And while these ancient grammatical forms which supply the foundation of what in Greek, Latin, and other languages we are accustomed to call infinitives are of the highest interest to the grammarian and the logician, their importance is hardly less in the eyes of the historian. Every honest student of antiquity, whether his special field be India, Persia, Assyria, or Egypt, knows how often he is filled with fear and trembling when he meets with thoughts and expressions which, as he is apt to say, cannot be ancient. I have frequently confessed to that feeling with regard to some of the hymns of the Rig-Veda, and I well remember the time when I felt inclined to throw up the whole work as modern and unworthy of the time and labor bestowed upon it. At that time I was always comforted by these so-called infinitives and other relics of ancient language. They could not have been fabricated in India. They are unknown in ordinary Sanskrit, they are unintelligible as far as their origin is concerned in Greek and Latin, and yet in the Vedic language we find these forms, not only identical with Greek and Latin forms, but furnishing the key to their formation in Greece and Italy. The Vedic +vayas-dhái+ compared with Greek βεεσ-θαι, the Vedic +stushe+ compared with λυσαι are to my mind evidence in support of the antiquity and genuineness of the Veda that cannot be shaken by any arguments. THE INFINITIVE IN ENGLISH. I add a few words on the infinitive in English, though it has been well treated by Dr. March in his “Grammar of the Anglo-Saxon Language,” by Dr. Morris, and others. We find in Anglo-Saxon two forms, one generally called the infinitive, _nim-an_, to take, the other the gerund, _to nim-anne_, to take. Dr. March explains the first as identical with Greek νέμ-ειν and νέμ-εν-αι, _i.e._, as an oblique case, probably the dative, of a verbal noun in _an_. He himself quotes only the dative of nominal bases in _a_, e.g. +namanâya+, because he was probably unacquainted with the nearer forms in _an-e_ supplied by the Veda. This infinitive exists in Gothic as _nim-an_, in Old Saxon as _nim-an_, in Old Norse as _nem-a_, in Old High German as _nem-an_. The so-called gerund, to _nimanne_, is rightly traced back by Dr. March to Old Saxon _nim-annia_, but he can hardly be right in identifying these old datival forms with the Sanskrit base +nam-anîya+. In the Second Period of English (1100-1250)[35] the termination of the infinitive became _en_, and frequently dropped the final _n_, as _smelle_ = _smellen_; while the termination of the gerund at the same time became _enne_, (_ende_), _ene_, _en_, or _e_, so that outwardly the two forms appear to be identical, as early as the 12th century.[36] Still later, towards the end of the 14th century, the terminations were entirely lost, though Spenser and Shakespeare have occasionally to _killen_, _passen_, _delven_, when they wished to impart an archaic character to their language.