Читать книгу The Etymology and Syntax of the English Language Explained and Illustrated онлайн

90 страница из 93

I am aware that usage may be pleaded in favour of “more and most universal, more and most perfect.” This usage, however, is not such as will sanction the former of these phraseologies; for good writers generally avoid it. Besides, there is no necessity for resorting to this mode of expression, as we have an attributive appropriate to the idea intended: thus, instead of saying, “Literature is more universal in England than America,” we should say, “Literature is more general.” It is almost unnecessary to observe, that literature in England is either universal, or it is not; if the former be true, it cannot be more than universal; if the latter, the term is inapplicable. The word general does not comprise the whole; it admits intension and remission: the adjective universal implies totality. A general rule admits exceptions; a universal rule embraces every particular.

The expression “more perfect” is, in strictness of speech, equally exceptionable; usage, however, has given it a sanction which we dare hardly controvert. It has been proposed, indeed, to avoid this and similar improprieties, by giving the phraseology a negative, or indirect form. Thus, instead of saying, “A time-keeper is a more perfect machine than a watch,” it has been proposed to say, “A time-keeper is a less imperfect machine than a watch.” This phraseology is logically correct, perfection being predicable of neither the one thing nor the other; it might likewise, in many cases, be adopted with propriety. In the language of passion, however, and in the colourings of imagination, such expressions would be exanimate and intolerable. A lover, expatiating with rapture on the beauty and perfection of his mistress, would hardly call her, “the least imperfect of her sex.”