OBS. 9.—­The question now before us has drawn forth, on either side, a deal of ill scholarship and false logic, of which it would be tedious to give even a synopsis.  Concerning the import of some of our most common words and phrases, these ingenious masters,—­Bullions, Sanborn, and Perley,—­severally assert some things which seem not to be exactly true.  It is remarkable that critics can err in expounding terms so central to the language, and so familiar to all ears, as “be, being, being built, burned, being burned, is, is burned, to be burned,” and the like. That to be and to exist, or their like derivatives, such as being and existing, is and exists, cannot always explain each other, is sufficiently shown above; and thereby is refuted Sanborn’s chief argument, that, “is being burned,” involves the contradiction of “existing, burned,” or “consumed by fire.”  According to his reasoning, as well as that of Bullions, is burned must mean exists consumed; was burned, existed consumed; and thus our whole passive conjugation would often be found made up of bald absurdities!  That this new unco-passive form conflicts with the older and better usage of taking the progressive form sometimes passively, is doubtless a good argument against the innovation; but that “Johnson and Addison” are fit representatives of the older “practice” in this case, may be doubted.  I know not that the latter has anywhere made use of such phraseology; and one or two examples from the former are scarcely an offset to his positive verdict against the usage.  See OBS. 3rd, above.

OBS. 10.—­As to what is called “the present or the imperfect participle passive,”—­as, “being burned,” or “being burnt,”—­if it is rightly interpreted in any of the foregoing citations, it is, beyond question, very improperly thus named.  In participles, ing denotes continuance:  thus being usually means continuing to be; loving, continuing to love; building, continuing to build,—­or (as taken passively) continuing to be built:  i. e., (in words which express the sense more precisely and certainly,) continuing to be in process of construction.  What then is “being built,” but “continuing to be built,” the same, or nearly the same, as “building” taken passively?  True it is, that built, when alone, being a perfect participle, does not mean “in process of construction,” but rather, “constructed” which intimates completion; yet, in the foregoing passive phrases, and others like them, as well as in all examples of this unco-passive voice, continuance of the passive state being first suggested, and cessation of the act being either regarded as future or disregarded, the imperfect participle passive is for the most part received as equivalent to the simple imperfect used in a passive sense.  But Dr. Bullions, who, after