Charles Dickens: A critical study

Charles Dickens: A critical study

Much of our modern difficulty, in religion and other things, arises merely from this, that we confuse the word indefinable with the word vague. If some one speaks of a spiritual fact as indefinable we promptly picture something misty, a cloud with indeterminate edges. But this is an error even in common-place logic. The thing that cannot be defined is the first thing; the primary fact. It is our arms and legs, our pots and pans, that are indefinable. The indefinable is the indisputable. The man next door is indefinable, because he is too actual to be defined. And there are some to whom spiritual things have the same fierce and practical proximity; some to whom God is too actual to be defined. But there is a third class of primary terms. There are popular expressions which every one uses and no one can explain; which the wise man will accept and reverence, as he reverences desire or darkness or any elemental thing. The prigs of the debating club will demand that he should2 define his terms. And being a wise man he will flatly refuse. This first inexplicable term is the most important term of all. The word that has no definition is the word that has no substitute. If a man falls back again and again on some such word as vulgar or manly do not suppose that the word means nothing because he cannot say what it means. If he could say what the word means he would say what it means instead of saying the word. When the Game Chicken (that fine thinker) kept on saying to Mr. Toots, Its mean. Thats what it isits mean, he was using language in the wisest possible way. For what else could he say? There is no word for mean except mean. A man must be very mean himself before he comes to defining meanness. Precisely because the word is indefinable, the word is indispensable. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 68682
Author: Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith)
Release Date: Aug 4, 2022
Format: eBook
Language: English
Publisher: Dodd, Mead and Company
Publication Date: 1911
Publisher Country: United States