n the floor, it
is contended that he no longer acts, and that _lie_ expresses no action.
He has ceased from physical, muscular action regulated by his will, and
is now subject to the common laws which govern matter.

Let us take a strong example. The book _lies_ or _lays_ on the desk. Now
you ask, does that book perform any action in laying on the desk? I
answer, yes; and I will prove it on the principles of the soundest
philosophy, to the satisfaction of every one present. Nor will I deviate
from existing grammars to do it, so far as real action is concerned.

The book _lies_ on the desk. The desk _supports_ the book. Will you
parse _supports_? It is, according to every system, an active transitive
verb. It has an objective case after it on which the action terminates.
But what does the desk do to _support_ the book? It barely resists the
action which the book _performs_ in lying on it. The action of the desk
and book is reciprocal. But if the book does not act, neither can the
desk act, for that only repels the force of the book in pressing upon it
in its tendency towards the earth, in obedience to the law of
gravitation. And yet our authors have told us that the desk is _active_
in resisting no action of the book! No wonder people are unable to
understand grammar. It violates the first principles of natural science,
and frames to itself a code of laws, unequal, false, and exceptionable,
which bear no affinity to the rest of the world, and will not apply in
the expression of ideas.

I was once lecturing on this subject in one of the cities of New-York.
Mrs. W., the distinguished teacher of one of the most popular Female
Seminaries in our country, attended. At the close of one lecture she
remarked that the greatest fault she had discovered in the new system,
was the want of a class of words to express neutrality. Children, she
said, conceived ideas of things in a quiescent state, and words should
be taught them by which to communicate such ideas. I asked her for an
example. She gave the rock in the side of the mountain. It had never
moved. It could never act. There it had been from the foundation of the
earth, and there it would remain unaltered and unchanged till time
should be no longer. I remarked, that I would take another small stone
and _lay_ it on the great one which could never act, and now we say the
great rock _upholds_, _sustains_ or _supports_ the small one--all active
transitive verbs with an object expr