The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

But rationalism itself cannot, without doing violence to the acknowledged
ordinary laws of language, read into the words of the Supper a
metaphorical sense. Handle these words of our Lord as boldly, construe
them from as low a level as those of ordinary men, still no metaphor can be
found in them. This assertion we hope to prove by a careful investigation of
the fundamental principles of metaphor, which we shall reduce to thetical
statements, and endeavor to illustrate. We shall try to present the rhetoric
of the metaphor in the relation it bears to its logic.
I. Grammatical and Rhetorical Figures.
I. The metaphor belongs, according to a distinction made by some
writers, to the rhetorical figure, as distinguished from the grammatical
figure. The distinguishing difference between the rhetorical figure and the
grammatical is that the rhetorical is based upon an ideal relation, the
grammatical upon a real one, or what is believed to be such. To say, He
keeps a good table, this purse is gold, this cup is coffee, this bottle is wine,
is to use a grammatical figure; for the relation of the subject to the
predicate is that of real conveyance. There is a real purse and real gold, a
real cup and real coffee, a real bottle and real wine; and the figure turns
simply upon the identification of the thing conveying with the thing
conveyed, both being real, and the thing conveyed being communicated in
some real respect by means of the thing conveying.
Again, we say of particular books of the Bible: This book is Isaiah,
this book is John. This is a grammatical figure, for the relation of
authorship is real on which the identification rests. There is a real book,
written by a real Isaiah, a real John, and hence we give the name of the
author to his work. So we say: Here is my Milton, take down that
Shakspeare, my Burke is in twelve volumes, I have read Homer through;
or of pictures: This is a Raphael, this is a Salvator Rosa, this is a copy from
Titian, this is a Canova. Is your Madonna a Murillo or a Michael Angelo?
All these are grammatical figures, for they imply a real relation between
the author or painter who produces and the book, or work of art, produced.
Again, we say: His pen is able, his pencil is artistic; meaning