Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/638

 many others, pronounce both these forms to be wrong; and unanimously, (though contrary to what is perhaps the best usage,) prefer, "He needs not proceed."--Murray's Key, 8vo, p. 180.

OBS. 14.--On questions of grammar, the practice of authors ought to be of more weight, than the dogmatism of grammarians; but it is often difficult to decide well by either; because errors and contradictions abound in both. For example: Dr. Blair says, (in speaking of the persons represented by I and thou,) "Their sex needs not be marked."--Rhet., p. 79. Jamieson abridges the work, and says, "needs not to be marked."--''Gram. of Rhet.'', p. 28. Dr. Lowth also says, "needs not be marked."--Gram., p. 21. Churchill enlarges the work, and says, "needs not to be marked."--New Gram., p. 72. Lindley Murray copies Lowth, and says, "needs not be marked."--Gram., 12mo, 2d Ed., p. 39; 23d Ed., p. 51; and perhaps all other editions. He afterwards enlarges his own work, and says, "needs not to be marked."--Octavo Gram., p. 51. But, according to Greenleaf they all express the idea ungrammatically; the only true form being, "Their sex need not be marked." See ''Gram. Simplified'', p. 48. In the two places in which the etymology and the syntax of this verb are examined, I have cited from proper sources more than twenty examples in which to is used after it, and more than twenty others in which the verb is not inflected in the third person singular. In the latter, need is treated as an auxiliary; in the former, it is a principal verb, of the regular construction. If the principal verb need can also govern the infinitive without to, as all our grammarians have supposed, then there is a third form which is unobjectionable, and my pupils may take their choice of the three. But still there is a fourth form which nobody approves, though the hands of some great men have furnished us with examples of it: as, "A figure of thought need not to detort the words from their literal sense."--J. Q. Adams's Lectures, Vol. ii, p. 254. "Which a man need only to appeal to his own feelings immediately to evince."--Clarkson's Prize-Essay on Slavery, p. 106.

OBS. 15.--Webster and Greenleaf seem inclined to justify the use of dare, as well as of need, for the third person singular. Their doctrine is this: "In popular practice it is used in the third person, without the personal termination. Thus, instead of saying, 'He dares not do it;' WE generally say, 'He dare not do it.' In like manner, need, when an active verb, is regular in its inflections; as, 'A man needs more prudence.' But when intransitive, it drops the personal terminations in the present tense, and is followed by a verb without the prefix to; as, 'A man need not be uneasy.'"--Greenleaf s Grammar Simplified, p. 38; Webster's Philosophical Gram., p. 178; Improved Gram., 127. Each part of this explanation appears to me erroneous. In popular practice, one shall oftener hear, "He dares n't do it," or even, "You dares n't do it," than, "He dare not do it." But it is only in the trained practice of the schools, that he shall ever hear, "He needs n't do it," or, "He needs not do it." If need is sometimes used without inflection, this peculiarity, or the disuse of to before the subsequent infinitive, is not a necessary result of its "intransitive" character. And as to their latent nominative, "whereof there is no account," or, "whereof there needs no account;" their fact, of which "there is no evidence," or of which "there needs no evidence;" I judge it a remarkable phenomenon, that authors of so high pretensions, could find, in these transpositions, a nominative to "is," but none to "needs!" See a marginal note under Rule 14th, at p. 570.

OBS. 16.--Of the verb SEE. This verb, whenever it governs the infinitive without to, governs also an objective noun or pronoun; as, "See me do it."--"I saw him do it."--Murray. Whenever it is intransitive, the following infinitive must be governed by to; as, "I will see to have it done."--Comly's Gram., p. 98; Greenleaf's, 38. "How could he see to do them?"--Beauties of Shak., p. 43. In the following text, see is transitive, and governs the infinitive; but the two verbs are put so far apart, that it requires some skill in the reader to make their relation apparent: "When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place," &c.--Matt., xxiv, 15. An other scripturist uses the participle, and says--"standing where it ought not," &c.--Mark, xiii, 14. The Greek word is the same in both; it is a participle, agreeing with the noun for abomination. Sometimes the preposition to seems to be admitted on purpose to protract the expression: as, "Tranio, I saw her coral lips to move,   And with her breath she did perfume the air."--Shak.

OBS 17.--A few other verbs, besides the eight which are mentioned in the foregoing rule and remarks, sometimes have the infinitive after them without to. W. Allen teaches, that, "The sign to is generally omitted," not only after these eight, but also after eight others; namely, "find, have, help, mark, observe, perceive, watch, and the old preterit gan, for began; and sometimes after behold and know."--Elements of Gram., p. 167. Perhaps he may have found some instances of the omission of the preposition after all these, but in my opinion his rule gives a very unwarrantable extension to this "irregularity," as Murray calls it. The usage belongs only to particular verbs, and to them not in all their applications. Other verbs of the same import do not in general