The Philosophy of Rhetoric

Chapter IV: Of the Connectives employed in combining the Parts of a Sentence.

384 TIlE PHILOSOPHY [BOOK In. sort of natural expression of that frame, and tends to communicate it to the hearer or the reader. I have observed also, that this order, which alone deserves the name of natural, is in every language more or less cramped by the artificial or conventional laws of arrangement in the language; that, in this respect, the present languages of Europe, as they allow less latitude, are considerably inferior to Greek and Latin, but that English is not a little superior in this particular to some of the most eminent of the modern tongues. I have shown also that the artificial arrangementis different in different languages, and seems chiefly accommodated to such simple explanation , narration, and derluction, as scarcely admits the exertion either of fancy or of passion. In re&.ard to complex sentences, both compound and decompound , 1 have remarked the difference between the loose sentence and the period; I have observed the advantages and the disadvantages of each in point of vivacity, the occasions to which they are respectively suited, the rules to be observed in composing them, and the faults which, as tendiug to enervate the expression and tire the reader, ought carefully to be avoided. I have also made some remarks on the different kinds of antithesis, and the uses to which they may properly be applied. Thus much shall suffice for the general illustration of this article, concerning the vivacity which results from arrangement . CHAPTER IV. Of the Connectives employed in combining the Parts of a Sentence. I AM very sensible that the remarks contained in the preceding chapter on the particular structure and the particular arrangement in sentences, whether simple or complex, which are most conducive to vivacity, however well these remarks are founded, and however much they may assist us in forming a judgment concerning any performance under our review, are very far from exhausting this copious subject; and still farther from being sufficient to regulate our practice in composing: CHAP. IV.] OF RHETORIC. 385 For this reason I judged that the observations on the nature and the management of connective particles contained in this chapter and the succeeding might prove an useful supplement to the two preceding ones (for they are connected with both), and serve at once to enlarge our conceptions on this subject, and to assist our practice. At first indeed I had intended to comprehend both these chapters in the foregoing. But when I reflected,. on the other hand, not only that they would swell the article far beyond the ordinary bounds, but that, however much the topics are related, the nature of the investigation contained in them is both different in itself, and must be differently conducted, I thought it would have less the appearance of digression, and conduce more to perspicuity, to consider them severally under their proper and discriminating titles. I need scarcely observe, that by connectives I meau, all those terms and phrases which are not themselves the signs of things, of operations, or of attributes, but by which, nevertheless, the words in the same clause, the clauses in the same member, the members in the same sentence, and even the sentences in the same discourse, are linked together, and the relations subsisting among them are suggested. The last of these connexions I reserve for the subject of the ensuing chapter; all the rest I comprehend in this. The proper subject of this is the connectives of the several parts in the sentence; the proper subject of the next is the connectives of the several sentences in the discourse. SECTION I.-Of Conjunctions. It was observed already concerning the connectives, that of all the parts of speech they are the most unfriendly to vivacity. In their nature they are the least considerable parts, as their value is merely secondary. Yet, -in respect of the difficulty there is in culling and disposing them, they often prove to an author the most considerable. In themselves they are but the taches which serve to unite the constituent parts ill a sentence or a paragraph. Consequently, the less conspicuous they are, the more perfect will the union of the parts be, and the more easily will the hearer glide, as it were, from one word, clause, or member of a period into another. The more observable they are, the less perfect will the union be, and the more difficulty will the hearer pass on from member to member, from clause to clause, and from word to word...