PHILOSOPHY AND SPECIALTIES. 
31 
written itself may also read itself, for it will have few other 
readers. We have heard Darwin’s confession, and may go 
beyond science to learn how to write. Wilkie Collins re¬ 
vised his works seven times before going to press. Black- 
more, charming with his quaint and natural expressions, 
explains that he secures them by often rewriting—“ I winnow 
and harrow and pestle and pepper every particle of sen¬ 
tence.” A cursory examination shows that the most popu¬ 
lar writers of fiction remold and polish their work many 
times. Now if this care is necessary to them how much 
more difficult as well as important is the struggle for clear¬ 
ness and attractiveness in the presentation of scientific facts 
and philosophic principles. If this struggle is made, it is 
generally attended with so little success that obscurity and 
repulsion seem to be sought for—as Hargrave, the commen¬ 
tator on English law, avowed—“Any lawyer who writes so 
clearly as to be understood is an enemy to his profession.” 
This avowal if made to-day would be a libel on a profession 
distinguished for literary ability. The once accepted motto 
“ Lady Law must lie alone ” is obsolete. 
It is not proposed, however, to offer a disquisition on style. 
But as Wesley once protested, in words rendered more pun¬ 
gent by Elder Knapp, against “ the devil having all the best 
tunes,” I desire to enter a vigorous protest against fiction 
having all the best English. 
Three propositions are submitted bearing on the general 
theme, all of which will be disputed, but probably not all by 
the same forces, so that for want of union in opposition they 
may escape demolition. 
The first relates to the purist affectation of homage to 
Anglo-Saxon words. The clear English before mentioned is 
in no large proportion Anglo-Saxon. It is possible that 
words of that derivation are best for the topics and the 
hearers of a Sunday school, and so would the limited terms 
of the Chinook jargon be for the hearers and topics where it 
is necessarily used, but it is absolutely impossible to convey 
modern thought in even so recent a vocabulary as that of 
