been travelling for six hours when I reach Bristol' means that my journey will have lasted for six hours and will not yet be finished when I arrive at Bristol. These tenses are called

2. Other so-called Tenses. We may have occasion to describe an action as about to begin, and to do this may use the verb go in combination with the principal verb, and say 'I am going to write.' In some books on grammar, 'I am going to write,' 'I was going to write,' 'I shall be going to write,' are called Intentional Tenses, or Paulo-post-future Tenses. They are however not tenses at all. Compound Tenses are formed only by the assistance of the auxiliary verbs, and go is not an auxiliary verb. We express an action as on the point of beginning equally well when we say 'I am about to write,' but no one proposes to call this form of expression a tense. In Latin there was a class of derivative verbs called Inceptives, which marked the fact of the commencement of an action by their suffix -sco: e.g. pallesco, I turn pale,' calesco, 'I grow warm,' silvescit, 'it runs to wood.' The verbs turn, grow, run, in these connections express the beginning of the act, but we do not regard them as contributing to the formation of Inceptive tenses. On similar grounds we must reject the so-called Emphatic Tenses formed by using the verb do: 'I do think so,' 'He did say that,' 'Do tell me.'

3. Modes of Tense Formation. With the exception of the Present Indefinite and the Past Indefinite, all our tenses are formed by the use of auxiliaries. The Past Indefinite undergoes inflexion to mark the change of time: 'I wrote,' 'I walked.' It is sometimes called the Preterite, or Aorist.

A glance down the columns of Imperfect and of Perfect Tenses will enable the reader to see the principle on which these tenses are formed. The Imperfect Tenses are formed by combining some part of be with