Concrete Words

Concrete words are those that stand for individuals rather than for classes of objects, actions, etc. They appeal more directly to our imagination than do the more general terms which designate classes, and they are, therefore, an effective means of vivifying detail in description. The word "pony," for instance, is easier to picture mentally than the more general word "horse." The word horse is more definite than the more general word "quadruped," and quadruped is more particular than "vertebrate." When we hear the word verte¬brate, we picture to our minds animals of so many different forms that our mental image is confused. The word quadruped does not bring to our minds so many different kinds of concepts, and so our pic¬ture becomes clearer. With the other two terms, horse and pony, our condepts become still narrower and clearer. If you asked an artist to paint for you a vertebrate, he would immediately ask, "What kind ? " If you said "A quadruped," he would again ask, "What kind, a horse, a cow, a dog ? " _ If you answered "A horse," he would ask, "What kind of horse, white or black, large or small, old or young ? " If you said, "A pony," he might ask, "An Indian or a Shetland pony ? " If you answered, "A Shet¬land pony," he might ask whether you wished the pony painted lying down or standing, and so the questions would continue until, by compelling you to use more particular terms, the artist would be able to learn just what picture you had in mind. If in writing descriptions we imagine ourselves to be artists painting pictures of those objects we are portraying in words, we shall form a habit of making definite pictures of objects and using partic¬ular words to describe their attributes. The use of vague, general terms in description always indicates a lack of clearness and precision in our mental images, a "dimness of the mind's eye." In other words, concreteness is the test of excellence in description.

Exercises

In which of the following extracts do con¬crete terms predominate ? In which abstract terms? Select the concrete or the abstract terms in each Which are easier to picture mentally, those contaning abstract or those containing concrete words'

I. We had not lost our balance then, nor grown Thought's slaves, and dead to every natural joy. The smallest thing could give us pleasure then — The sports of country people, A flute note from the woods, Sunset over the sea ; Seed-time and harvest, The reapers in the corn, The vinedresser in his vineyard, The village-girl at her wheel. Fulness of life and power of feeling, ye Are for the happy, gor the souls at ease, Who dwell on a firm basis of content ! - MATTHEW ARNOLD, Emfiedocles on Etna Perfect happiness doth imply the exercise of all other virtues, which are suitable to so perfect a being, upon all proper and fitting occasions ; that is that so perfect a being do nothing that is contrary to or unbecoming his holiness and righteousness, his truth and faithful¬ness, which are essential to a perfect being ; and for such a being to act contrary to them in any case, would be to create disquiet and disturbance to. itself. For this is a certain rule, and never fails, that nothing can act contrary to its own nature without reluctancy and displeasure, which in moral agents is that which we call guilt ; for guilt is nothing else but the trouble and dis¬quiet which ariseth in one's mind, from the conscious¬ness of having done something which is contrary to the perfective principles of his being ; that is, something that doth not become him, and which, being what he is, he ought not to have done ; which we cannot imagine ever to befall so perfect and immutable a being as God is.

-JOHN TILLOTSON, HafijOiness in Goodness.

Immediately a place Before his eyes appeared, sad, noisome, dark ; A lazar-house it seemed, wherein were laid Numbers of all diseased— all maladies Of ghastly spasm, or racking torture, qualms Of heart-sick agony, all feverous kinds, Convulsions, epilepsies, fierce catarrhs, Intestine stone and ulcer, colic pangs, Demoniac phrenzy, moping melancholy, And moon-struck madness, pining atrophy, Marasmus, and wide-wasting pestilence, Dropsies, and asthmas, and joint-racking rheums.

--JoHN MILTON, Paradise Lost, xi., 477-488.

Nature means the sum of all phenomena, together with the causes which produce them ; including not only all that happens, but all that is capable of happen¬ing; the unused capabilities of causes being as much a part of the idea of Nature, as those which take effect. Since all phenomena which have been sufficiently examined are found to take place with regularity, each having certain fixed conditions, positive and negative, on the occurrence of which it invariably happens ; man¬kind have been able to ascertain, either by direct obser¬vation or by reasoning processes grounded on it, the •	conditions of the occurrence of many phenomena ; and the progress of science mainly consists in ascertaining those conditions.

— JOHN STUART MILL, Three Essays on Religion.