Now you must understand that not one of these was the true cause of the confusion in my uncle _Toby's_ discourse; and it is for that very reason I enlarge upon them so long, after the manner of great physiologists--to shew the world, what it did _not_ arise from.
What it did arise from, I have hinted above, and a fertile source of obscurity it is, --and ever will be, --and that is the unsteady uses of words, which have perplexed the clearest and most exalted understandings.
It is ten to one (at _Arthur's_) whether you have ever read the literary histories of past ages; --if you have, what terrible battles, 'yclept logomachies, have they occasioned and perpetuated with so much gall and ink-shed, --that a good-natured man cannot read the accounts of them without tears in his eyes.
Gentle critick! when thou hast weighed all this, and considered within thyself how much of thy own knowledge, discourse, and conversation has been pestered and disordered at one time or other, by this, and this only: --What a pudder and racket in COUNCILS about and ; and in the SCHOOLS of the learned about power and about spirit; --about essences, and about quintessences; ----about substances, and about space. ----What confusion in greater THEATRES from words of little meaning, and as indeterminate a sense! when thou considerest this, thou wilt not wonder at my uncle _Toby's_ perplexities, --thou wilt drop a tear of pity upon his scarp and his counterscarp; --his glacis and his covered way; --his ravelin and his half-moon: 'Twas not by ideas, --by Heaven; his life was put in jeopardy by words.
Now you must understand that not one of these was the cause of the confusion in my uncle Toby's discourse; and it is for that very reason I enlarge upon them for so long, - to show the world what it did not arise from.
What it did arise from, I have hinted above, is the unsteady uses of words, which have perplexed the clearest understandings.
If you have ever read the literary histories of past ages; - what terrible battles of words they have perpetuated, with so much gall and ink shed that a good-natured man cannot read them without tears in his eyes - gentle critic! when thou hast considered all this, thou wilt not wonder at my uncle Toby's perplexities. Thou wilt drop a tear of pity upon his scarp and his counterscarp; his glacis and his covered way; his ravelin and his half-moon. His life was put in jeopardy not by ideas, but by words.