rt time you will find them of equal
temperature. One has grown warm, the other cool. One has _imparted_ heat
and _received_ cold, the other has _received_ heat and _imparted_ cold.
Yet all this would remain forever unknown, but for the effects which
must appear obvious to all. From these effects the causes are to be
learned.

It must, I think, appear plain to all who are willing to see, that
action, as such, can never exist distinct from the thing that acts; that
all our notions of action are derived from an observance of _things_ in
an acting condition; and hence that no words can be framed to express
our ideas of action on any other principle.

I hope you will bear these principles in mind. They are vastly important
in the construction of language, as will appear when we come to speak of
the _agents_ and _objects_ of action. We still adhere to the fact, that
no rules of language can be successfully employed, which deviate from
the permanent laws which operate in the regulation of matter and mind; a
fact which can not be too deeply impressed on your minds.

In the consideration of actions as expressed by verbs, we must observe
that _power_, _cause_, _means_, _agency_, and _effects_, are
indispensable to their existence. Such principles exist _in fact_, and
must be observed in obtaining a complete knowledge of language; for
words, we have already seen, are the expression of ideas, and ideas are
the impression of things.

In our attempts at improvement, we should strip away the covering, and
come at the reality. Words should be measurably forgotten, while we
search diligently for the things expressed by them. _Signs_ should
always conduct to the things _signified_. The weary traveller, hungry
and faint, would hardly satisfy himself with an examination of the
_sign_ before the inn, marking its form, the picture upon it, the nice
shades of coloring in the painting. He would go in, and search for the
thing signified.

It has been the fault in teaching language, that learners have been
limited to the mere _forms_ of words, while the important duty of
teaching them to look at the thing signified, has been entirely
disregarded. Hence they have only obtained book knowledge. They know
what the grammars say; but how to _apply_ what they say, or what is in
reality meant by it, they have yet to learn. This explains the reason
why almost every man who has studied grammar will tell you that "he
_used_ to understand it, but it h