III.  A. passive verb is a verb that represents its subject, or what the nominative expresses, as being acted upon; as, “I am compelled.”—­“Caesar was slain.”

IV.  A neuter verb is a verb that expresses neither action nor passion, but simply being, or a state of being; as, “There was light.”—­“The babe sleeps.”

OBSERVATIONS.

OBS. 1.—­So various have been the views of our grammarians, respecting this complex and most important part of speech, that almost every thing that is contained in any theory or distribution of the English verbs, may be considered a matter of opinion and of dispute.  Nay, the essential nature of a verb, in Universal Grammar, has never yet been determined by any received definition that can be considered unobjectionable.  The greatest and most acute philologists confess that a faultless definition of this part of speech, is difficult, if not impossible, to be formed.  Horne Tooke, at the close of his Diversions of Purley, cites with contempt nearly a dozen different attempts at a definition, some Latin, some English, some French; then, with the abruptness of affected disgust, breaks off the catalogue and the conversation together, leaving his readers to guess, if they can, what he conceived a verb to be.  He might have added some scores of others, and probably would have been as little satisfied with any one of them.  A definition like that which is given above, may answer in some degree the purpose of distinction; but, after all, we must judge what is, and what is not a verb, chiefly from our own observation of the sense and use of words.[222]

OBS. 2.—­Whether participles ought to be called verbs or not, is a question that has been much disputed, and is still variously decided; nor is it possible to settle it in any way not liable to some serious objections.  The same may perhaps be said of all the forms called infinitives.  If the essence of a verb be made to consist in affirmation, predication, or assertion, (as it is in many grammars,) neither infinitives nor participles can be reckoned verbs, without a manifest breach of the definition.  Yet are the former almost universally treated as verbs, and by some as the only pure verbs; nor do all deny them this rank, who say that affirmation is essential to a verb.  Participles, when unconnected with auxiliaries, are most commonly considered a separate part of speech; but in the formation of many of our moods and tenses, we take them as constituent parts of the verb.  If there is absurdity in this, there is more in undertaking to avoid it; and the inconvenience should be submitted to, since it amounts to little or nothing in practice.  With auxiliaries, then, participles are verbs:  without auxiliaries, they are not verbs, but form a separate part of speech.