REMARKS ON A PAPER, ENTITLED “ON THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE TERM MORAL.”

To the Editor of the Baptist Magazine.

The paper of W. N. in your November number, whilst it contains some very valuable remarks on the abuse of the term moral, appears to aim at overthrowing one particular instance of a very general abuse, and to strike at the branch, whilst it leaves the root to flourish with the same vigour as before. The expression “moral approbation and disapprobation” cannot be deemed an unnecessary application of the term moral, because approbation and disapprobation are frequently excited in the mind by physical agents; and although Dr. Wardlaw, in the passage quoted above by W. N., refers the approbation and disapprobation to “moral agents,” yet the phrase in question precedes that application, and therefore the term “moral” renders the sentence more clear than it would be, were it needful for the reader to employ the conclusion of the sentence to explain the commencement. The instance quoted from the Quarterly Review is so gross an abuse of language, that little apprehension need be entertained of its repetition. The passage stands like the topmast of a ship-wrecked vessel, to warn others of the shoal on which she was stranded. All the other instances used as illustrations in W. N.’s paper are examples of the evil attendant upon a departure from one principle, viz.: That a simile should never be explained. Of course, this principle presupposes another: That a simile should never require explanation. In the two first instances adduced—“The Lord God is a sun and shield,” and “Jesus said, I am the door”—the beauty of the similes would be entirely destroyed by the use of the adjective moral, and the only reason why the fourth instance, “A moral blight,” is not so glaring an abuse of language as the two former is, that the term blight is so frequently used in a figurative sense, that, when it is so used, we are liable to forget that the expression is figurative. But for this circumstance, the ridiculous character of the phrase would be quite as obvious as the absurdity of speaking of a moral apple, or moral plum. Another instance of the inelegance of explaining a simile is met with in the prayers of those who quote from the Liturgy the passage “We have done that which we ought not to have done, and have left undone that which we ought to have done, and there is no health in us;” but distort the original to “there is no spiritual health in us;” thus destroying at once the strength and harmony of one of the finest specimens of forcible and beautiful composition which decorates English literature. In this case also, as in that of “moral blight,” health is so often used in a figurative sense, that we are apt to forget that the expression is a simile; or the phrase “spiritual health” would sound as disagreeably as the commencement of the same portion of the Liturgy, were it altered to “We have erred and strayed from thy spiritual ways, like lost spiritual sheep.” All these inaccuracies in composition proceed from attempts to explain similes, an attempt which ought to be cautiously avoided; because a simile is an endeavour to explain or illustrate a subject by means of some analogy subsisting between it and another subject; and it is evident, that an explanation or illustration which requires a further explanation to make it intelligible, is much better omitted; and that an explanation of that which is already clear, is a glaring instance of tautology, and, therefore, a gross defect in style.

A. November 20th, 1834