The verb can be seen as an adjective which is more independent, more in motion, than the adjective as seen customarily. In the phrase “the speedy boy,” speedy is more of the boy, is a phase of the boy, inheres in the boy. Speedy, as adjective, to boy, as noun, is like color or shape or weight to a bit of wood. —In the sentence: “The boy runs,” the word runs has a more independent existence. I give more of a rest, inherent quality to the idea of running when I change “the boy runs” to “the running boy,” making out of runs the participial adjective running. “The running boy” is three words which are in between, and take the character of both “the speedy boy” and “the boy runs.” There is a gradation of independent mobility in the three groups of three words.

The verb is marks the transition of adjective into verb. The verb is shows an object as just being. In so far as being belongs to an object or existence, being has the character of an adjective. For an adjective shows what can be of a thing, or what can belong to a thing. All adjectives are forms.

Now what a thing does can also be seen as belonging to a thing. “The ice breaks” can be  thought of as “the breaking ice,” where the definite verb of the first sentence is changed into the verbal or participial adjective of the second.

Adjectives are of various degrees of motion and rest. Strong is an adjective accenting possibility: something not taking place at the time. Active is related to strong, but has more motion in it. Acting is an adjective with the verbal aspect, which adjectives can have, accented. Destroying (as in the phrase “destroying storm”) is more in motion still.

Adjectives show what being can be, which is the same as what belongs to being. A noun can have an indefinite number of adjectives, each one of which shows what the noun can be, or what the object for which the noun stands can be. There is a noun table. I could say, “the blue table.” The adjective blue shows that the table has blue of it. I could say, “the bright table.” I could say, “the changeable table; the old table; the disliked table; the important table; the heavy table; the large table; the significant table; the lighted table; the near table; the useful table; the gentle table”; and so on and so on. Each one of these adjectives tells what a form of the table may be. I could compound the adjectives, as, “disliked-significant table”: two forms would then mix. —And I could use the whole world of negation to make adjectives for the table, as, “the non-eatable table; the un-flowery table; the unfeeling table; the non-voting table; the non-ferocious table; the unbribed table,” and so on. All these adjectives, looked at closely, bring the table into a new relation with the universe; even if these negative adjectives sound silly, and I admit they do.

Adjectives can be compounded, logically, to make new adjectives. I could, for example, say, “lighted-square table.” They need not be compounded, however; they can just be joined. An effect of perceptive importance is to be had by phrases like “the significant and disliked table”; “the important, blue, and movable table.” This last phrase may seem not utilitarian, but there is a drama of perceptive importance in the triple junction of important, blue, and movable, for table. It makes for a stir among forms.

An important phase of the adjective is the clearly participial: that is, the clearly verbal phase. Any verb can be changed into an adjective, making, as I have said, an action of a thing into something belonging to the thing; for example, “the rain falls” into “the falling rain”; “the boy reads” into “the reading boy.” Here the verb has been changed into an adjective telling of what the noun or object does. The verb implying an action to an object, can also be made an adjective through the past participle. For example, I can change the sentence: “The violinist was applauded” into “the applauded violinist”; and “The girl was dismayed” into “the dismayed girl.”

It is also possible to have an adjective of a person acting on something along with an adjective of a person being acted upon. This can be seen in the sentence: “The shooting and pursued autoist fled to a forest nearby.” Here, the autoist, through the present and the past participle being applied to him, is subject and object at once. —All grammar tells of reality as such.