more for the latter name, than the former; that is, more in number, if not in weight; though it must be confessed, that many of the old Latin grammarians did, as Priscian tells us, consider the infinitive a noun, calling it Nomen Verbi, the Name of the Verb.[408] If we appeal to reasons, there are more also of these;—­or at least as many, and most of them better:  as, 1.  That the infinitive is often transitive; 2.  That it has tenses; 3.  That it is qualified by adverbs, rather than by adjectives; 4.  That it is never declined like a noun; 5.  That the action or state expressed by it, is not commonly abstract, though it may be so sometimes; 6.  That in some languages it is the root from which all other parts of the verb are derived, as it is in English.

OBS. 21.—­So far as I know, it has not yet been denied, that to before a participle is a preposition, or that a preposition before a participle governs it; though there are not a few who erroneously suppose that participles, by virtue of such government, are necessarily converted into nouns.  Against this latter idea, there are many sufficient reasons; but let them now pass, because they belong not here.  I am only going to prove, in this place, that to before the infinitive is just such a word as it is before the participle; and this can be done, call either of them what you will.  It is plain, that if the infinitive and the participle are ever equivalent to each other, the same word to before them both must needs be equivalent to itself.  Now I imagine there are some examples of each equivalence; as, “When we are habituated to doing [or to do] any thing wrong, we become blinded by it.”—­Young Christian, p. 326.  “The lyre, or harp, was best adapted to accompanying [or to accompany] their declamations.”—­Music of Nature, p. 336.  “The new beginner should be accustomed to giving [or to give] all the reasons for each part of speech.”—­Nutting’s Gram., p. 88.  “Which, from infecting our religion and morals, fell to corrupt [say, to corrupting] our language.”—­SWIFT:  Blair’s Rhet., p. 108.  Besides these instances of sameness in the particle, there are some cases of constructional ambiguity, the noun and the verb having the same form, and the to not determining which is meant:  as, “He was inclined to sleep.”—­“It must be a bitter experience, to be more accustomed to hate than to love.”  Here are double doubts for the discriminators:  their “sign of the infinitive” fails, or becomes uncertain; because they do not know it from a preposition.  Cannot my opponents see in these examples an argument against the distinction which they attempt to draw between to and to?  An other argument as good, is also afforded by the fact, that our ancestors often used the participle