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Part VPart V
Part V
Section I.
Of Words
Natural objects affect us, by the laws of that connexion which Providence has
established between certain motions and configurations of bodies, and certain
consequent feelings in our mind. Painting affects us in the same manner, but
with the superadded pleasure of imitation. Architecture affects by the laws of
nature, and the law of reason: from which latter result the rules of
proportion, which make a work to be praised or censured, in the whole or in
some part, when the end for which it was designed is or is not properly
answered. But as to words; they seem to me to affect us in a manner very
different from that in which we are affected by natural objects, or by
painting or architecture; yet words have as considerable a share in exciting
ideas of beauty and of the sublime as many of those, and sometimes a much
greater than any of them: therefore an inquiry into the manner by which they
excite such emotions is far from being unnecessary in a discourse of this
kind.
Sect. II.
The Common Effects Of Poetry, Not By Raising Ideas Of Things
The common notion of the power of poetry and eloquence, as well as that
of words in ordinary conversation, is that they affect the mind by raising in
it ideas of those things for which custom has appointed them to stand. To
examine the truth of this notion, it may be requisite to observe, that words
may be divided into three sorts. The first are such as represent many simple
ideas united by nature to form some one determinate composition, as man,
horse, tree, castle, &c. These I call aggregate words. The second are they
that stand for one simple idea of such compositions, and no more; as red,
blue, round, square, and the like. These I call simple abstract words. The
third are those which are formed by an union, an arbitrary union, of both the
others, and of the various relations between them in greater or less degrees
of complexity; as virtue, honour, persuasion, magistrate, and the like. These
I call compound abstract words. Words, I am sensible, are capable of being
classed into more curious distinctions; but these seem to be natural, and
enough for our purpose; and they are disposed in that order in which they are
commonly taught, and in which the mind gets the ideas they are substituted
for. I shall begin with the third sort of words; compound abstracts, such as
virtue, honour, persuasion, docility. Of these I am convinced, that whatever
power they may have on the passions, they do not derive it from any
representation raised in the mind of the things for which they stand. As
compositions, they are not real essences, and hardly cause, I think, any real
ideas. Nobody, I believe, immediately on hearing the sounds, virtue, liberty,
or honour, conceives any precise notions of the particular modes of action and
thinking together with the mixt and simple ideas and the several relations of
them for which these words are substituted; neither has he any general idea,
compounded of them; for if he had, then some of those particular ones, though
indistinct perhaps, and confused, might come soon to be perceived. But this, I
take it, is hardly ever the case. For, put yourself upon analyzing one of
these words, and you must reduce it from one set of general words to another,
and then into the simple abstracts and aggregates, in a much longer series
than may be at first imagined, before any real idea emerges to light, before
you come to discover anything like the first principles of such compositions;
and when you have made such a discovery of the original ideas, the effect of
the composition is utterly lost. A train of thinking of this sort is much too
long to be pursued in the ordinary ways of conversation; nor is it at all
necessary that it should. Such words are in reality but mere sounds; but they
are soundswhich being used on particular occasions, wherein we receive some
good, or suffer some evil, or see others affected with good or evil; or which
we hear applied to other interesting things or events; and being applied in
such a variety of cases, that we know readily by habit to what things they
belong, they produce in the mind, whenever they are afterwards mentioned,
effects similar to those of their occasions. The sounds being often used
without reference to any particular occasion, and carrying still their first
impressions, they at last utterly lose their connexion with the particular
occasions that gave rise to them; yet the sound, without any annexed notion,
continues to operate as before.
Sect. III.
General Words Before Ideas
Mr. Locke has somewhere observed, with his usual sagacity, that most
general words, those belonging to virtue and vice, good and evil, especially,
are taught before the particular modes of action to which they belong are
presented to the mind; and with them, the love of the one, and the abhorrence
of the other; for the minds of children are so ductile, that a nurse, or any
person about a child, by seeming pleased or displeased with anything, or even
any word, may give the disposition of the child a similar turn. When,
afterwards the several occurrences in life come to be applied to these words,
and that which is pleasant often appears under the name of evil; and what is
disagreeable to nature is called good and virtuous; a strange confusion of
ideas and affections arises in the minds of many; and an appearance of no
small contradiction between their notions and their actions. There are many
who love virtue and who detest vice, and this not from hypocrisy or affection,
who notwithstanding very frequently act ill and wickedly in particulars
without the least remorse; because these particular occasions never come into
view, when the passions on the side of virtue were so warmly affected by
certain words heated originally by the breath of others; and for this reason,
it is hard to repeat certain sets of words, though owned by themselves
unoperative, without being in some degree affected; especially if a warm and
affecting tone of voice accompanies them, as suppose,
Wise, valiant, generous, good, and great.
These words, by having no application, ought to be unoperative; but when
words commonly sacred to great occasions are used, we are affected by them
even without the occasions. When words which have been generally so applied
are put together without any rational view, or in such a manner that they do
not rightly agree with each other, the style is called bombast. And it
requires in several cases much good sense and experience to be guarded against
the force of such language; for when propriety is neglected, a greater number
of these affecting words may be taken into the service and a greater variety
may be indulged in combining them.
Sect. IV.
The Effect Of Words
If words have all their possible extent of power, three effects arise in
the mind of the hearer. The first is, the sound; the second, the picture, or
representation of the thing signified by the sound; the third is, the
affection of the soul produced by one or by both of the foregoing. Compounded
abstract words, of which we have been speaking, (honour, justice, liberty, and
the like,) produce the first and the last of these effects, but not the
second. Simple abstracts are used to signify some one simple idea, without
much adverting to others which may chance to attend it, as blue, green, hot,
cold, and the like; these are capable of affecting all three of the purposes
of words; as the aggregate words, man, castle, horse, &c., are in a yet higher
degree. But I am of opinion, that the most general effect, even of these
words, does not arise from their forming pictures of the several things they
would represent in the imagination; because, on a very diligent examination of
my own mind, and getting others to consider theirs, I do not find that once in
twenty times any such picture is formed, and when it is, there is most
commonly a particular effort of the imagination for that purpose. But the
aggregate words operate, as I said of the compound-abstracts, not by
presenting any image to the mind, but by having from use the same effect on
being mentioned, that their original has when it is seen. Suppose we were to
read a passage to this effect: "The river Danube rises in a moist and
mountainous soil in the heart of Germany, where winding to and fro, it waters
several principalities, until, turning into Austria, and leaving the walls of
Vienna, it passes into Hungary; there with a vast flood, augmented by the
Saave and the Drave, it quits Christendom, and rolling through the barbarous
countries which border on Tartary, it enters by many mouths in the Black Sea."
In this description many things are mentioned, as mountains, rivers, cities,
the sea, &c. But let anybody examine himself, and see whether he has had
impressed on his imagination any pictures of a river, mountain, watery soil,
Germany, &c. Indeed it is impossible, in the rapidity and quick succession of
words in conversation to have ideas both of the sound of the word, and of the
thing represented: besides, some words, expressing real essences, are so
mixed with others of a general and nominal import, that it is impracticable to
jump from sense to thought, from particulars to generals, from things to
words, in such a manner as to answer the purposes of life; nor is it necessary
that we should.
Sect. V.
Examples That Words May Affect Without Raising Images
I find it very hard to persuade several that their passions are affected
by words from whence they have no ideas; and yet harder to convince them, that
in the ordinary course of conversation we are sufficiently understood without
raising any images of the things concerning which we speak. It seems to be an
odd subject of dispute with any man, whether he has ideas in his mind or not.
Of this, at first view, every man, in his own forum, ought to judge without
appeal. But, strange as it may appear, we are often at a loss to know what
ideas we have of things, or whether we have any ideas at all upon some
subjects. It even requires a good deal of attention to be thoroughly satisfied
on this head. Since I wrote these papers, I found two very striking instances
of the possibility there is that a man may hear words without having any idea
of the things which they represent, and yet afterwards be capable of returning
them to others, combined in a new way, and with great propriety, energy and
instruction. The first instance is that of Mr. Blacklock, a poet blind from
his birth. Few men blessed with the most perfect sight can describe visual
objects with more spirit and justness than this blind man; which cannot
possibly be attributed to his having a clearer conception of the things he
describes than is common to other persons. Mr. Spence, in an elegant preface
which he has written to the works of this poet, reasons very ingeniously, and,
I imagine, for the most part, very rightly, upon the cause of this
extraordinary phenomenon; but I cannot altogether agree with him, that some
improprieties in language and thought, which occur in these poems, have arisen
from the blind poet`s imperfect conception of visual objects, since such
improprieties, and much greater, may be found in writers even of a higher
class than Mr. Blacklock, and who notwithstanding possessed the faculty of
seeing in its full perfection. Here is a poet doubtless as much affected by
his own descriptions as any that reads them can be; and yet he is affected
with this strong enthusiasm by things of which he neither has nor can possibly
have any idea further than that of a bare sound: and why may not those who
read his works be affected in the same manner that he was, with as little of
any real ideas of the things described? The second instance is of Mr.
Saunderson, professor of mathematics in the university of Cambridge. This
learned man had acquired great knowledge in natural philosophy, in astronomy,
and whatever sciences depend upon mathematical skill. What was the most
extraordinary and the most to my purpose, he gave excellent lectures upon
light and colours; and this man taught others the theory of these ideas which
they had, and which he himself undoubtedly had not. But it is probable that
the words red, blue, green, answered to him as well as the ideas of the
colours themselves; for the ideas of greater or lesser degrees of
refrangibility being applied to these words, and the blind man being
instructed in what other respects they were found to agree or to disagree, it
was as easy for him to reason upon the words, as if he had been fully master
of the ideas. Indeed it must be owned he could make no new discoveries in the
way of experiment. He did nothing but what we do every day in common
discourse. When I wrote this last sentence, and used the words every day and
common discourse, I had no images in my mind of any succession of time; nor of
men in conference with each other; nor do I imagine that the reader will have
any such ideas on reading it. Neither when I spoke of red, or blue, and green,
as well as refrangibility, had I these several colours or the rays of light
passing into a different medium, and there diverted from their course, painted
before me in the way of images. I know very well that the mind possesses a
faculty of raising such images at pleasure; but then an act of the will is
necessary to this; and in ordinary conversation or reading it is very rarely
that any image at all is excited in the mind. If I say, "I shall go to Italy
next summer," I am well understood. Yet I believe nobody has by this painted
in his imagination the exact figure of the speaker passing by land or by
water, or both; sometimes on horseback, sometimes in a carriage; with all the
particulars of the journey. Still less has he any idea of Italy, the country
to which I propose to go; or of the greenness of the fields, the ripening of
the fruits, and the warmth of the air, with the change to this from a
different season, which are the ideas for which the word summer is
substituted: but least of all has he any image from the word next; for this
word stands for the idea of many summers, with the exclusion of all but one:
and surely the man who says next summer, has no images of such a succession
and such an exclusion.
In short, it is not only of those ideas which are commonly called
abstract, and of which no image at all can be formed, but even of particular,
real beings, that we converse without any idea of them excited in the
imagination; as will certainly appear on a diligent examination of our minds.
Indeed, so little does poetry depend for its effect on the power of raising
sensible images, that I am convinced it would lose a very considerable part
of its energy, if this were the necessary result of all description. Because
that union of affecting words, which is the most powerful of all poetical
instruments, would frequently lose its force, along with its propriety and
consistency, if the sensible images were always excited. There is not perhaps
in the whole Eneid a more grand and laboured passage than the description of
Vulcan`s cavern in Etna, and the works that are there carried on. Virgil
dwells particularly on the formation of the thunder, which he describes
unfinished under the hammers of the Cyclops. But what are the principles of
this extraordinary composition?
Tres imbris torti radios, tres nubis aquosae
Addiderant; rutili tres ignis, et alitis austri:
Fulgores nunc terrificos, sonitumque, metumque
Miscebant operi, flammisque sequacibus iras.
This seems to me admirably sublime; yet if we attend coolly to the kind
of sensible images which a combination of ideas of this sort must form, the
chimeras of madmen cannot appear more wild and absurd than such a picture.
"Three rays of twisted showers, three of watery clouds, three of fire, and
three of the winged south wind; then mixed they in the work terrific
lightnings, and sound, and fear, and anger, with pursuing flames." This
strange composition is formed into a gross body; it is hammered by the
Cyclops, it is in part polished, and partly continues rough. The truth is, if
poetry gives us a noble assemblage of words corresponding to many noble ideas
which are connected by circumstances of time or place, or related to each
other as cause and effect, or associated in any natural way, they may be
moulded together in any form, and perfectly answer their end. The picturesque
connexion is not demanded; because no real picture is formed; nor is the
effect of the description at all the less upon this account. What is said
of Helen by Priam and the old men of his council, is generally thought to give
us the highest possible idea of that fatal beauty.
O`v vemebls, TPwas kai eukvnuldas `Axalous,
Toln d` ampi yuvalKi roXuv xPovov aXyea rabxelv
Aivws d` aOavarnbl Oens eis wra eolkev
They cried, No wonder such celestial charms
For nine long years have set the world in arms;
What winning graces! what majestic mien!
She moves a goddess, and she looks a queen. Pope.
Here is not one word said of the particular of her beauty; nothing which
can in the least help us to any precise idea of her person; but yet we are
much more touched by this manner of mentioning her than by those long and
laboured descriptions of Helen, whether handed down by tradition, or formed
by fancy, which are to be met with in some authors. I am sure it affects me
much more than the minute description which Spenser has given of Belphebe;
though I own that there are parts in that description, as there are in all the
descriptions of that excellent writer, extremely fine and poetical.
The terrible picture which Lucretius had drawn of religion, in order to
display the magnanimity of his philosophical hero in opposing her, is thought
to be designed with great boldness and spirit.
Humana ante oculos foede cum vita jaceret,
In terris, oppressa gravi sub religione,
Quae caput e coeli regionibus ostendebat
Horribili super aspectu mortalibus instans;
Primus Graius homo mortales tollere contra
Est oculos ausus. -
What idea do you derive from so excellent a picture? none at all, most
certainly: neither has the poet said a single word which might in the least
serve to mark a single limb or feature of the phantom, which he intended to
represent in all the horrors imagination can conceive. In reality, poetry and
rhetoric do not succeed in exact description so well as painting does; their
business is, to affect rather by sympathy than imitation; to display rather
the effect of things on the mind of the speaker, or of others, than to present
a clear idea of the things themselves. This is their most extensive province,
and that in which they succeed the best.
Sect. VI.
Poetry Not Strictly An Imitative Art
Hence we may observe that poetry, taken in its most general sense, cannot
with strict propriety be called an art of imitation. It is indeed an imitation
so far as it describes the manners and passions of men which their words can
express; where animi motus effert interprete lingua. There it is strictly
imitation; and all merely dramatic poetry is of this sort. But descriptive
poetry operates chiefly by substitution; by the means of sounds, which by
custom have the effect of realities. Nothing is an imitation further than as
it resembles some other thing; and words undoubtedly have no sort of
resemblance to the ideas, for which they stand.
Sect. VII.
How Words Influence The Passions
Now, as words affect, not by any original power, but by representation,
it might be supposed, that their influence over the passions should be but
light; yet it is quite otherwise; for we find by experience, that eloquence
and poetry are as capable, nay indeed much more capable, of making deep and
lively impressions than any other arts, and even than nature itself in very
many cases. And this arises chiefly from these three causes. First, that we
take an extraordinary part in the passions of others, and that we are easily
affected and brought into sympathy by any tokens which are shown of them; and
there are no tokens which can express all the circumstances of most passions
so fully as words; so that if a person speaks upon any subject, he can not
only convey the subject to you, but likewise the manner in which he is himself
affected by it. Certain it is, that the influence of most things on our
passions is not so much from the things themselves, as from our opinions
concerning them; and these again depend very much on the opinions of other
men, conveyable for the most part by words only. Secondly, there are many
things of a very affecting nature, which can seldom occur in the reality, but
the words that represent them often do; and thus they have an opportunity of
making a deep impression and taking root in the mind, whilst the idea of the
reality was transient; and to some perhaps never really occurred in any shape,
to whom it is notwithstanding very affecting, as war, death, famine, &c.
Besides, many ideas have never been at all presented to the senses of any men
but by words, as God, angels, devils, heaven, and hell, all of which have,
however, a great influence over the passions. Thirdly, by words we have it in
our power to make such combinations as we cannot possibly do otherwise. By
this power of combining, we are able, by the addition of well-chosen
circumstances, to give a new life and force to the simple object. In painting
we may represent any fine figure we please; but we never can give it those
enlivening touches which it may receive from words. To represent an angel in
a picture, you can only draw a beautiful young man winged: but what painting
can furnish out anything so grand as the addition of one word, "the angel of
the Lord"? It is true, I have here no clear idea; but these words affect the
mind more than the sensible image did; which is all I contend for. A picture
of Priam dragged to the altar`s foot, and there murdered, if it were well
executed, would undoubtedly be very moving, but there are very aggravating
circumstances, which it could never represent:
Sanguine foedantem quos ipse saeraverat ignes.
As a further instance, let us consider those lines of Milton, where he
describes the travels of the fallen angels through their dismal habitation:
-O`er many a dark and dreary vale
They passed, and many a region dolorous;
O`er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp;
Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of death,
A universe of death. -
Here is displayed the force of union in
Rocks, caves, lakes, dens, bogs, fens, and shades;
which yet would lose the greatest part of their effect, if they were not the
Rocks, caves, lakes, dens, bogs, fens, and shades-
-of Death.
This idea or this affection caused by a word, which nothing but a word
could annex to the others, raises a very great degree of the sublime; and this
sublime is raised yet higher by what follows, a "universe of Death." Here are
again two ideas not presentable but by language; and an union of them great
and amazing beyond conception; if they may properly be called ideas which
present no distinct image to the mind:-but still it will be difficult to
conceive how words can move the passions which belong to real objects, without
representing these objects clearly. This is difficult to us, because we do not
sufficiently distinguish, in our observations upon language, between a clear
expression and a strong expression. These are frequently confounded with each
other, though they are in reality extremely different. The former regards the
understanding, the latter belongs to the passions. The one describes a thing
as it is; the latter describes it as it is felt. Now, as there is a moving
tone of voice, an impassioned countenance, an agitated gesture, which affect
independently of the things about which they are exerted, so there are words,
and certain dispositions of words, which being peculiarly devoted to
passionate subjects; and always used by those who are under the influence of
any passion, touch and move us more than those which far more clearly and
distinctly express the subject matter. We yield to sympathy what we refuse to
description. The truth is, all verbal description, merely as naked
description, though never so exact, conveys so poor and insufficient an idea
of the thing described, that it could scarcely have the smallest effect, if
the speaker did not call in to his aid those modes of speech that mark a
strong and lively feeling in himself. Then, by the contagion of our passions,
we catch a fire already kindled in another, which probably might never have
been struck out by the object described. Words, by strongly conveying the
passions, by those means which we have already mentioned, fully compensate for
their weakness in other respects. It may be observed, that very polished
languages, and such as are praised for their superior clearness and
perspicuity, are generally deficient in strength. The French language has that
perfection and that defect, whereas the Oriental tongues, and in general the
languages of most unpolished people, have a great force and energy of
expression; and this is but natural. Uncultivated people are but ordinary
observers of things, and not critical in distinguishing them; but, for that
reason, they admire more, and are more affected with what they see, and
therefore express themselves in a warmer and more passionate manner. If the
affection be well conveyed, it will work its effect without any clear idea,
often without any idea at all of the thing which has originally given rise to
it.
It might be expected from the fertility of the subject, that I should
consider poetry, as it regards the sublime and beautiful, more at large; but
it must be observed that in this light it has been often and well handled
already. It was not my design to enter into the criticism of the sublime and
beautiful in any art, but to attempt to lay down such principles as may tend
to ascertain, to distinguish, and to form a sort of standard for them; which
purposes I thought might be best effected by an inquiry into the properties
of such things in nature, as raise love and astonishment in us; and by
showing in what manner they operated to produce these passions. Words were
only so far to be considered, as to show upon what principle they were
capable of being the representatives of these natural things, and by what
powers they were able to affect us often as strongly as the things they
represent, and sometimes much more strongly.
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