his ground, and we shall labor to maintain it, that every
verb necessarily presupposes an _agent_ or _actor_, an _action_, and an
_object_ acted upon, or affected by the action.

No action, as such, can be known to exist separate from the thing that
acts. We can conceive no idea of action, only by keeping our minds fixed
on the acting substance, marking its changes, movements, and tendencies.
"The book _moves_." In this case the eye rests on the book, and observes
its positions and attitudes, alternating one way and the other. You can
separate no action from the book, nor conceive any idea of it, as a
separate entity. Let the book be taken away. Where now is the action?
What can you think or say of it? There is the same space just now
occupied by the book, but no action is perceivable.

The boy _rolls_ his marble upon the floor. All his ideas of the action
performed by it are derived from an observation of the marble. His eye
follows it as it moves along the floor. He sees it in that acting
condition. When he speaks of the action as a whole, he thinks where it
started and where it stopped. It is of no importance, so far as the verb
is concerned, whether the marble received an impulse from his hand, or
whether the floor was sufficiently inclined to allow it to roll by its
own inherent tendency. The action is, in this case, the obvious change
of the marble.

Our whole knowledge of action depends on an observance of things in a
state of motion, or change, or exerting a tendency to change, or to
counteract an opposing substance.

This will be admitted so far as material things are concerned. The same
principle holds good in reference to every thing of which we form ideas,
or concerning which we use language. In our definition of nouns we spoke
of immaterial and imaginary things to which we gave _names_ and which we
consider as agencies capable of exerting an influence in the production
of effects, or in resisting actions. It is therefore unimportant whether
the action be real or imaginary. It is still inseparably connected with
the thing that acts; and we employ it thus in the construction of
language to express our thoughts. Thus, lions roar; birds sing; minds
reflect; fairies dance; knowledge increases; fancies err; imagination
wanders.

This fact should be borne in mind in all our attempts to understand or
explain language. The mind should remain fixed to the acting substance,
to observe its changes and relations at