pression of the literal sense. This is always the case in mixed metaphor, a thing not unfrequent even in good writers. Thus, when Addison remarks that "there is not a single view of human nature, which is not suffi "cient to extinguish the seeds of pride," he expresses a true sentiment somewhat incongruously; for the terms extinguish and seeds here metaphorically used, do not suit each other. In like manner, there is something incongruous in the mixture of tropes employed in the following passage from Lord Bolingbroke: "Nothing less "than the hearts of his people will content a patriot prince, nor will he think his throne established, till it is established there." Yet the thought is excellent. But in neither of these examples does the incongruity of the expression hurt the perspicuity of the sentence. Sometimes, indeed, the literal meaning involves a direct absurdity. When this is the case, as in the quotation from the principles of painting given in the preceding chapter, it is natural for the reader to suppose that there must be something under it; for it is not easy to say how absurdly even just sentiments will sometimes be expressed. But when no such hidden sense can be discovered, what, in the first view, conveyed to our minds a glaring absurdity, is rightly on reflection denominated nonsense. We are satisfied that De Piles neither thought, nor wanted his readers to think, that Rubens was really the original performer, and God the copier. This then was not his meaning. But what he actually thought, and wanted them to think, it is impossible to elicit from his words. His words then may justly be termed bold, in respect of their literal import, but unmeaning in respect of the author's intention. It may be proper here to observe, that some are apt to confound the terms absurdity and nonsense as synonymous, which they manifestly are not. An absurdity, in the strictest acceptation, is a proposition either intuitively or demonstratively false. Of this kind are these : "Three and two make seven." "All the angles of a "triangle are greater than two right angles." That the former is false we know by intuition; that the lat ter is so, we are able to demonstrate. But the term is further extended to denote a notorious falsehood. If one should affirm, that " at the vernal equinox the sun "rises in the north, and sets in the south," we should not hesitate to say, that he advances an absurdity; but still what he affirms has a meaning; insomuch, that on hearing the sentence we pronounce its falsity. Now nonsense is that whereof we cannot say either that it is true, or that it is false. Thus when the Teutonic theosopher enounces, that "all the voices of the celestial joyfulness, qualify, commix, and harmonise in the fire "which was from eternity in the good quality," I should think it equally impertinent to aver the falsity as the truth of this enunciation. For, though the words grammatically form a sentence, they exhibit to the understanding no judgment, and consequently admit neither assent nor dissent. In the former instances I say the meaning, or what they affirm, is absurd; in the last instance i say there is no meaning, and therefore properly nothing is affirmed. In popular language, I own, the terms absurdity and nonsense are not so accurately distinguished. Absurd positions are sometimes called nonsensical. It is not common, on the other hand, to say of downright nonsense, that it comprises an absurdity. Further, in the literal sense there may be nothing unsuitable, and yet the reader may be at a loss to find a figurative meaning, to which his expressions can with justice be applied. Writers immoderately attached to the florid, or highly figured diction, are often misled by a desire of flourishing on the several attributes of a metaphor, which they have pompously ushered into the discourse, without taking the trouble to examine whether there be any qualities in the subject, to which these attributes can with justice and perspicuity be applied. In one of the examples of the unintelligible above-cited, the author having once determined to represent the human mind under the metaphor of a country, hath involved in his thoughts the various objects which might be found in a country, but hath never dreamt of considering whether there be any things in the mind properly analogous to these. Hence the strange parade he makes with regions, and recesses, hollow caverns, and private seats, wastes, and wildernesses, fruitful and cultivated tracts, words which, though they have a precise meaning as applied to country, have no definite signification as applied to mind. With equal propriety he might have introduced all the variety which Satan discovered in the kingdom of darkness, Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of death • ; or given us with Othello, -All his travel's history Wherein, belike, of antres vast and desarts idle, Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven, So much for the immoderate use of metaphor, which, by the way, is the principal source of all the nonsense of orators and poets. The second species of writing wherein we are liable to be imposed on by words without meaning, is that wherein the terms most frequently occurring, denote things which are of a complicated nature, and to which the mind is not sufficiently familiarised. Many of those notions which are called by philosophers mixt modes, come under this denomination. Of these the instances are numberless in every tongue : such as government, church, state, constitution, polity, power, commerce, legislature, jurisdiction, proportion, symmetry, elegance. It will considerably increase the danger of our being deceived by an unmeaning use of such terms, if they are besides (as very often they are) of so indeterminate, and consequently equivocal significations, that a writer, unobserved either by himself or by his reader, may slide from one sense of the term to another, till by degrees he fall into such applications of it as will make no sense at all. It + Shakespeare. Paradise Lost. deserves our notice also, that we are in much greater danger of terminating in this, if the different meanings of the same word have some affinity to one another, than if they have none. In the latter case, when there is no affinity, the transition from one meaning to another, is taking a very wide step, and what few writers are in any danger of; it is, besides, what will not so readily escape the observation of the reader. So much for the second cause of deception, which is the chief source of all the nonsense of writers on politics and criticism. The third and last, and I may add, the principal species of composition, wherein we are exposed to this illusion by the abuse of words, is that in which the terms employed are very abstract, and consequently of very extensive signification. It is an observation that plainly ariseth from the nature and structure of language, and may be deduced as a corollary from what hath been said of the use artificial signs, that the more general any name is, as it comprehends the more individuals under it, and consequently requires the more extensive knowledge in the mind that would rightly apprehend it, the more it must have of indistinctness and obscurity. Thus the word lion is more distinctly apprehended by the mind than the word beast, beast than animal, animal than being. But there is, in what are called abstract subjects, a still greater fund of obscurity, than that arising from the frequent mention of the most general terms. Names must be assigned to those qualities as considered abstractly, which never subsist independently, or by themselves, but which constitute the generic characters and the specific differences of things. And this leads to a manner which is in many instances remote from the common use of speech, and therefore must be of more difficult conception. The qualities thus considered as in a state of separation from the subjects to which they belong, have been not unfitly compared by a famous wit of the last century, to disembodied spirits : He could reduce all things to acts, And knew their natures and abstracts; Where entity and quiddity The ghosts of defunct bodies fly". As the manes of the departed heroes which Æneas saw in the infernal regions, were so constituted as effectually to elude the embrace of every living wight; in like manner the abstract qualities are so subtile as often to elude the apprehension of the most attentive mind. They have, I may say, too much volatility to be arrested, were it but for a moment. -The flitting shadow slips away, Like winds or empty dreams that fly the day + DRYDEN. It is no wonder then, that a misapplication of such words, whether general or abstract, should frequently escape our notice. The more general any word is in its signification, it is the more liable to be abused by an improper or unmeaning application. A foreigner will escape discovery in a crowd, who would instantly be distinguished in a select company. A very general term is applicable alike to a multitude of different individuals, a particular term is applicable but to a few. When the rightful applications of a word are extremely numerous, they cannot all be so strongly fixed by habit, but that, for greater security, we must perpetually recur in our minds from the sign to the notion we have of the thing signified; and for the reason aforementioned, it is in such instances difficult precisely to ascertain this notion. Thus the latitude of a word, though different from its ambiguity, hath often a similar effect. Further, it is a certain fact, that when we are much accustomed to particular terms, we can scarcely avoid fancying that we understand them, whether they have a meaning or not. The reason of this apprehension might easily be deduced from what hath been already said of the nature of signs. Let it suffice at present to observe the fact. Now, on ordinary subjects, if we adopt such • Hudibras, B. i. C. 1. + -Ter comprensa manus effugit imago, ENEIS, 1. 6. |
