something that operating insidiously

[Vladv1]

"The second and cheaper method is, first of all, to inoculate those intended to be exploited with some poisonous political soporific, superstition, or theoria; something that operating insidiously, hypodermically, may render them laborious, meek, and tractable".
Might Is Right, by Ragnar Redbeard.
Is the bolded participle an implied conditional (something that if it is operating insidiously)?

 

[jutfrank]

Parse it like this:

something that [operating insidiously, hypodermically,] may render them laborious

The bracketed bit is extra information inserted into a relative clause.

 

[Vladv1]

Parse it like this:

something that [operating insidiously, hypodermically,] may render them laborious

The bracketed bit is extra information inserted into a relative clause.

Is it a non-essential relative clause?

 

[jutfrank]

No, it's defining, or 'restrictive' as some call it.

 

[Vladv]

Is it similar to " The man standing in the corner is my pal"? Should we omit "that" in the original then? Can't get the nature of - ing.

 

[teechar]

something that [if/when it is] or [by] operating insidiously, hypodermically, may render them laborious, meek, and tractable".

I inserted those words to clarify the intended meaning.

 

[Annabel Lee]

Is it similar to " The man standing in the corner is my pal"? Should we omit "that" in the original then? Can't get the nature of - ing.l

No. The title of your thread indicates that you are taking "that operating" as a subject-verb unit, but it is not. Many writers would put a comma after "that" in this case: "something that, operating insidiously, . . . may render them . . . ."

"That" introduces a relative clause here. The antecedent of "that" (a relative pronoun) is "something." If we substitute "it" for "that," the relative clause can be phrased as a stand-alone sentence:

It, operating insidiously, hypodermically, may render them laborious meek, and tractable.​

​

The verb phrase of that sentence is "may render them laborious, meek, and tractable." The part following "it" is an adverbial participial phrase, which could even be fronted or placed at the end:

Operating indiously, hypodermically, it may render them laborious, meek, and tractable.​

It may render them laborious, meek, and tractable -- operating insidiously, hypodermically. ​