in its inflections; as, 'A man _needs_ more
prudence.' But _when intransitive_, it drops the personal terminations in
the present tense, and is followed by a verb without the prefix _to_; as,
'A man _need_ not _be_ uneasy.'"--_Greenleaf s Grammar Simplified_, p. 38;
_Webster's Philosophical Gram._, p. 178; _Improved Gram._, 127. Each part
of this explanation appears to me erroneous. In _popular practice_, one
shall oftener hear, "He _dares n't_ do it," or even, "_You dares n't_ do
it," than, "_He dare not_ do it." But it is only in the trained practice of
the schools, that he shall ever hear, "He _needs n't_ do it," or, "He
_needs not_ do it." If _need_ is sometimes used without inflection, this
peculiarity, or the disuse of _to_ before the subsequent infinitive, is not
a necessary result of its "_intransitive_" character. And as to their
latent _nominative_, "whereof there _is_ no _account_," or, "whereof there
_needs_ no _account_;" their _fact_, of which "there _is_ no _evidence_,"
or of which "there _needs_ no _evidence_;" I judge it a remarkable
phenomenon, that authors of so high pretensions, could find, in these
_transpositions_, a nominative to "_is_," but none to "_needs_!" See a
marginal note under Rule 14th, at p. 570.

OBS. 16.--Of the verb SEE. This verb, whenever it governs the infinitive
without _to_, governs also an objective noun or pronoun; as, "_See me do_
it."--"I _saw him do_ it."--_Murray_. Whenever it is intransitive, the
following infinitive must be governed by _to_; as, "I _will see to have_ it
done."--_Comly's Gram._, p. 98; _Greenleaf's_, 38. "How _could_ he _see to
do_ them?"--_Beauties of Shak._, p. 43. In the following text, _see_ is
transitive, and governs the infinitive; but the two verbs are put so far
apart, that it requires some skill in the reader to make their relation
apparent: "When ye therefore _shall see_ the abomination of desolation,
spoken of by Daniel the prophet, _stand_ in the holy place," &c.--_Matt._,
xxiv, 15. An other scripturist uses the _participle_, and says--"_standing_
where it ought not," &c.--_Mark_, xiii, 14. The Greek word is the same in
both; it is a participle, agreeing with the noun for _abomination_.
Sometimes the preposition _to_ seems to be admitted on purpose to protract
the expression: as,

"Tranio, I _saw_ her coral lips _to move_,
And with her breath she did perfume the air."--_Shak_.

OBS 17.--A few other verbs, besides the eight which are me