"Every man," says Swift, "is more
able to explain the subject of an art than its professors; a farmer will
tell you, in two words, that he has broken his leg; but a surgeon, after
a long discourse, shall leave you as ignorant as you were before." This
could only have been said, by such an exact observer of life, in
gratification of malignity, or in ostentation of acuteness. Every hour
produces instances of the necessity of terms of art. Mankind could never
conspire in uniform affectation; it is not but by necessity that every
science and every trade has its peculiar language. They that content
themselves with general ideas may rest in general terms; but those,
whose studies or employments force them upon closer inspection, must
have names for particular parts, and words by which they may express
various modes of combination, such as none but themselves have occasion
to consider.
Artists are indeed sometimes ready to suppose that none can be strangers
to words to which themselves are familiar, talk to an incidental
inquirer as they talk to one another, and make their knowledge
ridiculous by injudicious obtrusion.
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