Metaphors

A Sophism will sometimes expand and extend itself through the whole

tissue of a long and tedious theory. Oftener it contracts into a

principle, and hides itself in one word.



Heaven preserve us, said Paul Louis, from the Devil and from the

spirit of metaphor! And, truly, it might be difficult to determine

which of the two sheds the most noxious influence over our planet. The

Devil, you will say, because it is he who implants in our hearts the

spirit of spoliation. Aye; but he leaves the capacity for checking

abuses, by the resistance of those who suffer. It is the genius of

Sophism which paralyzes this resistance. The sword which the spirit of

evil places in the hands of the aggressor, would fall powerless, if the

shield of him who is attacked were not shattered in his grasp by the

spirit of Sophism. Malbranche has, with great truth, inscribed upon the

frontispiece of his book this sentence: Error is the cause of human

misery.



Let us notice what passes in the world. Ambitious hypocrites may take a

sinister interest in spreading, for instance, the germ of national

enmities. The noxious seed may, in its developments, lead to a general

conflagration, check civilization, spill torrents of blood, and draw

upon the country that most terrible of scourges, invasion. Such

hateful sentiments cannot fail to degrade, in the opinion of other

nations, the people among whom they prevail, and force those who retain

some love of justice to blush for their country. These are fearful

evils, and it would be enough that the public should have a clear view

of them, to induce them to secure themselves against the plotting of

those who would expose them to such heavy chances. How, then, are they

kept in darkness? How, but by metaphors? The meaning of three or four

words is forced, changed, and depraved--and all is said.



Such is the use made, for instance, of the word invasion.



A master of French iron-works, exclaims: Save us from the invasion of

English iron. An English landholder cries; Let us oppose the invasion

of French corn. And forthwith all their efforts are bent upon raising

barriers between these two nations. Thence follows isolation; isolation

leads to hatred; hatred to war; and war to invasion. What matters it?

say the two Sophists; is it not better to expose ourselves to a

possible invasion, than to meet a certain one? And the people believe;

and the barriers are kept up.



And yet what analogy can exist between an exchange and an invasion? What

resemblance can possibly be discovered between a man-of-war, vomiting

fire, death, and desolation over our cities--and a merchant vessel,

which comes to offer in free and peaceable exchange, produce for

produce?



Much in the same way has the word inundation been abused. This word is

generally taken in a bad sense; and it is certainly of frequent

occurrence for inundations to ruin fields and sweep away harvests. But

if, as is the case in the inundations of the Nile, they were to leave

upon the soil a superior value to that which they carried away, we

ought, like the Egyptians, to bless and deify them. Would it not be

well, before declaiming against the inundations of foreign produce,

and checking them with expensive and embarrassing obstacles, to certify

ourselves whether these inundations are of the number which desolate, or

of those which fertilize a country? What would we think of Mehemet Ali,

if, instead of constructing, at great expense, dams across the Nile to

increase the extent of its inundations, he were to scatter his piasters

in attempts to deepen its bed, that he might rescue Egypt from the

defilement of the foreign mud which is swept down upon it from the

mountains of the Moon? Exactly such a degree of wisdom do we exhibit,

when at the expense of millions, we strive to preserve our country....

From what? From the blessings with which Nature has gifted other

climates.



Among the metaphors which sometimes conceal, each in itself, a whole

theory of evil, there is none more common than that which is presented

under the words tribute and tributary.



These words are so frequently employed as synonyms of purchase and

purchaser, that the terms are now used almost indifferently. And yet

there is as distinct a difference between a tribute, and a purchase,

as between a robbery and an exchange. It appears to me that it would

be quite as correct to say, Cartouche has broken open my strong-box,

and, has bought a thousand crowns from me, as to state, as I have

heard done to our honorable deputies, We have paid in tribute to

Germany the value of a thousand horses which she has sold us.



The action of Cartouche was not a purchase, because he did not put,

and with my consent, into my strong box an equivalent value to that

which he took out. Neither could the purchase-money paid to Germany be

tribute, because it was not on our part a forced payment, gratuitously

received on hers, but a willing compensation from us for a thousand

horses, which we ourselves judged to be worth 500,000 francs.



Is it necessary then seriously to criticise such abuses of language?

Yes, for very seriously are they put forth in our books and journals.

Nor can we flatter ourselves that they are the careless expressions of

uneducated writers, ignorant even of the terms of their own language.

They are current with a vast majority, and among the most distinguished

of our writers. We find them in the mouths of our d'Argouts, Dupins,

Villeles; of peers, deputies and ministers; men whose words become laws,

and whose influence might establish the most revolting Sophisms, as the

basis of the administration of their country.



A celebrated modern Philosopher has added to the categories of Aristotle

the Sophism which consists in expressing in one word a petitio

principii. He cites several examples, and might have added the word

tributary to his nomenclature. For instance, the question is to

determine whether foreign purchases are useful or hurtful. You answer,

hurtful. And why? Because they render us tributary to foreigners.

Truly here is a word, which begs the question at once.



How has this delusive figure of speech introduced itself into the

rhetoric of monopolists?



Money is withdrawn from the country to satisfy the rapacity of a

victorious enemy: money is also withdrawn from the country to pay for

merchandise. The analogy is established between the two cases,

calculating only the point of resemblance and abstracting that by which

they differ.



And yet it is certainly true, that the non-reimbursement in the first

case, and the reimbursement freely agreed upon in the second,

establishes between them so decided a difference, as to render it

impossible to class them under the same category. To be obliged, with a

dagger at your throat, to give a hundred francs, or to give them

willingly in order to obtain a desired object,--truly these are cases in

which we can perceive little similarity. It might just as correctly be

said, that it is a matter of indifference whether we eat our bread, or

have it thrown into the water, because in both cases it is destroyed. We

here draw a false conclusion, as in the case of the word tribute, by a

vicious manner of reasoning, which supposes an entire similitude between

two cases, their resemblance only being noticed and their difference

suppressed.