"Suppose I were to say, that to every art there _was_ a system of such various and well approved principles."----Harris. The first part of the sentence is hypothetical, _suppose I were to say_; but the last becomes declaratory under the supposition, and therefore the form of the verb should be changed to the present, indicative, _that to every art there is a system_: For it must be remarked that when the English speak of general existence, they use the present time; as, truth _is_ great above all things; the scriptures _are_ a rule of faith; the heavens _display_ the glory of the Lord. The past or the future, in such cases, would be highly improper. Hence the absurdity of the passage just quoted; the supposition is that every art _has_ (generally--at all times) a system of principles. "If the taxes laid by government _were_ the only ones we _had_ to pay." The author's meaning is, "the only taxes we _have_ to pay;" and he was probably led into the mistake by not understanding the preceding hypothetical verb, _were_, which actually speaks of the present time conditionally. The error will be more striking in the following passages. "If an atheist would well consider the arguments in this book, he would confess there _was_ a God." There _was_ a God! And why not confess that there _is_ a God? The writer did not consider that the first part of the sentence is _conditional_, and that the last ought to be _declaratory_ of a fact always existing. "Two young men have made a discovery that there _was_ a God."---- Swift's Arg. against Abolishing Christianity. A curious discovery indeed! Were the Dean still alive, he might find there _is_ a great inaccuracy in that passage of his works. "Yet were we to use the same word, where the figure _was_ manifest, we should use the preposition _from_."----Priestley, Gram. p. 158. Here is the same error, and the author may live to correct it. But of all this class of mistakes, the following is the most palpable. "I am determined to live, as if there _was_ a _future_ life."---- Hammon, quoted by Price and Priestley. Hammon is an atheist, and it would require the same abilities to reconcile the two words _was future_, as to reconcile his principles with the common sense of mankind.[121] The following passage, from _Gregory's Comparative View of the State and Faculties of Man_, is remarkable for this error. "Men have been taught that they _did_ (do) God acceptable service, by abstracting themselves from all the duties they _owed_ (owe) to society; and by inflicting on themselves the severest tortures which nature can support. They have been taught that it _was_ (is) their duty," &c. "And yet one would think that this _was_ the principal use of the study of history."----Bolingbroke on Hist. letter 3. A similar fault occurs in one of Mrs. Thale's letters to Dr. Johnson, Aug. 9, 1775. "--Yet I have always found the best supplement for talk _was_ writing." So in Blackstone's Commentaries, book 1. chap. 7.