en to each of the participles: and sometimes with
manifest impropriety; as when Buchanan, in his conjugations, calls _being_,
"Active,"--and _been, having been, having had_, "Passive." Learned men may
differ in opinion respecting the nature of words, but grammar can never
well deserve the name of _science_, till at least an ordinary share of
reason and knowledge appears in the language of those who teach it.

OBS. 2.--The FIRST participle has been called the Present, the Progressive,
the Imperfect, the Simple Imperfect, the Indefinite, the Active, the
Present Active, the Present Passive, the Present Neuter, and, in the
passive voice, the Preterimperfcct, the Compound Imperfect, the Compound
Passive, the Passive. The SECOND, which, though it is always but _one
word_, some authors treat as being _two participles_, or _three_, has been
called the Perfect, the Preter, the Preterperfect, the Imperfect, the
Simple Perfect, the Past, the Simple Past, the First Past, the Preterit,
the Passive, the Present Passive, the Perfect Active, the Past Active, the
Auxiliary Perfect, the Perfect Passive, the Perfect Neuter, the Simple
Perfect Active, the Simple Perfect Passive. The THIRD has been called the
Compound, the Compound Active, the Compound Passive, the Compound Perfect,
the Compound Perfect Active, the Compound Perfect Passive, the Compound
Preter, the Present, the Present Perfect, the Past, the Second Past, the
Past Compound, the Compound Past, the Prior-perfect, the Prior-present, the
Perfect, the Pluperfect, the Preterperfect, the Preperfect.[302]

In teaching others to speak and write well, it becomes us to express our
doctrines in the most suitable terms; but the application of a name is of
no great consequence, so that the thing itself be rightly understood by the
learner. Grammar should be taught in a style at once neat and plain, clear
and brief. Upon the choice of his terms, the writer of this work has
bestowed much reflection; yet he finds it impossible either to please
everybody, or to explain, without intolerable prolixity, all the reasons
for preference.

OBS. 3.--The participle in _ing_ represents the action or state as
_continuing_ and ever _incomplete_; it is therefore rightly termed the
IMPERFECT participle: whereas the participle in _ed_ always, or at least
usually, has reference to the action as _done_ and _complete_; and is, by
proper contradistinction, called the PERFECT participle. It is hardly
necessary