SECTION III. THE UNINTELLIGIBLE. I HAVE already considered two of the principal and most common offences against perspicuity, and come now to make some remarks on the third and last offence mentioned in the enumeration formerly given. It was observed that a speaker may not only express himself obscurely, and so convey his meaning imperfectly to the mind of the hearer; that he may not only express himself ambiguously, and so, along with his own, convey a meaning entirely different; but even express himself unintelligibly, and so convey no meaning at all. One would, indeed, think it hardly possible that a man of sense, who perfectly understands the language which he useth, should ever speak or write in such a 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 one or other of the three following: first, great confusion of thought, which is commonly accompanied with intricacy of 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 a justness of apprehension, and was free from affectation, at a loss to make himself understood in his native tongue, even though he had little command of language, and made but a bad choice of words. PART I. From Confusion of Thought. The first cause of the unintelligible in composition is confusion of thought. Language, as hath been already observed, is the medium through which the sentiments of the writer are perceived by the reader; and though the impurity or the grossness of the medium will render the image obscure or indistinct, yet no purity in the medium will suffice for exhibiting a distinct and unvarying image of a confused and unsteady object. There is a sort of half-formed thoughts, which we sometimes find writers impatient to give the world, before they themselves are fully possessed of them. Now, if the writer himself perceived confusedly and imperfectly the sentiments he would communicate, it is a thousand to one the reader will not perceive them at all. But how, then, it may be asked, shall he be qualified for discovering the cause, and distinguishing in the writer between a confusion of thought and a total want of meaning? I answer, that in examples of this kind the cause will sometimes, not always, be discovered by means of an attentive and frequent perusal of the words and context. Some meaning, after long poring, will perhaps be traced; but in all such cases we may be said more properly to divine what the author would say, than to understand what he says; and, therefore, all such sentences deserve to be ranked among the unintelligible. If a discovery of the sense be made, that it is made ought rather to be ascribed to the sagacity of the reader than to the elocution of the writer. This species of the unintelligible (which, by-theway, differs not in kind, but in degree, from the obscurity already considered, being no other than that bad quatity in the extreme) I shall exemplify first in simple, and afterward in complex sentences. First in simple sentences: "I have observed," says Sir Richard Steele, who, though a man of sense and genius, was a great master in this style, "that the superiority among these," he is speaking of some coffee-house politicians, "proceeds from an opinion of gallantry and fashion." This sentence, considered in itself, evidently conveys no meaning. First, it is not said whose opinion, their own or that of others; secondly, it is not said what opinion, or of what sort, favourable or unfavourable, true or false, but, in general, an opinion of gallantry and fashion, which contains no definite expression of any meaning. With the joint assistance of the context, reflection, and conjecture, we shall perhaps conclude that the author intended to say "that the rank among these politicians was determined by the opinion generally entertained of the rank in point of gallantry and fashion that each of them had attained." But no part of this is expressed. Another specimen : "And as to a well-taught mind, when you've said a haughty and proud man, you have spoke a narrow conception, little spirit, and despicable carriage." Here, too, it is possible to guess the intention of the author, but not to explain the import of the expression. Take the two following examples of complex sentences from the same hand: "I must confess we live in an age wherein a few empty blusterers carry away the praise of speaking, while a crowd of fellows overstocked with knowledge are run down by them: I say overstocked, because they certainly are so, as to their service of mankind, if from their very store they raise to themselves ideas of respect and greatness of the occasion, and I know not what, to disable themselves from explaining their thoughts." The other example is, "The serene aspect of these writers, joined with the great encouragement I observe is given to another, or, what is indeed to be suspected, in which he indulges himself, confirmed me in the notion I have of the prevalence of ambition this way." But leaving this, which is, indeed, the * Spectator, No. 49. Spect., No. 484, + Guardian, No. 20. Guardian. No. 1. dullest species of the unintelligible, I proceed to the second class, that which arises from an affectation of excellence. 66 PART II. From Affectation of Excellence. In this there is always something figurative; but the figures are remote, and things heterogeneous are combined. I shall exemplify this sort also, first in a few more simple sentences, and then in such as are more complex. Of the former, take the following instances: "This temper of soul," says the Guardian, speaking of meekness and humility, 99** keeps our understanding tight about us.' Whether the author had any meaning in this expression, or what it was, I shall not take upon me to determine; but hardly could anything more incongruous in the way of metaphor have been imagined. The understanding is made a girdle to our other mental faculties, for the fastening of which girdle meekness and humility serve for a buckle. "A man is not qualified for a butt who has not a good deal of wit and vivacity, even in the ridiculous side of his character." It is only the additional clause in the end that is here exceptionable. What a strange jumble! A man's wit and vivacity placed on the side of his character. Sometimes, in a sentence sufficiently perspicuous, we shall find an unintelligible clause inserted, which, as it adds not to the sense, serves only to interrupt the reader and darken the sentiment. Of this the following passage will serve for an example: "I seldom see a noble building, or any great piece of magnificence and pomp, but I think how little is all this to satisfy the ambition or to fill the idea of an immortal soul." Pray what addition does the phrase to fill the idea make to the sense, or what is the meaning of it? I shall subjoin, for the sake of variety, one poetical example from Dryden, who, speaking of the universal deluge, says, "Yet when that flood in its own depths was drowned, It left behind its false and slippery ground."§ The first of these lines appears to me marvellously nonsensical. It informs us of a prodigy never heard of or conceived before, a drowned flood; nay, which is still more extraordinary, a flood that was so excessively deep, that after leaving nothing else to drown, it turned, felo de se, and drowned itself. And, doubtless, if a flood can be in danger of drowning in itself, the deeper it is, the danger must be the greater. So far, at least, the author talks consequentially. His meaning, expressed in plain language (for the line itself hath no meaning), was probably no more than this: 66 When the waters of the deluge had subsided." *Guardian, No. 1. † Spectator, No. 47. Pope's Thoughts on various Subjects. I proceed to give examples of a still higher order, in sentences more complicated. These I shall produce from an author who, though far from being deficient in acuteness, invention, or vivacity, is perhaps, in this species of composition, the most eminent of all that have written in the English language: "If the savour of things lies across to honesty, if the fancy be florid, and the appetite high towards the subaltern beauties and lower order of worldly symmetries and proportions, the conduct will infallibly turn this latter way." This is that figure of speech which the French critics call galimatias, and the English comprehend under the general name bombast, and which may not improperly be defined the sublime of nonsense. You have lofty images and high-sounding words, but are always at a loss to find the sense. The meaning, where there is a meaning, cannot be said to be communicated and adorned by the words, but is rather buried under them. Of the same kind are the two following quotations from the same author: "Men must acquire a very peculiar and strong habit of turning their eye inward, in order to explore the interior regions and recesses of the mind, the hollow caverns of deep thought, the private seats of fancy, and the wastes and wildernesses, as well as the more fruitful and cultivated tracts of this obscure climate." A most wonderful way of telling us that it is difficult to trace the operations of the mind. This may serve to give some notion of the figure which the French Phœbus—no offence to the Grecian, who is of a very different family-is capable of making in an English dress. His lordship proceeds in his own inimitable manner, or, rather, in what follows hath outdone himself: "But what can one do? or how dispense with these darker disquisitions and moonlight voyages, when we have to deal with a sort of moonblind wits, who, though very acute and able in their kind, may be said to renounce daylight, and extinguish, in a manner, the bright visible outward world, by allowing us to know nothing besides what we can prove by strict and formal demonstration." It must be owned, the condition of those wits is truly deplorable; for, though very acute and able in their kind, yet being moonblind, they cannot see by night, and having renounced daylight, they will not see by day; so that, for any use they have of their eyes, they are no better than stone blind. It is astonishing, too, that the reason for rendering a moonlight voyage indispensable is, that we have moonblind persons only for our company, the very reason which, to an ordinary understanding, would seem to render such a voyage improper. When one narrowly examines a piece of writing of this stamp, one finds one's self precisely in the situation of the * Characteristics, vol. iii., Misc. ii., chap. ii. † Ibid., Misc. iv., chap. ii. Ibid., Misc. iv., chap. ii. fox in the fable, turning over and considering the tragedian's mask,* and can hardly refrain from exclaiming in the same words, "How vast a head is here without a brain !"† PART III. From Want of Meaning. I come now to the last class of the unintelligible, which proceeds from a real want of meaning in the writer. Instances of this sort are, even in the works of good authors, much more numerous than is commonly imagined. But how shall this defect be discovered? There are, indeed, cases in which it is hardly discoverable; there are cases, on the contrary, in which it may be easily discovered. There is one remarkable difference between this class of the unintelligible and that which was first taken notice of, proceeding from confusion of thought, accompanied with intricacy of expression. When this is the cause of the difficulty, the reader will not fail, if he be attentive, to hesitate at certain intervals, and to retrace his progress, finding himself bewildered in the terms, and at a loss for the meaning. Then he will try to construe the sentence, and to ascertain the significations of the words. By these means, and by the help of the context, he will possibly come at last at what the author would have said; whereas, in that species of the unintelligible which proceeds from a vacuity of thought, the reverse commonly happens. The sentence is generally simple in its structure, and the construction easy. When this is the case, provided words glaringly unsuitable are not combined, the reader proceeds without hesitation or doubt. He never suspects that he does not understand a sentence, the terms of which are familiar to him, and of which he perceives distinctly the grammatical order. But if he be by any means induced to think more closely on the subject, and to peruse the words a second time more attentively, it is probable that he will then begin to suspect them, and will at length discover that they contain nothing but either an identical proposition, which conveys no knowledge, or a proposition of that kind of which one cannot so much as affirm that it is either true or false. And this is justly allowed to be the best criterion of nonsense.‡ * Persona tragica is commonly rendered so; but it was very different from what is called a mask with us. It was a case which covered the whole head, and had a face painted on it suitable to the character to be represented by it. +"O quanta species, inquit, ast cerebrum non habet!"-Phædrus." Of all that is written in this style, we may justly say, in the words of Lord Verulam (De Aug. Sci., 1. vi., c. ii.), applying to a particular purpose the words of Horace, "Tantum series juncturaque pollet, Tantum de medio sumptis accedit honoris ;" "ut speciem artis, nescio cujus, præclaræ sæpenumero reportent ea, quæ |