r. S. Webber's English Gram._, p. 35.

(3.) "RULE 3. A verb in the Infinitive Mode, is _the object_ of the
preposition TO, expressed or understood."--_S. W. Clark's Practical Gram._,
p. 127.

[405] Rufus Nutting, A. M., a grammarian of some skill, supposes that in
all such sentences there was "_anciently_" an ellipsis, not of the phrase
"_in order to_," but of the preposition _for_. He says, "Considering this
mode as merely a _verbal noun_, it might be observed, that the infinitive,
when it expresses the _object_, is governed by a _transitive_ verb; and,
when it expresses the _final cause_, is governed by an _intransitive_ verb,
OR ANCIENTLY, BY A PREPOSITION UNDERSTOOD. Of the former kind--'he learns
_to read_.' Of the latter--'he reads _to learn_,' i. e. '_for_ to
learn.'"--_Practical Gram._, p. 101. If _for_ was anciently understood in
examples of this sort, it is understood now, and to a still greater extent;
because we do not now insert the word _for_, as our ancestors sometimes
did; and an ellipsis can no otherwise grow obsolete, than by a continual
use of what was once occasionally omitted.

[406] (1.) "La preposition, est un mot indeclinable, place devant les noms,
les pronoms, et les _verbes_, qu'elle _regit_."--"The preposition is an
indeclinable word placed before the nouns, pronouns, and _verbs_ which it
_governs_."--_Perrin's Grammar_, p. 152.

(2.) "Every verb placed immediately after _an other verb_, or after _a
preposition_, ought to be put in the _infinitive_; because it is then _the
regimen_ of the verb or preposition which precedes."--See _La Grammaire des
Grammaires, par Girault Du Vivier_, p. 774.

(3.) The American translator of the Elements of General Grammar, by the
Baron De Sacy, is naturally led, in giving a version of his author's method
of analysis, to parse the English infinitive mood essentially as I do;
calling the word _to_ a preposition, and the exponent, or sign, of a
_relation_ between the verb which follows it, and some other word which is
antecedent to it. Thus, in the phrase, "_commanding_ them _to use_ his
power," he says, that "'_to_' [is the] Exponent of a relation whose
Antecedent is '_commanding_,' and [whose] Consequent [is]
'_use_.'"--_Fosdick's De Sacy_, p. 131. In short, he expounds the word _to_
in this relation, just as he does when it stands before the objective case.
For example, in the phrase, "_belonging to him alone: 'to_,' Exponent of a
relation of which the Ant