stain_), or _I can not--eat_ (i.e., _I am
unable to eat_); but, as stated above, it _almost_ always has the latter
signification.

But not _always_. In Byron's "Deformed Transformed" we find the following
lines:--

Clay! not dead but soulless,
Though no mortal man would choose thee,
An immortal no less
Deigns _not to refuse_ thee.

Here _not to refuse_ = _to accept;_ and is probably a Grecism. _To not
refuse_ would, perhaps, be better.

The next expression is still more foreign to the English idiom:--

For _not_ to have been dipped in Lethe's lake
_Could save_ the son of Thetis from to die.

Here _not_ is to be taken with _could_.

s. 517. In the present English, two negatives make an affirmative. _I have
not not seen him_ = _I have seen him_. In Greek this was not the case.
_Duae aut plures negativae apud Graecos vehementius negant_ is a well known
rule. The Anglo-Saxon idiom differed from the English and coincided with
the Greek. The French negative is only apparently double; words like
_point_, _pas_, mean not _not_, but _at all_. _Je ne parle pas_ = _I not
speak at all_, not _I not speak no_.

s. 518. _Questions of appeal._--All questions imply want of information;
want of information may then imply doubt; doubt, perplexity; and perplexity
the absence of an alternative. In this way, what are called, by Mr.
Arnold,[65] _questions of appeal_, are, practically speaking, negatives.
_What should I do?_ when asked in extreme perplexity, means that nothing
can well be done. In the following passage we have the presence of a
question instead of a negative:--

Or hear'st thou (_cluis_, Lat.) rather pure ethereal stream,
Whose fountain who (_no one_) shall tell?--_Paradise Lost._

* * * * *

CHAPTER XXVIII.

ON THE CASE ABSOLUTE.

s. 519. Broadly speaking, all adverbial constructions are absolute. The
term, however, is conveniently limited to a particular combination of the
noun, verb, and participle. When two actions are connected with each other,
either by the fact of their simultaneous occurrence, or as cause and
effect, they may be expressed within the limits of a single proposition, by
expressing the one by means of a verb, and the other by means of a noun and
participle agreeing with each other. _The door being open, the horse was
stolen._

Considering the nature of the connection between the two actions, we find
good grounds for expecting _[`a] pr