i, 283.  “The preposition TO (in Dutch written TOE and TOT, a little nearer to the original) is the Gothic substantive [Gothic:  taui] or [Gothic:  tauhts], i. e. act, effect, result, consummation. Which Gothic substantive is indeed itself no other than the past participle of the verb [Gothic:  taujan], agere.  And what is done, is terminated, ended, finished.”—­Ib., i, 285.  No wonder that Johnson, Skinner, and Junius, gave no hint of this derivation:  it is not worth the ink it takes, if it cannot be made more sure.  But in showing its bearing on the verb, the author not unjustly complains of our grammarians, that:  “Of all the points which they endeavour to shuffle over, there is none in which they do it more grossly than in this of the infinitive.”—­Ib., i, 287.

OBS. 5.—­Many are content to call the word TO a prefix, a particle, a little word, a sign of the infinitive, a part of the infinitive, a part of the verb, and the like, without telling us whence it comes, how it differs from the preposition to, or to what part of speech it belongs.  It certainly is not what we usually call a prefix, because we never join it to the verb; yet there are three instances in which it becomes such, before a noun:  viz., to-day, to-night, to-morrow.  If it is a “particle,” so is any other preposition, as well as every small and invariable word.  If it is a “little word,” the whole bigness of a preposition is unquestionably found in it; and no “word” is so small but that it must belong to some one of the ten classes called parts of speech.  If it is a “sign of the infinitive,” because it is used before no other mood; so is it a sign of the objective case, or of what in Latin is called the dative, because it precedes no other case.  If we suppose it to be a “part of the infinitive,” or a “part of the verb,” it is certainly no necessary part of either; because there is no verb which may not, in several different ways, be properly used in the infinitive without it.  But if it be a part of the infinitive, it must be a verb, and ought to be classed with the auxiliaries.  Dr. Ash accordingly placed it among the auxiliaries; but he says, (inaccurately, however,) “The auxiliary sign seems to have the nature of adverbs.”—­Grammatical Institutes, p. 33.  “The auxiliary [signs] are, to, do, did, have, had, shall, will, may, can, must, might,” &c.—­Ib., p. 31.

OBS. 6.—­It is clear, as I have already shown, that the word to may be a sign of the infinitive, and yet not be a part of it.  Dr. Ash supposes, it may even be a part of the mood, and yet not be a part of the verb.  How this can be, I see not, unless the mood consists in something else than either the form or the parts of the verb.  This grammarian says, “In