The Two Uses of Language
The intelligible forms of ancient poets
The fair humanities of old religion . . .
They live no longer in the faith of reason:
But still the heart doth need a language, still
Doth the old instinct bring back the old names.
Coleridge, _Piccolomini_.
There are two totally distinct uses of language. But because
the theory of language is the most neglected of all studies they
are in fact hardly ever distinguished. Yet both for the theory
of poetry and for the narrower aim of understanding much which
is said about poetry a clear comprehension of the differences
between these uses is indispensable. For this we must look somewhat
closely at the mental processes which accompany them.
It is unfortunate but not surprising that most of the psychological
terms which we naturally employ tend to blur the distinction.
‘Knowledge’, ‘belief’, ‘assertion’, ‘thought’, and ‘understanding’,
for, example, as ordinarily used, are ambiguous in a fashion
which disguises and obscures the point which must be brought
out. They record distinctions which are oblique to the distinctions
required, they are cross-cuts of analysis made in the wrong place
and in the wrong direction, useful enough for some purposes no
doubt, but for this present purpose very confusing. We shall
do well to put them out of mind for a while if possible.
The chief departure made from current conceptions in the sketch of the
mind given in Chapter XI lay in the substitution of the _causes_, the
_characters_ and the _consequences_ of a mental event, for its aspects
as _thought_, _feeling_ and _will_. This treatment was introduced with
a view to the analysis which now occupies us. Among the causes of most
mental events, we urged, two sets may be distinguished. On the one hand
there are the present stimuli reaching the mind through the sensory
nerves, and, in co-operation with these, the effects of past stimuli
associated with them. On the other hand is a set of quite different
factors, the state of the organism, its needs, its readiness to respond
to this or that kind of stimulus. The impulses which arise take their
character and their course from the interaction of these two sets. We
must keep them clearly distinguished.
The relative importance of the two sets of factors varies enormously.
A sufficiently hungry man will eat almost anything which can
be chewed or swallowed. The nature of the substance, within these
limits, has very little effect upon his behaviour. A replete
person, by contrast, will only eat such things as he expects
will taste pleasant, or regards as possessing definite beneficial
properties, for example, medicines. His behaviour, in other words,
depends almost entirely upon the character of his optical or
olfactory stimulation.
So far as an impulse owes its character to its stimulus (or to
such effects of past accompanying or connected stimuli as are
revived) so far is it a _reference_, to use the term which
we introduced in Chapter XI, to stand for the property of mental
events which we substitute for thought or cognition.[95] It is
plain that the independent internal conditions of the organism
usually intervene to distort reference in some degree. But very
many of our needs can only be satisfied if the impulses are left
undistorted. Bitter experience has taught us to leave some of
them alone, to let them reflect or correspond with external states
of affairs as much as they can, undisturbed as far as possible
by internal states of affairs, our needs and desires.
In all our behaviour can be distinguished stimuli we receive,
and the ways in which we use them. What we receive may be any
kind of stimulus, but only when the reaction we make to it tallies
with its nature and varies with it in quasi-independence of the
uses we make of it does reference occur.
Those to whom visual images are of service in considering complex
matters may find it convenient at this point to imagine a circle
or sphere constantly bombarded by minute particles (stimuli).
Within the sphere may be pictured complex mechanisms continually
changing for reasons having nothing to do with the external stimuli.
These mechanisms by opening little gateways select which of the
stimuli shall be allowed to come in and take effect. So far as
the subsequent convulsions are due to the nature of the impacts
and to lingering effects of impacts which have accompanied similar
impacts in the past, the convulsions are referential. So far
as they are due to the independent motions of the internal mechanisms
themselves, reference fails. This diagrammatic image may possibly
be of convenience to some. By those who distrust such things
it may with advantage be disregarded. It is not introduced as
a contribution to neurology, and is in no way a ground for the
author’s view.
The extent to which reference is interfered with by needs and
desires is underestimated even by those who, not having yet forgotten
the events of 1914-1918, are most sceptical as to the independence
of opinions and desires. Even the most ordinary and familiar
objects are perceived as it pleases us to perceive them rather
than as they are, whenever error does not directly deprive us
of advantages. It is almost impossible for anyone to secure a
correct impression of his own personal appearance or of the features
of anyone in whom he is personally interested. Nor is it perhaps
often desirable that he should.
For the demarcation of the fields where impulse should be as
completely as possible dependent upon and correspondent with
external situation, those in which reference should take prior
place from those in which it may be subordinated to appetencies
with advantage, is not a simple matter. On many views of the
good and of what should be, themselves results of subordinating
reference to emotional satisfactions, there could be no question.
Truth, it would be said, has claims prior to all other considerations.
Love not grounded upon knowledge would be described as worthless.
We ought not to admire what is not beautiful and if our mistress
be not really beautiful when impartially considered we ought,
so the doctrine runs, to admire her, if at all, for other reasons.
The chief points of interest about such views are the confusions
which make them plausible. Beauty as an internal quality of things
is usually involved, as well as Good the unanalysable Idea. Both
are special twists given to some of our impulses by habits deriving
ultimately from desires. They linger in our minds because to
think of a thing as Good or Beautiful gives more _immediate_
emotional satisfaction than to _refer_ to it as satisfying
our impulses in one special fashion (cf. Chapter VII) or another
(cf. Chapter XXXII).
To think about Good or Beauty is not necessarily to refer to
anything. For the term ‘thinking’ covers mental operations in
which the impulses are so completely governed by internal factors
and so out of control of stimulus that no reference occurs. Most
‘thinking of’ includes reference in some degree, of course, but
not all, and similarly much reference would not commonly be described
as thinking. When we drop something which is too hot to hold
we would not usually be said to have done so through thinking.
The two terms overlap, and their definitions, if there be a definition
of ‘thinking’ as commonly used, are of different types. This
is why ‘Thought’ was on an earlier page described as marking
an oblique distinction.
To return, the claims of reference are by no means easy to adjust
with other claims. An immense extension of our powers of referring
has recently been made. With amazing swiftness Science has opened
out field after field of possible reference. Science is simply
the organisation of references with a view solely to the convenience
and facilitation of reference. It has advanced mainly because
other claims, typically the claims of our religious desires,
have been set aside. For it is no accident that Science and Religion
conflict. They are different principles upon which impulses may
be organised, and the more closely they are examined the more
inevitable is the incompatibility seen to be. Any so-called reconciliation
which is ever effected will involve bestowing the name Religion
upon something utterly different from any of the systematisations
of impulses which it now denotes, for the reason that the belief
elements present would have a different character.
Many attempts have been made to reduce Science to a position
of subjection to some instinct or emotion or desire, to curiosity
for example. A special passion for knowledge for its own sake
has even been invented. But in fact all the passions and all
the instincts, all human needs and desires may _on occasion_
supply the motive force for Science. There is no human activity
which may not on occasion require undistorted reference. The
essential point, however, is that Science is autonomous. The
impulses developed in it are modified only by one another, with
a view to the greatest possible completeness and systematisation,
and for the facilitation of further references. So far as other
considerations distort them they are not yet Science or have
fallen out of it.
To declare Science autonomous is very different from subordinating
all our activities to it. It is merely to assert that so far
as any body of references is undistorted it belongs to Science.
It is not in the least to assert that no references may be distorted
if advantage can thereby be gained. And just as there are innumerable
human activities which require undistorted references if they
are to be satisfied, so there are innumerable other human activities
not less important which equally require distorted references
or, more plainly, _fictions_.
The use of fictions, the imaginative use of them rather, is not
a way of hoodwinking ourselves. It is not a process of pretending
to ourselves that things are not as they are. It is perfectly
compatible with the fullest and grimmest recognition of the exact
state of affairs on all occasions. It is no make-believe. But
so awkwardly have our references and our attitudes become entangled
that such pathetic spectacles as Mr Yeats trying desperately
to believe in fairies or Mr Lawrence impugning the validity of
solar physics, are all too common. To be forced by desire into
any unwarrantable belief is a calamity. The state which ensues
is often extraordinarily damaging to the mind. But this common
misuse of fictions should not blind us to their immense services
provided we do not take them for what they are not, degrading
the chief means by which our attitudes to actual life may be
adjusted into the material of a long-drawn delirium[96].
If we knew enough it might be possible that all necessary attitudes
could be obtained through scientific references alone. Since
we do not know very much yet, we can leave this very remote possibility,
once recognised, alone.
Fictions whether aroused by statements or by analogous things
in other arts may be used in many ways. They may be used, for
example, to deceive. But this is not a characteristic use in
poetry. The distinction which needs to be kept clear does not
set up fictions in opposition to verifiable truths in the scientific
sense. A statement may be used for the sake of the _reference_,
true or false, which it causes. This is the _scientific_
use of language. But it may also be used for the sake of the
effects in emotion and attitude produced by the reference it
occasions. This is the _emotive_ use of language. The distinction
once clearly grasped is simple. We may either use words for the
sake of the references they promote, or we may use them for the
sake of the attitudes and emotions which ensue. Many arrangements
of words evoke attitudes without any reference being required
_en route_. They-operate like musical phrases. But usually
references are involved _as conditions_ for, or _stages
in_, the ensuing development of attitudes, yet it is still
the attitudes not the references which are important. It matters
not at all in such cases whether the references are true or false.
Their sole function is to bring about and support the attitudes
which are the further response. The questioning, verificatory
way of handling them is irrelevant, and in a competent reader
it is not allowed to interfere. “Better a plausible impossibility
than an improbable possibility” said Aristotle very wisely; there
is less danger of an inappropriate reaction.
The differences between the mental processes involved in the
two cases are very great, though easily overlooked. Consider
what failure for each use amounts to. For scientific language
a difference in the references is itself failure: the end has
not been attained. But for emotive language the widest differences
in reference are of no importance if the further effects in attitude
and emotion are of the required kind.
Further, in the scientific use of language not only must the
references be correct for success, but the connections and relations
of references to one another must be of the kind which we call
logical. They must not get in one another’s way, and must be
so organised as not to impede further reference. But for emotive
purposes logical arrangement is not necessary. It may be and
often is an obstacle. For what matters is that the series of
attitudes due to the references should have their own proper
organisation, their own emotional interconnection, and this often
has no dependence upon the logical relations of such references
as may be concerned in bringing the attitudes into being.
A few notes of the chief uses of the word ‘Truth’ in Criticism
may help to prevent misunderstanding:—
1. The scientific sense that, namely, in which references, and
derivatively statements symbolising references, are true, need
not delay us. A reference is true when the things to which it
refers are actually together in the way in which it refers to
them. Otherwise it is false. This sense is one very little involved
by any of the arts. For the avoidance of confusions it would
be well if the term ‘true’ could be reserved for this use. In
purely scientific discourse it could and should be, but such
discourse is uncommon. In point of fact the emotive power which
attaches to the word is far too great for it to be abandoned
in general discussion; the temptation to a speaker who needs
to stir certain emotions and evoke certain attitudes of approval
and acceptance is overwhelming. No matter how various the senses
in which it may be used, and even when it is being used in no
sense whatever, its effects in promoting attitudes will still
make it indispensable; people will still continue to use the
word with the same promiscuity as ever.
2. The most usual other sense is that of acceptability. The ‘Truth’ of
_Robinson Crusoe_ is the acceptability of the things we are told, their
acceptability in the interests of the effects of the narrative, not
their correspondence with any actual facts involving Alexander Selkirk
or another. Similarly the falsity of happy endings to _Lear_ or to _Don
Quixote_, is their failure to be acceptable to those who have fully
responded to the rest of the work. It is in this sense that ‘Truth’
is equivalent to ‘internal necessity’ or rightness. That is ‘true’
or ‘internally necessary’ which completes or accords with the rest
of the experience, which co-operates to arouse our ordered response,
whether the response of Beauty or another. “What the Imagination seizes
as Beauty must be Truth”, said Keats, using this sense of ‘Truth’,
though not without confusion. Sometimes it is held that whatever is
redundant or otiose, whatever is not required, although not obstructive
or disruptive, is also false. “Surplusage!” said Pater, “the artist
will dread that, as the runner on his muscles[97]” himself perhaps
in this instance sweating his sentence down too finely. But this
is to make excessive demands upon the artist. It is to apply the
axe of retrenchment in the wrong place. Superabundance is a common
characteristic of great art, much less dangerous than the preciousness
that too contrived an economy tends to produce. The essential point
is whether what is unnecessary interferes or not with the rest of the
response. If it does not, the whole thing is all the better probably
for the extra solidity which it thereby gains.
This internal acceptability or ‘convincingness’ needs to be contrasted
with other acceptabilities. Thomas Rymer, for example, refused
to accept Iago for external reasons: “To entertain the audience
with something new and surprising against common sense and nature,
he would pass upon us a close, dissembling rascal, instead of
an open-hearted, frank, plain-dealing Souldier, a character constantly
born by them for some thousands of years in the World.” “The
truth is” he observes “this authors head was full of villainous,
unnatural images”[98].
He is remembering no doubt Aristotle’s remark that “the artist
must preserve the type and yet ennoble it”, but interpreting
it in his own way. For him the type is fixed simply by convention
and his acceptances take no note of internal necessities but
are governed merely by accordance with external canons. His is
an extreme case, but to avoid his error in subtler matters is
in fact sometimes the hardest part of the critic’s undertaking.
But whether our conception of the type is derived in some such
absurd way, or taken, for example, as from a handbook of zoology,
is of slight consequence. It is the taking of any _external_
canon which is critically dangerous. When in the same connection
Rymer objects that there never was a Moorish General in the service
of the Venetian Republic, he is applying another external canon,
that of historic fact. This mistake is less insidious, but Ruskin
used to be particularly fond of the analogous mistake in connection
with the ‘truth’ of drawing.
3. Truth may be equivalent to Sincerity. This character of the
artist’s work we have already touched upon briefly in connection
with Tolstoy’s theory of communication (Chapter XXIII). It may
perhaps be most easily defined from the critic’s point of view
negatively, as the absence of any apparent attempt on the part
of the artist to work effects upon the reader which do not work
for himself. Too simple definitions must be avoided. It is well
known that Burns in writing ‘_Ae fond kiss_’ was only too
anxious to escape _Nancy’s_ (Mrs Maclehose’s) attentions,
and similar instances could be multiplied indefinitely. Absurdly
naive views upon the matter[99] exemplified by the opinion that
Bottomley must have believed himself to be inspired or he would
not have moved his audiences, are far too common. At the level
at which Bottomley harangued any kind of exaltation in the orator,
whether due to pride or to champagne, would make his stuff effective.
But at Burns’ level a very different situation arises. Here his
probity and sincerity _as an artist_ are involved; external
circumstances are irrelevant, but there is perhaps internal evidence
in the poem of a flaw in its creating impulse. Compare as a closely
similar poem in which there is no flaw, Byron’s ‘_When we two
parted_’.
[95] The reader who is a psychologist will notice many points
in this statement at which elaboration and qualifications are
required. For example, when we are ‘introspecting’ factors normally
belonging to the second set may enter the first. But he will
be able, if he grasps the general theory, to supply these complications
himself. I did not wish to burden the text with unnecessary intricacies.
[96] Revelation Doctrines when once given a foothold tend to interfere
everywhere. They serve as a kind of omnipotent major premise
justifying any and every conclusion. A specimen: “Since the function
of Art is to pierce through to the Real World, then it follows
that the artist cannot be too definite in his outlines, and that
good drawing is the foundation of all good art.”—Charles Gardner,
_Vision and Vesture_, p. 54.
[97] _Essay on Style_, p. 19.
[99] _Short View of Tragedy_.
[99] Cf. A. Clutton-Brock, _The Times_, 11th July 1922, p.
13.