The last etymology reminds us that we can carry our proofs of what we assert into still higher regions, even the transcendental regions of human faith and worship. “Mystery” is derived from “mu,” the imitation of closing the lips; “priest” from “presbuteros,” elder; “sacrament” is deduced from the meaning “oath;” “baptism” is dipping; “propitiation” is bringing near; “wisdom” is that which we have seen; even the word for God himself, in Sanskrit as in Chinese, means but the bright ether[161] or starry sky.
To illustrate this necessity of metaphor any farther would be superfluous, since the materials for doing so are sufficiently abundant for any student who wishes to pursue the subject. The philosophical examination of the thoughts which are thus involved in concrete images is a most valuable inquiry, and one which opens a field of inexhaustible interest. The metaphors which we are thus forced to adopt are a living memorial[162] of the quick perceptions, the poetic intuitions, the deep insight of our ancestors: or are else a perpetuation of their unaccountable caprices of feeling or fancy, their vulgar errors and groundless suppositions. It sometimes happens that in all languages, the same analogy has been thus seized upon for a transitive “application,” as in the words רוּחַ, πνεῦμα, anima, spirit, which all mean ‘wind;’ but, more frequently, different aspects of the same phenomenon have led to a different nomenclature; thus, “to think” is in Hebrew “to speak;” and among the savages of the Pacific it is “to speak in the stomach;” while in French it means “to weigh,” and in Greek it is often described by a word borrowed from the deep purpling[163] of an agitated sea.
We call an expression metaphoric when it is applied in such a way that we glide lightly over its primary and obvious meaning to attach to it one which is secondary and more indirect. We call an expression a catachresis when it is used inappropriately, although custom may have sanctioned the use of it in the inappropriate sense; e.g., when we speak of “an arm of the sea,” the word “arm” is a catachresis; and when Shakspeare uses the phrase “To take up arms against a sea of troubles,” it is only the use of this figure twice in the same line that forces on us a sense of incongruity.
Catachresis, as well as metaphor, has given rise to a large set of terms, phrases, and expressions; and it is in one sense bolder than metaphor, because it takes words without any modification to apply them to fresh emergencies. Thus, very often words applicable to one sense are adopted to express the sensations of another. That there is[164] an analogy between the manners in which they are affected no one will deny. The plant “heliotrope” recalls by its smell the taste which has given it its vulgar name; the king of Hanover knew from the overture to a piece of music, that the scene of it was supposed to be a wood; Saunderson, who was born blind, compared the colour red to the blowing of a trumpet, or the crowing of a cock. There is, therefore, no inherent absurdity, though there is much affectation, in such lines as Ford’s—
What’s that I saw? a sound?
and Donne’s—
A loud perfume;
and Herbert’s—
His beams shall help my song, and both so twine,