s _to walk_, though _founded_ in NATURE _and_
TRUTH, is of little use in grammar. Indeed it would rather perplex than
assist the learner; for the difference between verbs active and [verbs]
neuter, as transitive and intransitive, is easy and obvious; but the
difference between verbs absolutely neuter and [those which are]
intransitively active is not always clear. But however these latter may
differ in nature, the construction of them both is the same; and grammar is
not so much concerned with their _real_, as with their _grammatical_
properties."--_Lowth's Gram_; p. 30. But are not "TRUTH, NATURE, and
REALITY," worthy to be preferred to any instructions that contradict them?
If they are, the good doctor and his worthy copyist have here made an ill
choice. It is not only for the sake of these properties, that I retain a
distinction which these grammarians, and others above named, reject; but
for the sake of avoiding the untruth, confusion, and absurdity, into which
one must fall by calling all active-intransitive verbs _neuter_. The
distinction of active verbs, as being either transitive or intransitive, is
also necessarily retained. But the suggestion, that this distinction is
more "_easy and obvious_" than the other, is altogether an error. The
really neuter verbs, being very few, occasion little or no difficulty. But
very many active verbs, perhaps a large majority, are sometimes used
intransitively; and of those which our lexicographers record as being
always transitive, not a few are occasionally found without any object,
either expressed or clearly suggested: as, "He _convinces_, but he does not
_elevate nor animate_,"--_Blair's Rhet._, p. 242. "The child _imitates_,
and _commits_ to memory; whilst the riper age _digests_, and thinks
independently."--_Dr. Lieber, Lit. Conv._, p. 313. Of examples like these,
three different views maybe taken; and it is _very questionable_ which is
the right one: _First_, that these verbs are here _intransitive_, though
they are not commonly so; _Second_, that they are _transitive_, and have
objects understood; _Third_, that they are used _improperly_, because no
determinate objects are given them. If we assume the second opinion or the
last, the full or the correct expressions may be these: "He convinces _the
judgement_, but he does not elevate _the imagination_, or animate _the
feelings_."--"The child imitates _others_, and commits _words_ to memory;
whilst the riper age digests _fac