"Sense in this passage denotes an inward feeling, or the impression which some sentiment makes upon the mind."

— Campbell, George (1719-1796)


Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for W. Strahan and T. Cadell
Date
1776
Metaphor
"Sense in this passage denotes an inward feeling, or the impression which some sentiment makes upon the mind."
Metaphor in Context
Often, indeed, the affectation of conciseness, often the rapidity of thought natural to some writers, will give rise to still more material defects in the expression. Of these I shall produce a few examples:"He is inspired," says an eminent writer,"with a true sense of that function, when chosen from a regard to the interests of piety and virtue." Sense in this passage denotes an inward feeling, or the impression which some sentiment makes upon the mind. Now a function cannot be a sentiment impressed or felt. The expression is therefore defective, and ought to have been,---"He is inspired with a true sense of the dignity, or of the importance of that function."---"You ought to contemn all the wit in the world against you"---As the writer doth not intend to signify that all the wit in the world is actually exerted against the person whom he addresses, there is a defect in the expression, though perhaps it will be thought chargeable with redundancy at the same time. More plainly thus,"You ought to contemn all the wit that can be employed against you.""He talks all the way up stairs to a visit." There is here also a faulty omission, which, if it cannot be said to obscure the sense, doth at least withhold that light whereof it is susceptible. If the word visit ever meant person or people, there would be an ambiguity in the sentence, and we should imagine this the object talked to; but as that cannot be the case, the expression is rather to be accounted lame, there being no verb in it with which the words to a visit can be construed. [...]
(pp. 9-11)
Categories
Provenance
C-H Lion
Citation
Only 1 entry in ESTC (1776).

The Philosophy of Rhetoric. By George Campbell, 2 vols. (London: Printed for W. Strahan; and T. Cadell, 1776). <Link to ESTC>
Date of Entry
07/02/2013

The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.