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SIMPLICITY.

68. Simplicity is the quality of being easily understood. It is opposed, not so much to the complex, as to the abstruse.

The possibility of being simple must depend, in the first instance, on the subject as compared with the capacity of the persons addressed. But apart from this, there are certain general peculiarities that render style more or less intelligible.

69. Simplicity may apply to the Terms, or to the Structure.

Terms are simple, as opposed to abstruse and unintelligible, on various grounds.

(1.) They may represent common and familiar objects and actions, instead of such as are rare and remote. In the sentence, "He that doeth these sayings is like to a man that buildeth his house upon a rock," every one of the terms has the simplicity belonging to things common and familiar.

Our native Saxon terms, and those foreign terms that have come into use among people generally, are the most intelligible of all. Our Latin derivatives are less understood by the uneducated. The phraseology of science and of special arts and professions, as Law, Medicine, Navigation, &c., is intelligible only to such as are acquainted with the subjects concerned. Many terms belong to scholarly erudition, and are more or less unknown to the mass of men; for example, allusions to ancient mythology, and to the customs of remote nations.

When a subject can be treated in familiar language, it is pre-eminently popular and intelligible. A man of great genius will sometimes contrive to express himself, even on a difficult subject, in popular phraseology; but this power must soon find its limit.

Johnson's remarks on Swift are in point here: "The peruser of Swift wants little previous knowledge; it will be sufficient that he is acquainted with common words and com

mon things; he has neither to mount elevations nor to explore profundities," &c.

(2.) The terms are simple when they relate to things that are in their nature palpable and easily conceivable.

The objects of our senses are of this nature-the things that we see, hear, touch, smell, taste. So are our familiar emotions and energies-love, hate, fear, will, desire, &c. But the world contains, besides these obvious things, a great number of subtle and impalpable agents, hidden forces, that neither the senses can discover nor the imagination realize. So that, while the sun, the stars, the mountains, rivers, fields, houses, bread, water, fire, are simple,-gas, molecule, electricity, latent heat, vital force, association of ideas, free-will, are impalpable and obscure. These last have to be understood by special study in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology, the Human Mind, &c. Among the sciences, the Natural History group-Zoology, Botany, &c.owe their great popularity and intelligibility to the palpable character of their objects.

It is remarked that the ancient poets took their images from familiar sources to a greater degree than the moderns; this being the natural consequence of their priority.

(3.) The more general a notion is, the more difficult it is to conceive; hence terms expressing generalities and abstractions, are not so simple as the names of individuals or concrete things.

It is easy to conceive a well-known mountain, river, tree, house, steam-engine; or an individual animal, man, or society. Nothing is required but to remember the individual objects exactly as we have been accustomed to observe them. But when

a whole class has to be viewed collectively, as mountains, rivers, trees, in general, we have to bring to memory at the same moment all the individuals, or at least a considerable portion of them, attending to their common features, and neglecting their points of difference. A farther step in the same direction is to conceive a quality in the abstract, or entirely separated from

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the other qualities accompanying it in real things; as, length, extension, weight, fluidity, elasticity, attraction, intelligence, goodness, temperance. The mind must still run over the particular objects possessing the quality, so as to affirm nothing of the abstract idea that is not true of all the concrete instances of it. Now it is a work of labor to recall the necessary examples; and a speaker or writer should use such language as to suggest these readily to the mind. Hence the advantage of the figures that substitute the special, individual, and concrete, for the general and abstract (§ 31). It is possible to express a general truth in terms that shall be themselves highly concrete. Compare the two following modes of expressing the same principle of human nature. "In proportion as the manners, customs, and amusements of a nation are cruel and barbarous, the regulation of their penal codes will be severe." "According as men delight in battles, bull-fights, and combats of gladiators, so will they punish by hanging, burning, and crucifying."

Such terms as pain, feeling, are less conceivable and less forcible than ache, penury. Curve is very general, circle is less so, wheel approaches the particular; sun, full moon, are individual, and the most intelligible of all.

The style of Bishop Butler is rendered difficult by the excessive employment of general and abstract terms, unrelieved by such as are specific and concrete. The following sentences will give an idea of what is meant :-" Self-love and interestedness was stated to consist in, or be, an affection to ourselves, a regard to our own private good. But that benevolence is distinct from, that is, not the same thing with self-love, is no reason for its being looked upon with any peculiar suspicion, because every principle whatever, by means of which self-love is gratified, is distinct from it," &c. (Sermon xi.)

70. The Abstract Noun is the form that carries abstract naming farthest; as, motion, whiteness, color, virtue, comprehension. Nouns denoting whole classes of objects, Adjectives, Verbs, and Adverbs, tend rather to suggest the concrete.

A Class Noun, as river, tree, city, denotes concrete objects, although requiring a whole class to be taken into account, which class the mind selects one or two individuals to represent. An Adjective,-as, large, wise, fruitful,-supposes a name denoting a whole class, which it limits and renders more concrete; as a "large house," a "fruitful field." The Verb requires the mention of a subject, and very often an object also; as, “he comprehends the meaning," which is more concrete and suggestive than the abstract noun "comprehension." The Adverb, in this regard, resembles the adjective.

In the following sentence, abstract nouns are employed: "The understanding of this truth will preclude that great source of human misery, groundless expectations." To convert these nouns into verbs and adjectives, the sentence would have to be changed thus: "If we clearly understand that this is true, we shall be saved from what often makes us miserable, namely, expecting what is groundless." In this form, the idea is more readily conveyed than when expressed, as above, by a succession of abstract nouns.

noun.

It will readily be seen, from the above and other instances, what are the compensating advantages of using the abstract In the first place, it is often more concise, which entitles it to preference when brevity is an object; as in subordinate clauses, which must not by their length overwhelm the principal clause.

In the next place, it allows a passive and impersonal form to be employed, which is often convenient: "Unless care be taken."

71. A series of abstract terms is difficult to follow.

Each separate abstraction requires a reference to examples in the concrete, and we cannot, without labor, make this reference as rapidly as abstract words can be uttered.

72. The operation of the foregoing principle is modified under certain circumstances.

(1.) When the abstractions are simple and easy; as length, motion, warmth, strength, blackness, pain, sweetness, love.

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(2.) When they have some natural connection, or have been often grouped together; as, "light and heat," "time and space," "number and importance," "virtue and happiness," "learning and talents," "law, order, and morality."

(3.) When they are repeated in the concrete (Extract V.). (4.) When they are merely symbols to connect thoughts, and do not require attention directed upon themselves. This is the case with the abstractions of mathematics, and in scientific reasoning generally.

(5.) When they are intended to rouse the feelings. Thus, an enumeration of the virtues may have no other object than to excite a glow of approving sentiment: as, "faith, hope, charity;" "truth, justice, benevolence."

"For, with strong speech I tore the veil that hid

Nature, and Truth, and Liberty, and Love."

Among simple writers in English, we may name More, Hobbes, Bunyan, Defoe, Tillotson, Addison, Swift, Goldsmith, Cowper, Paley, Southey, Macaulay, Irving, Prescott, Bryant.

As examples of the more learned and abstruse style, we have Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Bacon, Hooker, Milton, Barrow, Jeremy Taylor, South, Butler, Cowley, Pope, Johnson, Gibbon, Bentham, Robert Hall, De Quincey, Carlyle, Bancroft, Emerson, Longfellow.

73. Simplicity of Structure means an arrangement of clauses, sentences, and paragraphs, suited for easy comprehension.

The principles of good arrangement have been in part adverted to already (§65, 66), and will be more fully considered under various subsequent heads.

74. With a view to simplicity of arrangement, it is desirable to avoid a complication of negatives.

Such an expression as "The loss of blood destroys the strength," is not so intelligible as the positive form "Abundance of blood gives strength." Compare "Indifference to suffering is unfavorable to sympathy," with "Being alive to