CHAPTER IV

PERSPICUITY.

181. PERSPICUITY originally and properly signifies 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 any speaker or writer.

Illus. 1. Now, in natural things, if the medium through which we look at any object, be perfectly transparent, our whole attention is fixed on the object. If, for instance, we look through the panes of glass in any window, we are scarcely sensible that there is a medium which intervenes, and can hardly be said to perceive the medium. But if there be any flaw in the glass, 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, and turned to the medium. We are then desirous to discover the cause, either of the dim and confused representation, or of the misrepresentation of things which the medium exhibits, or that the defect in vision may be supplied by judgment.

2. 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.

3. 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. Whatever application he must give to the words, is, in fact, so much deducted from what he owes to the sentiments. Besides, the effort which the speaker thus requires his hearer to exert in a very close attention to the language, always weakens the effect, which the thoughts were intended to produce in the mind of the hearer.

4. Perspicuity is, of all qualities of style, the first and most essential. Every speaker does 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 tne passions. There are some occasions, therefore, in which variety, and many in 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 hath 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.

5. Besides, in a discourse wherein either vivacity or animation is requisite, it is not every sentence that requires, or even admits, of either of these qualities; but every sentence ought to be perspicuous. The effect of all other qualities is lost without this. But this being to the understanding, what light is to the eye, ought to be diffused over the whole performance. And since perspicuity is more properly a rhetorical than a grammatical quality, we shall point out the different ways in which a writer may fail to produce a style which shall answer the conditions of the definition we have given of perspicuity.

6. A man may, in respect of grammatical purity, speak unexceptionably, and yet speak obscurely and 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. (Art. 112, 117, and 124.) 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.

182. The obscure, from defect, is the first offence against perspicuity, and may arise from elliptical expressions. This is the converse of precision. (Art. 118.)

Illus. In Greek and Latin, the frequent suppression of the substantive verb, and of the possessive and personal pronouns, furnishes instances of ellipses, which the idiom of most modern tongues, English and French particularly, will seldom admit. (Пllus. 2. Art. 119.)

183. 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.

Example. "He is inspired with a true sense of that function, when chosen from a regard to the interests of piety and virtue."

Analysis. 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 read thus: "He is inspired with a true sense of the dignity, or of the importance, of that function."

Obs. Obscurities in style arise not merely from deficiency, but from excess of expression, and often from the bad choice of words. (See Art. 118, 119, and 123.)

184. Bad arrangement is another source of obscurity. 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 it must be construed another way. (Art. 143, 144, and 145.)

* Guardian, No. 53.

Example. "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."*

Analysis. It is impossible not to imagine, on hearing the first part of this sentence, that WILL is to confront all the ladies; though afterwards we find it necessary to construe this clause with the following verb. This confusion is removed at once, by repeating the adverb when.

"I have hopes, that when WILL confronts him, and when all the ladies cast kind looks," &c.

Corol. Bad arrangement may be justly termed a constructive ambiguity. 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.

185. The same word used in different senses in the same sentence, is another source of obscurity.

Example. "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."t

Analysis. This errs alike against perspicuity and elegance. The first word, more, is 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. (Art. 122. Illus. 1 and 2.)

Correction. "Who may give more numerous, but cannot give more evident signs:" or thus, "who may give more but cannot give clearer signs."

186. 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. 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 ef fect, to employ the same word in different senses; which, when it occurs in the same sentence, or in sentences closely connected, is rarely found entirely compatible with perspicuity. (See Art. 152. Illus.)

Example. "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."

Analysis. The pronoun which is here thrice used in three several senses; and it must require reflection to discover, that the first de

* Spectator, No. 20. † Bolingbroke's Ph. Ess. I. Sec 9.

Guardian, No. 43.

notes air, the second, sufficiency and knowledge, and the third, motions of the head and body.

187. From too artificial a structure of the sentence, obscurity may arise. This happens when the structure of the sentence is too much complicated, or too artificial; or when the sense is too long suspended by parentheses. (Scholia, p. 93.)

Obs. A short parenthesis, introduced in a proper place, will not in the least hurt the clearness, and may add both to the vivacity, and to the energy, of the sentence. (See Art. 157.)

188. Technical terms, injudiciously introduced, is another source of darkness in composition. (See Art. 84. Illus.) But in treatises on the principles of any art, they are not only convenient, but even necessary. In ridicule too, if used sparingly, as in comedy or romance, they are allowable. (Obs. V. Art. 114.)

189. Long Sentences may be justly accounted liable to obscurity, since it is difficult to extend them, without involving some of the other faults before mentioned. And when a long period does not appear obscure, it will always be remarked, that all its principal members are similar in their structure, and would constitute so many distinct sentences, if they were not limited, by their reference to some common clause in the beginning or the end. (See Art. 138.)

CHAPTER V.

THE DOUBLE MEANING, OR EQUIVOCATION.

190. THE double meaning. Perspicuity may be violated, not only by obscurity, but also by double meaning. (Art. 119.)

Illus. The fault in this case is not that the sentence conveys darkly or imperfectly the author's meaning, but that it conveys also some other meaning which is not the author's. His words are susceptible of more than one interpretation. When this happens, it is always occasioned, either by using some expression which is equivocal; that is, which hath more meanings than the one which the author affixes to it; or by ranging the words in such an order, that the construction is rendered equivocal, or made to exhibit different senses. The former we term equivocation, the latter ambiguity. (See Defin. 19. p. 79.)

191. Equivocation. When the word denotes in compo

sition, as in common language it generally denotes, the use of an equivocal word, or phrase, or other ambiguity, with an intention to deceive, it differs not essentially from a lie.

This offence falls under the reproof of the moralist, not the censure of the rhetorician.

192. Again, when the word denotes, as agreeably it may denote, that exercise of wit which consists in the playful use of any term or phrase in different senses, and which is denominated pun, it is amenable, indeed, to the tribunal of criticism, but it cannot be regarded as a violation of the laws of perspicuity.

It is neither with the liar nor the punster that we are concerned at present.

193. The only species of equivocation that comes under reprehension here, is that which takes place, when an author undesignedly employs an expression susceptible of a sense different from the sense he intends it should convey.

Obs. This fault has been illustrated in Articles 113, 121, 122, and 123.

194. The equivocation may be either in a single word, or in a phrase.

Illus. 1. The preposition of denotes sometimes the relation which any affection bears to its subject ;* sometimes the relation which it bears to its object.

Example 1. Hence this expression of the Apostle has been observed to be equivocal: "I am persuaded that neither death nor life shall be able to separate us from the love of God." By the love of God, say interpreters, may be understood, either God's love to us, or our love to God.

2. As the preposition of sometimes denotes the relation of the effect to the cause, sometimes that of the accident to the subject; from this duplicity of signification, there will also, in certain circumstances, arise a double meaning. "A little after the reformation of Luther," is a phrase which suggests as readily a change wrought on Luther as a change wrought by him. But the phraseology is intelligible when we apply the term reformation to the schism which Luther produced in the Catholic Church.

Illus. 2. The conjunctions shall furnish our second illustration.

Example. "They were both more ancient among the Persians than Zoroaster or Zerdusht."§

Analysis. The conjunction or is here equivocal. It serves either as a copulative to synonymous words, or as a disjunctive of different things. But Zoroaster and Zerdusht mean the same person, therefore the sentence is equivocal.

Corol. 1. If the first noun follows an article or a preposition, or

* That is, the person whose affection it is. † Romans viii. 38, &c. Swift's Mechanical Operations.

Bolingbroke's Substance of Letters to M. de Pouilly.