The same thing happens as regards the word style. Sometimes it is said that every writer must have style. Here style is synonymous with form of expression. At others the form of a code of laws or of a mathematical work is said to be without style. Here the error is again committed of admitting diverse modes of expression, an ornate and a naked form, because, if style is form, the code and the mathematical treatise must also be asserted, strictly speaking, to have each its style. At other times, one hears the critics blaming some one for "having too much style" or for "writing a style." Here it is clear that style signifies, not the form, nor a mode of it, but improper and pretentious expression, a form of the inartistic.
Their use to indicate various æsthetic imperfections.
Second. The second not altogether meaningless use of these words and distinctions is to be found when we hear in the examination of a literal composition such remarks as these: here is a pleonasm, here an ellipse, there a metaphor, here again a synonym or an ambiguity. The meaning is: Here is an error consisting of using a larger number of words than necessary (pleonasm); here, on the other hand, the error arises from too few having been used (ellipse), here from the use of an unsuitable word (metaphor), here of two words which seem to say two different things, but really say the same thing (synonym); here, on the contrary, of one word which seems to express the same thing, whereas it says two different things (ambiguity). This depreciatory and pathological use of the terms is, however, less common than the preceding.
Their use in a sense transcending æsthetic, in the service of science.
Thirdly and finally, when rhetorical terminology possesses no æsthetic signification similar or analogous to those passed in review, and yet one feels that it is not void of meaning and designates something that deserves to be noted, this means that it is used in the service of logic and of science. Granted that a concept used by a writer in a scientific sense is designated by a definite term, it is natural that other terms found in use by that writer on which he incidentally employs himself to signify the same thought, become in respect to the vocabulary fixed upon by him as true, metaphors, synecdoches, synonyms, elliptical forms and the like. We ourselves in the course of this treatise have several times made use of, and intend again to make use of such language, in order to make clear the sense of the words we employ, or may find employed. But this proceeding, which is of value in discussions pertaining to the criticism of science and philosophy, has none whatever in literary and artistic criticism. There are words and metaphors proper to science: the same concept may be psychologically formed in various circumstances and therefore differ in its intuitional expression. When the scientific terminology of a given writer has been established and one of these modes fixed as correct, then all other uses of it become improper or tropical. But in the æsthetic fact there are none but proper words: the same intuition can be expressed in one way only, precisely because it is intuition and not concept.
Rhetoric in the schools.
Some, while admitting the æsthetic non-existence of the rhetorical categories, yet make a reservation as to their utility and the service they are supposed to render, especially in schools of literature. We confess that we fail to understand how error and confusion can educate the mind to logical distinction, or aid the teaching of a science which they disturb and obscure. Perhaps what is meant is that such distinctions, as empirical classes, can aid memory and learning, as was admitted above for literary and artistic kinds. To this there is no objection. There is certainly another purpose for which the rhetorical categories should continue to appear in schools: to be criticized there. The errors of the past must not be forgotten and no more said, and truths cannot be kept alive save by making them combat errors. Unless an account of the rhetorical categories be given, accompanied by a criticism of them, there is a risk of their springing up again, and it may be said that they are already springing up among certain philologists as the latest psychological discoveries.
The resemblances of expressions.
It might seem that we thus wished to deny all bond of resemblance between different expressions and works of art. Resemblances exist, and by means of them, works of art can be arranged in this or that group. But they are likenesses such as are observed among individuals, and can never be rendered with abstract determinations. That is to say, it would be incorrect to apply identification, subordination, co-ordination and the other relations of concepts to these resemblances, which consist wholly of what is called a family likeness, derived from the historical conditions in which the various works have appeared and from relationship of soul among the artists.
The relative possibility of translations.