Version

“ In the general sense, Weight includes all the notes of truth,—it may relate to the entire mass of evidence;—or else it may be employed as concerning the value of an individual manuscript, or a single Version, or a separate Father. ”

“ In the case of authors who wrote before the invention of printing, scholars are familiar with the process of comparing the various MSS. of a single work in order from such a comparison to reconstruct the archetype or original MS., from which the various existing MSS. are derived. Similarly in Folk-Lore, by comparing the different versions of a single tale, it may be possible to arrive, with tolerable certainty, at the original story, of which the different versions are more or less imperfect and incorrect representations. ”

“ The artifice of inversion, by which the established order of words is changed, or of innovation, by which new words or new meanings of words are introduced, is practised, not by those who talk to be understood, but by those who write to be admired.
What is fit for every thing can fit nothing well. ”

“ The essence of inference is that the conclusion should embody knowledge which is not in the premise or premises, and many logicians have contended that no fact is stated in the converse which was not in the convertend, or, in other words, that conversion is merely a transformation or verbal change of the same statement. ”

“ Conversion.—In this process, our memorized matter consists of classified series of sentences which are to be converted into other forms by means of appropriate exercises of various kinds.
In the opinion of many, the greatest evil in present-day methods lies in the fact that an almost exclusive use is made of the first of these processes as a method of producing constructed matter. ”

“ Old ideas give way slowly; for they are more than abstract logical forms and categories. They are habits, predispositions, deeply engrained attitudes of aversion and preference. ”

“ Pray go back and recollect one of the conclusions to which I sought to lead you in my very first lecture. You may remember how I there argued against the notion that the worth of a thing can be decided by its origin. Our spiritual judgment, I said, our opinion of the significance and value of a human event or condition, must be decided on empirical grounds exclusively. If the fruits for life of the state of conversion are good, we ought to idealize and venerate it, even though it be a piece of natural psychology; ”

“ But when I find them hopelessly at variance among themselves: above all, when I find (1) all other Manuscripts of whatever date,— (2) the most ancient Versions,—and (3) , the whole body of the primitive Fathers, decidedly opposed to them,—I am (to speak plainly) at a loss to understand how any man of sound understanding, acquainted with all the facts of the case and accustomed to exact reasoning, can hesitate to regard the unsupported (or the slenderly supported) testimony of one or other of them as simply worthless. ”

“ In consequence of this perversion of the word Being, philosophers looking about for something to supply its place, laid their hands upon the word Entity, a piece of barbarous Latin, invented by the schoolmen to be used as an abstract name, in which class its grammatical form would seem to place it: but being seized by logicians in distress to stop a leak in their terminology, it has ever since been used as a concrete name. ”

“ As our present head represents the very pith and marrow of the art of study, we may dwell a little longer on the process of changing the form of an author, whether by condensing, expanding, varying the expression, altering the order, selecting, and rejecting, —or by any other known device. Worst of all is change for the mere sake of change; it is simply better than literal copying. ”

“ Nor can we infer that they have been composed or finally revised by one man, from the fact, “that very often, in some one writing, as it has come down to us, we not only find two different styles, or a totally different mode of description, so that we can with certainty conclude that the work is founded upon two different sources, but these sources run through writings that are separated from one another, and are frequently ascribed to entirely different ages.” ”

“ Concerning legend and tradition about our Will, it seems that, in each case, we should do our best to trace the Quellen, to discover the original sources, and the steps by which the tale arrived at its late recorders in print; and then each man’s view as to the veracity of the story will rest on his sense of probability ”

“ It is nevertheless for this very reason that we here cite it, as a triumphant verification of those immutable laws of the mind to which the principles of Composition are supposed to appeal; where the simple technic exhibition, or illustration of Principles, without story, or thought, or a single definite expression, has still the power to possess and to fill us with a thousand delightful emotions. ”

“ Originality, in the true sense of the word, implies that ideas and suggestions from without shall be truly appreciated, studied, and reproduced with the stamp of native thought and imagination upon them, to individualize what is general, and to harmonize materials in themselves crude or uncongenial. Then, and generally speaking not till then, can we hope for a new creation, which shall be true, and therefore permanent, in harmony with that which has gone before, and therefore capable of striking a new key-note not unaccordant with the old. ”

“ Ancient literature was now welcomed, not only as supplying standards of form, but as disclosing a new conception of life; a conception freer, larger, more rational, and more joyous, than the medieval; one which gave unfettered scope to the play of the human feelings, to the sense of beauty, and to all the activities of the intellect. ”

“ For when nine editions of a book appear in quick succession, prefaced by a description of the spirit in which "it is hoped that the volume will he received,"—it seems a pity that the author should not be judged by the standard of his own choosing. ”

“ Every document, it may be safely said, contains errors; and second only to the need of distinguishing good documents from bad is the need of leaving as little room as possible for caprice in distinguishing the occasional errors of ‘good’ documents from the sound parts of their text.
45. General estimates of comparative excellence are at once shown to be insufficient by the fact that excellence itself is of various kinds: a document may be ‘good’ in one respect and ‘bad’ in another. The distinction between soundness and correctness, for instance, lies on the surface. ”

“ Approaching the question as we do, not from the point of view of the evolution of a particular literary form, but from that of a persistent ideal and quasi-philosophical tradition, which manifests itself in all manner of forms and fashions, we have a perfect right to adopt whatever classification suits our purpose best, provided always that we have a clear notion what it is we are discussing. ”

“ You will note every copy is different from each other and all different from the original, because each child looked at some one else's writing and not at the original. We are apt to copy each other's mistakes and example. ”

“ It is evident that the ideal edition of a great classic must be distinguished in typography, must present the best available text, and must be illustrated in such a way as at once to be beautiful in itself and to add to the reader's pleasure and his understanding of the book. ”

“ Where the invention consists of a principle embodied in a single form, the form is the principle and the principle the form, and there can be no violation of the principle without the use of the form. ”

“ Before we inquire into abstraction, as fixed and expressed in words,—whether such words are the complement of an actual or possible representation, or exist alone in consciousness, as complete substitutes,—it is indispensable that we should study the origin, and still more the evolution, of this new factor. ”

“ If we attempt to explain, the very process implies the generation of new ideas and the modification of old, so that long before the explanation of what we meant by the use of a given word is finished, the meaning has undergone a change, and we perceive that what we thought we meant by no means included all that lurked in the mind. ”

“ And a work becomes “fixed,” we learn, “when its embodiment in a copy or phonorecord, by or under the authority of the author, is sufficiently permanent or stable to permit it to be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated for a period of more than transitory duration.” ”

“ The innumerable ready-made abstractions, generalities, and classifications admirably serve the popular need; they supply a useful translation of fact, easily transposed to the purposes otherwise difficult of execution. ”

“ Perhaps you think the work looks rather long in its manuscript state? It will occupy twelve volumes, sir, and it is not half long enough, even then, for the subject. I take two volumes (and no man could do it in less) to examine the theories of all the philosophers in the world, ancient and modern, on the Vital Principle. ”

“ I require to see a proof, a revise, a re-revise, and a double re-revise, or fourth-proof rectified impression of all my productions, especially verse. A misprint kills a sensitive author. An intentional change of his text murders him. No wonder so many poets die young! ”

“ I know I feel how much more is to be done, ought to be done, by suggestion than by delineation, by creative fancy than by facsimile copying,—how much more by skilful selection and fresh and consistent combination—than can be effected by the most acute observation of individuals, or diligent accumulation of particulars. ”

“ Yes, my boy, that is the right way, not only with the savages, but with ourselves: When once we know the manner of doing a thing, we may then improve upon it as much as we can, the same as with your writing, each copy ought to be done better than the last. ”

“ But, as to this matter of creation, is there, after all, I ask yet, any genuine sense in which a man may be said to create his own thought-forms? Allowing that a new combination of forms already existing might be called creation, is the man, after all, the author of this new combination? ”

“ But the thorough adaptation of the scheme to man's nature is greatly more appreciable, and lies fully within the reach of observation and experience. And how thorough that adaptation is, all who have really looked at the matter ought to be competent to say. ”

“ The general plan itself of any poem will occasion some unavoidable conformities in the disposition of its component parts. The identity or similarity of the subject may create others. Or, if no other assimilating cause intervene, the very uniformity of common nature, will, of necessity, introduce some. ”

“ The force which works in the evolution of manufactured objects works also in the transmutation of custom into law, of belief into tale, and of tale into myth, with constant minute modification, and purification, degradation, and survival.
If we have established the character of our theory, as one of a nature acknowledged and accepted by science, we have still to give evidence for our facts. ”

“ The differences of the present edition from the previous one in no wise affect the substance of the views advanced. There are, indeed, both alterations and additions; but the former are merely verbal, confined to correcting misprints and amending slips of expression that involved some inconsistency or ambiguity, while the latter are all intended either to clear up misunderstandings on the part of reviewers, or to further elucidate the new view and its consequences, or else to answer objections made by some of my critics. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The more critical inquiry under the first factor and in fair use analysis generally is whether the allegedly infringing work merely supersedes the original work or instead adds something new, with a further purpose or different character, altering the first with new meaning or message, in other words whether and to what extent the new work is transformative. ”

“ But every imitative phenomenon must once have had its original, and I propose that for the future we keep as close as may be to the more first-hand and original forms of experience. These are more likely to be found in sporadic adult cases. ”

“ Perhaps the safest general rule is to say that the less the reproduction suggests an attempt at artistic interpretation,—the more literal and mechanical is its rendering of the original,—the better it fulfils its purpose. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A scheme of the creation which, if held in its entirety, shows curious lacunæ in the Creator’s mind, only to be bridged over by that faith which in itself makes all men equal, that is, of course, when they experience it and recognize its charm. ”