connexion_, express an action, or
the suffering of an action, _now in progress_." And Dr. Perley, who also
calls the compound of _being_ a "_present_ participle," argues thus:
"_Being built_ signifies an _action, finished_; and how can _Is being
built_, signify an _action unfinished_?" To expound a _passive_ term
_actively_, or as "signifying _action_," is, at any rate, a near approach
to absurdity; and I shall presently show that the fore-cited notion of "a
perfect participle," now half abandoned by Bullions himself, has been the
seed of the very worst form of that ridiculous neology which the good
Doctor was opposing.

OBS. 11.--These criticisms being based upon the _meaning_ of certain
participles, either alone or in phrases, and the particular terms spoken of
being chiefly meant to represent _classes_, what is said of them may be
understood of their _kinds_. Hence the appropriate _naming_ of the kinds,
so as to convey no false idea of any participle's import, is justly brought
into view; and I may be allowed to say here, that, for the first participle
passive, which begins with "_being_," the epithet "_Imperfect_" is better
than "_Present_," because this compound participle denotes, not always
what is _present_, but always _the state_ of something by which an action
is, _or was, or will be, undergone or undergoing--a state continuing_, or
so regarded, though perhaps the action causative may be ended--or sometimes
perhaps imagined only, and not yet really begun. With a marvellous
instability of doctrine, for the professed systematizer of different
languages and grammars, Dr. Bullions has recently changed his names of the
second and third participles, in both voices, from "_Perfect_" and
"_Compound Perfect_," to "_Past_" and "_Perfect_." His notion now is, that,
"_The Perfect_ participle is always compound; as, _Having finished, Having
been finished_."--_Bullions's Analyt. and Pract. Grammar_, 1849, p. 77. And
what was the "_Perfect_" before, in his several books, is now called the
"_Past_;" though, with this change, he has deliberately made an other which
is repugnant to it: this participle, being the basis of three tenses
always, and of all the tenses sometimes, is now allowed by the Doctor to
lend the term "_perfect_" to the three,--"_Present-perfect, Past-perfect,
Future-perfect,"_--even when itself is named otherwise!

OBS. 12.--From the erroneous conception, that a perfect participle must, in
every connexion, ex