[405] Rufus Nutting, A. M., a grammarian of some skill, supposes that in all such sentences there was “anciently” an ellipsis, not of the phrase “in order to,” but of the preposition for.  He says, “Considering this mode as merely a verbal noun, it might be observed, that the infinitive, when it expresses the object, is governed by a transitive verb; and, when it expresses the final cause, is governed by an intransitive verb, OR ANCIENTLY, BY A PREPOSITION UNDERSTOOD.  Of the former kind—­’he learns to read.’  Of the latter—­’he reads to learn,’ i. e. ’for to learn.’”—­Practical Gram., p. 101.  If for was anciently understood in examples of this sort, it is understood now, and to a still greater extent; because we do not now insert the word for, as our ancestors sometimes did; and an ellipsis can no otherwise grow obsolete, than by a continual use of what was once occasionally omitted.

[406] (1.) “La preposition, est un mot indeclinable, place devant les noms, les pronoms, et les verbes, qu’elle regit.”—­“The preposition is an indeclinable word placed before the nouns, pronouns, and verbs which it governs.”—­Perrin’s Grammar, p. 152.

(2.) “Every verb placed immediately after an other verb, or after a preposition, ought to be put in the infinitive; because it is then the regimen of the verb or preposition which precedes.”—­See La Grammaire des Grammaires, par Girault Du Vivier, p. 774.

(3.) The American translator of the Elements of General Grammar, by the Baron De Sacy, is naturally led, in giving a version of his author’s method of analysis, to parse the English infinitive mood essentially as I do; calling the word to a preposition, and the exponent, or sign, of a relation between the verb which follows it, and some other word which is antecedent to it.  Thus, in the phrase, “commanding them to use his power,” he says, that “‘to’ [is the] Exponent of a relation whose Antecedent is ‘commanding,’ and [whose] Consequent [is] ‘use.’”—­Fosdick’s De Sacy, p. 131.  In short, he expounds the word to in this relation, just as he does when it stands before the objective case.  For example, in the phrase, “belonging to him alone:  ‘to,’ Exponent of a relation of which the Antecedent is ‘belonging,’ and the Consequent, ‘him alone.’”—­Ib., p. 126.  My solution, in either case, differs from this in scarcely any thing else than the choice of words to express it.

(4.) It appears that, in sundry dialects of the north of Europe, the preposition at has been preferred for the governing of the infinitive:  “The use of at for to, as the sign of the infinitive mode, is Norse, not Saxon.  It is the regular prefix in Icelandic, Danish, Swedish, and Feroic.  It is also found in the northern dialects of the Old English, and in the particular dialect of Westmoreland at the present day.”—­Fowler, on the English Language, 8vo, 1850, p. 46.