We say that seeing is believing; the rhetorician makes us see the thing; his picture appeals to the mind’s visual sense, hence his power over us, though his analogies are more apt to be false than true. We love to see these agreements between thoughts and things, or between the subjective and the objective worlds, and a favorite thought with profound minds in all ages has been the identity or oneness which runs through creation.
“A vast similitude interlocks all,” says Whitman, “spans all the objects of the universe and compactly holds and encloses them.”
Everywhere in Nature Emerson said he saw the figure of a disguised man. The method of the universe is intelligible to us because it is akin to our own minds. Our minds are rather akin to it and are derived from it. Emerson made much of this thought. The truth here indicated is undoubtedly the basis of all true analogy—this unity, this oneness of creation; but the analogies that “are constant and pervade Nature” are probably not so numerous as Emerson seemed to fancy. Thus one can hardly agree with him that there is “intent” of analogy between man’s life and the seasons, because the seasons are not a universal fact of the globe, and man’s life is. The four seasons are well defined in New England, but not in Ecuador.
The agreement of appearances is one thing, the identity of law and essence is another, and the agreement of man’s life with the seasons must be considered accidental rather than intentional.
Language is full of symbols. We make the world without a symbol of the world within. We describe thoughts, and emotions, in the terms of an objective experience. Things furnish the moulds in which our ideas are cast. Size, proportion, mass, vista, vastness, height, depth, darkness, light, coarse, fine, centre, surface, order, chaos, and a thousand other terms, we apply alike to the world without and to the world within. We know a higher temperance than concerns the body, a finer digestion and assimilation than go on in it.
Our daily conversation is full of pictures and parables, or the emblematic use of things. From life looked at as a voyage, we get the symbolic use of anchor, compass, pole-star, helm, haven; from life considered as a battle, we read deep meanings in shield, armor, fencing, captain, citadel, panic, onset. Life regarded under the figure of husbandry gives us the expressive symbols of seedtime and harvest, planting and watering, tares and brambles, pruning and training, the chaff and the wheat. We talk in parables when we little suspect it. What various applications we make of such words as dregs, gutter, eclipse, satellite, hunger, thirst, kindle, brazen, echo, and hundreds of others. We speak of the reins of government, the sinews of war, the seeds of rebellion, the morning of youth, the evening of age, a flood of emotion, the torch of truth, burning with resentment, the veil of secrecy, the foundations of character, a ripple of laughter, incrusted dogmas, corrosive criticism. We say his spirits drooped, his mind soared, his heart softened, his brow darkened, his reputation was stabbed, he clinched his argument. We say his course was beset with pitfalls, his efforts were crowned with success, his eloquence was a torrent that carried all before it, and so on.
Burke calls attention to the metaphors that are taken from the sense of taste, as a sour temper, bitter curses, bitter fate; and, on the other hand, a sweet person, a sweet experience, and the like. Other epithets are derived from the sense of touch, as a soft answer, a polished character, a cold reception, a sharp retort, a hard problem; or from the sense of sight, as brilliant, dazzling, color, light, shade; others from our sense of hearing, as discordant, echoing, reverberating, booming, grumbling. All trades, pursuits, occupations, furnish types or symbols for the mind. The word “whitewash” has become a very useful one, especially to political parties. Thoreau said he would not be as one who drives a nail into mere lath and plaster. Even the railroad has contributed useful terms, as side-tracked, down brakes, the red flag, way station, etc. Great men are like through trains that connect far-distant points; others are merely locals. From the builder we get the effective phrase and idea of scaffolding. So much in the world is mere scaffolding, so much in society is mere varnish and veneer. Life is said to have its “seamy side.” The lever and the fulcrum have their supersensuous uses. The chemist with his solvents, precipitants, crystallizations, attractions, and repulsions, and the natural philosopher with his statics and dynamics and his correlation of forces, have enlarged our powers of expression. The strata of the geologist furnish useful symbols. What a significant symbol is afforded by the wave! There is much in life, in history, and in all nature that is typified by it. We have cold waves and hot waves, and in the spring and fall migrations of the birds we have “bird waves.” Earthquake shocks go in waves and circles; how often our views and conceptions of things are expressed by the circle! It is a symbol of most profound meaning. It helps us to understand how the universe is finally inexplicable; that there is neither beginning nor end, and that it retreats forever into itself.
We speak of currents of thought, of opinion, of influence, and of tides in the affairs of men. We can conceive of these things under no better figure. Fire and all that pertains to it give us symbols, as heat, light, flame, sparks, smoke.
The words juicy, unctuous, fluid, have obvious appropriateness when applied to the mind and its products. Running water gives us the delightful epithets limpid and lucid. Youth is plastic, ductile, impressible—neither the mind nor the body has yet hardened. The analogy is vital. A habit gets deeper and deeper hold of us; we fall into a rut—these figures convey the exact truth.
When used as a symbol how expressive is the dawn, the twilight, the sunset! The likeness is not accidental but fundamental.