CHAPTER VI. OF PERSPICUITY. Or all the qualities above mentioned, the first and most es sential is perspicuity.* Every speaker doth not propose to please the imagination, nor is every subject susceptible of those ornaments which conduce to this purpose. Much less is it the aim of every speech to agitate the passions. There are some occasions, therefore, on which vivacity, and many on which animation of style, are not necessary; nay, there are occasions on which the last especially would be improper. But whatever be the ultimate intention of the orator, to inform, to convince, to please, to move, or to persuade, still he must speak so as to be understood, or he speaks to no purpose. If he do not propose to convey certain sentiments into the minds of his hearers by the aid of signs intelligible to them, he may as well declaim before them in an unknown tongue. This prerogative the intellect has above all the other faculties, that whether it be or be not immediately addressed by the speaker, it must be regarded by him either ultimately or subordinately; ultimately when the direct purpose of the discourse is information or conviction; subordinately when the end is pleasure, emotion, or persuasion. There is another difference also between perspicuity and the two last-mentioned qualities, vivacity and animation, which deserves to be remarked. In a discourse wherein either or both of these are requisite, it is not every sentence that requires, or even admits them; but every sentence ought to be perspicuous. The effect of all the other qualities of style is lost without this. This being to the understanding what light is to the eye, ought to be diffused over the whole performance. In this respect it resembles grammatical purity, of which I have already treated, but it is not in this respect only that it resembles it. Both are best illustrated by showing the different ways wherein they may be lost. It is for these reasons that, though perspicuity be more properly a rhetorical than a grammatical quality, I thought it better to include it in this book, which treats of the foundations and essential or universal properties of elocution, than to class it with those which are purely discriminative of particular styles. Indeed, if language were capable of absolute perfection, which it evidently is not; if words and things could be rendered exact counterparts to each other; if every different thing in nature had a different symbol by which it were ev. * "Prima est eloquentiæ virtus perspicuitas."-QUINT. pressed; and every difference in the relations of things had a corresponding difference in the combinations of words, purity alone would secure perspicuity, or, rarher, these two would entirely coincide. To speak grammatically would, in that case, convey infallibly and perspicuously the full meaning of the speaker, if he had any meaning, into the mind of every hearer who perfectly understands the language. There would not be even a possibility of mistake or doubt. But the case is widely different with all the languages that ever were, are, or will be in the world. Grammatical purity, in every tongue, conduceth greatly to perspicuity, but it will by no means secure it. A man may in respect of it speak unexceptionably, and yet speak obscurely or ambiguously; and though we cannot say that a man may speak properly, and at the same time speak unintelligibly, yet this last case falls more naturally to be considered as an offence against perspicuity than as a violation of propriety; for when the meaning is not discovered, the particular impropriety cannot be pointed out. In the three different ways, therefore, just now mentioned, perspicuity may be violated. THIS is the first offence against perspicuity, and may arise from several causes. First, from some defect in the expression. There are in all languages certain elliptical expressions, which use hath established, and which, therefore, very rarely occasion darkness. When they do occasion it, they ought always to be avoided. Such are, in Greek and Latin, the frequent suppression of the substantive verb and of the possessive pronouns; I was going to add, and of the personal pronouns also; but, on reflection, I am sensible that, in the omission of them in the nominative, there is properly no ellipsis, as the verb, by its inflection, actually expresses them. Accordingly, in these languages, the pronoun in the nominative is never rightly introduced unless when it is emphatical. But the idiom of most modern tongues, English and French particularly, will seldom admit such ellipsis.* In Italian and Spanish they are pretty frequent. * The French, I imagine, have gone to the other extreme. They require in many instances a repetition of pronouns, prepositions, and articles, which, as they add nothing to the perspicuity, must render the expression languid. There are some cases in which this repetition is consequential on the very construction of their language. For example, we say properly in English my father and mother, because the possessive pronoun, having no distinction of gender, and so having but one form, is alike applicable to both⚫ Often, indeed, the affectation of conciseness, often the rapidity of thought natural to some writers, will give rise to still more material defects in the expression. Of these I shall produce a few examples: “He is inspired," says an eminent writer, "with a true sense of that function, when chosen from a regard to the interests of piety and virtue.”* Sense in this passage denotes an inward feeling, or the impression which some sentiment makes upon the mind. Now a function cannot be a sentiment impressed or felt. The expression is therefore defective, and ought to have been, "He is inspired with a true sense of the dignity or of the importance of that function." "You ought to contemn all the wit in the world against you." As the writer doth not intend to signify that all the wit in the world is actually exerted against the person whom he addresses, there is a defect in the expression, though perhaps it will be thought chargeable with redundancy at the same time. More plainly thus: "You ought to contemn all the wit that can be employed against you." "He talks all the way up stairs to a visit." There is here also a faulty omission, which, if it cannot be said to obscure the sense, doth at least withhold that light whereof it is susceptible. If the word visit ever meant person or people, there would be an ambiguity in the sentence, and we should imagine this the object talked to; but as that cannot be the case, the expression is rather to be accounted lame, there being no verb in it with which the words to a visit can be construed. More explicitly thus: "He talks all the way as he walks up stairs to make a visit." Arbitrary power," says an elegant writer, "I look upon as a greater evil than anarchy itself, as much as a savage is a happier state of life than a slave at the oar." Neither savage nor slave can be denominated a state of life, though the states in which they live may properly be com 66 the case being different with them, renders it necessary to follow a different rule, and to say mon pere et ma mere. But it is not to instances of this sort that the rule is limited. Custom with them hath extended it to innumerable cases wherein there is no necessity from construction. With us it is enough to say, “She was robbed of her clothes and jewels." With them the preposition and the pronoun must both be repeated de ses habits et de ses joiaux. Again, with them it is not sufficient to say, "The woman whom you know and love," but whom you know and whom you love-que vous connoissez et que vous aimez. In like manner, the relatives in French must never be omitted. They often are in English, and when the omission occasions no obscurity, it is not accounted improper. An expression like this would in their tongue be intolerable: "You are obliged to say and do all "It you can.' must be "to say and to do all that which you can"-de dire et de faire tout ce que vous savez. But though in several instances the critics of that nation have refined on their language to excess, and by needless repetitions have sometimes enervated the expression, their criticisms, when useful in assisting us to shun any obscurity or ambiguity, deserve to be adopted. Guardian, No. 13. † Guardian, No. 53. Sentiments of a Church of England Man 66 pared. "This courage among the adversaries of the court,” says the same writer in another piece, was inspired into them by various incidents, for every one of which I think the ministers, or, if that was the case, the minister alone, is to answer."* If that was the case-Pray, what is he supposing to have been the case? To the relative that I can find no antecedent, and am left to guess that he means if there was but one minister. "When a man considers not only an ample fortune, but even the very necessaries of life, his pretence to food itself at the mercy of others, he cannot but look upon himself in the state of the dead, with his case thus much worse, that the last office is performed by his adversaries instead of his friends." There is a double ellipsis in this sentence. You must first supply as being before the words at the mercy, and insert as before in the state of the dead. "I beg of you," says Steele, "never let the glory of our nation, who made France tremble, and yet has the gentleness to be unable to bear opposition from the meanest of his own country. men, be calumniated in so impudent a manner as in the insinuation that he affected a perpetual dictatorship." At first reading, one is at a loss to find an antecedent to the pronouns who, his, and he. On reflection, one discovers that the phrase the glory of our nation is figurative, and denotes a certain illus trious personage. The trope is rather too adventurous, without some softening clause, to suit the idiom of our tongue. The sense would have appeared immediately had he said, "Never let the man, who may justly be styled the glory of our nation-” The instances now given will suffice to specify the obscurities in style which arise from deficiency. The same evil may also be occasioned by excess. But as this almost inva riably offends against vivacity, and only sometimes produceth darkness, there will be a more proper occasion of considering it afterward. Another cause of obscurity is a bad choice of words. When it is this alone which renders the sentence obscure, there is always ground for the charge of impropriety, which hath been discussed already. PART II. From Bad Arrangement. Another source of obscurity is a bad arrangement of the words. In this case the construction is not sufficiently clear One often, on first hearing the sentence, imagines, from the turn of it, that it ought to be construed one way, and, on reflection, finds that he must construe it another way. Of this, which is a blemish too common even in the style of our bes writers, I shall produce a few examples: "It contained," * Free Thoughts on the Present State of Affairs. Spectator No. 456, T. Guardian, No. 53. says Swift, ". a warrant for conducting me and my retinue to Traldragdubb, or Trildrogdrib, for it is pronounced both ways, as near as I can remember, by a party of ten horse."* The words by a party of ten horse must be construed with the participle conducting, but they are placed so far from this word, and so near the verb pronounced, that at first they suggest a meaning perfectly ludicrous. "I had several men died in my ship of calentures." The preposition of must be construed with the verb died, and not, as the first appearance would suggest, with the noun ship immediately preceding. More clearly thus: "I had several men in my ship who died of calentures." I shall remark, by-the-way, that though the relatives who and which may, agreeably to the English idiom, be sometimes omitted in the oblique cases, to omit them in the nominative, as in the passage last quoted, almost always gives a maimed appearance to the expression. "I perceived it had been scoured with half an eye." The situation of the last phrase, which is, besides, a very bad one, is liable to the same exception. "I have hopes that when Will confronts him, and all the ladies in whose behalf he engages him cast kind looks and wishes of success at their champion, he will have some shame." It is impossible not to imagine, on hearing the first part of the sentence, that Will is to confront all the ladies, though afterward we find it necessary to construe this clause with the following verb. This confusion is removed at once by repeating the adverb when, thus: "I have hopes that when Will confronts him, and when all the ladies cast kind looks—” The subsequent sentence is liable to the same exception: "He advanced against the fierce ancient, imitating his address, his pace, and career, as well as the vigour of his horse, and his own skill would allow." The clause as well as the vigour of his horse appears at first to belong to the former part of the sentence, and is afterward found to belong to the latter. In all the above instances of bad arrangement, there is what may be justly termed a constructive ambiguity; that is, the words are so disposed in point of order as would render them really ambiguous, if, in that construction which the expression first suggests, any meaning were exhibited. As this is not the case, the faulty order of the words cannot properly be considered as rendering the sentence ambiguous, but obscure. It may indeed be argued, that in these and the like examples, the least reflection in the reader will quickly remove the obscurity. But why is there any obscurity to be removed? Or why does the writer require more attention from the reader, or the speaker from the hearer, than is absolutely * Voyage to Laputa. Guardian, No. 10. Voyage to the Honyhnhnms. Spectator, No. 20. Il Battle of the Brooks |