TYPICAL FORMS AND SPECIAL ENDS. 17 



tellectual faculties which are brought but little into exercise, in the practical 

 business of common life, it is, perhaps, impossible to avoid the use of some 

 terms and phrases requiring explanation to the general reader. This is 

 an inconvenience, which — as it cannot be entirely escaped — should be 

 diminished as much as possible, by carefully considering, in each particular 

 instance, whether the example, or the argument, that requires the intro- 

 duction of such technical terms for its proper statement, is of intrinsic 

 importance enough to counterbalance the objection to its use that arises 

 out of the natural aversion of the reader to language presenting obvious 

 difficulty, and — as it may appear to him — even studied obscurity. 



The authors have, as it seems to us, deviated from the discretion they 

 ought to have exercised on this head — at one time giving abstruse definitions 

 of terms, which they have no occasion for afterwards— at other times, in- 

 troducing unusual terms, when their argument might have been stated just 

 as well without them. The uninitiated would be apt to think that the 

 structure of a bird's wing might have been shown to be adapted for flying, 

 without such an array of learned words as in this paragraph (p. 207) : 

 " It has been already mentioned, that the scapula and coracoid are, respec- 

 tively, pleurapophysis and hasmapophysis of the occipital vertebra, and the 

 clavicles or collar-bones, the haemapophysis of the atlas, or first cervical ver- 

 tebra." How different a dialect this is from the style of Paley, for example, 

 who never presents a difficulty unless to explain it, and rarely, indeed, em- 

 ploys an unusual term where the sense could be given as well in words more 

 simple. And, so far from losing in force by this condescension, the argu- 

 ment acquires double credibility in his hands ; the easy flow of language, 

 and the perspicuity of the phrase, being but the fitting counterparts of the 

 judicious selection of the instances and the clear connection between all the 

 links of the reasoning. 



Again, it appears to us that an insidious use is sometimes made — no 

 doubt unconsciously — of those hard words out of the scientific vocabulary; — 

 thus, pp. 435-6 : — " Final cause is, to say the least of it, as certain as 

 unity of composition. It is surely as certain that the eye was made to see 

 as that it is the homologue of the whisker of a cat. We give little credit 

 for sincerity to those who acknowledge that they have overwhelming evi- 

 dence in favour of the former truth, but no convincing proof in behalf of 

 the latter." The intention of the authors would seem to require that the 

 words " former" and " latter" should be transposed in the sentence — but 

 let that pass. The argument itself seems to be a sophism depending upon 

 the introduction of an unusual word " homologue" into one of the two 



D 



