So far there was only confusion, arising from a want of precision in classifying the different forms of the verb. But when the Greek terminology was transplanted to Rome, real mischief began. Instead of ῥῆμα γενικώτατον, we now find the erroneous, or, at all events, inaccurate, translation, _modus infinitus_, and _infinitivus_ by itself. What was originally meant as an adjective belonging to ῥῆμα, became a substantive, the infinitive, and though the question arose again and again what this infinitive really was, whether a noun, or a verb, or an adverb; whether a mood or not a mood; the real existence of such a thing as an infinitive could no longer be doubted. One can hardly trust one’s eyes in reading the extraordinary discussions on the nature of the infinitive in grammatical works of successive centuries up to the nineteenth. Suffice it to say that Gottfried Hermann, the great reformer of classical grammars, treated the infinitive again as an adverb, and, therefore, as a part of speech belonging to the particles. We ourselves were brought up to believe in infinitives; and to doubt the existence of this grammatical entity would have been considered in our younger days a most dangerous heresy. And yet, how much confused thought, and how much controversy might have been avoided, if this grammatical term of infinitive had never been invented.[21] The fact is that what we call infinitives are nothing more or less than cases of verbal nouns, and not till they are treated as what they are shall we ever gain an insight into the nature and the historical development of these grammatical monsters. Take the old Homeric infinitive in μεναι, and you find its explanation in the Sanskrit termination +mane+, _i.e._ +manai+, the native of the suffix +man+ (not, as others suppose, the locative of a suffix _mana_), by which a large number of nouns are formed in Sanskrit. From _gnâ_, to know, we have +(g)nâman+, Latin _(g)nomén_, that by which a thing is known, its name; from +gan+, to be born, +gán-man+, birth. In Greek this suffix man is chiefly used for forming masculine nouns, such as γνώ-μων, γνώ-μονος, literally a knower; τλή-μων, a sufferer; or as μην in ποι-μήν, a shepherd, literally a feeder. In Latin, on the contrary, _men_ occurs frequently at the end of abstract nouns in the neuter gender, such as _teg-men_, the covering, or _tegu-men_ or _tegi-men_; _solamen_, consolation; _voca-men_, an appellation; _certa-men_, a contest; and many more, particularly in ancient Latin; while in classical Latin the fuller suffix _mentum_ predominates. If then we read in Homer, κύνας ἔτευξε δῶμα φυλασσέμεναι, we may call φυλασσέμεναι an infinitive, if we like, and translate “he made dogs to protect the house;” but the form which we have before us, is simply a dative of an old abstract noun in μεν, and the original meaning was “for the protection of the house,” or “for protecting the house;” as if we said in Latin, _tutamini domum_.