ON SIMILE AND METAPHOR IN THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 101 



a metaphor and a figure are much the same thing as they appear 

 in the garb of spoken or written language. The one is Latin 

 and the other is Greek ; but you may call the phrase almost 

 indifferently figurative or metaphorical, and the intention or 

 conception at the back of the mind is practically expressed 

 equally well by either term. To me however " metaphor " 

 appears to be a process almost a habit of thought rather than of 

 speech. Of course the thought, if it is not to be barren and 

 unfruitful, must express itself in language, for its own sake as 

 well as for others. But there are minds that run in metaphorical 

 grooves, as well as those that are painfully exact and literal. 

 The mental attitude is descriptive and picturesque, finds more 

 meaning and pleasure in an appropriate simile than in the most 

 painstaking and exact definition, and sees light and colour every- 

 where. Thus the mind of the East is pre-eminently at home 

 in metaphor. It is in the realm of figure and metaphor that all 

 mystics more or less consciously live, move, and have their being. 

 I would venture to reiterate and emphasize again that one of 

 the most fruitful causes of misunderstanding of the Old and 

 New Testaments has ever been the reading of metaphor as 

 though it were literal demonstration and phrase, like the clumsy 

 tread of a giant in a fairyland of sunshine and gossamer. 

 Metaphor as I understand it, and certainly as it is used in the 

 Gospels and by our Lord, illustrates and illuminates a truth too 

 profound for literal or precise exhibition in human language. 

 No seer so revels in metaphor and figure of speech, whether 

 reminiscent of his Master or original, as the author of this 

 Gospel. 



Against one further or possible misapprehension a caveat 

 must be entered. It does not in the least follow that because a 

 treatise or writing is full of metaphor it is therefore less true, 

 if the expression may be allowed, or conveys its teaching with 

 less precision and accuracy. In one sense at least it is more 

 true, if truth admits of degrees, because it transcends the bounds 

 of geometrical and physical description. It is in touch, if again 

 I may make for it a high claim, with greater and Diviner things. 

 No philosopher or theologian can disdain its use. In part at 

 least it unveils the spiritual ; and linking it to the earthly 

 interprets each to each. It can do no more. Conformably to 

 the experience of St. Paul (2 Cor. xii. 4) the higher spiritual 

 realities cannot be rendered or expressed in human utterance. 

 They are not however on that account dreams but facts, which 



