pressing a purpose or object after iva, &c. we find the Subjunctive and Optative used like primary and secondary tenses of the same mood: thus, where in Latin we have manet ut hoc faciat, and manebat ut hoc faceret, we have μένει ἵνα τοῦτο ποιῇ, and ἔμενεν ἵνα τοῦτο ποιοίη. But even in this case of strongest resemblance there is no place for the Future Optative, which corresponds to the Future Indicative. Again, in clauses expressing general suppositions after éáv or el, or after relatives or temporal particles, depending on verbs which denote general truths or repeated actions, a correlation of the Subjunctive and Optative is found, analogous to that of the two divisions of the Latin Subjunctive; for example, in ἐὰν τοῦτο ποιῇ θαυμάζουσιν, si hoc faciat mirantur, and ei ToûтO Tоloin laúμačov, si hoc faceret mirabantur. Here, however, the analogy ceases, if we except certain cases of indirect question hereafter to be noticed, and a Homeric construction in relative sentences expressing a purpose, which almost disappears from the more cultivated language.

Let us turn now to the Optative in wishes; for here, if anywhere, we may look for the primary meaning of this mood. From this use it derives its name; and especially this is its only regular use in independent sentences, except in Apodosis with av. Here some have been so far misled by the supposed analogy of the Latin, as to translate the Present Optative by the Latin Imperfect Subjunctive (see, e. g., Damm's Lexicon Homer. et Pind., s. v. ßáw); but a slight examination will show that the Present and Aorist Optative are here so far from being secondary tenses of the Subjunctive, that they are equivalent to the Present Subjunctive in Latin, and refer to the future, while the Greek Subjunctive cannot even regularly stand in such expressions. Thus eibe ein is utinam sim, O that I may be; eïde yévoiro, utinam fiat, O that it may happen; whereas utinam esset and utinam factum esset correspond to εἴθε ἦν and εἴθε ἐγένετο.

The

In ordinary Protasis and Apodosis the same relation is seen. four Greek forms, ἐὰν ποιῇ, ἐὰν ποιήσῃ, εἰ ποιοίη, and εἰ ποιήσειε, have only one Latin equivalent, si faciat; the four shades of meaning for which the Greek required four forms being thought worthy by the Latin of but one. Here therefore the absurdity of classifying the last two as secondary forms of the first two, in conformity to a Latin analogy, is especially clear. What the Latin analogy would lead us to expect as secondary forms, the equivalents of si faceret and si fecisset, can be expressed in Greek only by the Indicative. In Apodosis

the Optative with a is equivalent to the primary tenses of the Latin Subjunctive, and not to the secondary tenses: thus, оinσau av is equivalent to faciam (not to fecissem, which would be éroinoa av). Here likewise the Subjunctive cannot be used in Attic Greek. This analogy between the Optative and the primary tenses of the Latin Subjunctive might lead us even to the view that the latter ought rather to be called an Optative, for which view there are certainly much stronger reasons than for the opposite one which we are considering. The analogy of the Sanskrit also seems to show that the Present Subjunctive of the Latin and the Optative of the Greek are descended from the same original forms.

In indirect quotations and questions the Optative is used after past tenses, each tense of the Indicative or Subjunctive in the direct discourse being then changed to the corresponding tense of the Optative. Thus, Einev ÖTI â dúvaιTO Tоinσo, he said that he would do what he could, implies that the direct discourse was, à av divaμai лоinow. Here the Optative may be the correlative of the Subjunctive; but it is quite as often the correlative of the Indicative, as the Subjunctive can stand after primary tenses only when it would have been used in the direct discourse. One tense of the Optative, the Future, can never represent a Subjunctive, as that mood has no corresponding tense; but it always represents a Future Indicative. Nothing more need be said to show the absurdity of calling this tense a secondary tense of the Subjunctive. The three remaining tenses of the Optative can with no more propriety be called secondary tenses of the Subjunctive than of the Indicative, for they represent both on precisely the same principles. This is especially obvious in regard to the Aorist, which has two distinct meanings in indirect questions, one when it represents an Aorist Indicative, and another when it represents an Aorist Subjunctive, the direct form. Thus, yvóet tí ToσELEV may mean either he knew not what he had done, or he knew not what he should do; as the direct question may have been either rí noinoa; what did I do? or ri monow; (Aor. Subj.), what shall I do? Strangely enough, this very class of sentences is supposed to furnish the most striking analogy between the Latin Subjunctive and the Greek Subjunctive and Optative combined. Non habet quo se vertat, and non habebat quo se verteret, are indeed equivalent to our exei ö ́ŋ tρáñŋtai and οὐκ εἶχον ὅπη τράποιτο, but a single example like ἠρώτων αὐτὸν εἰ ἀναπλεύ I asked him whether he had set sail (DEM. in Polycl. p. 1223, 21), in which ȧvañλevσ‹ιev represents an Aorist Indicative, shows that

σειεν,

the argument proves too much. Indirect quotations and questions therefore afford us more proof that the Optative is a secondary form of the Subjunctive, than that it is a secondary form of the Indicative.

Such

Two tenses of the Indicative, the Imperfect and Pluperfect, have no corresponding tenses in the Optative, so that these are regularly retained in the Indicative in indirect discourse; thus einev ori éμáxovтo means, he said that they had been fighting, i. e. he said éμáxovтo. A rare exception to the last principle shows conclusively the propriety of the names commonly given to the tenses of the Optative. The want of a tense in the Optative to represent the Imperfect Indicative in examples like the last was naturally felt as a defect; and in the Infinitive and the Participle this want was supplied by using the Present in a new sense to represent the Imperfect, the peculiar use being always denoted by something in the context. In a few instances we find the Present Optative used in the same way to supply the want of an Imperfect, the context making it clear that the tense is not used in its ordinary sense. an instance is found in DEM. in Onet. I, 869, 12; åteкpívavтo őтi ovdeis μάρτυς παρείη, κομίζοιτο δὲ λαμβάνων καθ ̓ ὁποσονοῦν δέοιτο ̓́Αφοβος παρ' avrov, they replied that no witness had been present, but that Aphobus had received the money from them, taking it in such sums as he happened Here παρείη represents παρήν, and κομίζοιτο represents ἐκομί ČETO, which would ordinarily be retained in such a sentence. Other instances may be found in XEN. Hell. VII, 1, 38 (quoted by Madvig, Synt. § 130); and in XEN. Hell. I, 7, 5. If now the name of Imperfect be given to the Present Optative in its ordinary use, when it represents a Present of the direct discourse, and is merely translated by an Imperfect to suit the English idiom, what shall we call this true Imperfect Optative, which really represents an Imperfect Indicative, and stands where an Imperfect Indicative is the regular form?

We see then that the Optative was used in the whole class of constructions known as oratio obliqua, or indirect discourse, as the correlative not merely of the Subjunctive, but also of the Indicative, and that it possessed the power of expressing in an oblique form every tense of both those moods in a manner of which the Latin presents hardly a trace. In fact, this use of the Greek Optative presents one of the most striking examples of the versatility and flexibility of the language, and of its wonderful adaptation to the expression of the nicest shades of thought of which the human mind is capable. This single use of the mood seems sufficient in itself to prevent any one who has any appre

ciation of its force from assigning to it the subordinate rank of a secondary form attached to the Subjunctive.

Some general remarks by President Felton, upon the connection of the Greek and Latin modal forms as illustrated by the Sanskrit, led Professor Agassiz to offer some remarks, expressing a general disbelief in the supposed derivation of later languages from earlier ones, he regarding each language and each race as substantially primordial, and ascribing the resemblances and coincidences of language to a similarity in the mental organization of the races. Whereupon President Felton pointed out some of the lexical and inflectional coincidences among affiliated languages, which were in his opinion utterly inexplicable upon any supposition other than that of historical relation.

Professor Bowen made some general observations on the supposed hereditability of peculiar traits of bodily and mental organization, and especially of mental disease.

There has been, he thought, an increasing tendency of late years to enlarge the number of such traits, and to insist more and more upon the certainty of their transmission. It has even been proposed to prohibit by law the intermarriage of persons who have mental or bodily defects or diseases which might be transmitted to their offspring. And as to insanity, there is too much reason to fear that persons have been actually driven mad through the fear, which has been carefully inculcated upon them, of having inherited insanity. It will be admitted, that, if there is anything which can foster and rapidly develop some latent tendency towards mental disease, it is dreading, and brooding over the dread, of that great calamity, regarded as an inevitable event, which must sooner or later happen. In the opinion of many, crime and sin are no longer imputable to individual men and women, but to what the lawyers call "the act of God," which entailed upon the offenders inevitably a wicked temper, a perverted will, or a diseased brain. The only proper name to be given to this doctrine is physiological fatalism. It rests upon a perversion of one of the darkest sayings of the old Jewish Scripture, that the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children, even to the third and fourth generation; a seemingly harsh doctrine, though, in the meaning which was probably intended, it

is certainly true; and which, at any rate, is not so terrific as that perversion of it, which teaches, that not merely the sins, but the congenital defects and diseases, implanted in us before birth, shall be visited upon our innocent offspring, not for two or three generations only, but for all future time.

Professor Bowen maintained that the assumed evidence upon which this theory rests is unscientific and unsatisfactory, and can be confronted by a great amount of testimony leading to an opposite conclusion. He began by admitting, or taking for granted, every fact which is commonly adduced in its support, excluding, of course, such a statement of that fact as may involve any theory respecting its nature. Thus, it is a fact that insane persons can generally find among their ancestors, or their relatives in the ancestral line, one or more persons who also have been insane. The illogical, because hypothetical, statement of this fact is, that the former inherited their insanity from the latter. It is also a fact, that children often bear a certain measure of resemblance, in body, mind, or character, to their parents or grandparents; and the hypothetical statement of this fact is, that they have inherited these traits.

Now, one of three suppositions must be true;-either, 1. there is a law of nature that bodily and mental peculiarities shall be transmitted by inheritance; or, 2. there is a law that they shall not be so transmitted; or, 3. there is no law about the matter, and it is mere accident whether parental or ancestral peculiarities reappear in the offspring or not. The physiological fatalists maintain the first of these suppositions; Professor Bowen said he believed the second; but, as against the fatalists, it is enough to substantiate by satisfactory evidence the third.

-

The mistake of those who favor the doctrine of hereditary descent arises from the common error,- an Idol of the Tribe, as Bacon calls it, which consists in regarding only the affirmative cases; "and though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or by some distinction sets aside and rejects." "Such is the way of all superstition," Bacon continues; "but with far greater subtilty does this mischief insinuate itself into philosophy and the sciences. . . . . It is the peculiar and perpetual error of the human intellect, to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than by negatives; whereas, it ought properly to hold itself indifferently disposed towards both alike. Indeed, in the establishment of any true law of nature, the negative instance is the more forcible of the two." Dr. Johnson pithily described this popular