Note † — Chapter XXXIV · The Two Uses of Language

This internal acceptability or ‘convincingness’ needs to be contrasted with other acceptabilities. Thomas Rymer, for example, refused to accept Iago for external reasons: “To entertain the audience with something new and surprising against common sense and nature, he would pass upon us a close, dissembling rascal, instead of an open-hearted, frank, plain-dealing Souldier, a character constantly born by them for some thousands of years in the World.” “The truth is” he observes “this authors head was full of villainous, unnatural images”†.