All the terms derived from mechanical forces are adopted in the description of social forces: impulse, propulsion, momentum, resistance, inertia, cohesion, attraction, repulsion, explosion, streams and currents, storms, convulsions, volcanoes, conflagrations, stimulus, re-action, languor, exaltation, depression. Again, societies are described as rude, refined, polished, advanced, complicated. All these comparisons have a certain amount of propriety.

The similitude of storms purging the air is a favourite justification of the excitement caused by newly-acquired liberty: it is so employed in Erskine's defence of Stockdale.

*

The comparison invented by Paley to illustrate the nature of Property is defective; being both irrelevant and misleading. It is objectionable at the very outset, from assigning to the pigeons an operation wholly at variance with their nature; a liberty that should not be taken, unless the supposed action were highly intelligible and highly relevant. But apart from this, it is a caricature of property to describe it as accumulating in a single hand all the products of a nation's industry, and leaving the workers in possession of merely a bare subsistence; it would be an extreme statement of the building of the Egyptian pyramids by multitudes of slaves. There are great inequalities of wealth even in modern nations, but neither the unnatural pigeons of Paley, nor the conduct of the bees in setting apart their queen, can be of the smallest use in helping us to conceive and understand the causes of these inequalities.

So inapt is the passage as an aid to clearness or intelligibility, that we must suppose some other intention present to the author's mind. We can view it as a figure of impressiveness. It is a highly wrought picture of the extraordinary and marvellous, intended to startle us and so rouse our attention. It makes property seem something monstrous and revolting, and we are thereby induced to give the more earnest heed to the author's account of the true reasons for the inequalities.

The famous similitude, whose currency is due to Burns-
The rank is but the guinea stamp,

The man's the gowd for a' that—

is intelligible enough, but does not altogether fulfil the condition of relevancy. The 'stamp' is a good figure for a diploma or official certificate, to show that a candidate for a profession has been found

*If you should see a flock of pigeons in a field of corn; and if (instead of each picking where and what it liked, taking just as much as it wanted, and no more) you should see ninety-nine of them gathering all they got into a heap; reserving nothing for themselves but the chaff and the refuse; keeping this heap for one, and that the weakest, perhaps worst pigeon of the flock; sitting round, and looking on, all the winter, while this one was devouring, throwing about, and wasting it; and if a pigeon more hardy or hungry than the rest, touched a grain of the hoard, all the others instantly flying upon it, and tearing it to pieces; if you should see this, you would see nothing more than what is every day practised and established among men. Among men, you see the ninety-and-nine, toiling and scraping together a heap of superfluities for one (and this one, too, oftentimes the feeblest and worst of the whole set, a child, a woman, a madman, or a fool), getting nothing for them. selves all the while but a little of the coarsest of the provision which their own industry produces; looking quietly on, while they see the fruits of all their labour spent or spoiled; and if one of the number take or touch a particle of the hoard, the others joining against him, and hanging him for the theft.'

INTELLECTUAL SIMILITUDES.

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qualified for the work. It adds nothing to the candidate's knowledge, but simply attests it. As applied to Rank, in the sense of nobility and titles, it has scarcely any relevance whatever. Rank, in this sense, is not a stamp merely; it is a substantial privilege, conferred, in the first instance, as a reward of services; although, when hereditary, it is disconnected from these. The difference between bullion gold and coined sovereigns is in no way suited to express the difference between untitled merit, and title, with or without merit. The figure is still farther deficient, in respect that gold is a uniform thing, while the untested abilities of men are exceedingly unequal.

A modification of the figure, by Tennyson, is a slight improvement. Arthur's knights are good or bad, and like to coins-

Some true, some light, but every one of them

Stamped with the image of the king.

The 'some true' implies that some are spurious or bad-a very strong figure, applicable only to traitors. Light money, on the other hand, is scarcely adequate to signify great disparity of merit.

More successful, in drawing the line between true merit and pretence, is the class of comparisons included in Pope's lines

Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow;
The rest is all but leather or prunella.

This idea is carried out in many forms of language: 'fine exterior, 'surface show,' 'varnish '.

For aptness to the subject, nothing could exceed the very few figurative comparisons found in Demosthenes. A complete cessation of public embarrassments is compared to the disappearance of a cloud. The 'sycophantish' politician is happily likened to an old sore in the body, which becomes acute whenever the system is out of health. The resemblance in those cases is as close as the nature of a figure permits.

The scales of Justice in the hands of the blind goddess will bear scrutiny as a similitude to aid the understanding.

The Greeks are said to be the people that set the first spark to the dormant capacity of the human intellect. This has all the merits that can belong to a figure.

Abstracts, abridgments, summaries, &c., have the same use with burning-glasses-to collect the diffused rays of wit and learning in authors, and make them point with warmth and quickness upon the reader's imagination' (Swift). A very good comparison to the understanding. The effect of the lens in concentrating the rays of light and heat is well known; and the resemblance turns on the relevant circumstance.

Contrast this with the following from Browning, intended to describe a lady's hair

Hair in heaps lay heavily

Over a pale brow spirit-pure

Carved like the heart of the coal-black tree,
Crisped like a war-steed's encolure.

The allusion in the first figure is obscure; and the word that the comparison turns upon in the second, must be unintelligible to the great inajority of readers.

A very different criticism applies to the next quotation, which is also from Browning—

I? What I answered? As I live,

I never fancied such a thing

As answer possible to give.

What says the body when they spring
Some monstrous torture-engine's whole

Strength on it? No more says the soul.

The mental state referred to, is sufficiently subtle to need considerable aid for its comprehension-the paralyzing power, on a sensitive nature, of an accusation of gross wickedness, entirely unexpected and entirely undeserved. The effect of the torture-engine is easily grasped, and the resemblance to the mental state in question is close enough to aid our conception of that state, while it has the advantage of objectivity to make it more intelligible. The similitude in the following stanza of Wordsworth, describing 'a host of golden daffodils,' has considerable Impressiveness—

The idea to be

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twrinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay ;

Ten thousand saw I at a glance

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

impressed is that of vast number producing unity of effect; and no example of this is better known or more impressive than the Milky Way.

EMOTIONAL SIMILITUDES.*

9. In compositions addressed to the Feelings,Poetry and Oratory,-similitudes are employed to heighten the emotional effect.

If an

This is an end totally different from the end of Intellectual Similitudes, and works by different means. object, in itself, does not affect the feelings so strongly as we wish, we can adduce a comparison to something stronger. Aristotle, wishing to evoke a sentiment of profound respect and veneration for the virtue of Justice, calls it 'more glorious than the Eastern Star, or the Western Star'.

*To enumerate and classify the feelings that are stimulated by figurative and other rhetorical arts, belongs to the discussion of the Emotional Qualities of Style. The most familiar comprehensive names for these are-Sublimity, Pathos, Humour. A general notion of these qualities is assumed in the detailed account of the Emotional Similitudes, and is expected to become more precise as the exemplification proceeds.

EMOTIONAL SIMILITUDES.

145

Sidney, in order to express the rousing effect of the ballad of Chevy Chase, declares that 'I never heard the olde song of Percy and Duglas, that I found not my heart moved more than with a trumpet'.

We shall, however, encounter exceptional cases, where the comparison is really less strong than the original subject. For this there are various reasons. One reason is that an approach may be made to the higher effect by means of the inferior,

Another reason is that the aim may be to produce Harmony, the essence of the poetic art. A harmonizing similitude is agreeable, even if not on a par, in point of intensity, with the subject: what is aimed at does not involve the consideration of mere force. (See Harmony, under EMOTIONAL QUALITIES OF STYLE.)

The following example is illustrative of both exceptions:

O, my luve's like a red, red rose
That's newly sprung in June;
O, my luve's like the melodie
That's sweetly played in tune.

Now love far transcends both flowers and music in emotional intensity. What the poet must be supposed to mean is, that a person entirely inexperienced in love, while yet susceptible to flowers and music, may be slightly aided in conceiving the love passion. This is one view. The other view is to regard these comparisons as chiming in harmoniously with the subject, from being of a congenial emotional quality. Additional considerations will occur afterwards.

10. Besides for augmenting the intensity of an emotion, comparisons are sought to impart a shock of Agreeable Surprise.

In the assimilating operation of the intellect, whereby comparisons are brought from very remote sources, there often results a feeling of unexpectedness, which is in itself an agreeable effect.

11. To intensify the Feelings, the comparison must fulfil the conditions following:

(1.) It must yield an emotion corresponding to the original, but in higher degree.

(2.) It should not be obvious or trite.

(3.) The degree of elevation must not pass certain limits.

The first condition grows out of the necessity of the case. To rouse a different emotion would be away from the purpose and to adduce a comparison equal merely, or inferior, in point of emotional force, would not have an intensifying effect. The exceptions have been indicated, and will appear in the examples.

The second condition forms a point of contrast between intellectual and emotional similitudes. Repetition does not detract from the value of the one, while it goes far to destroy the efficacy of the other. To awaken any powerful emotion, some degree of novelty, or freshness, is all but indispensable. The circumstances wherein the same image can continue to produce its full emotional effect, are more or less exceptional.

According to the third condition, limits are placed to the elevation aimed at by means of similitudes. The consideration of those limits opens up another large department of Rhetorical theory; as will be seen under the figure HYPERBOLE, and again in connexion with the IDEAL, under Emotional Qualities of Style.

12. To impart a shock of agreeable Surprise, the comparison must possess Novelty and Remoteness.

A thing cannot be unexpected, and at the same time obvious and near, There is no great surprise in the comparison of a king to a father, or in pointing out the likeness between human beings and the animals, in regard to food, procreation, parentage or the common emotions, as anger and fear.

In the following similitude from Helps, the effect is agreeable surprise rather than emotional intensity:"The actions of princes are like those great rivers, whose course every one beholds, but their springs have been seen by but few'. As far as concerns the intellect, the similitude has no bearing: it is not either more intelligible or more impressive than a plain statement of the fact to be illustrated. But the matters compared being so different, we are startled by the ingenuity displayed in bringing them together; and the effect is an agreeable fillip to the mind.