If there are any such peripatetics in these days of light and science, who still cling to the false and degrading systems of neutrality, because they are honorable for age, or sustained by learned and good men, and who will oppose all improvement, reject without examination, or, what is still worse, refuse to adopt, after being convinced of the truth of it, any system, because it is novel, an innovation upon established forms, I can only say of them, in the language of Micanzio, the Venetian friend of Gallileo—­“The efforts of such enemies to get these principles prohibited, will occasion no loss either to your reputation, or to the intelligent part of the world.  As to posterity, this is just one of the surest ways to hand them down to them.  But what a wretched set this must be, to whom every good thing, and all that is found in nature, necessarily appears hostile and odious.”

LECTURE X.

ON VERBS.

A philosophical axiom.—­Manner of expressing action.—­Things taken for granted.—­Simple facts must be known.—­Must never deviate from the truth.—­Every cause will have an effect.—­An example of an intransitive verb.—­Objects expressed or implied.—­All language eliptical.—­Intransitive verbs examined.—­I run.—­I walk.—­To step.—­Birds fly.—­It rains.—­The fire burns.—­The sun shines.—­To smile.—­Eat and drink.—­Miscellaneous examples.—­Evils of false teaching.—­A change is demanded.—­These principles apply universally.—­Their importance.

We have made some general remarks on the power, cause, and means, necessary in the production of action.  We now approach nearer to the application of these principles as observed in the immediate agency and effects which precede and follow action, and as connected with the verb.

It is an axiom in philosophy which cannot be controverted, that every effect is the product of a prior cause, and that every cause will necessarily produce a corresponding effect.  This fact has always existed and will forever remain unchanged.  It applies universally in physical, mental, and moral science; to God or man; to angels or to atoms; in time or thro eternity.  No language can be constructed which does not accord with it, for no ideas can be gained but by an observance of its manifestations in the material or spiritual universe.  The manner of expressing this cause and effect may differ in different nations or by people of the same nation, but the fact remains unaltered, and so far as understood the idea is the same.  In the case of the horse mentioned in a former lecture,[12] the idea was the same, but the manner of expressing it different.  Let that horse walk, lay down, roll over, rise up, shake himself, rear, or stand still, all present will observe the same attitude of the horse, and will form the same