necessary? It ought to be remembered, that whatever application we must give to the words is, in fact, so much deducted from what we owe to the sentiments. Besides, the effort that is exerted in a very close attention to the language always weakens the effect which the thoughts were intended to produce in the mind. "By perspicuity,” as Quin tilian justly observes, "care is taken, not that the hearer may understand if he will, but that he must understand, whether he will or not."* Perspicuity originally and properly implies transparency, such as may be ascribed to air, glass, water, or any other medium through which material objects are viewed. From this original and proper sense it hath been metaphorically applied to language, this being, as it were, the medium through which we perceive the notions and sentiments of a speaker. Now, in corporeal things, if the medium through which we look at any object be perfectly transparent, our whole attention is fixed on the object; we are scarcely sensible that there is a medium which intervenes, and can hardly be said to perceive it. But if there be any flaw in the medium, if we see through it but dimly, if the object be imperfectly represented, or if we know it to be misrepresented, our attention is immediately taken off the object to the medium. We are then desirous to discover the cause, either of the dim and confused representation, or of the misrepresentation of chings which it exhibits, that so the defect in vision may be supplied by judgment. The case of language is precisely similar. A discourse, then, excels in perspicuity when the subject engrosses the attention of the hearer, and the diction is so little minded by him that he can scarcely be said to be conscious that it is through this medium he sees into the speaker's thoughts. On the contrary, the least obscurity, ambiguity, or confusion in the style, instantly removes the attention from the sentiment to the expression, and the hearer endeavours, by the aid of reflection, to correct the imperfections of the speaker's language. So much for obviating the objections which are frequently raised against such remarks as I have already made, and shall probably hereafter make on the subject of language. The elements which enter into the composition of the hugest bodies are subtile and inconsiderable. The rudiments of every art and science exhibit, at first, to a learner, the appearance of littleness and insignificancy; and it is by attending to such reflections as to a superficial observer would appear minute and hypercritical, that language must be improved and eloquence perfected.† "Non ut intelligere possit, sed ne omnino possit non intelligere curandum."-Instit., lib. viii., cap. ii. The maxim Natura se potissimum prodit in minimis is not confined to physiology. I return to the causes of obscurity, and shall only farther observe concerning the effect of bad arrangement, that it gen. erally obscures the sense even when it doth not, as in the preceding instances, suggest a wrong construction. Of this the following will suffice for an example: "The young man did not want natural talents; but the father of him was a coxcomb, who affected being a fine gentleman so unmercifully, that he could not endure in his sight, or the frequent mention of one who was his son, growing into manhood, and thrusting him out of the gay world."* It is not easy to disentangle the construction of this sentence. One is at a loss, at first, to find any accusative to the active verb endure; on farther examination, it is discovered to have two, the word mention and the word one, which is here closely combined with the preposition of, and makes the regimen of the noun mention. I might observe, also, the vile application of the word unmercifully. This, together with the irregularity of the reference and the intricacy of the whole, renders the passage under consideration one of those which may, with equal justice, be ranked under solecism, impropriety, obscurity, or inelegance. PART III. From using the same Word in different Senses. Another source of obscurity is when the same word is in the same sentence used in different senses. This error is exemplified in the following quotation: "That he should be in earnest it is hard to conceive; since any reasons of doubt which he might have in this case would have been reasons of doubt in the case of other men, who may give more, but cannot give more evident, signs of thought than their fellowcreatures." This errs alike against perspicuity and elegance; the word more is first an adjective, the comparative of many; in an instant it is an adverb, and the sign of the comparative degree. As the reader is not apprized of this, the sentence must appear to him, on the first glance, a flat contradiction. Perspicuously either thus, "Who may give more numerous, but cannot give more evident signs," or thus, "Who may give more but cannot give clearer signs." It is but seldom that the same pronoun can be used twice or oftener in the same sentence, in reference to different things, without darkening the expression. It is necessary to observe here, that the signification of the personal, as well as of the relative pronouns, and even of the adverbs of place and time, must be determined by the things to which they relate. To use them, therefore, with reference to different things, is in effect to employ the same word in different sen ses, which, when it occurs in the same sentence, or in sen† Bolingb. Ph., Es. i., sect. ix * Spect., No. 496, T. tences closely connected, is rarely found entirely compatible with perspicuity. Of this I shall give some examples. "One may have an air which proceeds from a just sufficiency and knowledge of the matter before him, which may naturally produce some motions of his head and body, which might become the bench better than the bar."* The pronoun which is here thrice used in three several senses; and it must require re flection to discover, that the first denotes an air, the second sufficiency and knowledge, and the third motions of the head and body. Such is the use of the pronouns those and who in the following sentence of the same writer: "The sharks, who prey upon the inadvertency of young heirs, are more pardonable than those who trespass upon the good opinion of those who treat with them upon the foot of choice and respect."† The same fault here renders a very short sentence at once obscure, inelegant, and unmusical. The like use of the pronoun they in the following sentence almost occasions an ambiguity: "They were persons of such moderate intellects, even before they were impaired by their passions." The use made of the pronoun it, in the example subjoined, is liable to the same exception: "If it were spoken with never so great skill in the actor, the manner of uttering that sentence could have nothing in it which could strike any but people of the greatest humanity, nay, people elegant and skilful in observations upon it." To the preceding examples I shall add one wherein the adverb when, by being used in the same manner, occasions some obscurity: "He is inspired with a true sense of that function, when chosen from a regard to the interests of piety and virtue, and a scorn of whatever men call great in a transitory being, when it comes in competition with what is unchangeable and eternal.”|| PART IV. From an uncertain Reference in Pronouns and Relatives. A cause of obscurity also arising from the use of pronouns and relatives is when it doth not appear at first to what they refer. Of this fault I shall give the three following instances: "There are other examples," says Bolingbroke, "of the same kind, which cannot be brought without the utmost horror, because in them it is supposed impiously, against principles as self-evident as any of those necessary truths, which are such of all knowledge, that the Supreme Being commands by one law what he forbids by another." It is not so clear as it ought to be what is the antecedent to such. Another from the same author: "The laws of Nature are truly what my lord Bacon styles his aphorisms, laws of laws. Civil laws are always imperfect, and often false deductions from || Guardian, No. 13. Bolingb. Phil. Fr., 20. * Guardian, No. 13. + Ibid., No. 73. Spect., No. 30. 1 them, or applications of them; nay, they stand in many instan ces in direct opposition to them."* It is not quite obvious, on the first reading, that the pronoun them in this passage doth always refer to the laws of Nature, and they to civil laws. "When a man considers the state of his own mind, abou which every member of the Christian world is supposed at this time to be employed, he will find that the best defence against vice is preserving the worthiest part of his own spirit pure from any great offence against it." It must be owned that the darkness of this sentence is not to be imputed solely to the pronoun. PART V. From too artificial a Structure of the Sentence. Another cause of obscurity is when the structure of the sentence is too much complicated or too artificial, or when the sense is too long suspended by parentheses. Some critics have been so strongly persuaded of the bad effect of parentheses on perspicuity as to think they ought to be discarded altogether. But this, I imagine, is also an extreme. If the parenthesis be short, and if it be introduced in a proper place, it will not in the least hurt the clearness, and may add both to the vivacity and to the energy of the sentence. Others, again, have carried their dislike to the parenthesis only so far as to lay aside the hooks by which it is commonly distinguished, and to use commas in their place. But this is not avoiding the fault, if it be a fault; it is only endeavouring to commit it so as to escape discovery, and may, therefore, be more justly denominated a corruption in writing than an improvement. Punctuation, it will readily be acknowledged, is of considerable assistance to the reading and pronunciation. No part of a sentence requires to be distinguished by the manner of pronouncing it more than a parenthesis, and, consequently, no part of a sentence ought to be more distinctly marked in the pointing. PART VI. From Technical Terms. Another source of darkness in composing is the injudicious introduction of technical words and phrases, as in the following passage: "Tack to the larboard, and stand off to sea, Veer starboard sea and land."‡ What an absurd profusion, in an epic poem too, of terms which few besides scamen understand! In strict propriety, technical words should not be considered as belonging to the language, because not in current use, nor understood by the generality even of readers. They are but the peculiar dialect of a particular class. When those of that class only are Dryden's Æneid. * Phil. Fr., 9. † Guardian, No. 19. addressed, as in treatises on the principles of their art, it is admitted that the use of such terms may be not only conve. nient, but even necessary. It is allowable also in ridicule, if used sparingly, as in comedy and romance. PART VII. From Long Sentences. The last cause of obscurity I shall take notice of is very long sentences. This rarely fails to be conjoined with some of the other faults before mentioned. The two subsequent quotations from two eminent writers will serve sufficiently to exemplify more than one of them. The first is from Bolingbroke's Philosophy: "If we are so, contrary to all appearances (for they denote plainly one single system, all the parts of which are so intimately connected and dependant one on another, that the whole begins, proceeds, and ends together), this union of a body and a soul must be magical indeed, as Doctor Cudworth calls it; so magical that the hypothesis serves to no purpose in philosophy, whatever it may do in theology; and is still less comprehensible than the hy. pothesis which assumes that, although our idea of thought be not included in the idea of matter or body, as the idea of fig. ure is, for instance, in that of limited extension, yet the fac ulty of thinking, in all the modes of thought, may have been superadded by Omnipotence to certain systems of matter, which it is not less than blasphemy to deny-though divines and philosophers who deny it in terms may be cited-and which, whether it be true or no, will never be proved false by a little metaphysical jargon about essences, and attributes, and modes."* The other quotation is from Swift's letter to the Lord-high Treasurer, containing a proposal for correcting, improving, and ascertaining the English tongue: "To this succeeded that licentiousness which entered with the Restoration, and from infecting our religion and morals, fell to corrupt our language (which last was not like to be much improved by those who at that time made up the court of King Charles the Second; either such who had followed him in his banishment, or who had been altogether conversant in the dialect of those fanatic times, or young men who had been educated in the same company), so that the court (which used to be the standard of propriety and correctness of speech) was then (and, I think, hath ever since continued) the worst school in England for that accomplishment, and so will remain till better care be taken in the education of our young nobility, that they may set out into the world with some foundation of literature, in order to qualify them for patterns of politeness." There are, indeed, cases in which even a long period will not create obscurity. When this Essay i., section ii |