OBS. 10.—­When the infinitive mood is made the subject of a finite verb, it is most commonly used to express action or state in the abstract; as, “To be contents his natural desire.”—­Pope.  Here to be stands for simple existence; or if for the existence of the Indian, of whom the author speaks, that relation is merely implied. “To define ridicule, has puzzled and vexed every critic.”—­Kames, El. of Crit., i, 300.  Here “to define” expresses an action quite as distinct from any agent, as would the participial noun; as, “The defining of ridicule,” &c.  In connexion with the infinitive, a concrete quality may also be taken as an abstract; as, “To be good is to be happy.”  Here good and happy express the quality of goodness and the state of happiness considered abstractly; and therefore these adjectives do not relate to any particular noun.  So also the passive infinitive, or a perfect participle taken in a passive sense; as, “To be satisfied with a little, is the greatest wisdom.”—­“To appear discouraged, is the way to become so.”  Here the satisfaction and the discouragement are considered abstractly, and without reference to any particular person. (See Obs. 12th and 13th on Rule 6th.) So too, apparently, the participles doing and suffering, as well as the adjective weak, in the following example: 

   “Fallen Cherub, to be weak is miserable,
    Doing or suffering.”—­Milton’s Paradise Lost.

OBS. 11.—­When the action or state is to be expressly limited to one class of beings, or to a particular person or thing, without making the verb finite; the noun or pronoun may be introduced before the infinitive by the preposition for:  as, “For men to search their own glory, is not glory.”—­Prov., xxv, 27. “For a prince to be reduced by villany [sic—­KTH] to my distressful circumstances, is calamity enough.”—­Translation of Sallust. “For holy persons to be humble, is as hard, as for a prince to submit himself to be guided by tutors.”—­TAYLOR:  Priestley’s Gram., p. 132; Murray’s, 184.  But such a limitation is sometimes implied, when the expression itself is general; as, “Not to know me, argues thyself unknown.”—­Milton.  That is, “For thee not to know me.”  The phrase is put far, “Thy ignorance of me;” for an other’s ignorance would be no argument in regard to the individual addressed. “I, to bear this, that never knew but better, is some burden.”—­Beauties of Shak., p. 327.  Here the infinitive to bear, which is the subject of the verb is, is limited in sense by the pronoun I, which is put absolute in the nominative, though perhaps improperly; because, “For me to bear this,” &c., will convey the same meaning, in a form much more common, and perhaps more grammatical.  In the following couplet, there is an ellipsis of the infinitive; for the phrase, “fool with fool,” means, “for fool to contend with fool,” or, “for one fool to contend with an other:”