They cannot be divided into tenses (present, past, etc.), because they have no tense of their own, but derive their tense from the verb on which they depend; for example,--
1. He walked conscientiously through the services of the day, _fulfilling_ every section the minutest, etc.--DE QUINCEY.
_Fulfilling_ has the form to denote continuance, but depends on the verb _walked_, which is past tense.
2. Now the bright morning star, day's harbinger, Comes _dancing_ from the East.--MILTON.
_Dancing_ here depends on a verb in the present tense.
_Imperfect._ Choosing. _Perfect._ Having chosen. _Perfect definite._ Having been choosing.
_Imperfect._ None _Perfect._ Chosen, being chosen, having been chosen. _Perfect definite._ None.
Pick out the participles, and tell whether active or passive, imperfect, perfect, or perfect definite. If pure participles, tell to what word they belong; if adjectives, tell what words they modify.
1. The change is a large process, accomplished within a large and corresponding space, having, perhaps, some central or equatorial line, but lying, like that of our earth, between certain tropics, or limits widely separated.
2. I had fallen under medical advice the most misleading that it is possible to imagine.
3. These views, being adopted in a great measure from my mother, were naturally the same as my mother's.
4. Endowed with a great command over herself, she soon obtained an uncontrolled ascendency over her people.
5. No spectacle was more adapted to excite wonder.
6. Having fully supplied the demands of nature in this respect, I returned to reflection on my situation.
7. Three saplings, stripped of their branches and bound together at their ends, formed a kind of bedstead.
8. This all-pervading principle is at work in our system,--the creature warring against the creating power.
9. Perhaps I was too saucy and provoking.
10. Nothing of the kind having been done, and the principles of this unfortunate king having been distorted,... try clemency.
266. Infinitives, like participles, have no tense. When active, they have an indefinite, an imperfect, a perfect, and a perfect definite form; and when passive, an indefinite and a perfect form, to express action unconnected with a subject.