You perceive that the verb walks, in this example, is intransitive, because the action does not pass over to an object; that is, the action is confined to the agent John.  The following sign will generally enable you to distinguish a transitive verb from an intransitive.  Any verb that will make sense with the words a thing or a person, after it, is transitive.  Try these verbs by the sign, love, help, conquer, reach, subdue, overcome.  Thus, you can say, I love a person or thing—­I can help a person or thing—­and so on.  Hence you know that these verbs are transitive.  But an intransitive verb will not make sense with this sign, which fact will be shown by the following examples:  smile, go, come, play, bark, walk, fly.  We cannot say, if we mean to speak English, I smile a person or thing—­I go a person or thing:—­hence you perceive that these verbs are not transitive, but intransitive.

If you reflect upon these examples for a few moments, you will have a clear conception of the nature of transitive and intransitive verbs.  Before I close this subject, however, it is necessary farther to remark, that some transitive and intransitive verbs express what is called a mental or moral action; and others, a corporeal or physical action.  Verbs expressing the different affections or operations of the mind, denote moral actions; as, Brutus loved his country; James hates vice; We believe the tale:—­to repent, to relent, to think, to reflect, to mourn, to muse.  Those expressing the actions produced by matter, denote physical actions; as, The dog hears the bell; Virgil wrote the Aenead; Columbus discovered America;—­to see, to feel, to taste, to smell, to run, to talk, to fly, to strike.  In the sentence, Charles resembles his father, the verb resembles does not appear to express any action at all; yet the construction of the sentence, and the office which the verb performs, are such, that we are obliged to parse it as an active-transitive verb, governing the noun father in the objective case.  This you may easily reconcile in your mind, by reflecting, that the verb has a direct reference to its object.  The following verbs are of this character:  Have, own, retain; as, I have a book.

Active intransitive verbs are frequently made transitive.  When I say, The birds fly, the verb fly is intransitive; but when I say, The boy flies the kite, the verb fly is transitive, and governs the noun kite in the objective case.  Almost any active intransitive verb, and sometimes even neuter verbs, are used as transitive.  The horse walks rapidly; The boy runs swiftly; My friend lives well; The man died of a fever.  In all these examples the verbs are intransitive; in the following they are transitive:  The man walks his horse; The boy ran a race; My friend lives a holy life; Let me die the death of the righteous.