The period of systematic and scientific power development is coincident with the true progress of the most basal of the several branches of natural philosophy, chemistry, physics, mechanics, thermodynamics, and the theory of elasticity of materials of construction; and there is no doubt that the steam engine, which was designed and built by workmen before these were formulated, attracted the attention of philosophers who, in attempting to explain what took place in it, created a related body of principles by which future development was guided, and which are now the fundamental bases for the design of the future. Those men who became familiar with the natural sciences, and also with the shop methods of making machinery, and who brought both to bear on the problem of the production of machinery for specified conditions, combining the special knowledge of the scientist and the shop mechanic, were the first mechanical engineers; and the profession of mechanical engineering, which is the term applied to this sort of business, was created out of the efforts to improve power systems, so as to make them more efficient and adapted to all classes of service, and to render that service for the least cost.1 Emerson makes a definition of the civilization of America in the following selection wherein he describes the effect of American society and life upon the individual. The true test of civilization is, not the crops, not the size of cities, not the census, - no, but the kind of man the country turns out. I see the vast advantages of this country, spanning the breadth of the temperate zone. I see the immense material prosperity, towns on towns, states on states, and wealth piled in the massive architecture of cities: California quartz, mountains dumped down in New York to be repiled architecturally alongshore from Canada to Cuba, and thence westward to California again. But it is not New York streets, built by the confluence of workmen and wealth of all nations, though stretching out toward Philadelphia until they touch it, and northward until they touch New Haven, Hartford, Springfield, Worcester, and Boston, not these that make the real estimation. But when I look over this constellation C. E. Lucke: Power. By courtesy of the publishers, the Columbia University Press. of cities which animate and illustrate the land, and see how little the government has to do with their daily life, how self-helped and self-directed all families are, knots of men in purely natural societies, societies of trade, of kindred blood, of habitual hospitality, house and house, man acting on man by weight of opinion, of longer or better-directed industry; the refining influence of women, the invitation which experience and permanent causes open to youth and labor: when I see how much each virtuous and gifted person whom all men consider, lives affectionately with scores of people who are not known far from home, and perhaps with greatest reason reckons these people his superiors in virtue and in the symmetry and force of their qualities, I see what cubic values America has, and in these a better certificate of civilization than great cities or enormous wealth.1 These, then, are the various methods that are in common use. The list might be extended, but perhaps enough varieties have been discussed to be of practical value. The choice of method will depend on the result that the writer wishes to accomplish; at times he will wish to please the reader's fancy with an illustration, and again he may wish to contrast the subject to something else. If at any time more methods than one are useful, there is not the slightest objection to combining; in fact, most definitions of any length will be found to have more than one method employed. Remember that the methods were made for you, not you for the methods. And so long as you make your subject clear, so long as you set it off by itself in a class, distinct from other members of the class, you can be sure of the value of your definition. EXERCISES I. Discover the restricting adjectives or phrases that will reduce the number of differentia required by the genus in the following definitions: 1. Vaudeville is an entertainment. 2. Pneumonia is a disease. 1 Ralph Waldo Emerson: "Civilization," in Society and Solitude. Houghton Mifflin Com pany, Boston. 3. The Browning gun is a machine. 4. Landscape gardening is an occupation. 5. Smelting is an operation. 6. Lyrics are writing. 7. A college diploma is a statement by a body of men. 8. Rotation of crops is a system. 9. The Republican party is an organization. 10. Anglo-Saxon is a language. 11. An axe is a tool. 12. A printing press is a steel structure. 13. A hair-net is weaving. 14. Literature is writing. 15. Militarism is an attitude of mind. II. Write a definition of any of the following, showing how the subject has shifted its genus by its development, as the clearing house (page 75) has. 1. The Temperance Movement (sentimental crusade; sensible campaign for efficiency). 2. War. 8. Incantation (means of salvation; curiosity). 4. Household Science (drudgery; occupation). 5. Aristocracy (through physical strength; through birth; through property). 6. Justice (B.C.; A.D.). 7. Chemistry (magic; utility). 8. The Presidency of the United States (as changed by Mr. Wilson's procedure with Congress). 9. The Theater (under Puritan and Cavalier). 10. Electricity (curiosity; fearsome thing; utility). Of course any one of these ten subjects can be defined with a changeless genus, but such a genus is likely to be in the realm of the abstract, pretty thoroughly divorced from practical life. III. From the following definitions taken from Webster's New International Dictionary construct definitions of a more amplified, pleasing nature, after the manner of the definition of war correspondents. 1. Laziness is the state of being disinclined to action or exertion; averse to labor; indolent; idle; slothful. 2. Efficiency is the quality of being efficient, of producing an effect or effects; efficient power or action. 3. A department store is a store keeping a great variety of goods which are arranged in several departments, especially one with dry goods as the principal stock. 4. Metabolism is the sum of the processes concerned in the building up of protoplasm and its destruction incidental to the manifestation of vital phenomena; the chemical changes proceeding con tinually in living cells, by which the energy is provided for the vital processes and activities and new material is assimilated to repair the waste. 5. Judgment is the faculty of judging or deciding rightly, justly, or wisely; good sense; as, a man of judgment; a politician without judgment. 6. Puddling is the art or process of converting cast iron into wrought iron, or, now rarely, steel by subjecting it to intense heat and frequent stirring in a reverberatory furnace in the presence of oxidizing substances, by which it is freed from a portion of its carbon and other impurities. 7. Overhead cost is the general expenses of a business, as distinct from those caused by particular pieces of traffic. 8. A joke is something said or done for the sake of exciting a laugh; something witty or sportive (commonly indicating more of hilarity or humor than jest). 9. A diplomat is one employed or skilled in the art and practice of 10. A visionary is one who relies, or tends to rely, on visions, or im- 12. Loyalty is fidelity to a superior, or to duty, love, etc. 13. A prig is one narrowly and self-consciously engrossed in his own mental or spiritual attainments; one guilty of moral or intellectual foppery; a conceited precisian. 14. Heresy is an opinion held in opposition to the established or commonly received doctrine, and tending to promote division or dissension. 15. Eugenics is the science of improving stock, whether human or animal, or of improving plants. IV. Compare the definitions of the following which you find in the Century Dictionary, the Standard Dictionary, the Webster's New International Dictionary and the New English Dictionary; find the common elements, and make a definition of your own. 4. Sympathy. 5. Classicism. 9. Introspection. 14. Progress. 10. Individuality. 15. Narrow-mindedness. V. Look up the definitions of the following terms and estimate the resulting amount of increase in your knowledge of the subject which includes the terms. Do you find any stimulus toward thinking about the subject? What would you say, as the result of this investigation, about the value of definitions? What does Coleridge mean by his statement "Language thinks for us"? 1. Religion: 3. Ability: awe, reverence, duty, mystery, peace, priest, wor ship, loyalty, prayer, supplication, trust, divinity, 2. Socialism: property, social classes, economic rights, capital, 4. Music: 5. Democracy: independence, suffrage, representation, equality, popular, coöperation. VI. Are the two statements which follow definitions? If not, why not? What would be the effect of the use of definitions of this type in argument? Write a defining theme with such a definition as its nucleus, and test its value. 1. Beauty is its own excuse for being. 2. Virtue is its own reward. VII. In the following definitions 1 what are the genera? Are the definitions fair? How would you criticize them in general? Write a theme using the differentia noted, and trying to catch in the theme the spirit that is shown in the lists. Highbrow: Browning, anthropology, economics, Bacon, the uplift, inherent sin, Gibbon, fourth dimension, Euripides, "eyether," pâté de fois gras, lemon phosphate, Henry Cabot Lodge, Woodrow Wilson. Low-highbrow: Municipal government, Kipling, socialism, Shakespeare, politics, Thackeray, taxation, golf, grand opera, bridge, chicken à la Maryland, "eether," stocks and bonds, gin rickey, Theodore Roosevelt, chewing gum in private. High-lowbrow: Musical comedy, euchre, baseball, moving pictures, small steak medium, whiskey, Robert W. Chambers, purple socks, chewing gum with friends. Lowbrow: Laura Jean Libbey, ham sandwich, have n't came, pitch, I and her, melodrama, hair oil, the Duchess, beer, George M. Cohan, red flannels, toothpicks, Bathhouse John, chewing gum in public. VIII. Expand the following definition 2 into a theme, using the combined 1 From B. L. T.'s "The Line o' Type Column." By courtesy of the Chicago Tribune. * George Bernard Shaw: The Sanity of Art. By courtesy of the publishers, Boni & Liveright. |