arable infinitive or
its preposition, would be a needless refinement. Yet some regard ought to
be paid to the different relations which the infinitive may bear to this
finite verb. For want of a due estimate of this difference, the following
sentence is, I think, very faulty: "The great business of this life _is to
prepare_, and _qualify us_, for the enjoyment of a better."--_Murray's
Gram._, Vol. i, p. 373. If the author meant to tell what our great business
in this life is, he should rather have said: "The great business of this
life is, to prepare and qualify _ourselves_ for the enjoyment of a better."

OBS. 7.--In relation to the infinitive, Dr. Adam remarks, that, "_To_ in
English is often taken _absolutely_; as, _To_ confess the truth; _To_
proceed; _To_ conclude."--_Latin and Eng. Gram._, p. 182. But the assertion
is not entirely true; nor are his examples appropriate; for what he and
many other grammarians call the _infinitive absolute_, evidently depends on
something _understood_; and the preposition is, surely, in no instance
independent of what follows it, and is therefore never entirely absolute.
Prepositions are not to be supposed to have no antecedent term, merely
because they stand at the head of a phrase or sentence which is made the
subject of a verb; for the phrase or sentence itself often contains that
term, as in the following example: "_In_ what way mind acts upon matter, is
unknown." Here _in_ shows the relation between _acts_ and _way_; because
the expression suggests, that mind _acts_ IN _some way_ upon matter.

OBS. 8.--The second exception above, wherever it is found applicable,
cancels the first; because it introduces an antecedent term before the
preposition _to_, as may be seen by the examples given. It is questionable
too, whether both of them may not also be cancelled in an other way; that
is, by transposition and the introduction of the pronoun _it_ for the
nominative: as, "_It_ is a great _affliction_, TO _be reduced_ to
poverty."--"_It_ is _hard_ FOR _man_ to tell how human life
began."--"Nevertheless _it_ is more needful for you, THAT _I should abide_
in the flesh." We cannot so well say, "It is more needful _for you_, FOR
_me to abide_ in the flesh;" but we may say, "It is, _on your account_,
more needful FOR _me to abide_ in the flesh." If these, and other similar
examples, are not to be accounted additional instances in which _to_ and
_for_, and also the conjunction that, are without