VII. WIT AND LOGIC. "Who would say that truth ought to stand disarmed against falsehood, or that the enemies of the faith shall be at liberty to frighten the faithful with hard words or jeer at them with lively sallies of wit, while the Christians ought never to write except with a coldness of style enough to set the reader asleep?"-Augustine. WIT AND LOGIC. "I was not gone far before I heard the sound of trumpets and alarms, which seemed to proclaim the march of an Enemy; and as I afterwards found was in reality what I apprehended it. There appeared at a great distance a very shining light, and in the midst of it a person of most beautiful aspect; her name was Truth. On her right hand, there marched a male deity, who bore several quivers on his shoulders, and grasped several arrows in his hand. His name was Wit."-Addison. IN her essay on Heine, George Eliot writes: "Every one who has had the opportunity of making the comparison, will remember that the effect produced on him by some witticisms is closely akin to the effect produced on him by subtle reasoning which lays open a fallacy or absurdity; and there are persons whose delight in such reasoning always manifests itself in laughter. This affinity of wit with ratiocination is the more obvious in proportion as the species of wit is higher and deals less with words and with superficialities than with the essential qualities of things. Some of Dr. Johnson's most admirable witticisms consist in the suggestion of an analogy which immediately exposes the absurdity of an action or proposition; and it is only their ingenuity, condensation and instantaneousness which lift them from reasoning into wit." The opinion of George Eliot has been shared by others. Pitt declared that "all wit is true reasoning," and Rogers says that "wit is truth." A French writer has observed that "reason needs to be armed with the terrible epigram." And even solemn John Milton writes of Plato's dialogues, "There is scarce one of them, especially wherein some notable sophister lies sweating and turmoiling under the inevitable and merciless dilemmas of Socrates, but he that reads, were it Saturn himself, would be robbed of more than a smile." There are in literature abundant examples of the condensed logic of wit, the logic that exposes a fallacy, answers an objection and demolishes an argument, without resorting to major and minor premise and formal conclusion. One or two of these may pave ୧୧ the way to the main purpose of this chapter. "Where was your Protestant Church before Luther?" asked a asked a Catholic of Catholic of Wilkes. "Did you wash your face this morning?" said Wilkes. "I did, sir." "Where was your face before you washed it?" The logic of wit as employed by Dr. Johnson, is referred to by George Eliot. On one occasion it was debated whether a clergyman who had five years before been guilty of some grave sin should be reinstated. Johnson inquired whether the man had repented. It was admitted that he had. Then," said Johnson, "if he has repented, is he not good enough to go to heaven?" "Certainly." "Why, sir, then there is no objection. A man who is good enough to go to heaven is good enough to be a clergyman." Johnson denounced Lord Bolingbroke in the following immortal analogy: "Sir, he was a scoundrel and a coward; a scoundrel for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality, a morality, a coward because he had not resolution enough to fire it off himself, but left half-a-crown to a beggarly Scotchman to draw the trigger after his death." |