Infinitive Mode.
Present, To love: Past, To have loved.
Participle.
Present, Loving: Perfect, Loved: Past, Having loved.
But in discourse we have often occasion to speak of Time not only as
Present, Past, and Future, at large and indeterminately, but also as such
with some particular distinction and limitation; that is, as passing, or
finished; as imperfect, or perfect. This will best be seen in an example
of a Verb laid out and distributed according to these distinctions of
Time.
Indefinite, or Undetermined, Time:
Present, Past, Future,
I love; I loved; I shall love.
Definite, or Determined, Time:
Present Imperfect: I am (now) loving.
Present Perfect: I have (now) loved.
Past Imperfect: I was (then) loving.
Past Perfect: I had (then) loved.
Future Imperf. I shall (then) be loving.
Future Perf. I shall (then) have loved.
To express the Present and Past Imperfect of the Active and Neuter Verb
the Auxiliary _do_ is sometimes used: I _do_ (now) love; I _did_ (then)
love.
Thus with very little variation of the Principal Verb the several
circumstances of Mode and Time are clearly expressed by the help of the
Auxiliaries, _be_, _have_, _do_, _let_, _may_, _can_, _shall_, _will_.
The peculiar force of the several Auxiliaries is to be observed. _Do_
and _did_ mark the Action itself, or the Time of it[23], with greater
force and distinction. They are also of frequent and almost necessary
use in Interrogative and Negative Sentences. _Let_ does not only express
permission; but praying, exhorting, commanding. _May_ and _might_ express
the possibility or liberty of doing a thing; _can_ and _could_, the
power. _Must_ is sometimes called in for a helper, and denotes necessity.
_Would_ expresses the intention of the doer; _should_ simply the event.
_Will_ in the first Person singular and plural promises or threatens; in
the second and third Persons only foretells: _shall_ on the contrary,
in the first Person simply foretells; in the second and third Persons
commands or threatens[24].
_Do_ and _have_ make the Present Time; _did_, _had_, the Past; _shall_,
_will_, the Future: _let_ the Imperative Mode; _may_, _might_, _could_,
_would_, _should_, the Subjunctive. The Preposition _to_ placed before
the Verb makes the Infinitive Mode. _Have_, through its several Modes and
Times, is placed only before the Perfect Participle; and _be_, in like
manner, before the Present and Passive Participles: the rest only before
the Verb itself in its Primary Form[25].
The Passive Verb is only the Participle Passive, (which for the most
part is the same with the Indefinite Past Time Active, and always the
same with the Perfect Participle) joined to the Auxiliary Verb _to be_
through all its Variations: as, I _am loved_; I _was loved_; I _have been
loved_; I _shall be loved_: and so on through all the Persons, Numbers,
Times, and Modes.
The Neuter Verb is varied like the Active; but, having somewhat of the
Nature of the Passive, admits in many instances of the Passive form,
retaining still the Neuter signification; chiefly in such Verbs as
signify some sort of motion, or change of place or condition: as, I _am
come_; I _was gone_; I _am grown_; I _was fallen_[26]. The Verb _am_ in
this case precisely defines the Time of the action or event, but does not
change the nature of it; the Passive form still expressing, not properly
a Passion, but only a state or condition of Being.