Perspicuity

PERSPICUITY.
Out of the relations of thought and language, and the speaker to the hearer, grow three qualities of a good style. They are perspicuity, energy, and elegance. Perspicu­ity expresses the clearnew of the thought to the perceptions of the hearer. Energy ex­presses the force of the thought to the sensibilities of the hearer. Elegance expresses the beauty of the thought to the taste of the hearer.—PHELPS.
PURITY, Propriety, and Precision are all absolute qual­ities. Perspicuity, Power, and Perfection are relative qualities, dependent upon the perception, the sensibilities, and the taste of the reader.
Precision demands that the sentence say what the writer means. Perspicuity demands, further, that it say what the writer means so clearly that the reader cannot mistake it.' Whether a given sentence is perspicuous depends upon who is to read it. Herbert Spencer's defi­nition of evolution (see page 357) is precise, but it is per­spicuous only to scientists. The fundamental requirement of perspicuity is adaptation to the audience addressed.
"I had remarked to him" [Coleridge], says Mr. De Quineey, "that the sophism, as it is usually called, but the difficulty, as it should be called, of Achilles and the Tortoise, which had puzzled all the sages of Greece, was, in fact, merely another form of the perplexity which besets decimal fractions ; that, for example, if you threw into a decimal form, it will never terminate, but be .666666, etc., ad infiniium. 'Yes,' Coleridge replied, the appar‑
ent absurdity in the Grecian problem arises thus,—because it as­sumes the infinite divisibility of space, but drops out of view the corresponding infinity of time.' There was a flash of lightning, which illuminated a darkness that had existed for twenty-three centuries."
Coleiidge's explanation was precise ; as addressed to De Quincey it was perspicuous ; but had it been made to a class in a primary school it would have been decidedly
obscure.
Universally, indeed, an unpractised writer is liable to be misled by his own knowledge of his own meaning into supposing those expressions clearly intelligible which are so to him, but which may not be so to the reader, whose thoughts are not in the same train. And hence it is that some do not write or speak with so much per­spicuity on a subject which has long been very familiar to them, as on one which they understand indeed, but with which they are less intimately acquainted, and in which their knowledge has been more recently acquired. In the former case it is a matter of some difficulty to keep in mind the necessity of carefully and copiously explaining principles which by long habit have come to assume, in our minds, the appearance of self-evident truths. Utterly in­correct, therefore, is Blair's notion, that obscurity of style neces­sarily springs from indistinctness of conception. A little conversa­tion on nautical affairs with sailors, or on agriculture with farmers, would soon have undeceived him.—WHATELY.
A Government surveyor tells of a western pioneer who seemed interested in the theodolite. The surveyor explained its work­ing, and found the pioneer so attentive that he went on to illus­trate the variation of the needle, the magnetic currents, the pre­cession of the equinoxes, and finally the calculation of coming eclipses, congratulating himself upon finding so intelligent a listener. After two hours of this, the pioneer for the first time broke silence. "It's wonderful, wonderful," he exclaimed. "And mebbe you can show me another thing that's always bothered me. Why is it that in adding up figures, you have to carry one for every ten ?"
438 PICILSPICUITY. (PART IV-
Teachers learn to measure the information they give not by what they tell their scholars, but by what their scholars tell back to them.
It is agreed among all writers upon rhetoric, that the first property in style is that by virtue of which it is intelligible. The understanding is the avenue to the men. No one is affected by truth who does not apprehend it. Discourse must, therefore, first of all, be plain. This property was termed pereideuitas, by the Latin ibetoricians. It is trans­parency in discourse, as the etymology denotes The word impria, which the Greek rhetoricians employed to mark this same characteristic, signifies distinctness of outline. The adjective eaters: is applied by Homer to the gods, when actually appearing to hu­man vision in their own bright forms ; when, like Apollo, they broke through the dim ether that ordinarily veiled them from mortal eyes, and stood out on the edge of the horizon distinctly defined, radiant, and splendid (0d. vit. 201, 2). Vividness seems to have been the ruling conception for the Greek, in this property of style, and transparency for the Latin. The English and French rhetoricians have transferred the Latin persist- cellos, to designate the quality of intelligibility in discourse. The Germans have not transferred the Ledo word, beauuse the remarkable flexibility of their language relieves them from the necessity of transferring words from other languages, but they have coined one (Durertaiclaigkesi) in their own mint, which agrees in dgnification precisely with the Latin perepiev.itas. Them facts evince that the modern mind is inclined, with the Latin, to compare the property of intelligibility of style to • clear pellucid medium ; to crystal or glass, that permits the rays of light to go through, and thus permits the human eye to see through.
While, however, the attention is fixed upon this conception of transparency, and the property under consideration is denominated perspicuity in the rhetorical nomenclature, Ills important not to lose sight of that other conception of distinctness, or vividness, which was the leading one for the Greek mind. Style is not only a medium, It!. also a form. It is not only translucent and transparent, like the undefined and all-pervading atmosphere ; it also has definite outlines, like • single object. Style le not only clear. like the light; it is rotund Elsa the ann. While, therefore, the conception of perspicuity of medium is retained, there should also be combined with it the conception of fulness of outline, and vividness of impression, so as to secure • comprehensive and all-Including idea of that first fundamental quality of style which renders it intelligible.
It is not enough that thoughts be seen through a clear medium ; they must be wen in
distinct shape. It is not enough that truth be visible in a clear, pare sir; it must shand cut in that air, a single, well-defined object. The atmosphere must not only be crystal­line and cpalitling, but the things in it most be bounded and defined by sharply cut lines. There may be perspicuity without distinctness, especially without that vivid distinctness which is implied in the Greek irepysia. A style nay be as transparent as water, and yet the thoughts be destitute of boldness and individuality. Such a style cannot be charged with obscurity, and yet it does not set truth before the mind of the reader or hearer In a striking or impressive manner. Mere isolated perspicuity is a negative quality ; it furnishes a good medium of vision. but it does not present any distinct objects of Tidal% Distinctness of outline, on the other hand, is a positive quality. It implies a vigorous action of the mind upon the truth, whereby it is moulded and shaped : whereby it Is cut and chiselled like a statue; whereby it is made to assume a substantial and well-defined form which smite. upon the eye, and which the eye can take th.--linsen.
"Our language," says Quintilian, "ought to convey our meaning so clearly that the meaning shall fall on the hearers' minds as the sunlight falls on our eyes." But the sun.
CHAP. Man SIMPLICITY. 437
shine of winter is cold and barren, although its radiance is brightened by the transpar­ency of the air and the redectdons of the ice and snow. The summer's sun has less bril­liancy mdeed. but far more heat —a heat that canna blue vapors to veil the distant bills and silver mists to wreath the green mountains, that gathers storm-clouds which darken the earth and sky and discharge such volleys of lightning as render that darkness all the More appalling.—Hanviz.
Simplicity is a prime essential to Perspicuity, and should be aimed at both (i) in Thought, and (ii) in Ex­pression.
(I.) Thought is Simple when it is direct, straight­forward, intent solely on the truth concerned, and its clearest expression. (See pages 346, 347, 348.) Mozart gave as his reasons for marrying : "I wish to marry because I have no one to take care of my linen ; because I cannot live like the dissolute men around me ; and be­cause I love Catharine Weber." •
Cultivate simplicity, Coleridge ; or rather, I should say, banish elaborateness ; for simplicity springs spontaneous from the heart, and carries into daylight its own modeat buds, and genuine, sweet, and clear flowers of expression. I allow no hot-beds in the gar­dens of Parnassus.—C. Lout.
Youthful vanity and inexperience alone sufficiently account for the great part of the deviations from propriety, simplicity, and common sense now alluded to. Those who laud nature in oppo­sition to art are too apt to forget that this very vanity forms a part of it. . . . While some men talk as if to speak naturally were to speak like a natural, others talk as if to speak with simplicity meant to speak like a simpleton. True simplicity does not con­sist in what is trite, bald, or commonplace. Bo far as regards the thought it means, not what is already obvious to everybody, but what, though not obvious, is immediately recognized, as soon as propounded, to be true and striking. As it regards the expression, it means that thoughts worth hearing are expressed in language that every one can understand. In the first point of view it is opposed to what is abstruse ; in the second, to what is obscure.—
WHAMMY.
I. Conceive of things clearly and distinctly in their
own natures. 2. Conceive of things completely in all their parts. 3. Conceive of things comprehensively in all their properties and relations. 4. Conceive of things ex­tensively in all their kinds. 5. Conceive of things orderly, or in a proper method.—Warrs.
I cannot conclude this lecture without insisting on the impor­tance of accuracy of style as being near akin to veracity and truth­ful habits of mind ; he who thinks loosely will write loosely.— COLERIDGE.
Propriety of thought and propriety of diction are commonly found together. Obscurity and affectation are the two greatest faults of style. Obscurity of expression generally springs from confusion of ideas ; and the same wish to dazzle at any cost which produces affectation in the manner of a writer, is likely to produce sophistry in his reasonings. —MACAULAY.
One would indeed think it hardly possible that • man of sense who perfectly under, standeth the language which he meth should ever speak or write in such • manner as to be altogether unintelligible. Yet this is what frequently happens. The cause of this fault in any writer I take to be always cue or other of the three following; first, great confusion of thought, which is commonly accompanied with intricacy in the expression secondly, affectation of excellence in the diction ; thirdly, a total want of meaning. I do not mention as one of the causes of this imputation a penury of language ; though this, doubtless. may contribute to produce it. In fact I never found one who had • justness of appreciation, and was free from affectation, at a loss to make himself understood in his native tongue, even though he had little oommand of language, and made but a bad choice of words. -CAXPBELL.
Titles often mislead through affectation of quaintness.
Unfortunately, writers are not careful in their choice of names, and titles are occasionally adopted which, instead of explaining the nature of the book, serve only to mislead the buyer. Mr. Rus­kin, who is noted for such unintelligible titles as "Fore Clavigera " and "Sesame and Lilies," issued a theological discourse under the name of "A Treatise on Sheepfolds," thus leading astray many librarians and indexers, as well as unsuspecting farmers and shep­herds. The "Diversions of Purley," at the time of its publication, was ordered by a village book-club under the impression that it was a book of amusing games. The "Essay on Irish Bulls" was another work which was thought by some folks to deal with live
CHAP. XXII.] SIMPLICITY. 439
stock. "Moths," a novel by Onida, has been asked for under the impression that it was an entomological work, and Charles Kings­ley's "Yeast," by those in search of information on the Tondo cerevisice, or yeast-plant. Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner " was sold largely to seafaring men, who concluded from the name that it had some relation to nautical matters. Coleridge himself says:
It is somewhat singular that the name of another and larger book of Mr. Wordsworth's should also owe its circulation to a misconception of the title. It has been my fortune to have met with The Excursion" at e great number of inns and boarding-houses in pic­turesque scenes—in places where parties go for excursions; and upon inquiry how it hap­pened that so expensive a book was purchased, when an old Universal Magasine, an " Athenian Oracle," or, at best, one of the Bridgewater Treatises," would do as well to send the guest/ to sleep-1 was given to understand in those separate places that they were left by parties who had finished their material excursion, but, alas for their tuts, had left their poetic "Excursion" untouched—uncut, even, beyond the story of " Mar­garet."—CAamberis Journal.
(II.) Expression is Simple when it expresses the thought in the most direct and obvious words. "Think with the learned, speak with the vulgar," says Bacon.
"There are six little ones who call General Grant grandpa," was a recent newspaper paragraph. This was in the first place untrue, the counting of the grandchildren having been suggested by the birth of tile sixth, who at this time did not call anybody anything. But on general principles the paragraph would be more perspicuous and more forcible if it read simply, "General Grant has six grandchildren."
The whole merit of violent deviations from common style de­pends upon their rarity, and nothing does for ten pages together but the indicative mood. —SYDNEY Shorn.
If you take Sophocles, Catullus, Lucretius, and the better parts of Cicero, and so on, you may, with just two or three excep­tions, arising out of the different idioms as to cases, translate page after page into good mother English, word by word, without altering the order ; but you cannot do so with Virgil or Tibullus. If you attempt it you will make nonsense.—Coxxaroax.
The writings of Addison and Dr. Johnson have often been com­pared. One of the chief points of contrast in their style lies, I
440 PERSPICUITY. [PART IV.
apprehend, in the easy and natural recurrence in the former of the verb, and the artificial preponderance given in the latter to the noun. Since Dr. Johnson's time the substantive has been gaining ground ; the infinitive mood, the gerund, and the compound par­ticiple have been in the same proportion suppressed in many works of which the composition is highly elaborate. As far as un­studied writings can be expressed in set phrases, the usurpation has extended even to these —HALL.
Dr. Allen was preaching one day in Tennessee, when an old Methodist African mune to him after the sermon, and said, "I like to hear you preach, for I understand your preaching." Dr. Allen replied, "I am glad of it." "nut I understand every word you Nay."
"I hope so," said the clergyman, "for I try to make myself understood." Again the man mime to the charge. "Yea," he said, "I understand you Pis' as well mill you was a nigger."
Periodic Structure of sentences often makes the meaning clearer, but when habitual or excessive becomes
tedious.
The period is a structure in which the completion of the sense is suspended till the close. The ancient rhetoricians compared it to a sling, from which the stone is ejected after many circuits. A loose sentence is one in which the end might grammatically occur before the close. Such a sentence is a chain, from which a link may be dropped from the end, and it will still be a chain, and will have an end. The periodic structure is a glass ball ; to part with a fragment of it is to ruin the whole.—Pmmrs.
All of these are instances also of perfect antithesis without pe­riod; for each of these sentences might grammatically be con­cluded in the middle. So also, "it is (indeed) a just maxim that honesty is the best policy ; but he who is governed by that maxim is not an honest man." This antithetical sentence is or is not a period, according as the word " indeed " is inserted or omitted.— WHATELY.
John Morley, in writing of Cobden's ttyle, says that classical training is more aptly calculated to destroy the qualities of good writing and fine speaking than any other system that could have been contrived. He refers to the excessive use of the periodic structure ; but much as the
CHAP. XXIL] PARENTHESES. 441
period is to be condemned where the meaning might as well have been expressed by short sentences, it is indis­pensable to perspicuity when the thought is complex.
The following is an example of the period:—
Compelled by want to attendance and solicitation, and so much versed in common life, Ma* he has transmitted to ILS the most perfect delineation of the manners of his age, Erasmus Joiun to his knowledge of the world such application to books, Mat he will stand for ever in the first rank of literary heroes.
The words on which the thread of the sentence is suspended are printed in italics. The introductory clauses, " Compelled . . . age," are obviously attributive, and lead us to expect a subject to which they relate. We find that subject in "Erasmus." The latter part of the sentence is held together by the correlative particles " such " and "that."
The following illustrates the loose construction :—
It is in vain to my that the portxsits which exist of this remarkable woman are not like each other ; for, amidst their discrepancy, each possesses general features wawa the eye at once acknowledges as peculiar to the vision, which our imagination has raised, *Mlle we read her history for the first time, and wawa has been Impressed upon it by the numerous prints and pictures which, we have seen.
This sentence is not only loose, but viciously so. In the second member of it, the main assertion ends with "features." To this word, two of the remaining clauses are clumsily attached by "waxen," and each of these has another "which" clause attached to it, one of them being still further prolonged by the clause be­ginning with "
Re-write this sentence in periodic fork.
Parentheses should be avoided except when they express a thought more completely without clogging it. For many illustrations, see pages 271-274.
Some critics have been so strongly persuaded of the bad effects 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.--Camah
442 PERSPICUITY. [Pear IV‑
" I SAT."-A very bad sentence this ; into which, by the help of a parenthesis and other interjected circumstances, his lordship has contrived to thrust so many things that he is forced to begin the construction again with the phrase I say, which, whenever it occurs, may be always assumed as a sure mark of a clumsily ill- constructed sentence ; excusable in speaking, where the greatest accuracy is not expected, but in polished writing unpardonable.— BLAIR.
Excessive Simplicity seems at first an impossi­bility, but there are certain considerations worthy of at­tention.
(a) Simplicity must not be Affected.—Simple language is to be chosen, not because it is simple, but because it best expresses the meaning. To assume unnatural sim­plicity under the impression that simplicity in itself is an ornament, and because it is thought to be an ornament, is more ridiculous than the affectation of elegance.
OBSERVATIONS should not be proposed in scholastic style, nor in commonplace guise. They should be seasoned with a sweet ur­banity, accommodated to the capacities of the people, and adapted to the manners of good men. One of the best expedients for this purpose is a reduction of obscure matters to a natural, popular, modern air. You can never attain this ability unless you acquire a habit of conceiving clearly of subjects yourself, and of expressing them in a free, familiar, easy manner, remote from everything forced and far-fetched. All long trains of arguments, all embar­rassments of divisions and subdivisions, all metaphysical investi­gations, which are mostly impertinent, and, like the fields, the cities, and the houses which we imagine in the clouds, the mere creatures of fancy—all these should be avoided.
Care must be taken, however, to avoid the opposite extreme, which consists in making only poor, dry, spiritless observations, frequently said under pretence of avoiding school-divinity, and of speaking only popular things. Endeavor to think clearly, and try also to think nobly. Let your observations be replete with beauty as well as propriety, the fruits of a fine fancy under the
CRAP. XII.] " SIMPLICITY. 443
direction of a sober judgment If you be inattentive to this ar­ticle, you will pass for a contemptible declaimer, of mean and shallow capacity, exhausting yourself and not edifying your hear- era; a very ridiculous charaoter.—Cisumr.
Wordsworth's week side, as a poet, was his great difficulty in perceiving when he had and when he had not succeeded In fusing the language which he used with the fire of his own meditative passion. Sometimes in the midst of a passage of the truest rapture, he will descend suddenly upon a little bit of dry, hard fact, and not be at all aware that the fact remains like an irregular, unlovely stone pressing down a group of Bowers, a monu­ment of the sudden failure of the power of his emotion over his language. Thus, in the lovely lines, "She was a phantom of delight,' the reader is suddenly oppressed by being told that the poet at lad sees, "with eye serene, the very pulse of the machine,"—as if a phantom of delight meld possibly have been a machine, or even, like a waxwork figure, contained one. There is the same fault in one of the finest of the original "Lyrical Bal­lads,"—the one called "The Thorn," of which Mrs. Oliphant, by the way, who does not seem to have written with a copy of the "Lyrical Ballads" before her, makes no men- den, but which Lord Jeffrey epitomized, if we remember rightly, as describing how a woman in a red cloak went up to the top of • hill and said, "Oh, misery!" and then came down again. The greater part of the ballad, Lord Jeffrey "to the contrary in any­wise notwithstanding," as the lawyers say, is penetrated through and through by the most genuine imaginative passion ; but when, in the form in which the poem astginally appeared, Wordsworth specified the dimensions of the little muddy pool by the infant's grave—
rye measured it from side to side:
'Tis three feet long and two feet wide,
he suddenly precipitated, as it were, into the midst of his poem a little deposit of ugly clay, which made his readers change the sob which the finer parts of the ballad excited Into a hysterical giggle. Wordsworth's weakness—especially in the earlier part of his career as a poet—was this, that he never knew hoe far his imagination had transmuted, or had failed to transmute, the rough clay of rude circumstances; into the material of plastic art. He was not awakened from his dream by such a descent as we have just quoted, and he did not know that his readers, who did not fully enter into his ecstasy, and probably did see, whet Wordsworth could not see, the ludicrous contrasts and ine­qualities of his mood, would be awakened from their dream by these ehocks.—The 8pee­tator.
(b) Simplicity mast never seem a Condescension.—Not men alone, but children as well, resent the imputation that it is necessary to adapt one's thoughts and vocabulary to their ignorance.
It is a just and curious observation of Dr. Kenrick that "the case of languages, or rather speech, being quite contrary to that of science, in the former the ignorant understand the learned better than the learned do the ignorant in the latter it is other‑
Guarmum.
444 PERSPICUITY. • [PART IV.
The style of a sermon may, like the stars, be at once very clear and very lofty ; while the peasant derives from the stars rules for farming and the mariner for sailing, the mathematician equally draws thence the principles that guide him in his astronomical calculations. The former, unable, it may be, either to read or write, can nevertheless apprehend the stars as far as is necessary for him ; the latter, in spite of all his scientific knowledge, is very far from comprehending all the stellar universe.—Amorao
YEB,A.
So far as it is meant to gain favor by patronizing, sim­plicity, like other affectations, fails of its end ; for there is in ignorant minds a not wholly unreasonable fondness for thoughts they have to grope after. Part of Rufus Choate's power over juries lay in the delicious indefinite­ness of his style, which made the unlearned feel there was much to admire, and would be much to convince if they could only understand it.
It must be accepted as a fact (and we commend it to the atten­tion of those who cherish romantic notions of human nature), that the more weak and ignorant men are, the less inclined they are to receive instruction, unless it is in somewise concealed, or made to pass under another name. In proof of this we need only mention the incessant return of the phrase "you know" in talk and cor­respondence.—ThravEr.
A clergyman in the country had a stranger preaching for him one day, and meeting his sexton asked, "Well, Saunders, how did you like the sermon to-day?" "It was rather ower plain and simple for me. I like thae sermons best that jumbles the joodg­ment and confounds the sense. Ah, sir, I never saw one that could come up to yoursa at that."
The ultra-practical Francis de Sales, after hearing from another
in his own pulpit a sublime sermon that greatly delighted his
mountaineers, asked some of them what they had gained from it.
,ane of them replied : "This preacher teaches us to esteem more
- the grandeur of the mysteries of our religion." De Sales
CHAP. Man	SIMPLICITY.	445
was forced to admit that this man, at least, had profited by the sermon.
Richard Baxter, no mean example for religious teachers and catechisers, purposely threw out some things in his sermons that were beyond the comprehension of his hearers, in order that they might learn to be dissatisfied with their existing stock of Christian knowledge. "Wherefore," says Chrysostom in one of his homilies, "have I presented this difficulty and not appended its solution ? " He replies that herein he proceeds like doves, which, as long as their young remain in the nest, feed them from their own bills ; but as soon as they are fledged and leave the nest, the mother lets food fall upon the earth, and the little ones pick it up. — HERVEY.
The more simple, clear, and obvious any principle is rendered, the more likely is its exposition to elicit these common remarks: " Of course! of course I no one could ever doubt that: this is all very true, but there is nothing new brought to light ; nothing that was not famidar to every one ; there needs no ghost to tell 1111 that," I am convinced that a verbose, mystical, and partially obscure way of writing on such a subject lathe most likely to catch the attention of the multitude. The generality verify the observation of Tacitus, omne ignotum pro magnifica and when anything is made very plain to them are apt to fancy that they know it already.—Cmannocix.
SnaPiacrrs vs. TarrENEsq.—If you entertain your reader solely or chiefly with thoughts that are either trite or obvious, you can­not fail to tire him. You introduce few or no new sentiments into his mind, you give him little or no information, and consequently afford neither exercise to his reason nor entertainment to his fancy. In what we read and what we hear, we always seek for something in one respect or other new, which we did not know, or at least attend to before. The less we find of this, the sooner we are tired. Such a trifling minuteness, therefore, in narration, description, or argument, as an ordinary apprehension would render superfluous, is apt quickly to disgust us. The reason is, not because anything is said too perspicuously, but because many things are said which ought not to be said at all. Nay, if those very things had been expressed obscurely (and the most obvious things may be expressed obscurely), the fault would have been much greater ; because it would have required a good deal of at­tention to discover what, after we had discovered it, we should perceive not to be of sufficient value for requiting out pains. To
PERSPICUITY