‘tenses,’ and be thereby enabled to discern a rational ground for such phenomena as those alluded to, § 1, which, especially to persons who are perhaps more familiar with the languages of modern or classical times, appear when approached for the first time so inexplicable, so contradictory, not to say so absurd. In order properly to understand this fundamental character, we shall have to revert to a distinction which, though not unknown in other languages, has not, until recent years, obtained from