s _follows_ a verb and
governs nothing, who resolutely deny it that name, when it _precedes_ the
verb, and _requires it to be in the infinitive mood_, as in the last two
examples. Now, if this is not _government_, what is? And if _to_, without
government, is not an _adverb_, what is? See Obs. 2d on the List of
Prepositions.

OBS. 17.--The infinitive thus admits a simpler solution in English, than in
most other languages; because we less frequently use it without a
preposition, and seldom, if ever, allow any variety in this connecting and
governing particle. And yet in no other language has its construction given
rise to a tenth part of that variety of absurd opinions, which the defender
of its true syntax must refute in ours. In French, the infinitive, though
frequently placed in immediate dependence on an other verb, may also be
governed by several different prepositions, (as, _a, de, pour, sans,
apres_,) according to the sense.[406] In Spanish and Italian, the
construction is similar. In Latin and Greek, the infinitive is, for the
most part, immediately dependent on an other verb. But, according to the
grammars, it may stand for a noun, in all the six cases; and many have
called it an _indeclinable noun_. See the Port-Royal Latin and Greek
grammars; in which several peculiar constructions of the infinitive are
referred to the government of a _preposition_--constructions that occur
frequently in Greek, and sometimes even in Latin.

OBS. 18.--It is from an improper extension of the principles of these
"learned languages" to ours, that much of the false teaching which has so
greatly and so long embarrassed this part of English grammar, has been, and
continues to be, derived. A late author, who supposes every infinitive to
be virtually _a noun_, and who thinks he finds in ours _all the cases_ of
an English noun, not excepting the possessive, gives the following account
of its origin and nature: "This mood, with almost all its properties and
uses, has been adopted into our language from the ancient Greek and Latin
tongues. * * * The definite article [Greek: to] [,] _the_, which they [the
Greeks] used before the infinitive, to mark, in an especial manner, its
nature of a substantive, _is evidently the same word_ that we use before
our infinitive; thus, '_to_ write,' signifies _the_ writing; that is, the
action of writing;--and when a verb governs an infinitive, it only governs
it _as in the objective case_."--_Nixon's Engli