_to_ and _to_? An other argument as good, is
also afforded by the fact, that our ancestors often used the participle
after _to_, in the very same texts in which we have since adopted the
infinitive in its stead; as, "And if yee wolen resceyue, he is Elie that is
_to comynge_."--_Matt._, xi, 14. "Ihesu that delyueride us fro wraththe _to
comynge_."--_1 Thes._, i, 10. These, and seventeen other examples of the
same kind, may be seen in _Tooke's Diversions of Purley_, Vol. ii. pp. 457
and 458.

OBS. 22.--Dr. James P. Wilson, speaking of the English infinitive,
says:--"But if the appellation of _mode_ be denied it, it is then a _verbal
noun_. This is indeed _its truest character_, because _its idea ever
represents_ an _object of approach_. _To_ supplies the defect of a
termination characteristic of the infinitive, precedes it, and marks it
either as _that, towards which_ the preceding verb is directed;[409] or it
signifies _act_, and shows the word to import an action. When the
infinitive is the expression of an _immediate_ action, which it must be,
after the verbs, _bid, can, dare, do, feel, hear, let, make, may, must,
need, see, shall_, and _will_, the _preposition_ TO is omitted."--_Essay on
Grammar_, p. 129. That the truest character of the infinitive is that of a
verbal noun, is not to be conceded, in weak abandonment of all the reasons
for a contrary opinion, until it can be shown that the action or being
expressed by it, must needs assume a _substantive_ character, in order to
be "that _towards which_ the preceding verb is directed." But this
character is manifestly not supposable of any of those infinitives which,
according to the foregoing quotation, must follow other verbs without the
intervention of the preposition _to_: as, "Bid him _come_;"--"He can
_walk_." And I see no reason to suppose it, where the relation of the
infinitive to an other word is _not_ "_immediate_" but marked by the
preposition, as above described. For example: "And he laboured till the
going-down of the sun TO _deliver_ him."--_Dan._, vi, 14. Here _deliver_ is
governed by _to_, and connected by it to the finite verb _laboured_; but to
tell us, it is to be understood _substantively_ rather than _actively_, is
an assumption as false, as it is needless.

OBS. 23.--To deny to the infinitive the appellation of _mood_, no more
makes it a _verbal noun_, than does the Doctor's solecism about what "ITS
IDEA _ever represents_." "The infinitive theref