[Sidenote: _Criticism of the rhetorical categories._]
The illegitimate division of expressions into various grades is known in literature by the name of doctrine of _ornament_ or of _rhetorical categories._ But similar attempts at distinctions in other artistic groups are not wanting: suffice it to recall the _realistic_ and _symbolic_ forms, so often mentioned in relation to painting and sculpture.
_Realistic_ and _symbolic, objective_ and _subjective, classical_ and _romantic, simple_ and _ornate, proper_ and _metaphorical,_ the fourteen forms of metaphor, the figures of _word_ and _sentence, pleonasm, ellipse, inversion, repetition, synonyms_ and _homonyms,_ these and all other determinations of modes or degrees of expression reveal their philosophical nullity when the attempt is made to develop them in precise definitions, because they either grasp the void or fall into the absurd. A typical example of this is the very common definition of metaphor as of _another word used in place of the proper word._ Now why give oneself this trouble? Why substitute the improper for the proper word? Why take the worse and longer road when you know the shorter and better road? Perhaps, as is commonly said, because the proper word is in certain cases not so _expressive_ as the so-called improper word or metaphor? But if this be so the metaphor is exactly the proper word in that case, and the so-called "proper" word, if it were used, would be _inexpressive_ and therefore most improper. Similar observations of elementary good sense can be made regarding the other categories, as, for example, the general one of the _ornate._ Here for instance it may be asked how an ornament can be joined to expression. Externally? In that case it is always separated from the expression. Internally? In that case, either it does not assist the expression and mars it; or it does form part of it and is not an ornament, but a constituent element of the expression, indivisible and indistinguishable in its unity.
It is needless to say how much harm has been done by rhetorical distinctions. Rhetoric has often been declaimed against, but although there has been rebellion against its consequences, its principles have, at the same time, been carefully preserved (perhaps in order to show proof of philosophic consistency). In literature the rhetorical categories have contributed, if not to make dominant, at least to justify theoretically, that particular kind of _bad writing_ which is called _fine writing_ or writing according to rhetoric.