OBS. 12.—­Many words of a participial form are used directly as nouns, without any article, adjective, or possessive case before them, and without any object or adjunct after them.  Such is commonly the construction of the words spelling, reading, writing, ciphering, surveying, drawing, parsing, and many other such names of actions or exercises.  They are rightly put by Johnson among “nouns derived from verbs;” for, “The [name of the] action is the same with the participle present, as loving, frighting, fighting, striking.”—­Dr. Johnson’s Gram., p. 10.  Thus:  “I like writing.”—­W.  Allen’s Gram., p. 171.  “He supposed, with them, that affirming and denying were operations of the mind.”—­Tooke’s Diversions, i, 35. “‘Not rendering,’ said Polycarp the disciple of John, ’evil for evil, or railing for railing, or striking for striking, or cursing for cursing.”—­Dymond, on War.  Against this practice, there is seldom any objection; the words are wholly nouns, both in sense and construction.  We call them participial nouns, only because they resemble participles in their derivation; or if we call them verbal nouns, it is because they are derived from verbs.  But we too frequently find those which retain the government and the adjuncts of participles, used as nouns before or after verbs; or, more properly speaking, used as mongrels and nondescripts, a doubtful species, for which there is seldom any necessity, since the infinitive, the verbal or some other noun, or a clause introduced by the conjunction that, will generally express the idea in a better manner:  as, “Exciting such disturbances, is unlawful.”  Say rather, “To excite such disturbances,—­The exciting of such disturbances,—­The excitation of such disturbances,—­or, That one should excite such disturbances, is unlawful.”

OBS. 13.—­Murray says, “The word the, before the active participle, in the following sentence, and in all others of a similar construction, is improper, and should be omitted:  ’The advising, or the attempting, to excite such disturbances, is unlawful.’  It should be, ’Advising or attempting to excite disturbances.’”—­Octavo Gram., p. 195.  But, by his own showing, “the present participle, with the definite article the before it, becomes a substantive.”—­Ib., p. 192.  And substantives, or nouns, by an other of his notes, can govern the infinitive mood, just as well as participles; or just as well as the verbs which he thinks would be very proper here; namely, “To advise or attempt to excite such disturbances.”—­Ib., p. 196.  It would be right to say, “Any advice, or attempt, to excite such disturbances, is unlawful.”  And I see not that he has improved the text at all, by expunging the article. Advising and attempting, being disjunct nominatives to is, are nothing but nouns, whether the article be used or not; though they are rather less obviously such without it, and therefore the change is for the worse.