ore," as Horne Tooke
observes, "appears plainly to be what the Stoics called it, _the very verb
itself_, pure and uncompounded."--_Diversions of Purley_, Vol. i, p. 286.
Not indeed as including the particle _to_, or as it stands in the English
perfect tense, but as it occurs in the _simple root_. But I cited Dr.
Wilson, as above, not so much with a design of animadverting again on this
point, as with reference to the _import_ of the particle _to_; of which he
furnishes a twofold explanation, leaving the reader to take which part he
will of the contradiction. He at first conceives it to convey in general
the idea of "_towards_," and to mark the infinitive as a term "_towards
which_" something else "_is directed_." If this interpretation is the true
one, it is plain that _to_ before a verb is no other than the common
preposition _to_; and this idea is confirmed by its ancient usage, and by
all that is certainly known of its derivation. But if we take the second
solution, and say, "it signifies _act_," we make it not a preposition, but
either a noun or a verb; and then the question arises, _Which of these is
it_? Besides, what sense can there be, in supposing _to go_ to mean _act
go_, or to be equivalent to _do go_.[410]

OBS. 24.--Though the infinitive is commonly made an adjunct to some finite
verb, yet it may be connected to almost all the other parts of speech, or
even to an other infinitive. The preposition _to_ being its only and almost
universal index, we seldom find any other preposition put before this;
unless the word _about_, in such a situation, is a preposition, as I
incline to think it is.[411] Anciently, the infinitive was sometimes
preceded by _for_ as well as _to_; as, "I went up to Jerusalem _for to_
worship."--_Acts_, xxiv, 11. "What went ye out _for to_ see?"--_Luke_, vii,
26. "And stood up _for to_ read."--_Luke_, iv, 16. Here modern usage
rejects the former preposition: the idiom is left to the uneducated. But it
seems practicable to subjoin the infinitive to every one of the ten parts
of speech, except the article: as,

1. To a noun; as, "If there is any _precept to obtain_
felicity."--_Hawkesworth_. "It is high _time to awake_ out of
sleep."--_Rom._, xiii, 11. "To flee from the _wrath to come_."--_Matt._,
iii, 7.

2. To an adjective; as, "He seemed _desirous to speak_, yet _unwilling to
offend_."--_Hawkesworth_. "He who is the _slowest to promise_, is _the
quickest to perform_."--_Art of Thinking_