date

16 Aug. 1814 M Logic Ch. Language
16 Aug. 1814 M

Logic

Ch. Language

Qualities desirable

'.9 Comparative Importance

23

5

6. and 7. Lowest of all stand the two kindred qualities so nearly allied to purely physical ones, viz. melodiousness and facility of utterance.

Melodiousness - still more the absence of the opposite quality may in some measure be considered as subservient to impressiveness but for this connexion it might perhaps be regarded in no higher character than that of a foreign and accidental ornament, not connected with any of the important ends and uses of language, and not having application to it, but in two portions of its field, viz. oratory and poetry.

Even as between these two, viz. melodiousness and facility of utterance - facility of utterance presents itself as standing on one account, in so far as it has place, in an uncombined state, manifestly and considerably below melodiousness. By excellence in respect of melodiousness, other persons besides the speaker or writer - other persons to the number of which, in the case of the writer, there are not any limits, and in the case of the speaker none but such as are not narrow ones, are gratified -by deficiency in that same respect, proportionably more or less displeased - by facility of utterance, in so far as it is separable, and exists separate from melodiousness, one individual alone, viz. the author, is affected, and he only in so far as the discourse being composed of audible signs /signs of the audible kind/, it comes accordingly to be made audible.

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    Though in the field of causality intimately connected with melodiousness, this quality is in its nature, and thence in idea, sufficiently distinguishable from it. In proportion as, to produce it requires effort on the part of the speaker, and on that occasion effort is accordingly employed, the fact of its being employed naturally becomes perceptible, and the existence of it is actually perceived; and in proportion as in the bosom of the speaker uneasiness is, or by the hearer is supposed to have place, by the force of sympathy, the like effect is, in his own bosom, apt to take place.

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