Page:The spirit of the Hebrew poetry 1861.djvu/65

 if it be only an instant, the result of a mental process in the mind of the hearer, who—unconsciously perhaps—renders them into their well-known prosaic values. Such as they are when they meet the ear, they convey no meaning that is intelligible in relation to the subject. Unconditioned thought may be still further conditioned, if I employ, not merely figurative terms, but such as are suggested at the moment of speaking by vivid emotions, or by stormy passions; as if, in addressing a political meeting from a platform, I should affirm what I intend to say in a declamatory style, as thus—"The deadly miasma of republican doctrines, rising from the swamps of popular ignorance, is even now encircling the British polity:—year by year is it insidiously advancing toward the very centre of the State; nor can the time be distant when it shall have destroyed all life within the sacred enclosures of our ancient institutions." In this instance, not only are the words and phrases figurative, and are such therefore as need to be rendered into their literal equivalents, but they are such also as indicate an excited state of feeling in the speaker, which a calm philosophic mood will not approve; and the exuberances of which may well bear much retrenchment. Nevertheless, thus far, this conditioning of thought—as well of the impassioned style, as of that which is simply figurative—may properly be called natural; for it is natural to the human mind to utter itself