I. Grammatical Synthesis:
The Art of English Composition.
By Henry N. Day.
New York: Scribner & Co. 1867.
12mo, pp. 356.
2. The Art Of Discourse:
A System of Rhetoric.
By Henry N. Day.
New York: Scribner & Co. 1867.
12mo, pp. 343.
We know Mr. Day only as the author of these two books, and these do not give us a very high opinion of him either as a master of English grammar or of English composition. His volumes are elaborate, and evidently have cost him much time and hard study; he has aimed to make them profound, logical, philosophical, attractive, and profitable to the student; but their depth is less than he believes, their logic is more pretentious than real, and their philosophy is borrowed from a bad school.
The first work purports to be a grammar of the English language, and aims, while teaching the art of composition or the construction of sentences, to make the study of grammar attractive by exercising the thought and reasoning faculty of the pupil. The aim is commendable, but is rarely successful. The author lacks simplicity, ease, and grace as a writer, and a thorough mastery of his subject; and his grammar, by its attempt at logic and philosophy, is better fitted to discourage than to quicken thought. As far as we can discover, the work is no improvement on Lindley Murray's well-known English grammar; it is less simple, and not a whit more logical or philosophical. It departs widely from the old grammatical technology, but with no advantage, that we can discover, to the pupil. What is gained by calling adjectives and adverbs modifiers, a name appropriate to adverbs only? Adjectives qualify; adverbs modify. Murray defines the verb, "A word that signifies to be, to do, or to suffer." What do we gain by rejecting this definition, and defining it to be the word in a sentence that asserts? The author makes a sentence, as a judgment, consist of three parts, subject, predicate, and copula, which is correct. He identifies the verb with the copula, which is also correct; but he makes its essence consist in assertion, which is not correct. There is, indeed, no assertion without the copula; but the copula alone does not make the assertion. The assertion is made by the whole sentence; and the three terms, subject, predicate, and copula, are each equally necessary to the assertion or judgment. The author is right in making the verb the copula, but not when he makes its essence consist in assertion. The verb, the author says, is the copula, and essentially the copula merely expresses the identity or non-identity of the subject and predicate; but the copula, in a judgment, distinguishes as well as unites the subject and predicate, and the predicate is never identical with the subject; for, if it were, it would be subject and not predicate. When an author attempts to make grammar, logic, and philosophy correspond, he can escape censure only by success. Murray's definition of the verb is sufficient for us and for all the purposes of grammar. As such, it is enough to say a verb is a word that signifies "to be, to do, or to suffer;" but, if you insist on running grammar into logic, and making the verb express the copula of the judgment, we insist that you shall make it represent, as it does philosophically, the creative act, the real copula between being and existence, in which case the predicate is connected by the copula to the subject as its product, as when we say, Two and two make four. The verb, then, while it expresses the union of the predicate with subject, distinguishes it from the subject, as the effect from the cause.
The details of the book are frequently objectionable. The author makes as, when it follows some, such, so, and as, a relative pronoun, and that, in the clause, "The last time that I saw him," a relative pronoun, and in other locutions, exactly similar, a conjunction. As is never a relative pronoun in any correct speaker, but an adverb or conjunction of comparison. We doubt if as ever properly follows same. "It is the same as a denial" is not good English, although sometimes met with; but, if so, the sentence is elliptical. "It is the same as a denial would be." Ordinarily, same requires that, which, or who after it; and where it will not take one or another of these terms, it requires with; for same expresses identity not comparison, and, therefore, can never be properly followed by as. The same as seems to us no better than equal as. So, when it must be followed by a relative pronoun, demands that. "He went as far as the gate" is good English, but neither as is a relative pronoun. The phrase, "Such men as these" is elliptical for, "Such men as these men are," where as is clearly an adverb or conjunction of comparison, and no relative pronoun at all. Wherever as is used as a relative, the phrase or sentence is a vulgarism; as, in the phrase mentioned by Mrs. Trollope, "The lady as takes in washing over the way," though not a Yankee vulgarism.
The second work should, by its title, The Art of Discourse, be a work on logic, not on rhetoric. Discourse is from the Latin discursus, and means reasoning as distinguished from intuition, if taken etymologically, and it is only in a neological sense that it stands for an oration. We see no gain in exchanging the old term rhetoric for that of discourse, which in the sense used is a pure neologism. In the first work, the author to a great extent confuses grammar with rhetoric, and in this second work he confuses rhetoric with logic. The arts of grammar, rhetoric, and logic are undoubtedly three kindred arts, but yet distinguishable by well-defined lines of difference. Grammar treats of words and their formation into sentences; rhetoric, of the arrangement of sentences in an oration, essay, dissertation, or treatise; logic, of the construction, arrangement, and relation of propositions or judgments. Grammar teaches to speak and write correctly; rhetoric, to speak or write pleasingly and persuasively; logic teaches us to reason justly and conclusively. Grammar makes us acquainted with language; rhetoric addresses language to the affections, passions, and sentiments; logic addresses the reason and judgment. Though they must all three unite in forming what Mr. Day would call a perfect discourse, they should be taught separately. Sentences may be correctly formed, and yet the discourse be heavy and dull; the sentences may be rhetorically arranged so as to move the feelings, without instructing or convincing the understanding; but still, in teaching, each art should be kept distinct, and prevented from encroaching on the province of either of the others.
Mr. Day's treatise on rhetoric is not, in our judgment, superior, or, as a whole, equal to that of Campbell or even that of Blair. Yet it is not without value, though better adapted to private study than to colleges and academies. No man can treat the art of rhetoric well who does not understand well the science both of language and of logic. Mr. Day is well aware of this, and attempts to connect the art with the science of which it is the application. This is well and praiseworthy; but, unhappily, he understands the science neither of language nor of logic. He does not understand the relation of the word to thought any more than does Professor Whitney; and no one can understand the science of logic until he has mastered philosophical science, which Mr. Day is very far from having done. The science neither of language nor of logic can be mastered by one who holds Sir William Hamilton was a philosopher, whose pretended philosophy is substantially that of the Positivists. The school Sir William Hamilton founded, and of which Professor Ferrier and Mr. Mansel are distinguished disciples, avowedly maintains that philosophy cannot rise above the sensible, and that the supersensible as well as the superintelligible must be taken, if at all, on the authority of faith or revelation.
Mr. Day belongs to this school, and adopts, to a great extent, its manner of writing English, which is hardly more intelligible to us than Choctaw or the dialects of South Africa. His example, if not his precept, is likely to encourage the distortion, we may say corruption, of plain, simple, and nervous English, which we see coming into fashion with our English as well as Scottish writers. The present race of Englishmen, when treating philosophical or theological subjects, seem to mistake obscurity for depth, and darkness for sublimity. Undeniably Jeffrey is dead. We wish the authors of school-books would show that they know and love our real English tongue, and are aware that simplicity and clearness of style are merits that should be retained.