LXXXIX. The Active and the Passive improperly introduced together.
The Effects of it, says the Author, speaking of perspective, are not better explained by Leonard da Vinci than Plato has done in his Dialogue of the Sophist. This does not make Sense. The Author might have said The Effects of it are not better explained by Leonard da Vinci than Plato has explained them in his Dialogue of the Sophist.
There are perhaps many People, who would feel the Impropriety of his Expression, without immediately perceiving to what it is owing. The Absurdity lies here. Plato has done is active. The Effects of it are not better explained is passive. When he says Plato has done he means has explained it. This has explained is active. The are explained above is (as I have just now said) passive. Now he uses the two explaineds as Words of the same Signification; which, one being passive and the other active, they cannot be. And this it is that makes his Expression nonsense.
It is a Mortification to me, to have observed that this sort of Barbarism is not unfrequent in even good English Writers, while the very worst of the French are hardly ever guilty of it.
Here follows two Quotations, in each of which there is a Fault of the same kind with that mentioned above.
Yonder comes the Man we are speaking of, your Friend Theodorus. I should be glad to be introduced to him.—That said Agoretes, I undertake very frankly to do. Fordyce's Art of preaching.
All that can now be decently urged is the Reason of the Thing; and this I shall do, more for the Sake of that truly venerable Body than my own. Dr. Warburton's Preface to Shakespeare.
What is it that Agoretes undertakes to do? The Meaning (as we may guess) is that he will introduce the other to Theodorus. But it is not properly exprest; the Words to do, which are active, referring to the Words to be introduced, which are passive. This certainly does not make sense.
The same Objection lies to the Passage from Dr. Warburton.
[Robert Baker. 1770. Reflections on the English Language, In the Nature of Vaugelas's Reflections on the French; Being a Detection of many improper Expressions used in Conversation, and of many others to be found in Authors. To which is prefixed a Discourse to His Majesty. pp.88-90.]
It is difficult to see with what and why Mr Baker is so upset in this passage. How do the grammar mavens onboard feel about this proscription of his?
When you get throught the antique language, I'm rather inclined to agree with the point. The challenged sentence reads as follows, and the two colored clauses are not parallel:
quote:
The effects ... are not better explained by Leonard da Vinci than Plato has done.
It would seem much more natural to say, "The effects are not better explained by Leonard da Vinci than by Plato."
