It is easy to conceive how, in the progress of language, those impersonal verbs should become personal. Let us suppose, for example, that the word _venit_, _it comes_, was originally an impersonal verb, and that it denoted, not the coming of something in general, as at present, but the coming of a particular object, such as _the Lion_. The first savage inventors of language, we shall suppose, when they observed the approach of this terrible animal, were accustomed to cry out to one another, _venit_, that is, _the lion comes_; and that this word thus expressed a complete event, without the assistance of any other. Afterwards, when, on the further progress of language, they had begun to give names to particular substances, whenever they observed the approach of any other terrible object, they would naturally join the name of that object to the word _venit_, and cry out, _venit ursus_, _venit lupus_. By degrees the word _venit_ would thus come to signify the coming of any terrible object, and not merely the coming of the lion. It would now therefore, express, not the coming of a particular object, but the coming of an object of a particular kind. Having become more general in its signification, it could no longer represent any particular distinct event by itself, and without the assistance of a noun substantive, which might serve to ascertain and determine its signification. It would now, therefore, have become a personal, instead of an impersonal verb. We may easily conceive how, in the further progress of society, it might still grow more general in its signification, and come to signify, as at present, the approach of any thing whatever, whether good, bad, or indifferent.