ページの画像
PDF
ePub

AID AFFORDED TO A TRUE SCHOLARSHIP BY THIS CAPACITY OF THE DIAGRAMS.

In behalf of the importance of this comprehensive view of the English sentence, several interesting considerations may be urged. At the outset, it must be apparent how necessary it must be to a true scholarship in the science of language. That cannot but be pronounced a onesided and lame learning, which has no other idea of the sentence than that piece-meal affair derived from mere verbal study and construction, or "parsing." The true thinker is not content with an acquaintanceship with mere parts; he craves command of wholes: not for him suffices mere individual facts; he demands a comprehensive system.

AID AFFORDED IN ATTAINING JUST VIEWS OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE SENTENCE.

Still further, the real philosophy of the sentence not unfrequently depends materially upon that just view of it as a whole, which the diagram so felicitously gives. It is true, that the various elements and relations may be in time thought out in the abstract study of the printed. form of words; but simple common sense will suffice to show that, when all these facts both general and particular are made to stand out as a whole before the eye, and in a fixed and compact form, it is far more easy to take the just measure of this or that proposed mode of construction, and far more certain that the proper mode will be demonstrably determined.

5.-They give the best view of comparative structure in style.

Fifthly. This graphic means of representing at a single view, the collective character of sentences, is of grave utility in the comparative study of style. Take, for example, such a study of the following characteristic extracts from two modern writers of singular individuality and force in style,-Carlyle and Ruskin.

And now, if worship of a star had some meaning in it, how much more might that of a Hero! Worship of a Hero is transcendant admiration of a Great Man. I say great men are still admirable; I say there is, at bottom, nothing else admirable!

No nobler feeling than this of admiration for one higher than himself, dwells in the breast of man. It is this; and at all hours, the vivifying influence in man's life. Religion, I find stands upon it; not Paganism only, but far higher and truer religions, all religion hitherto known. Hero-worship, heartfelt, prostrate admiration, burning, boundless, for a noblest godlike Form of Man,-is not that the germ of Christianity itself? The greatest of all Heroes is One-whom we do not name here. Let sacred silence meditate that sacred matter; you will find it the ultimate perfection of a principle extant throughout man's whole history on earth."

"With what comparison shall we compare the types of the martyr saints, the St. Stephen of Fra Bartolomeo, with his calm forehead crowned by the stony diadem, or the St. Catharine of Raffaelle, looking up to heaven in the dawn of the eternal day, with her lips parted in the resting from her pain? Or with what the Madonnas of Francia or Pinturicchio, in whom the hues of the morning and the solemnity of eve, the gladness in accomplished promise, and sorrow of the sword-pierced heart, are gathered into one human lamp of ineffable love? Or with what the angel choirs of Angelico, with the flames on their white foreheads waving brighter as they move, and the sparkles streaming from their purple wings like the glitter of many suns upon a sounding sea, listening in the pauses of alternate song, for the prolonging of the trumpet blast, and the answering of psaltery and cymbal, throughout the endless deep, and from all the star shores of heaven?"

Take, we say, contrasted passages like these, and, while you may, from a careful survey of their character as presented here in the printed form, attain some conception of their distinctive features, it is plain that that conception may be far more readily, clearly, and completely gained through an intelligent inspection of a diagram which causes their distinguishing characteristics to stand out before the eye in sharply defined form ;-as plain as that differences in formations for combat, or lines of battle, can be more readily and satisfactorily gathered from proper plans or diagrams, than from any verbal description.

6.-They supply a means of representing sentential structure in the abstract.

Sixthly. The diagrams are an admirable means of representing the relations of elements, and the structure of phrases, propositions, and sentences in the abstract. Just as in that beautiful phantom in vegetable physiology, the skeleton leaf, you may discharge the true leaf of all its fleshy portions, and bring out simply its fibrous structure, its fundamental frame-work just as in the geometrical figure, you may wholly withdraw from material contact with actual bodies, and discuss and determine, in the abstract, the proportions and relations of lines and angles, to pure form or dimension; just so may you, in these grammatical diagrams, discharge the sentence of its verbal flesh and blood, or withdraw from the immediate consideration of its specific, temporary matter of idea or thought, and investigate its abstract nature, elements, and involved relations, as susceptible of a generalized application to all sentences. An example of this may be found in the following diagram in abstract,

which is represented as discharged of the subject matter as contained in the sentence, "He that by usury and unjust gain increaseth his substance, shall gather it for him that will pity the poor."

THE ABSTRACT REPRESENTATION IN THE DIAGRAM COMPARED WITH VERBAL DESCRIPTION.

Of the perfection and power of such a means of abstract symbolization, something may be gathered by observing the fact that, with wonderful completeness and compactness, it sets forth all that is verbally embraced in the following formula.

(a) It is, (in abstract,) a compact, complex sentence, consisting of a principal and two subordinate, adjunct propositions, one primary and the other secondary.

(b) The principal proposition is simple, transitive, consisting of principal and adjunct elements; the principal elements being a word subject, predicate, and object; the adjunct elements being,-subjective primary,—the first subordinate proposition, and,-predicative primary,-the phrase involving the second, or secondary subordinate proposition.

(c) The first subordinate proposition is simple, transitive, adjective, specifying, verbal, used to modify the subject, and composed of principal and adjunct elements; the principal elements being a word subject, predicate, and object; the adjunct elements being,-predicative pri

mary,-a compound, prepositional, phrase adverb, consisting of principal, adjunct, and auxiliary elements; the principal elements being a word relative, or preposition, and two word substantive subsequents; the adjunct elements being,-subsequentive primary, of the second,a word adjective; the auxiliary element being,-subsequentive,—a word conjunction, connective; and,objective primary,—a word adjective.

(d) The predicative phrase adjunct is complex, consisting of a phrase and the second subordinate proposition; the phrase being, in itself, simple, prepositional, adverb, consisting of principal and adjunct elements; the principal elements being a word relative, or preposition, and a word subsequent, substantive; the adjuncts being,-subsequentive primary,-the second subordinate proposition.

(e) The second subordinate proposition is simple, transitive, adjective, specifying, verbal, used to modify the subsequent, and composed of principal elements only; the principal elements being a word subject, predicate, and object.

These, without any departure from actual details, are the facts represented by the abstract, diagram, and they cannot but show its claim to a singular representative power, to be eminently just.

RESULTING ADVANTAGE IN THE COMPARATIVE STUDY OF STYLE.

Several peculiar advantages result from this capacity for abstract representation in the diagrams.

(a) It bears with great advantage upon their use in the comparative study of style. Inasmuch, as in such comparisons of diverse passages like those cited under a previous head, it is mainly important that the peculiar differences of sentential structure should be readily and comprehensively grasped by the mind, it will at once appear

« 前へ次へ »