EDITORS TABLE. 



6 43 



"How shall we interpret into 

 thought the words 'arrive at a . . . 

 habit?' A habit is produced. But 'ar- 

 rival ' implies, not production of a tiling, 

 but coming up to a thing that preexists, 

 as at the end of a journey. What, again, 

 shall we say of the phrase, ' a fixed and 

 settled habit?' Habit is a course of 

 action characterized by constancy, as 

 distinguished from courses of action 

 that are inconstant. If the word ' set- 

 tled ' were unobjectionable, we might 

 define habit as a settled, course of action; 

 and, on substituting for the word this 

 equivalent, the phrase would read 'a 

 fixed and settled settled course of ac- 

 tion.' Obviously the word halit itself 

 conveys the whole notion ; and, if there 

 needs a word to indicate degree, it 

 should be a word suggesting force, not 

 suggesting rest. The reader is to be im- 

 pressed with the strength cf a tendency 

 in something active, not with the frm- 

 ness of something passive, as by the 

 words 'fixed and settled.' And then 

 why ' fixed and settled ? ' Making no ob- 

 jection to the words as having inappli- 

 cable meanings, there is the objection 

 that one of them would be sufficient : 

 surely that which is fixed must be set- 

 tled. Nor are these all the imperfec- 

 tions in this short sentence. The habit 

 referred to is the habit of believing ; 

 and to call it the habit of faith is to 

 imply that the words faith and believ- 

 ing are synonymous. 



" Passing to the next sentence, we 

 are arrested by a conspicuous fault in 

 its first clause ' The doubt which was 

 laid revives again." 1 To revive is to 

 live again ; so that the literal meaning 

 of the clause is ' the doubt which was 

 laid lives again again.' In the follow- 

 ing line there is nothing objectionable ; 

 but at the end of it we come to another 

 pleonasm. The words run: 'and that 

 generally for this reason, because the 

 mind. . . .' The idea is fully con- 

 veyed by the words, ' and that gener- 

 ally because the mind.' The words 

 ' for this reason ' are equivalent to an 



additional 'because.' So that we 

 have here another nonsensical duplica- 

 tion. Going a little further there rises 

 the question Why 'controversies 

 and disputes ? ' ' Dispute ' is given in 

 dictionaries as one of the synonymes 

 of ' controversy ; ' and though it may 

 be rightly held to have not quite the 

 same meaning, any additional meaning 

 it has does not aid, but rather inter- 

 rupts, the thought of the reader. 

 Though, where special attention is to 

 be drawn to a certain element of the 

 thought, two almost synonymous words 

 may fitly be used to make the reader 

 dwell longer on that element, yet, 

 where his attention is to be drawn to 

 another element of the thought (as here 

 to the effect of controversy on the 

 mind), there is no gain, but a loss, in 

 stopping him to interpret a second 

 word if the first suffices. One more 

 fault remains. The mind is said 'to 

 be disquieted with any former perplex- 

 ity when it appears in a new shape, or 

 is started by a different hand.' This 

 portion of the sentence is doubly defec- 

 tive. The two metaphors are incon- 

 gruous. Appearing in a shape, as a 

 ghost might be supposed to do, conveys 

 one kind of idea; and started by a 

 hand, as a horse or a hound might be, 

 conveys a conflicting kind of idea. 

 This defect, however, is less serious 

 than the other; namely, the unfitness 

 of the second metaphor for giving a 

 concrete form to the abstract idea. 

 How is it possible to 'start' a per- 

 plexity? 'Perplexity,' by derivation 

 and as commonly used, involves the 

 thought of entanglement and arrest of 

 motion ; while to start a thing is to set 

 it in motion. So that, whereas the 

 mind is to be represented as enmeshed, 

 and thus impeded in its movements, 

 the metaphor used to describe its state 

 is one suggesting the freedom and rap- 

 id motion of that which enmeshes it. 



" Even were these hypercriticisms, 

 it might be said that they are rightly 

 to be made on a passage which is con- 



