Figurative LanguageChapter 7 Figures of Speech One of the most enlightening aspects of language is the study of figurative expressions. The natural operations of the human mind prompt men to trace analogies and make comparisons.
Pleasing emotions are excited and the imagination is gratified by the use of metaphors and similes.
Were we to suppose a language sufficiently copious in words to express all possible conceptions, the human mind would still require us to compare and contrast our concepts, and such a procedure would soon necessitate a variety of figures of speech. So much of our knowledge is acquired through the senses, that all our abstract ideas and our spiritual language have a material base. With us these metaphors are all forgotten. We speak of spirit without thinking of breath, of heaven without thinking of sky, of pardon without thinking of a release, of revelation without thinking of a veil. But in ancient language every one of these words, nay, every word that does not refer to sensuous objects, is still in a chrysalis stage, half material and half spiritual, and rising and falling in its character according to the capacities of its speakers and hearers.