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CHAPTER III.

OF THE FUTURE TENSE, AND THE USAGE OF SHALL AND WILL.

When speaking of tenses we have hitherto confined ourselves to the present and the past. In reality there are no future actions; they exist only in anticipation. Nevertheless, those embryo beings, the creations of hope or of fear,—— play a splendid part on the theatre of human thought. The past soon loses its interest;—the present (if there be a present) has only a momentary duration; and we may be truly said to live among the nonentities of the future.

Actions that are to come can only be contemplated through our present conception of how they may be produced. All past actions are necessary, otherwise they would not have been; and the thoughts, or things (termed causes), which preceded and are supposed to have produced them, are left for the investigation of the historian; but, in looking forward to the future, we perceive nothing but causes, for there is no action previous to their exertion.

We may conceive actions to arise from three different sources; and consequently they are divisible into as many kinds:

1. Voluntary, that is, such as follow the Will of the Agent.

2. Compulsory,-such as follow the Will, or Power of a being different from the Agent.

3. Contingent, such as are either not referrible to any known cause, or which we chuse to consider as simply future.

To express these three several divisions, we make use of only two auxiliaries, will and shall.

To WILL (Saxon willan,) with some change of conjugation, though a little antiquated, still exists in our language as a regular verb. "I will," "Thou willest," "He wills," "We willed," &c. express the consent or desire of their nominatives; and hence the defective auxiliary is well fitted to mark a voluntary future.

SHALL is the Saxon scealan, to owe, or to be obliged; and therefore properly applies to any prediction of a compulsory kind. In very old English, it was the only future auxiliary, Will being then restricted to its regular meaning.

So far all is well, but how, with only these two words, will and shall, can we designate an act which is purely contingent,-a simple future? The Germans use the verb werden, to become, for

that purpose.

It is equivalent to the Saxon weorthan; but that verb, (unless perhaps in some anomalous usages of the word were,) has not reached our times. Accordingly, by means of a few dextrous manoeuvres, which puzzle the brains of the Scots and Irish, we have contrived to make will and shall answer all the three divisions of futurity. With regard to which of the two shall, in any particular case, become a simple future, our choice is founded on the following principles:

1. Knowing little of the will, or determination, of others, we denote their contingent actions by will, and their compulsory ones by shall.

2. Knowing our own will, we denote our voluntary actions by will, and our contingent actions by shall.

3. When we would express our own necessary actions, we use a periphrasis, such as "I shall be forced," or "I shall be obliged" to do such a thing: or, changing the verb, we say "I must do it" or "I am obliged (or forced) to do it."

4. When we would express the voluntary actions of others, we lay an emphasis on the word will, and say "You will do it ;" or we use such prophetical phrases as "You will surely do so," " I am convinced that he will do so,' &c,

5. SHOULD and WOULD are the conditionals

of shall and will, and follow similar rules of construction. Should is sometimes used unconditionally, and is then equivalent to ought. Would is also used in the same manner, and then signifies wish. "I should have done that" signifies I ought to have done that;" and "I would that you were wise" is equivalent to, "I wish that you were wise." In these usages, should and would cease to be conditionals.

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The preceding principles are, probably, unexceptionable, but they are too general to be easily referred to, in particular instances. The choice between shall and will depends so much upon the intention of the speaker, that it is scarcely possible to teach a foreigner to distinguish their usage; for even our best writers must be sometimes in fault, seeing that they are not always uniform in their practice. Nevertheless, an attention to accuracy in the use of those words is of the utmost importance; for, on the nice discrimination of the signs of the future tense, much of the precision and elegance of composition depends. As, in incurable diseases, the prescriptions are always most numerous and generally specifics, so, on this subject, every grammarian has promulgated his own infallible instructions; and we have now before us a work, devoted entirely to shall and will, containing no

fewer than thirty-five Rules, with numerous observations and examples upon each. However correct these may be, (and we believe that they are correct,) they defeat their purpose by their -multiplicity. Mr. Brightland's Rule (from the Latin of Dr. Wallis) has the advantage of being easily retained in the memory; but it is not sufficiently comprehensive:

"In the First Person, simply, shall foretels;
In will, a threat, or else a promise, dwells;
Shall, in the Second and the Third, does threat:
Will, simply, then foretels the future feat."

When it is said that will, in the first person either promises, or threatens, it is understood only in its combination with other words, or from its known connexion with other circumstances. The will or desire of the speaker is all that is expressed in the simple sentence, and this will may promise a favour or threaten a punishment; for we never use will in the first person without assuming that we have power. Shall, in the second and third person, also presumes the power of compulsion; for it would be absurd to say "You shall," or "He shall," act in a certain manner, if we had no power to enforce obedience: it would be an empty threat.

When we would employ shall and will as inter