Textus Receptus

“ It is no less true to fact than paradoxical in sound, that the worst corruptions to which the New Testament has ever been subjected, originated within a hundred years after it was composed; that Irenaeus and the African Fathers and the whole Western, with a portion of the Syrian Church, used far inferior manuscripts to those employed by Stunica, or Erasmus, or Stephen thirteen centuries later, when [pg 265] moulding the Textus Receptus. What passage in the Holy Gospels would be more jealously guarded than the record of the heavenly voice at the Lord's Baptism? ”

“ For the rest of his life he continued professor in the Remonstrant college, declining in 1745 the Greek chair at Basel. In 1746 he once more visited England, and collated Syriac MSS. for his great work. At last this appeared in 1751–1752, in two folio volumes, under the title Novum Testamentum Graecum editionis receptae cum lectionibus varianlibus codicum MSS., &c. He did not venture to put new readings in the body of his page, but consigned those of them which he recommended to a place between the textus receptus and the full list of various readings. ”

“ But it is none the less obvious that both these highly abstract words have originated in the naming of recepts (the one of an object, the other of an action) ; and that their subsequent elevation in the [78] scale of generality has been due to a progressive widening of conceptual significance at the hands of symbolical thought. In other words, and to revert to my previous terminology, “higher concepts” can in no case originate de novo: they can only be born of “lower concepts,” which, in turn, are the progeny of recepts. ”

“ A merely denotated recept (such as a parrot’s name for its recept of dog) is not conceptual, even in the lowest degree. In other words, named recepts, merely as such, are not necessarily concepts. Whether or not they are concepts depends on whether the naming has been an act of denotation or of denomination—conscious only, or likewise self-conscious. ”

“ In other words, few of these “original concepts” rise much higher in the scale of ideation than the level to which I have previously assigned what I have called “named recepts” or “pre-concepts.” A dumb animal, or an infant, presents a full receptual appreciation of the majority of actions which the catalogue includes; and, therefore, so that a society of human beings can speak at all (i.e. presents the power of naming their recepts) , it is difficult to see how they could have avoided a denotation of the more important recepts which are here concerned. ”

“ The object of all sign-making is primarily that of communication, and from our study of the lower animals we know that communication first has to do exclusively with recepts, while [237] from our study of the growing child we know that it is the signs used in the communication of recepts which first lead to the formation of concepts. For concepts are first of all named recepts, known as such; and we have seen in previous chapters that this kind of knowledge (i.e. of names as names) is rendered possible by introspection, which, in turn is reached by the naming of self as an agent. ”

“ Recepts are received: it is only concepts that require to be conceived. For a recept is that kind of idea the constituent parts of which—be they but the memories of percepts, or already more or less elaborated as recepts—unite spontaneously as soon as they are brought together. It matters not whether this readiness to unite is due to obvious similarity, or to frequent repetition: the point is that there is so strong an affinity between the elementary constituents, that the compound is formed as a consequence [50] of their mere apposition in consciousness. ”

“ To what level of ideation can recepts attain without the aid of concepts? We have seen in the last chapter that animals display generic or receptual ideas of Good-for-eating, Not-good-for-eating, &c.; and we know that in our own case we “instinctively” avoid placing our hands in a flame, without requiring to formulate any proposition upon the properties of flame. How far, then, can this kind of unnamed or non-conceptional ideation extend? Or, in other words, how far can mind travel without the vehicle of Language? ”

“ There are long words from the Latin which, desire as we may to use all plainness of speech, we cannot do without, nor find their adequate substitutes in homelier parts of our language; words which must always remain the vehicles of much of that truth whereby we live. Now in explaining these, make it your rule always to start, where you can, from the derivation, and to return to that as often as you can. Thus you wish to explain 'revelation.' How much will be gained if you can attach some distinct image to the word, one to which your scholars, as often as they hear it, may mentally recur. ”

“ Having pointed out the importance of correct grammar and the right choice of language, I wish now to furnish you with some practical suggestions for the construction of sentences. Remember that a good thought often suffers from a weak and faulty expression of it.
Your sentences will certainly shape themselves after the structure of your own mind. If your thoughts are vivid and definite, so will be your language; if dreamy and hazy, so will your composition be obscure. Your speech, whether oral or written, can be but the expression of yourself; and what you are, that speech will be. ”

“ Now, over and above this merely receptual knowledge, man displays conceptual, which means that he is able to do all these things that the bird cannot do: in other words, he is able to set before his mind all the recepts which he has in common with the bird, to think about them as recepts, and by the mere fact, or in the very act of so doing, to convert them into concepts. ”

“ The faculty of rational Discourse, as Max Müller pointed out, is denominated in Greek by the word λόγος, applicable at once to the mental activity and to its appropriate expression in speech. Discourse is an instrument by means of which man has been enabled to construct his whole system of representations of the world in which he lives, the system of what is commonly called his Knowledge. ”

“ All literature, then, may be separated into five classes,—narration, description, exposition, argument, and persuasion.
Narration tells what things do; description tells how things look. Narration deals with occurrences; description deals with appearances. Exposition defines a term, or explains a proposition; argument proves the truth or falsity of a proposition; persuasion urges to action upon a proposition. Exposition explains; argument 4 convinces; persuasion arouses. These are the broad lines of distinction which separate the five forms of discourse. ”

“ This brings us to the study of exposition, as it is generally understood, in which all the resources of language are called into service to explain a term or a proposition.
How do Men explain? First, by Repetition. What, then, are the methods of explaining a proposition? First, a proposition may be explained by the repetition of the thought in some other form. To be effective, repetition must add something to what has been said; the words used may be more specific or they may be more general. For example, “A strong partisan may not be a good citizen. ”

“ A knowledge of the words which enter into the composition of a sentence does not of itself give us a true apprehension of the sense which the writer seeks to convey. We must know the writer's aim, the shape and course of his argument, the ideas which he is combating as well as those which he seeks to establish, the emphatic words of the sentence, whether he wishes to be understood literally or figuratively, and various other particulars; all which are to be ascertained by the same rules which we employ in the interpretation of language generally. ”

“ In this mood the verb must have an agent and object, expressed or implied; as, "farmers cultivate the soil." But a whole sentence, that is, an idea written out, may perform this duty; as, "The study of grammar, on false principles, is productive of no good." What is productive of no good? What is the agent of is? "The study," our books and teachers tell us. But does such a construction give the true meaning of the sentence? ”

“ How do we decide what the sense of a proposition is, or what we mean by a sentence which is spoken, written, or printed? We try to present to ourselves the significance of the different words that we have learned to use, and then endeavor to find sense in the proposition. ”

“ Description Defined.+—By means of our senses we gain a knowledge of the world. We see, hear, taste, smell, and feel; and the ideas so acquired are the fundamental elements of our knowledge, without which thinking would be impossible. It, therefore, happens that much of the language that we use has for its purpose the transmission to others of such ideas. Such writing is called description. We may, therefore, define description as that form of discourse which has for its purpose the formation of an image. ”

“ A short Rule concerning this Copia, it teaches how to vary a Sentence pleasantly, copiously, easily, frequently, and elegantly; by short Rules given, and by a Praxis upon these Rules, in an elegant Turning of one Phrase.
In the first Place, it is to be set forth in pure and choice Latin Words; which to do is no mean Piece of Art: For there are a great many, who do, I don't know after what Manner, affect the Copia and Variation of Phrase, when they don't know how to express it once right. ”

“ But whether the verb or the noun was the first to be invented is of little importance; nor is it possible for us, at the very beginning of our inquiry into the nature of language, to enter upon a minute examination of a theory which represents language as a work of human art, and as established by mutual agreement as a medium of communication. ”

“ The tongue writes on the soul, as the hand on paper. That which we hear, is conveyed to us immediately and in the first instance, from the mind of him from whom the instruction proceeds; that which we read, is the copy of a copy. ”

“ It is strange want of thought to imagine, that an enquiry is ever the better, because it is taken up in Greek and Latin. Why is it not as wise and reasonable for a scholar to dwell in the kitchen and converse with cooks, as to go into his study, to meditate upon the Roman art of cookery, and learn their variety of sauces? ”

“ And every one accustomed to composition must be aware, that in transcribing, or revising what has been previously written, even with some degree of care, the change of a single expression, or the insertion of an additional word, or the transposition of a solitary clause in a sentence, often makes the meaning of the writer infinitely clearer, and gives a new character altogether to his style. ”

“ But, whatever may be said to the contrary, there are weighty, and, we think, irrefutable arguments for continuing the use of Latin and Greek terms in medical writings,—even in recipes. Since it should be so, and certainly is so, we insist here, as elsewhere, that all technical terms, proper names, or any words on which the context can throw but little, if any, light, should be written not with ordinary, but with cardinary care,—which new word we hazard, that our meaning may make a deeper impression. ”

“ When people had been taught to look upon all men as brethren, then, and then only, did the variety of human speech present itself as a problem that called for a solution in the eyes of thoughtful observers; and I, therefore, date the real beginning of the science of language from the first day of Pentecost. ”

“ The theory which is suggested to us by an analysis of language carried out according to the principles of comparative philology is the very opposite. We arrive in the end at roots, and every one of these expresses a general, not an individual, idea. Every name, if we analyze it, contains a predicate by which the object to which the name applies was known. ”

“ To express one’s thoughts correctly and with refinement requires absolute obedience to the common conventions of good literature.
The study of composition includes, first, the careful selection of materials and their effective arrangement; and second, a knowledge of the established conventions of literature: of spelling; of the common uses of the marks of punctuation,—period, question mark, exclamation point, colon, semicolon, comma; of the common idioms of our language; and of the elements of its grammar. ”

“ Our knowledge of linguistic processes is sufficiently wide to show that lexicographic borrowing may proceed to such an extent, that the substance of a language may be materially changed. As long, however, as the inner form remains unchanged, our judgment is determined, not by the provenience of the vocabulary, but by that of the form. ”

“ And although I cannot promise you that the study of synonyms, or the acquaintance with derivations, or any other knowledge but the very highest knowledge of all, will deliver you from the temptation to misuse this or any other gift of God—a temptation always lying so near us—yet I am sure that these studies rightly pursued will do much in leading us to stand in awe of this gift of speech, and to tremble at the thought of turning it to any other than those worthy ends for which God has endowed us with a faculty so divine. ”

“ But since no speech contains a verb which might present to us a verbal form which is not also the form of a determined verb, nor a conditional which does not point with precision to the action or occurrence subordinated to a condition, it is evident that the scheme places before us, not the living and concrete body of the speech, but a dissected and dead part of this body. ”