Delineation

“ Any topographical delineation of the facts, therefore, must be wholly incapable of arousing in the mind of the beholder those sensations which would be caused by the facts themselves, seen in their natural relations to others. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But the next step in composing, which has been mentioned throughout the book, is more necessary in argumentation than in any other form of expression. You must not only have an outline in mind for what you are about to say, but that outline should be written, and almost as much time and thought should be given to it as to the composition itself; for clear thought is the great essential in argumentation, and a carefully prepared outline is the greatest help to clear thought.
88. The Introduction.—There are three parts to every outline for a discussion or argument. ”

“ Delineators of subjects of greater pretension are frequently content to throw all their sympathies, their energies, into the elaboration of their leading figure or figures: the attitude, the face, the features, the hands, the costume, leave nothing to be desired, while the rest of the composition is slurred or neglected. ”

“ In the first place, the distinguishing features of an object may be presented; and in this case exposition partakes of the nature of description. In the second place, an object or idea may be explained by pointing out its effects; and in this case exposition partakes of the character of narration. In the third place, we may explain or define an object or conception by indicating its resemblance or its unlikeness to something else that is known. But whatever method of exposition is adopted, it should be full and definite enough to impart a clear idea of the thing explained. ”

“ What is definition, after all, but a form of description? To assert, in effect, that consciousness is indefinable because it is indescribable, and that for this reason we must be content with description, is both a flagrant disregard of consistency and an unwarranted abuse of our good nature. ”

“ When one of the terms you use may thus stir one part of your audience in one way, and the other part in just the opposite way, you are dealing with an uncomfortable kind of ambiguity.
It is easy to get into the way of thinking that the denotation of a word—the things which it names—is the only part of its meaning that counts; but with many words the connotation—I use the word in the rhetorical rather than in the logical sense, to include its implications, associations, and general emotional coloring—has more effect on human nature. ”

“ Such grumblers, however, do not duly consider that the imaginative faculty invariably depicts the objects it would represent as grand and impressive, with a few striking touches, rather than in fulness of detail, and that thereby it lends to the image more of character, solemnity, and dignity. A thousand times have I heard the complaint that the objects for a knowledge of which we are originally indebted to description, invariably disappoint us when we see them with our own eyes. ”

“ An outline, outline, what causes hesitation, does outline not cause hesitation, why is certainty disgusted by a waiter, why is the selection of more than there is not established by selection, why is reasoning clear, and estimation precise, and articulation unnecessary, and disintegration avoided, why is it, and more than that when does the resolution come that shows in a description, when does it come and why does it determine no return, and what particular transaction shows more intelligence than ever. ”

“ Unity, Coherence, and Emphasis in Sentences.+—On pages 153-155 we have considered the principles of unity, coherence, and emphasis as applied to the whole composition. In much the same way these principles are applicable to the sentence. A sentence possesses unity if all that it contains makes one complete statement, and no more; and if all minor ideas are made subordinate to one main idea. The effect must be single. A sentence exhibits coherence when the relation of all of its parts is perfectly clear. ”

“ Every word, even the most abstract, connotes a concrete presentation or a concept, which, inasmuch as it is formed out of the common attributes of different concrete [58] presentations, betrays its concrete origin. Language has no word for that which one believes he sees as through a mist, without recognisable form. ”

“ Large.—With Comparison large, one will be strongly given to criticising and analyzing, and will readily detect fallacies and improprieties that would escape the observation of those in whom this organ is small. If Ideality and Individuality are large, his language will abound with elevated metaphors and figures of speech, but if Causality is small, his judgment will be defective. If Secretiveness is small, and Combativeness and Self-esteem large, he will be strongly inclined to criticise every observation he hears, and will thus excite enmity and ill-will. ”

“ Taking his works collectively, we are first called upon to remark a plain line of division between those that have a clear, easily understood, and pre-arranged plan or form, and others that are not only destitute to common eyes of any such outward form, but have an incoherence and formlessness, which the admirers of the poet have for the most part been able to account for only on the hypothesis of an internal form and arrangement, not visible to the outward eye ”

“ As these [tropes and figures of composition] are a deviation from the principles of metaphysics and logic, they are frequently VICIOUS. Since the Attribute of this proposition is so peculiarly offensive to you, your first care, methinks, should have been to gain precise and exact ideas of the subject; without which it is not possible to judge, whether what is affirmed of it be exceptionable, or no.
By tropes and figures of composition, you seem to understand metaphors, allegories, similitudes,370 and whatever else is vulgarly known under the name of figures of speech. ”

“ When the nature of things is unknown, or the notion unsettled and indefinite, and various in various minds, the words by which such notions are conveyed, or such things denoted, will be ambiguous and perplexed. And such is the fate of hapless lexicography, that not only darkness, but light, impedes and distresses it; things may be not only too little, but too much known, to be happily illustrated. ”

“ This realised particularity of the notion is the Judgment.
The ordinary classification of notions, as clear, distinct and adequate, is no part of the notion; it belongs to psychology. Notions, in fact, are here synonymous with mental representations; a clear notion is an abstract simple representation: a distinct notion is one where, in addition to the simplicity, there is one 'mark' or character emphasised as a sign for subjective cognition. ”

“ There are distinctions, in every department of thought, which all have not learned to draw and designate. Moreover, there are various styles of expression for the same thing, which are not at every one's command. ”

“ While we analyse, we have to remember that the most correct analysis of features or characteristics may easily fail to give us a true idea of the face or the character which we analyse. The whole is more than the sum of its parts. ”

“ In determining this higher service we are reconstructing our whole from the unit of the selection to the revelation of truth resulting from the relationship of parts; the analysis must culminate in synthesis, else it would defeat its purpose. The end of literature, as in other forms of art, is revelation. The end of analysis is to lead to the perception of this revelation. In the earlier stages of development the pupil's attention should not be directed toward minute analysis. ”

“ They have, in pursuance of their Theory, mapped out the human scull into compartments, to each of which they have assigned a particular faculty or sentiment, and they profess to tell, with some degree of accuracy, the individual character by the peculiar formation of the head. ”

“ Once the relations of qualities have been observed and formulated, however, we need no longer attend to any part of the fact at all. Instead of the actual qualities we now take symbols, words, for example, or letters, or other signs, and with these symbols we make for ourselves diagrams of the relations in which we have observed that the qualities which they represent have stood to each other. ”

“ The concrete is understood by anybody who knows enough to recognize it. The generality can be discovered only by him who has a similar imagination, and hence each one draws a different generalization from the same work of art. ”

“ I had already grasped the fact that the title of my discourse was the important thing. In the list of the Society's lectures sent to me there was hardly one whose title did not impress the imagination in advance. I must be equally impressive... ”

“ On the contrary, the higher, over-individual ends, as they are sometimes called, — politics, industry, science, literature, art — imply a differentiation among men that in spite of its significance would defy classification. ”

“ The objective statement, however true, is no measure of subjective fact, but this twisting of subjective fact to correspond with objective order is so embedded in language and common thought that it will perhaps always remain the form of ordinary thinking, like common-sense realism and geocentric appearance. ”

“ But to understand something of what takes place in the making of poetry we must now substitute for our first diagram the slightly more complicated one which William James employs to represent, not those lower nerve-centres which "act from present sensational stimuli alone," but the hemispheres of the human brain which "act from considerations." [Footnote: Psychology, Briefer Course, pp. 97, 98. Henry Holt.] Considerations are images constructed out of past experience, they are reproductions of what has been felt or witnessed. ”

“ If he wants a definition or a distinction on any subject, he generally protests first against the desire for definitions and distinctions, maintaining the superiority of healthy practical sense and feeling over mere theory ”

“ Our goal is reached, so far as the demonstrable truth is concerned, whenever we have found a series of propositions relating to the constitution of the realm of experience, and such that, as soon as you try to deny these propositions, you implicitly reaffirm them by your very attempt at denial. ”

“ If then this person should pretend, or even design, to reason from his definition, and yet reason from his idea, a misapprehension will arise in the hearer, who supposes him to reason from his definition merely. ”

“ A delicate balance must be kept between that presentation of the concrete which makes it significant by making it representative and typical, and that other presentation which dissolves the individual into the general, by making it a mere abstraction. ”

“ This is exactly why illustration breaks down when reference, otherwise application, runs short, and why before any assemblage of figures or aspects, otherwise of samples and specimens, the question of what these are, extensively, samples and specimens of declines not to beset us—why, otherwise again, we look ever for the supreme reference that shall avert the bankruptcy of sense. ”

“ Beginning with definitions, they find that the definitions themselves need defining; and just at the triumphant moment when the structure of argument seems complete and logic-proof, some lynx-eyed adversary detects an inaccuracy or a contradiction in the use of some keystone term, and the whole magnificent pile, so painfully reared, tumbles into ruins. ”

“ Having by these divisions given an order and arrangement to our objects, we may now apply ourselves to consider with the more accuracy their qualities and relations. The first circumstance, that strikes my eye, is the great resemblance betwixt our impressions and ideas in every other particular, except their degree of force and vivacity. ”

“ In other words, reflection appears as the dominant trait of a situation when there is something seriously the matter, some trouble, due to active discordance, dissentiency, conflict among the factors of a prior non-intellectual experience; when, in the phraseology of the essays, a situation becomes tensional. ”

“ And observe, in this exercise, the object is more to get firmness of hand than accuracy of eye for outline; for there are no outlines in Nature, and the ordinary student is sure to draw them falsely if he draws them at all. ”

“ The most profound analogies are called up to prove the simplest fact, not only in the realm of poetry, or description, but in scientific or business matters at times, and whether he is writing upon some deep social problem or reporting upon the condition of the parish pump he will preface his account with an essay! ”

“ The first requisite of style is choice of words, and this comes under the head of Diction, the property of style which has reference to the words and phrases used in speaking and writing. The secret of literary skill from any standpoint consists in putting the right word in the right place. In order to do this it is imperative to know the meaning of the words we use, their exact literal meaning. ”