METAPHORS.
Sometimes a sophism dilates itself, and penetrates through the whole
extent of a long and heavy theory. More frequently it is compressed,
contracted, becomes a principle, and is completely covered by a word.
A good man once said: "God protect us from the devil and from
metaphors!" In truth, it would be difficult to say which of the two
creates the more evil upon our planet. It is the demon, say you; he
alone, so long as we live, puts the spirit of spoliation in our
hearts. Yes; but he does not prevent the repression of abuses by the
resistance of those who suffer from them. _Sophistry_ paralyzes this
resistance. The sword which malice puts in the assailant's hand would
be powerless, if sophistry did not break the shield upon the arm of
the assailed; and it is with good reason that Malebranche has
inscribed at the opening of his book, "Error is the cause of human
misery."
See how it comes to pass. Ambitious hypocrites will have some sinister
purpose; for example, sowing national hatred in the public mind. This
fatal germ may develop, lead to general conflagration, arrest
civilization, pour out torrents of blood, draw upon the land the most
terrible of scourges--_invasion_. In every case of indulgence in such
sentiments of hatred they lower us in the opinion of nations, and
compel those Americans, who have retained some love of justice, to
blush for their country. Certainly these are great evils; and in order
that the public should protect itself from the guidance of those who
would lead it into such risks, it is only necessary to give it a clear
view of them. How do they succeed in veiling it from them? It is by
_metaphor_. They alter, they force, they deprave the meaning of three
or four words, and all is done.
Such a word is _invasion_ itself. An owner of an American furnace
says, "Preserve us from the _invasion_ of English iron." An English
landlord exclaims, "Let us repel the _invasion_ of American wheat!"
And so they propose to erect barriers between the two nations.
Barriers constitute isolation, isolation leads to hatred, hatred to
war, and war to _invasion_. "Suppose it does," say the two sophists;
"is it not better to expose ourselves to the chance of an eventual
_invasion_, than to accept a certain one?" And the people still
believe, and the barriers still remain.
Yet what analogy is there between an exchange and an _invasion_? What
resemblance can possibly be established between a vessel of war, which
comes to pour fire, shot, and devastation into our cities, and a
merchant ship, which comes to offer to barter with us freely,
voluntarily, commodity for commodity?
As much may be said of the word _inundation_. This word is generally
taken in bad part, because _inundations_ often ravage fields and
crops. If, however, they deposit upon the soil a greater value than
that which they take from it; as is the case in the inundations of the
Nile, we might bless and deify them as the Egyptians do. Well! before
declaiming against the inundation of foreign produces, before
opposing to them restraining and costly obstacles, let us inquire if
they are the inundations which ravage or those which fertilize? What
should we think of Mehemet Ali, if, instead of building, at great
expense, dams across the Nile for the purpose of extending its field
of inundation, he should expend his money in digging for it a deeper
bed, so that Egypt should not be defiled by this _foreign_ slime,
brought down from the Mountains of the Moon? We exhibit precisely the
same amount of reason, when we wish, by the expenditure of millions,
to preserve our country--From what? The advantages with which Nature
has endowed other climates.
Among the metaphors which conceal an injurious theory, none is more
common than that embodied in the words _tribute, tributary_.
These words are so much used that they have become synonymous with the
words _purchase, purchaser_, and one is used indifferently for the
other.
Yet a _tribute_ or _tax_ differs as much from _purchase_ as a theft
from an exchange, and we should like quite as well to hear it said,
"Dick Turpin has broken open my safe, and has _purchased_ out of it a
thousand dollars," as we do to have it remarked by our sage
representatives, "We have paid to England the _tribute_ for a thousand
gross of knives which she has sold to us."
For the reason why Turpin's act is not a _purchase_ is, that he has
not paid into my safe, with my consent, value equivalent to what he
has taken from it, and the reason why the payment of five hundred
thousand dollars, which we have made to England, is not a _tribute_,
is simply because she has not received them gratuitously, but in
exchange for the delivery to us of a thousand gross of knives, which
we ourselves have judged worth five hundred thousand dollars.
But is it necessary to take up seriously such abuses of language? Why
not, when they are seriously paraded in newspapers and in books?
Do not imagine that they escape from writers who are ignorant of their
language; for one who abstains from them, we could point you to ten
who employ them, and they persons of consideration--that is to say,
men whose words are laws, and whose most shocking sophisms serve as
the basis of administration for the country.
A celebrated modern philosopher has added to the categories of
Aristotle, the sophism which consists in including in one word the
begging of the question. He cites several examples. He should have
added the word _tributary_ to his vocabulary. In effect the question
is, are purchases made abroad useful or injurious? "They are
injurious," you say. And why? "Because they make us _tributary_ to the
foreigner." Here is certainly a word which presents as a fact that
which is a question.
How is this abusive trope introduced into the rhetoric of monopolists?
Some specie _goes out of a country_ to satisfy the rapacity of a
victorious enemy--other specie, also, goes out of a country to settle
an account for merchandise. The analogy between the two cases is
established, by taking account of the one point in which they resemble
one another, and leaving out of view that in which they differ.
This circumstance, however,--that is to say, non-reimbursement
in the one case, and reimbursement freely agreed upon in the
other--establishes such a difference between them, that it is not
possible to class them under the same title. To deliver a hundred
dollars _by compulsion_ to him who says "Stand and deliver," or
_voluntarily_ to pay the same sum to him who sells you the object of
your wishes--truly, these are things which cannot be made to
assimilate. As well might you say, it is a matter of indifference
whether you throw bread into the river or eat it, because in either
case it is bread _destroyed_. The fault of this reasoning, as in that
which the word _tribute_ is made to imply, consists in founding an
exact similitude between two cases on their points of resemblance, and
omitting those of difference.