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Philosophy of Style-Herbert Spencer · The Elements of Style

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  Speaker 1: Philosophy of Style, Part one, Section one. This is a
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  Speaker 1: The Philosophy of Style by Herbert Spencer, Part one Causes
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  Speaker 1: of force in language which depend upon economy of the
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  Speaker 1: mental energies Section one, Division one, paragraph one. Commenting on
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  Speaker 1: the seeming incongruity between his father's argumentative powers and his
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  Speaker 1: ignorance of formal logic, Tristan Shanty says, it was a
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  Speaker 1: matter of just wonder, with my worthy tutor and two
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  Speaker 1: or three fellows of that learned society, that a man
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  Speaker 1: who knew not so much as the names of his
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  Speaker 1: tools should be able to work after that fashion with them.
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  Speaker 1: Stearne's intended implication that a knowledge of the principles of
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  Speaker 1: reasoning neither makes nor is essential to a good reasoner
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  Speaker 1: is doubtless true. Thus too is it with grammar. As
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  Speaker 1: mister Latham, condemning the usual school drill in Lyndy Murray
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  Speaker 1: rightly remarks, gross vulgarity is a fault to be prevented,
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  Speaker 1: but the proper prevention is to be got from habit
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  Speaker 1: not rules. Similarly, there can be little question that good
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  Speaker 1: composition is far less dependent upon acquaintance with its laws
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  Speaker 1: than upon practice and natural aptitude. A clear head, a
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  Speaker 1: quick imagination, and a sensitive error will go far toward
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  Speaker 1: making all rhetorical precepts needless. He who daily hears and
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  Speaker 1: reads well framed sentences will naturally more or less tend
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  Speaker 1: to use similar ones. And where there exists any mental idiosyncrasy,
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  Speaker 1: whether where there is a deficient verbal memory, or an
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  Speaker 1: inadequate sense of logical dependence, or but little perception of order,
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  Speaker 1: or a lack of constructive ingenuity, no amount of instruction
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  Speaker 1: will remedy the defect. Nevertheless, some practical result may be
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  Speaker 1: expected from a familiarity with the principles of style. The
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  Speaker 1: endeavor to conform to laws may tell, though slowly, and
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  Speaker 1: if in no other way, yet as facilitating revision. A
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  Speaker 1: knowledge of the thing to be achieved, A clear idea
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  Speaker 1: of what constitutes a beauty and what a blemish cannot
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  Speaker 1: fail to be of service paragraph two. No general theory
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  Speaker 1: of expression seems yet to have been enunciated. The maxims
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  Speaker 1: contained in works on composition and rhetoric are presented in
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  Speaker 1: an unorganized form. Standing as isolated dogmas as empirical generalizations,
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  Speaker 1: they are neither so clearly apprehended nor so much respected
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  Speaker 1: as they would be were they deduced from some simple
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  Speaker 1: first principle. We are told that brevity is the soul
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  Speaker 1: of wit. We hear styles condemned as verbose or involved.
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  Speaker 1: Blair says that every needless part of a sentence interrupts
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  Speaker 1: the description and clogs the image, and again that long
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  Speaker 1: sentences fatigue the reader's attention. It is remarked by Lord
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  Speaker 1: Cames that to give the utmost force to a period,
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  Speaker 1: it ought, if possible, to be closed with that word
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  Speaker 1: which makes the greatest figure. That parenthesis should be avoided,
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  Speaker 1: and that Saxon words should be used in preference to
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  Speaker 1: those of Latin origin. Are established precepts, but however influential
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  Speaker 1: the truce thus dogmatically embodied, they would be much more
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  Speaker 1: influential if reduced to something like scientific ordination. In this
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  Speaker 1: as in other cases, conviction will be greatly strengthened when
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  Speaker 1: we understand the why, and we may be sure that
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  Speaker 1: a comprehension of the general principle from which the rules
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  Speaker 1: of composition result will not only bring them home to
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  Speaker 1: us with greater force, but will discover to us other
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  Speaker 1: rules of like origin. Paragraph three. On seeking for some
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  Speaker 1: clue to the law underlying these current maxims, we may
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  Speaker 1: see shadowed forth in many of them. The importance of
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  Speaker 1: economizing the reader's or hearer's attention to so present ideas
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  Speaker 1: that they may be apprehended with the least possible mental
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  Speaker 1: effort is the dessdratum toward which most of the rules
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  Speaker 1: above quoted point. When we condemn writing that is wordy
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  Speaker 1: or confused or intricate, when we praise this style as
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  Speaker 1: easy and blame that as fatiguing, we consciously or unconsciously
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  Speaker 1: assume this desisdratum as our standard of judgment. Regarding language
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  Speaker 1: as an apparatus of symbols for the conveyance of thought,
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  Speaker 1: we may say that, as in a mechanical apparatus, the
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  Speaker 1: more simple and the better arranged its parts, the greater
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  Speaker 1: will be the effect produced. In either case, whatever force
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  Speaker 1: is absorbed by the machine is deduced from the result
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  Speaker 1: A reader or listener has at each moment, but a
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  Speaker 1: limited amount of mental power available to recognize and interpret
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  Speaker 1: the symbols presented to him requires part of his power
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  Speaker 1: to arrange and combine the images suggested requires a further part,
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  Speaker 1: and only that part which remains can be used for
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  Speaker 1: realizing the thought conveyed. Hence, the more time and attention
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  Speaker 1: it takes to receive and understand each sentence, the less
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  Speaker 1: time and attention can be given to the contained idea,
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  Speaker 1: and the less vividly will that idea be conceived. Paragraph four.
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  Speaker 1: How truly, language must be regarded as a hindrance to thought,
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  Speaker 1: though the necessary instrument of it, we shall clearly perceive,
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  Speaker 1: on remembering the comparative force with which simple ideas were
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  Speaker 1: communicated by signs. To say, leave the room is less
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  Speaker 1: expressive than to point to the door. Placing a finger
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  Speaker 1: on the lips is more forcible than whispering. Do not speak.
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  Speaker 1: A beck of the hand is better than come here.
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  Speaker 1: No phrase can convey the idea of surprise so vividly
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  Speaker 1: as opening the eyes and raising the eyebrows. A shrug
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  Speaker 1: of the shoulders would lose much by translation into words. Again,
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  Speaker 1: it may be remarked that when oral language is employed,
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  Speaker 1: the strongest effects are produced by interjections, which condense entire
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  Speaker 1: sentences into syllables, and in other cases where custom allows
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  Speaker 1: us to express thoughts by single words, as in beware, hi, ho, fudge,
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  Speaker 1: much force would be lost by expanding them into scientific propositions.
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  Speaker 1: Hence carrying out the metaphor that language is the vehicle
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  Speaker 1: of thought. There seems reason to think that in all
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  Speaker 1: cases the friction and inertia of the vehicle deduct from
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  Speaker 1: its efficiency, and that in composition, the chief, if not
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  Speaker 1: the sole, thing to be done, is to reduce this
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  Speaker 1: friction and inertia to the smallest possible amount. Let us
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  Speaker 1: then inquire whether economy of the recipient's attention is not
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  Speaker 1: the secret of effect alike in the right choice and
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  Speaker 1: collocation of words, in the best arrangement of clauses in
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  Speaker 1: a sentence, in the proper order of its principal and
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  Speaker 1: subordinate propositions, in the judicious use of simile, metaphor, and
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  Speaker 1: other figures of speech, and even in the rhythmical sequence
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  Speaker 1: of syllables. Division two, Economy in the use of words
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  Speaker 1: Paragraph five. The greater forcibleness of Saxon English, or rather
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  Speaker 1: non Latin English first claims our attention. The several special
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  Speaker 1: reasons assignable for this may all be reduced to the
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  Speaker 1: general reason economy. The most important of them is early association.
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  Speaker 1: A child's vocabulary is almost holy saxon. He says, I have,
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  Speaker 1: not I possess, I wish, not I desire. He does
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  Speaker 1: not reflect, he thinks. He does not beg for amusement,
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  Speaker 1: but for play. He calls things nice or nasty, not
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  Speaker 1: pleasant or disagreeable. The synonyms which he learns in after
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  Speaker 1: years never become so closely or organically connected with the
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  Speaker 1: ideas signified as do these original words used in childhood,
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  Speaker 1: and hence the association remains less strong. But in what
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  Speaker 1: does a strong association between a word and an idea
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  Speaker 1: differ from a weak one. Simply in the greater ease
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  Speaker 1: and rapidity of the suggestive action. It can be nothing else.
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  Speaker 1: Both of two words, if they be strictly synonymous, eventually
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  Speaker 1: call up the same image. The expression it is acid must,
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  Speaker 1: in the end give rise to the same thought as
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  Speaker 1: it is sour. But because the term acid was learnt
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  Speaker 1: later in life, and has not been so often followed
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  Speaker 1: by the thought symbolized, it does not so readily arouse
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  Speaker 1: that thought as the term sour. If we remember how
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  Speaker 1: slowly and with what labor, the appropriate ideas follow unfamiliar
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  Speaker 1: words in another langugeanguage, and how increasing familiarity with such
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  Speaker 1: words brings greater rapidity and ease of comprehension. And if
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  Speaker 1: we consider that the same process must have gone on
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  Speaker 1: with the words of our mother tongue from childhood upwards,
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  Speaker 1: we shall clearly see that the easiest, learnt and oftenest
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  Speaker 1: used words will, other things, equal call up images with
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  Speaker 1: less loss of time and energy than their later learnt
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  Speaker 1: synonyms Paragraph six. The further superiority possessed by Saxon English
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  Speaker 1: in its comparative brevity obviously comes under the same generalization.
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  Speaker 1: If it be an advantage to express an idea in
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  Speaker 1: the smallest number of words, then will it be an
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  Speaker 1: advantage to express it in the smallest number of syllables.
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  Speaker 1: If circuitous phrases and needless explictives distract the attention and
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  Speaker 1: diminish the strength of the impression produced, then do surplus
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  Speaker 1: articulations do so. A certain effort, though commonly an unappreciated one,
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  Speaker 1: must be required to recognize every vowel and consonant. If,
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  Speaker 1: as all know, it is tiresome to listen to an
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  Speaker 1: indistinct speaker or read a badly written manuscript, and if
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  Speaker 1: as we cannot doubt the fatigue is a cumulative result
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  Speaker 1: of the attention needed to catch subcessive syllables. It follows
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  Speaker 1: that attention is in such cases absorbed by each syllable,
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  Speaker 1: And if this be true when the syllables are different
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  Speaker 1: of recognition, it will also be true, though in a
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  Speaker 1: less degree, when the recognition of them is easy. Hence,
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  Speaker 1: the shortness of saxon words becomes a reason for their
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  Speaker 1: greater force. One qualification, however, must not be overlooked. A
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  Speaker 1: word which in itself embodies the most important part of
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  Speaker 1: the idea to be conveyed, especially when that idea is
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  Speaker 1: an emotional one, may often, with advantage, be a polysybolic word.
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  Speaker 1: Thus it seems more forcible to say it is magnificent
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  Speaker 1: than it is grand. The word vast is not so
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  Speaker 1: powerful a one as stupendous. Calling a thing nasty is
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  Speaker 1: not so effective as calling it disgusting Paragraph seven. There
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  Speaker 1: seems to be several causes for this exceptional superiority of
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  Speaker 1: certain long words. We may ascribe it partly to the
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  Speaker 1: fact that a voluminous, mouth filling epithet is by its
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  Speaker 1: very size suggestive of largeness or strength. Witness the immense
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  Speaker 1: propensity of cessquidilian verbiage, and when great power or intensity
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  Speaker 1: has to be suggested, this association of ideas adds to
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  Speaker 1: the effect. A further cause may be that a word
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  Speaker 1: of several syllables admits of more emphatic articulation, and as
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  Speaker 1: emphatic articulation is a sign of emotion, the unusual impressiveness
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  Speaker 1: of the thing named is implied by it. Yet another
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  Speaker 1: cause is that a long word of which the latter
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  Speaker 1: syllables are generally inferred as soon as the first are spoken,
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  Speaker 1: allows the herrer's consciousness a longer time to dwell upon
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  Speaker 1: the quality predicated. And where as in the above case
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  Speaker 1: it is to this predicated quality that the entire attention
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  Speaker 1: is called. An advantage results from keeping it before the
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  Speaker 1: mind for an appreciable time. The reasons which we have
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  Speaker 1: given for preferring short words evidently do not hold here.
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  Speaker 1: For that, to make our generalization quite correct, we must
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  Speaker 1: say that while in certain sentences expressing strong feelings, the
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  Speaker 1: word which more especially implies that feeling, may often with
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  Speaker 1: advantage be a many syllabled or Latin one. In the
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  Speaker 1: immense majority of cases, each word serving but as a
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  Speaker 1: step to the idea embodied by the whole sentence, should,
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  Speaker 1: if possible, be a one syllabled or saxon one paragraph eight.
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  Speaker 1: Once More, that frequent cause of strength in saxon and
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  Speaker 1: other primitive words, their imitative character may be similarly resolved
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  Speaker 1: into the more general cause both those directly imitative as splash, bang,
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  Speaker 1: whiz roar, et cetera, and those analogically imitative as cough, smooth, keen, blunt, thin, hard, crag,
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  Speaker 1: et cetera, having a greater or less likeness to the
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  Speaker 1: things symbolized, and by making on the senses impressions allied
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  Speaker 1: to the ideas to be called up, they save part
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  Speaker 1: of the effort indeed to call up such ideas, and
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  Speaker 1: leave more attention to the ideas themselves paragraph nine. The
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  Speaker 1: economy of the recipient's mental energy, into which are thus
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  Speaker 1: resolved The several causes of the strength of Saxon English
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  Speaker 1: may equally be traced in the superiority of specific over
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  Speaker 1: generic words. That concrete terms produce more vivid impressions than
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  Speaker 1: abstract ones, and should, when possible, be used instead, is
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  Speaker 1: a thorough maxim of composition. As doctor Campbell says, the
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  Speaker 1: more general the terms are the picture is the fainter,
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  Speaker 1: the more special they are, tis the brighter. We should
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  Speaker 1: avoid such a sentence as in proposition, as the manners, customs,
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  Speaker 1: and amusements of a nation are cruel and barbarous, the
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  Speaker 1: regulations of their penal code will be severe, And in
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  Speaker 1: place of it we should write in proposition, as men
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  Speaker 1: delight in battles, bullfights and combats of gladiators, will they
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  Speaker 1: punish by hanging, burning, and the rack? Paragraph ten. This
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  Speaker 1: superiority of specific expressions is clearly due to a saving
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  Speaker 1: of the effort required to translate words into thoughts. As
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  Speaker 1: we do not think in generals, but in articulars, as
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  Speaker 1: whenever any class of things is referred to, we represent
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  Speaker 1: it to ourselves by calling to mind individual members of it.
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  Speaker 1: It follows that when an abstract word is used, the
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  Speaker 1: bearer or reader has to choose from his stock of
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  Speaker 1: images one or more by which he may figure to
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  Speaker 1: himself the genus mentioned. In doing this, some delay must arise,
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  Speaker 1: some force be expended, and if by employing a specific
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  Speaker 1: term an appropriate image can be at once suggested, an
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  Speaker 1: economy is achieved and a more vivid impression produced. Division III.
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  Speaker 1: The principle of economy applied to sentences paragraph eleven. Turning
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  Speaker 1: now from the choice of words to their sequence, we
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  Speaker 1: shall find the same general principle hold good. We have
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  Speaker 1: a priori reasons for believing that in every sentence there
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  Speaker 1: is some one order of words more effective than any other,
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  Speaker 1: and that this order is the one which presents the
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  Speaker 1: elements of the proposition in the succession in which they
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  Speaker 1: may be most readily put together. As in a narrative,
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  Speaker 1: the events should be stated in such sequence that the
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  Speaker 1: mind may not have to go backwards and forwards in
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  Speaker 1: order to rightly connect them, As in a group of sentences,
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  Speaker 1: the arrangement should be such, and that of them may
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  Speaker 1: be understood as it comes, without waiting for subsequent ones.
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  Speaker 1: So in every sentence, the sequence of words should be
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  Speaker 1: that which suggests the constituents of the thought in the
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  Speaker 1: order most convenient for the building up of that thought. Duly,
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  Speaker 1: to enforce this truth, and to prepare the way for
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  Speaker 1: applications of it, we must briefly inquire into the mental
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: act by which the meaning of a series of words
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  Speaker 1: is apprehended paragraph twelve. We cannot more simply do this
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  Speaker 1: than by considering the proper collocation of the substantive and adjective.
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  Speaker 1: Is it better to place the adjective before the substantive,
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  Speaker 1: or the substantive before the adjective. Ought we to say
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  Speaker 1: with the French uncheval noir, or to say as we
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  Speaker 1: do a black horse. Probably most persons of culture would
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  Speaker 1: decide that one order is as good as the other.
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  Speaker 1: Alive to the basis produced by habit, they should ascribe
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  Speaker 1: to it the preference they feel for our own form
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  Speaker 1: of expression. They would expect those educated in the use
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  Speaker 1: of the opposite form to have an equal preference for that,
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  Speaker 1: And thus they would conclude that neither of these instinctive
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  Speaker 1: judgments is of any worth. There is, however, a philosophical
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  Speaker 1: ground for deciding in favor of the English custom. If
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  Speaker 1: a horse black be the arrangement. Immediately on the utterance
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  Speaker 1: of the word horse, there arises, or tends to arise,
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  Speaker 1: in the mind a picture answering to that word. And
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  Speaker 1: as there has been nothing to indicate what kind of horse,
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  Speaker 1: any image of a horse suggests itself very likely, however,
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  Speaker 1: the image will be that of a brown horse, brown
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  Speaker 1: horse's being the most familiar. The result is that when
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  Speaker 1: the word black is added, a check is given to
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  Speaker 1: the process of thought. Either the picture of a brown horse,
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  Speaker 1: already present to the imagination, has to be suppressed and
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  Speaker 1: the picture of a black one summoned in its place,
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  Speaker 1: or else, if the picture of a brown horse be
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  Speaker 1: yet unformed, the tendency to form it has to be stopped.
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  Speaker 1: Whichever is the case, a certain amount of hindrance results.
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  Speaker 1: But if, on the other hand, a black horse be
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  Speaker 1: the expression used, no such mistake can be made. The
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  Speaker 1: word black, indicating an abstract quality, arouses no definite idea.
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  Speaker 1: It simply prepares the mind for conceiving some object of
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  Speaker 1: that color, and the attention is kept suspended until that
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  Speaker 1: object is known. If then, by the presence of the adejective,
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  Speaker 1: the idea is conveyed without liability to error, whereas the
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  Speaker 1: precedence of the substantive is apt to produce a misconception.
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  Speaker 1: It follows that the one gives the mind less trouble
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  Speaker 1: than the other, and is therefore more forcible paragraph thirteen.
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  Speaker 1: Possibly it will be objected that the adjective and substantive
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  Speaker 1: comes so close together that practically they may be considered
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  Speaker 1: as uttered in the same moment, and that on hearing
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  Speaker 1: the phrase a horse black, there is not time to
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  Speaker 1: imagine a wrongly colored horse before the word black follows.
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  Speaker 1: To prevent it, it must be owed that it is
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  Speaker 1: not easy to decide by introspection whether this is or not.
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  Speaker 1: But there are facts colitarily implying that it is not
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  Speaker 1: our ability to anticipate the words yet unspoken is one
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  Speaker 1: of them. If the ideas of the hearer kept considerably
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  Speaker 1: behind the expression of the seeker, as the objection assumes,
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  Speaker 1: he could hardly foresee the end of the sentence by
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  Speaker 1: the time it was half delivered. Yet this constantly happens.
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  Speaker 1: Where the supposition true, the mind, instead of anticipating, would
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  Speaker 1: be continually falling more and more in a rear. If
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  Speaker 1: the meanings of the words are not realized as fast
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  Speaker 1: as the words are uttered, then the loss of time
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  Speaker 1: over each word must entail such an accumulation of delays
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  Speaker 1: as to leave the hearer entirely behind. But whether the
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  Speaker 1: force of these replies be or be not admitted, it
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  Speaker 1: will scarcely be denied that the right formulation of a
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  Speaker 1: picture will be facilitated by presenting its elements in the
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  Speaker 1: order in which they are wanted, Even though the mind
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  Speaker 1: should do nothing until it has received them all paragraph fourteen.
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  Speaker 1: What is here said respecting the succession of the adjective
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  Speaker 1: and substantive is obviously applicable by change of terms to
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  Speaker 1: the adverb and verb, and without further explanation, it will
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  Speaker 1: be manifest that, in the use of prepositions and other particles,
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  Speaker 1: most languages spontaneously conform with more or less completeness to
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  Speaker 1: this law. Paragraph fifteen. On applying a like analysis to
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  Speaker 1: the larger divisions of a sentence, we find not only
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  Speaker 1: that the same principle holds good, but that the advantage
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  Speaker 1: of respecting it becomes marked. In the arrangement of predicate
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  Speaker 1: and subject. For example, we are at once shown that
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  Speaker 1: the predicate determines the aspect under which the subject is
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  Speaker 1: to be conceived, it should be placed first, and the
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  Speaker 1: striking effect produced by so placing it becomes comprehensible. Take
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  Speaker 1: the oft quoted contrast between great is Diana of the
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  Speaker 1: Ephesians and Diana of the Ephesians is great. When the
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  Speaker 1: first arrangement is used, the utterance of the word great
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  Speaker 1: arouses those vague unciations of an impressive nature with which
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  Speaker 1: it has been habitually connected, the imagination is prepared to
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  Speaker 1: clothe with high attributes whatever follows, and when the words
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: Diana of the Ephesians are heard, all the appropriate imagery
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: which can, on that instant be summoned is used in
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: the formulation of the picture, the mind being thus led
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: directly and without error to the intended impression. When, on
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: the contrary, the reverse order is followed, the idea Diana
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: of the Ephesians is conceived with no special reference to greatness,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: and when the words is great are added, the conception
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: has to be remodeled. Quence arises a loss of mental
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: energy and a corresponding diminution of effect. The following verse
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: from Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, though somewhat irregular in structure, will
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: illustrate the same truth alone alone, all all alone alone,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: on a wide, wide sea, and never a saint took
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: pity on my soul in Agony paragraph sixteen. Of course,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: the principle equally applies when the predicate is a verb
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: or a participle. And as effect is gained by placing
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: first all words indicating the quality, conduct or condition of
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: the subject, it follows that the copula also should have precedent.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: It is true that the general habit of our language
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: resists this arrangement of predicate, copula and subject, but we
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: may readily find instances of the additional force gained by
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: conforming to it. Thus, in a line from Julius Caesar,
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: he burst his mighty heart, priority is given to the word,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: embodying both predicate and copula. In a passage contained in
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: the Battle of flodden Field, the like order is systematatically
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: employed with great effect. The border slogan rent, the sky
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: a home, a gordon was the cry loud, were the
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: clanging blows advanced, forced back, now low, now high? The
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: pennon sunk and rows and bends, the barks massed in
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: the gale where rent are rigging, shrouds and sail. It
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: wavers mid the foes Paragraph seventeen. Pursuing the principle yet further,
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: it is obvious that for producing the greater effect, not
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: only should the main divisions of a sentence observe this sequence,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: but the subdivisions of these should be similarly arranged. In
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: nearly all cases, the predicate is accompanied by some limit
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: or qualification called its complement, commonly also the circumstances of
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: the subject, which form its complement have to be specified,
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: and as these qualifications and circumstances must determine the mode
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: in which the acts and things they belong to are conceived,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: precedent should be given to them. Lord Cymes notices the
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: fact that this order is preferable, though without giving the reason.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: He says, when a circumstance is placed at the beginning
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: of the period, or near the beginning, the transition from
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: it to the principal subject is agreeable. It is like
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: ascending or going upward. A sentence arranged in illustration of
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: this will be desirable. Here is one, whatever it may
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: be in theory, it is clear that in practice the
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: French idea of liberty is the right of every man
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: to be master of the rest paragraph eighteen. In this case,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: where the first two clauses up to the word I
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: practice inclusive, which qualify the subject to be placed at
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: the end instead of the beginning, much of the force
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: would be lost, and thus the French idea of liberty
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: is the right of every man to be master of
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: the rest in practice, at least, if not in theory
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: Paragraph nineteen. Similarly, with respect to the conditions under which
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: any fact is predicated, observe in the following example the
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: effect of putting them last. How immense would be the
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: stimulus to progress, were the honor now given to wealth
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: and title given exclusively to high achievements and intrinsic worth
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: paragraph twenty, And then observe the superior effect of putting
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: them first. Were the honor now given to wealth and
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: title given exclusively to high achievements and intrinsic worth, how
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: immense would be the stimulus to progress. The effect of
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: giving priority to the complement of the predicate as well
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: as the predicate itself, is finely displayed in the opening
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: of Hyperion. Deep in the shady sadness of a veil,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: far sunken from the healthy breath of morn, far from
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: the fiery noon, and aves one star a sat gray
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: haired Saturn, quiet as a stone. Here it will be
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: observed not only that the predicate sat precedes the subject Saturn,
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: and that the three lines in italics constitute the complement
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: of the predicate come before it, but that in the
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: structure of the compliment also the same order is followed,
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: each line being so arranged that the qualifying words are
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: placed before the words suggesting concrete images. Paragraph twenty two.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: The right succession of the principal and subordinate propositions in
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: a sentence manifestly depends on the same law regard for
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: economy of the recipient's attention, which, as we find, determines
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: the best order for the subject. Copula, predicate and their
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: compliments dictates that the subordinate proposition shall precede the principle
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: one when the sentence includes two containing as the subordinate
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: proposition does some qualifying or explanatory idea, its priority prevents
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: misconception of the principal one, and therefore saves the mental
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: effort needed to correct such misconception. This will be seen
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: in the next example. The secrecy, once maintained in respect
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: to the parliamentary debates, is still thought needful in diplomacy,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: and in virtue of this secret diplomacy, England may any
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: day be unawares betrayed by its ministers into a war
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: costing one hundred thousand lives and hundreds of millions of treasure.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: Yet the English pique themselves on being a self governed people.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: The two subordinate propositions, ending with the semicolon and colon, respectively,
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: almost wholly determine the meaning of the principal proposition with
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: which it concludes, and the effect would be lost were
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: they placed last instead of first. Paragraph twenty three. The
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: general principle of right arrangement in sentences, which we have
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: traced in its application to the leading divisions of them,
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: equally determines the proper order of their minor divisions. In
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: any sentence of any complexity, That complement to the subject
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: contains several clauses, and that to the predicate several others,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: and these may be arranged in greater or less conformity
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: to the law of easy apprehension. Of course, with these,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: as with the larger members, the succession would be from
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: the least specific to the more specific, from the abstract
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: to the concrete. Paragraph twenty four. Now, however, we must
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: notice a further condition to be fulfilled in the proper
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: construction of a sentence, but still a condition dictated by
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: the same general principle with the other. The condition, namely
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: that the words and expressions most nearly related in thought
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: thought shall be brought the closest together. Eventually, the single words,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: the minor clauses, and the leading divisions of every proposition
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: severally qualify each other. The longer the time that elapses
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: between the mention of any qualifying member and the member qualified.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: The longer must the mind be exerted in carrying forward
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: the qualifying member ready for use, and the more numerous
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: the qualifications to be simultaneously remembered and rightly applied, the
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: greater will be the mental power expended, and the smaller
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: the effort produced. Hence, other things, equal force will be
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: gained by so arranging the members of a sentence, that
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: these suspensions shall, at any moment be the fewest in number,
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: and shall also be of the shortest duration. The following
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: is an instance of defective combination. A modern newspaper statement,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: though probably true, would be laughed at if quote in
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: a book as testimony, But the letter of a court
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: gossip is thought good historical evidence if written some centuries ago.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: A rearrangement of this in accordance with the principle indicated
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: above will be found to increase the effect. Thus, though
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: probably true, a modern newspaper statement quoted in a book
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: as testimony, would be laughed at, but the letter of
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: a court gossip, if written some centuries ago, is thought
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: good historical evidence. Paragraph twenty five. By making this change,
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: some of the suspensions are avoided and others shortened, while
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: there is less liability to produce premature conceptions. The passage
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: quoted below from Paradise Lost affords a fine instance of
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: a sentence well arranged, alike in the priority of the
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: subordinate members, in the avoidance of long and numerous suspensions,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: and in the correspondence between the order of the clauses
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: and the sequence of the phenomenon described, which, by the way,
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: is a further prerequisite to easy comprehension and therefore to effect.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: As when a prowling wolf whom hunger drives to seek
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: new haunt for prey watching, where shepherds bend their flocks
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: at eye in hurtled coats amid the field secure leaps
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: o'er the fence with ease into the fold. Or as
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: a thief bent to unhoard the cash of some rich
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: burgher whose substantial doors cross barred and bolted fast fear
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: no assault in at the window, climbs or eir the tiles,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: so clumb his first grand thief into God's fold, so
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: scents into his church leude hirelings climb Paragraph twenty six.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: The habitual use of sentences in which all or most
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: of the descriptive and limiting elements precede those described and limited,
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: gives rise to what is called an inverted style, a
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: title which is, however, by no means confused to its structure,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: but is often used where the order of the words
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: is simply unusual. A more appropriate title would be the
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: direct style, as contrasted with the other or indirect style,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: the peculiarity of the one being that it conveys each
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: thought into the mind step by step, with little liability
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: to error, and the other that it gets the right
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: thought conceived by a series of approximations paragraph twenty seven.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: The superiority of the direct over the indirect form of
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: sentence implied by the several conclusions that have been drawn,
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: must not, however, be affirmed without reservation. Though up to
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: a certain point, it is well for the qualifying clauses
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: of a period to precede those qualified. Yet as carried forward,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: each qualifying clause costs some mental life effort. It follows
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: that when the number of them and the time they
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: are carried become great, we reach a limit beyond which
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: more is lost than is gained. Other things equal, the
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: arrangement should be such that no concrete image shall be
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: suggested until the materials out of which it is to
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: be made have been presented. And Yet, as lately pointed out,
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: other things equal, the fewer the materials to be held
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: at once, and the shorter the distance they have to
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: be borne, the better. Hence, in some cases it becomes
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: a question whether most mental effort will be entailed by
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: the many and long suspensions, or by the correction of
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: successive misconceptions. End of Part one, Section one. The Philosophy
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: of Style, Part one, Section two. This is a LibriVox recording.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. The
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: Philosophy of Style by Herbert Spencer, Part one Causes of
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: force in language which depend upon economy of the mental
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: energies Section two, paragraph twenty eight. This question may sometimes
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: be decided by considering the capacity of the persons addressed.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: A greater grasp of mind is required for the ready
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: comprehension of thoughts expressed in the direct manner, where the
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: sentences are anywhere intricate. To recollect a number of preliminaries
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: stated in elucidation of a coming idea, and to apply
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: them all to the formation of it when suggested, demands
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: a good memory and considerable power of concentration. To one
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: possessing these, the direct method will mostly seem the best,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: while to one deficient in them, it will seem the worst.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: Just as it may cost a strong man less effort
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: to carry a hundred weight from place to place at
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: once than by a stone at a time, so to
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: an active mind it may be easier to hear along
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: all the qualifications of an idea and at once rightly
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: form it when named, than to first imperfectly conceive such
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: idea and then carry back to it one by one
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: the details and limitations afterward mentioned. While conversely, as for
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: a boy, the only possible mode of transferring a hundred
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: weight is that of taking it in proportions, so for
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: a weak mind the only possible mode of forming a
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: compound conception may be that of building it up by
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: carrying separately its several parts. Paragraph twenty nine. That the
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: indirect method, the method of conveying the meaning by a
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: series of approximations, is best fitted for the uncultivated, may
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: indeed be inferred from their habitual use of it. The
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: form of expression adopted by the savage, as in water
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: give me, is the simplest type of the approximate arrangement.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: In pleonyms, which are comparatively prevalent among the uneducated, the
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: same essential structure is seen, as for instance, in the
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: men they were there again, the old possessive case the
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: king his crown conforms to the like order of thought. Moreover,
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: the fact that the indirect mode is called the natural
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: one implies that it is the one spontaneously employed by
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: the common people, that is the one easiest for undisciplined
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: minds paragraph thirty. There are many cases, however, in which
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: neither the direct nor the indirect structure is the best,
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: but where an intermediate structure is preferable to both. When
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: the number of circumstances and qualifications to be included in
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: the sentence is great, the most judicious course is neither
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: to enumerate them all before introducing the idea to which
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: they belong, nor to put this idea first and let
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: it be remodeled to agree with the particulars afterward mentioned,
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: but to do a little of each. Take a case,
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: it is desirable to avoid so extremely indirect an arrangement,
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: as the following we came to our journey's end at last,
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: with no small difficulty, after much fatigue, through deep roads
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: and bad weather. Yet to transform this into an entirely
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: direct sentence would not produce a satisfactory effect, as witness,
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: at last, with no small difficulty, after much fatigue, through
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: deep roads and bad weather, we came to our journey's end.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: Paragraph thirty one. Doctor Whiteley, from whom we quote the
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: first of these two arrangements, proposes this construction. At last,
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: after much fatigue, through deep roads in bad weather, we
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: came with no small difficulty to our journey's end. Here
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: it will be observed that by introducing the words we
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: came a little earlier in the sentence, the labor of
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: carrying forward so many particulars is diminished, and the subsequent
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: qualifications with no small difficulty entails an addition to the
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: thought that is very easily made. But a further improvement
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: may be produced by introducing the words we came still earlier,
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: especially if at the same time the qualifications be rearranged
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: in conformity with the principle already explained that the more
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: abstract elements of the thought should come before the more
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: concrete observe the better effect obtained by making these two arrangements,
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: at least with no small difficulty, and after much fatigue,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: we came through deep roads and bad weather to our
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: journey's end. This reads with comparative smoothness, that is, with
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: less hindrance from suspensions and reconstructions of thought, with less
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: mental effort paragraph thirty two. Before dismissing this branch of
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: our subject, it should be further remarked that even when
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: addressing the most vigorous intellects, the direct style is unfit
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: for communicating ideas of a complex or abstract character. So
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: long as the mind has not much to do, it
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: may be well able to grasp all the preparatory clauses
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: of a sentence and to use them effectively. But if
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: some subtlety in the argument absorb the attention, if every
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: faculty be strained in endeavoring to catch the speaker's or
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: writer's drift, it may happen that the mind, unable to
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: carry on both processes at once, will break down and
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: allow the elements of the thought to lapse into confusion.
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: Division four. The principle of economy applied to figures paragraph
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: thirty three. Turning now to consider figures of speech, we
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: may equally discern the same general law of effect. Underlying
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: all the rules given for the choice and right use
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: of them, we shall find the same fundamental requirement economy
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: of attention. It is indeed, chiefly because they so well
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: subserve this requirement, that figures of speech are employed to
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: bring the mind more easily to the desired conception, is
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: in many cases solely, and in all cases mainly their object.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: Paragraph thirty four. Let us begin with the figure called snictochi.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: The advantage sometimes gained by putting a part for the
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: whole is due to the more convenient, more accurate presentation
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: of the idea. If instead of saying a fleet of
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: ten ships, we say a fleet of ten sail, the
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: picture of a group of vessels at sea is more
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: readily suggested, and is so because the sails constitute the
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: most conspicuous part of the vessels so circumstanced, whereas the
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: word ships would very likely remind us of vessels in dock. Again,
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: to say all hands to the pumps is better than
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: to say all men to the pumps, as it suggests
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: the men in the special attitude intended, and so saves effort.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: Bringing gray hairs with sorrows to the grave is another expression,
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: the effect of which has the same cause paragraph thirty five.
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: The occasional increase of force produced by metonymy may be
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: similarly accounted for. The low morality of the bar is
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: a phrase more brief and significant than the literal one.
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: It stands for a belief in the ultimate supremacy of
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: intelligence over brute force. Is conveyed in a more concrete
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: and therefore more realizable form if we substitute the pen
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: and thus ord for two abstract terms. To say be
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: aware of drinking is less effective than to say beware
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: of the bottle, and is so clearly because it calls
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: up a less specific image paragraph thirty six. The simile
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: is in many cases used chiefly with a view to ornament,
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: but whenever it increases the force of a passage, it
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: does so by being an economy. Here is an instance.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: The illusion that great men and great events came oftener
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: in the early times than now is partly due to
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: historical perspective. As in a range of equidistant columns, the
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: furthest off look the closest, so the conspicuous objects of
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: the past seem more thickly clustered the more remote they
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: are paragraph thirty seven. To construct by a process of
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: literal explanation, the thought thus conveyed would take many sentences,
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: and the first elements of the picture would become faint
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: while the imagination was busy in adding the the others.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: But by the help of a comparison, all effort is saved,
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: and the picture is instantly recognized and its full effect produced.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: Paragraph thirty eight. Of the position of the simile, it
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: needs only to remark that what has been said respecting
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: the order of the adjective and substantive, predicate and subject,
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: principal and subordinate propositions, et cetera, is applicable here, as
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: whatever qualifies should precede whatever is qualified. Force will generally
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: be gained by placing the simile before the object to
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: which it is applied. That this arrangement is the best
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: may be seen by the following passage from the Lady
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: of the Lake. As wreath of snow on mountain breast
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: slides from the rock that gave it rest, poor Ellen
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: glided from her stay, and at the monarch's feet she
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: lay inverting these couplets will be found to diminish the
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: effect considerably. There are cases, however, even where the simile
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: is a simple one, in which it may, with advantage,
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: be placed last, as in these lines from Alexander Smith's
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: Life Drama, I see the future stretch all dark and
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: barren as a rainy sea. The reason for this seems
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: to be that so abstract an idea, as that attaching
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: to the word future does not present itself to the
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: mind in any definite form, and hence the subsequent arrival
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: of the simile entails no reconstruction of the thought paragraph
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: thirty nine. Such however, are not the only cases in
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: which this order is the most forcible. As the advantage
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: of putting the simile before the object depends on its
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: being carried forward in the mind to assist in forming
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: an image of the object. It must happen that if
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: from length or complexity it cannot be so carried forward,
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: the advantage is not gained. The next sonnet by Coleridge
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: is defective from this cause, as when a child, on
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: some long winter's night, affrighted clinging to its grandma's knees
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: with eager wondering and perturbed delight listens strange tales of
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: fearful dark decrees muttered to wretch by necromatic spell. Or
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: those hags who, at the witching time of murky midnight,
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: ride the air sublime and mingle foul embrace with friends
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: of hell. Cold horror drinks its blood. Anon the tear
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: more gentle starts to hear the bedlam tell of pretty
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: babes that loved each other, deer murdered by cruel uncle's
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: mandate fell even such the shivering joys thy tones impart,
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: even so thou siddons melt my sad heart paragraph forty Here,
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: from the lapse of time and accumulation of circumstances, the
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: first part of the comparison is forgotten before its application
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: is reached, and requires re reading. Had the main idea
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: been first mentioned, less effort would have been required to
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: retain it and to modify the conception of it into
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: harmony with the comparison, than to remember the comparison and
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: refer back to its successive features for help in forming
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: the final image. Paragraph forty one. The superiority of the
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: metaphor to the simile, as ascribed by doctor Whately, to
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: the fact that all men are more gratified at catching
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: the resemblance for themselves than in having it pointed out
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: to them. But after what has been said, the great
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: economy it achieves will seem the more probable cause Lear's explanation,
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: ingratitude Thou marble hearted fiend, would lose part of its
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: effect were it changed into ingratitude, thou fiend with heart
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: like marble, and the loss would result partly from the
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: position of the simile, and partly from the extra number
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: of words required. When the comparison is an involved one,
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: the greater force of the metaphor, consequent on its greater brevity,
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: becomes much more conspicuous. If drawing an analogy between mental
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: and physical phenomena, we say, as in passing through the crystal,
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: beams of white light are decomposed into the colors of
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: the rainbow, so in traversing the soul of the poet,
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: the colorless rays of truth are transformed into brightly tinted poetry.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: It is clear that in receiving the double set of
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: words expressing the two halves of the comparison, and in
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: carrying the one half to the other, considerable attention is absorbed.
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: Most of This is saved, however, by putting the comparison
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: in a metaphorical form. Thus, the white light of truth
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: in traversing the many sided, transparent soul of the poet
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: is refracted into iris hued Poetryaragraph forty two. How much
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: is conveyed in a few words by the help of
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: the metaphor, and how vivid the effect consequently produced may
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: be abundantly exemplified from a life drama, may be quoted
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: the phrase I speared him with a jest, and as
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: a fine instance among the many which that poem contains.
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: A passage in the Prometheus Unbound of Shelley displays the
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: power of the metaphor to great advantage. Me thought among
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: the lawns together we wandered underneath the young gray dawn,
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: and multitudes of dense, white, fleecy clouds were wandering in
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: thick flocks along the mountains, shepherded by the slow, unwilling wind.
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: This last expression is remarkable for the distinctness with which
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: it realizes the features of the scene, bringing the mind,
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: as it were, by a bound to the desired conception
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: Paragraph forty three. But a limit is put to the
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: advantageous use of the metaphor by the condition that it
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: must be sufficiently simple to be understood from a hint. Evidently,
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: if there is any obscurity in the meaning or application
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: of it, no economy of attention will be gained, but
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: rather the reverse. Hence, when the comparison is complex, it
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: is usual to have recourse to the simile. There is, however,
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: a species of figure, sometime classed under allegory, which might
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: perhaps be better called compound metaphor, that enables us to
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: retain the brevity of the metaphorical form, even where the
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: analogy is intricate. This is done by indicating the application
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: of the figure at the outset, and then leaving the
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: mind to continue the parallel. Emerson has employed it with
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: great effect in the first of his lectures on the Times.
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: The main interest which any aspects of the times can
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: have for us is the great Spirit which gazes through them,
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: the light which they can shed on the one wonderful questions,
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: What are we and whither we tend? Do we not
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: wish to be deceived? Here? We drift like white sail
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: across the wild ocean, how bright on the wave now
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: darkling in the trough of the sea. But from what
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: port did we sail? Who knows? Or to what port
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: are we bound? Who knows? There is no one to
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: tell us, but such poor weather tossed mariners as ourselves,
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: whom we speak as we pass, or who have hoisted
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: some signal or floated to us some letter in a
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: bottle from afar. But what know they more than we?
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: They also found themselves on this wondrous sea, know from
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: the older sailors nothing over all their speaking trumpets the
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: gray sea, and the loud wind's answer, not in us,
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: not in time paragraph forty four. The division of the
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: similarly from the metaphor is by no means a definite
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: one between the one extreme in which the two elements
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: of the comparison are detailed at full length and the
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: analogy pointed out. The other extreme, in which the comparison
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: is implied instead of stated. Come intermediate forms in which
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: the comparison is partly stated and partly implied. For instance,
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: astonished at the performances of the English plow the Hindus painted,
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: set it up and worship it, thus turning a tool
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: into an idol. Linguists do the same with language. There
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: is an evident advantage in leaving the reader to hear
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: or complete the figure, and generally these intermediate forms are
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: good in proportion as they do this, provided the mode
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: of completing it be obvious Paragraph forty five, passing over
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: much that may be said of like purport, upon hyperbol personification, apostrophe,
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: et cetera. Let us close our remarks upon construction by
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: a typical example. The general principle which has been enunciated
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: is that, other things equal, the force of all verbal
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: forms and arrangements is greater in proportion as the time
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: and mental effort they demand from the recipient is small.
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: The corollaries from this general principle have been severally illustrated,
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: and it has been shown that the relative goodness of
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: any two modes of expressing an idea may be determined
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: by observing, which requires the shortest process of thought for
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: its comprehension. But though conformity in particular points has been exemplified,
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: no cases of complete conformity have yet been quoted. It
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: is indeed difficult to find them, for the English idiom
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: does not commonly permit the order which theory dictates. A few, however,
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: occur in Ossian Here is one as autumn's dark storms
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: pour from two echoing hills, so toward each other approached
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: the heroes as two dark streams from high rocks meet
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: and mix the roar on the plain, loud, rough and dark.
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: In battle, meet lochan and insphil as the troubled noise
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: of the ocean, when roll the waves on high as
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: the last peal of the thunder of heaven, such is
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: noise of the battle paragraph forty six. Except in the
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: position of the verb in the first two similes, the
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: theoretically best arrangement is fully carried out in each of
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: these sentences. The simile comes before the qualified image, the adjectives,
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: before the substantives, the predicate and copula before the subject,
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: and their respective compliments before them. That the passage is
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: open to the charge of being bombastic proves nothing, or
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: rather proves our case for what is bombast But a
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: force of expression too great for the magnitude of the
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: idea is embodied. All that may rightly be inferred is
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: that only in very rare cases, and then only to
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: produce a climax, should all the conditions of effective expression
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: be fulfilled. Division five, suggesting a means of economy paragraph
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: forty seven, passing on to a more complex application of
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: the doctrine with which we set out, It must now
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: be remarked that not only in the structure of sentences
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: and the use of figures of speech may economy of
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: the recipient's mental energy be assigned as the cause of force,
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: but that in the choice and arrangement of the minor
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: images out of which some large thought is to be
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: built up, we may trace the condition to effect. To
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: select from the sentiment seen or event described, whose typical
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: elements which carry many others along with them, And so
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: by saying a few things but suggesting many to abridge
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: the description is the secret of producing a vivid impression.
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: An extract from Tennyson's Marianna will well illustrate this. All
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: day within the dreamy house, the door upon the hinges creaked,
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: the blue fly sung i the pane, the mouse behind
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: the moldering wainscot shrieked, or from the crevice peered about
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: paragraph forty eight. Several circumstances here specified bring them many
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: appropriate associations. Our attention is rarely drawn by the buzzing
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: of a fly in a window, save when everything is
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: still while the inmates are moving about the house. Mice
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: usually keeps silent, and it is only when extreme quietness
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: rains that they peep from their retreats. Hence, each of
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: the facts mentioned, presupposing numerous others, calls up with more
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: or less distinctness, and revives the feeling of dull solitude
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: with which they are connected. In our experience. Were all
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: these facts detailed in instead of suggested, the attention would
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: be so frittered away that little impression of dreariness could
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: be produced. Similarly, in other cases, whatever the nature of
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: the thought to be conveyed, this skillful selection of a
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: few particulars, which imply the rest, is the key to success.
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: In the choice of component ideas, as in the choice
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: of expressions, the aim must be to convey the greatest
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: quantity of thoughts with the smallest quantity of words paragraph
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: forty nine. The same principle may in some cases be
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: advantageously carried yet further by indirectly suggesting some entirely distinct
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: thought in addition to the one expressed. Thus, if we
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: say the head of a good classic is as full
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: of ancient myths as that of a servant girl of
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: ghost stories, it is manifest that, besides the fact asserted,
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: there is an implied opinion respecting the small value of
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: classic knowledge, and as this implied opinion is recognized much
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: sooner than it can be put into words, there is
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: gain in omitting it. In other cases, again, great effect
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: is produced by an overt omission, provided the nature of
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: the idea left out is obvious. A good instance of
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: this occurs in heroes and hero worship. After describing the
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: way in which Burns was sacrificed to the idle curiosity
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: of lion hunters, people who came not out of sympathy
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: but merely to see him, people who sought a little amusement,
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: and who got their amusement while the hero's life went
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: for it, Carlile suggests a parallel. Thus, Richter says, in
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: the island of Sumatra there is a kind of light chafers,
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: large fireflies, which people stick upon spits and illuminate the
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: ways with at night. Persons of condition can thus travel
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: with a pleasant radiance which they much admire. Great honor
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: to the fireflies. But Division six the effect of poetry
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: explained paragraph fifty, before inquiring whether the law of effect
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: thus far traced explains the superiority of poetry to pose,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: it will be needful to notice some supplementary causes of
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: force in expression that have not yet been mentioned. These
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: are not, properly speaking, additional causes, but rather secondary ones
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: obtaining from those already specified reflex results of them in
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: the first place. Then we may remark that mental excitement
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: spontaneously prompts the use of those forms of speech which
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: have been pointed out as the most effective. Out with him,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: Away with him are the natural utterances of angry citizens
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: at a disturbed meeting. A voyager describing a terrible storm
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: he had witnessed would rise to some such climate acts
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: as crack went the ropes and down went the masts.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: Astonishment may be heard expressed in the phrase never was
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: there such a sight? All of which sentences are it
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: will be observed constructed after the direct type. Again, everyone
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: knows that excited persons are given to figures of speech.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: The divittribution of the vulgar abounds with them, often indeed
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: consists of little else beast, brute gallows, rogue, cutthroat villains.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: These and other like metaphors and metaphorical epithets at once
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: called to mind a street quarrel. Further, it may be
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: noticed that the extreme brevity is another characteristic of passionate language.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: The sentences are generally incomplete, the particles are omitted, and
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: frequently important words are left to be gathered from the context.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: Great admiration does not vent itself in a precise proposition
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: as it is beautiful, but in the simple exclaim beautiful.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: He who, when reading a lawyer's letter, would say vile
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: rascal would be thought angry, while he is a vile
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: rascal would imply comparative coolness. Thus we see that alike
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: in the order of the words, in the frequent use
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: of figures, and in extreme conciseness, the natural utterances of
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: excitement conform to the theoretical conditions of forcible expression paragraph
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: fifty one. Hence, when the higher forms of speech acquire
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: a secondary strength from association, having in actual life habitually
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: heard them in connection with vivid mental impressions, and having
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: been accustomed to meet them in the most powerful writing,
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: they come to have in themselves a species of force.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: The emotions that have from time to time been produced
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: by the strong thoughts wrapped up in these forms are
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: partly aroused by the forms themselves. They create a certain
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: degree of animation, They induce a preparatory sympathy, and when
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: the striking ideas looked for are reached, they are the
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: more vividly realized paragraph fifty two. The continuous use of
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: these modes of expression, that are alike forcible in themselves
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: and forcible from their associations, produces the peculiarly impressive species
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: of composition which we call poetry. Poetry we shall find
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: habitually adopts these symbols of thought and those methods of
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: using them, which instinct and analysis agree in choosing as
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: the most effective, and becomes poetry by virtue of doing this.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: On turning back to the various specimens that have been quoted,
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: it will be seen that the direct or inverted form
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: of sentence predominates in them, and that to a degree,
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: while inadmissible in prose, and not only in the frequency,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: but in what is termed the violence of the inversions.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: Will this distinction be remarked in the abundant use of
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: figures Again, we may recognize the same truth. Metaphors, similes, hyperboles,
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: and personifications are the poet's colors, which he has liberty
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: to employ almost without limit. We characterize as poetical the
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: prose which uses these appliances of language with any frequency,
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: and condemn it as overfloorid or affected long before they occur,
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: with the profusion allowed in verse. Further, let it be
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: remarked that in brevity, the other requisite of forcible expression
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: which theory points out and emotion spontaneously fulfills. Poetical phraseology
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: similarly differs from ordinary phraseology. Imperfect periods are frequent, illusions
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: are perpetual, and many of the minor words which would
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: be deemed essential in prose are dispensed with paragraph fifty three. Thus,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: poetry regarded as a vehicle of thought is essentially impressive,
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: partly because it obeys all the laws of effective speech,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: and partly because in so doing it imitates the natural
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: utterances of excitement. While the matter embodied is idealized emotion,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: the vehicle is the idealized language of emotion. As the
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: musical composer catches the cadence in which our feelings of
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: joy and sympathy, grief and despair vent themselves, and out
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: of these germs evolves melodies suggesting higher phases of these feelings.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: So the poet develops from the typical expressions in which
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: men utter passion and sentiment, those choice forms of verbal
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: combination in which concentrated passion and sentiment may be fitly
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: presented paragraph fifty four. There is one peculiarity of poetry,
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: conducing much to its effect. The peculiarity, which is indeed
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: usually thought its characteristic one, still remaining to be considered.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: We mean its rhythmical structure. Thus improbable, though it seems,
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: will be found to come under the same generalization with
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: the others. Like each of them, it is an idealization
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: of the natural language of strong emotion, which is known
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: to be more or less metrical if the emotion be
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: not too violent, And like each of them, it is
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: an economy of the reader's or hearer's attention in the
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: particular tone and manner we adopt in uttering, versified language
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: may be discerned. Its relationship to the feelings and the
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: pleasure which its measured movement gives us is ascribable to
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: the comparative ease with which words metrically arranged can be recognized.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: Paragraph fifty five. This last position will scarcely be at
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: once admitted, but a little explanation will show its reasonableness.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: For if as we have seen there is an expenditure
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: of mental energy in the mere act of listening to
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: verbal articulations, or in that silent repetition of them which
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: goes on in reading. If the perceptive facilities must be
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: in active exercise to identify every syllable, then any mode
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: of so combining words as to present a regular recurrence
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: of certain traits which the mind can anticipate, will diminish
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: that strain upon the attention required by the total irregularity
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: of prose. Just as the body, in receiving a series
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: of varying concussions must keep the muscles ready to meet
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: the most violent of them, as not knowing when such
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: may come, so the mind in receiving unarranged articulations must
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: keep its perspectives active enough to recognize the least easily
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: caught sounds. And as if the concussions recur with a
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: definite order, the body may husband its forces by adjusting
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: the resistance needful for each concussion. So if the syllables
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: be rhythmically arranged, the mind may economize its energies by
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: anticipating the attention required for each syllable. Paragraph fifty six
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: far fetched, though this idea will perhaps be thought a
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: little introspection will continance it that we do take advantage
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: of metrical language to adjust our perspective facilities to the
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: force of the expected articulations. Is clear from the fact
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: that we are balked by halting versification. Much as the
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: bottom of a flight of stairs a step more or
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: less than we counted upon gives us a shock, so
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: too does a misplaced accent or a supernumerary syllable. In
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: the one case, we know that there is an erroneous preadjustment,
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: and we can scarcely doubt that there is one in
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: the other. But if we habitually preadjust our perceptions to
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: the measured movement of verse, the physical analogy above given
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: renders it probable that by so doing we economize attention,
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: and hence that metrical language is more effective than prose,
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: because it enables us to do this paragraph fifty seven.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: Were there space, it might be worth while to inquire
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: whether the pleasure we take in rhyme, and also that
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: which we take in euphemy are not partly ascribable to
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: the same general cause. End of Part one, Section two.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: End of Part one The Philosophy of Style, Part two.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. The Philosophy of Style by Herbert Spencer,
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: Part two. Causes of force in language which depend upon
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: economy in the mental sensibilities division, ie. The law of
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: mental exhaustion and repair, paragraph fifty eight. A few paragraphs
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: only can be devoted to a second division of our
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: subject that here presents itself to pursue and detail. The
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: law of effect as applying to the larger features of
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: composition would carry us beyond our limits. But we may
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: briefly indicate a further aspect of the general principle, hitherto
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: traced out, and hint a few of its wider applications
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: paragraph fifty nine. Thus far, then we have considered only
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: those causes of force in language which depend upon economy
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: of the mental energies. We have now to glance at
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: those which depend upon economy of the mental sensibilities. Questionable
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: though this division may be as a psychological one, it
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: will yet serve roughly to indicate the remaining field of investigation.
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: It will suggest that, besides considering the extent to which
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: any faculty or group of faculties is tasked in receiving
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: a form of words and realizing its contained idea, we
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: have to consider the state in which this faculty or
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: group of faculties is left, and how the reception of
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: subsequent sentences and images will be influenced by that state.
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: Without going at length into so wide a topic as
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: the exercise of faculties and its reactive effects, it will
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: be sufficient here to call to mind that every faculty,
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: when in a state of normal activity, is most capable
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: at the outset, and that the change in its condition,
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: which ends in what we term exhaustion, begins simultaneously with
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: its exercise. This generalization, with which we are all familiar
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: in our bodily experiences, and which our daily language recognizes
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: as true of the mind as a whole, is equally
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: true of each mental power, from the simplest of the
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: senses to the most complex of the sentiments. If we
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: hold a flower to the nose for long, we become
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: insensible to its scent. We say of a very brilliant
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: flash of lightning that it blinds us, which means that
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: our eyes have for a time lost their ability to
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: perceive light. After eating a quantity of honey, we are
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: apt to think our tea is without sugar. The phrase
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: a deafening roar implies that men find a very loud
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: sound temporarily incapacitates them for hearing faint ones to a
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: hand which has for some time carried a heavy body,
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: small bodies, afterwards lift seem to have lost their weight.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: Now the truth, at once recognized in these its extreme manifestations,
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: may be traced throughout. It may be shown that, alike
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: in the reflective faculties, in the imagination, in the perceptions
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: of the beautiful, in the ludicrous, the sublime, in the sentiments,
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: the instincts, in all the mental powers, however, we may
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: classify them action exhausts, and that in proportion as the
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: action is violent, the subsequent prostration is great paragraph sixty.
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: Equally throughout the whole nature may be traced the law
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: that exercised facilities are ever tending to resume their original state.
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: Not only after continued rest do they regain their full power,
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: but only do brief secessions partially reinvigorate them. But even
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: while they are in action, the resulting exhaustion is ever
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: being neutralized. The two processes of waste and repair go
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: on together, hence with facilities habitually exercised as the senses
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: of all persons or the muscles of anyone who is strong.
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: It happens that during moderate activity, the repair is so
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: nearly equal to the waste that the diminution of power
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: is scarcely appreciable. And it is only when the activity
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: has been long continued or has been very violent, that
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: the repair becomes so far in a rear of the
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: waste as to produce a perceptible prostration. In all cases, however,
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: when by the action of a faculty, waste has been incurred,
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: some lapse of time must take place before full efficiency
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: can be reacquired, and this time must be long in
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: proportion as the waste has been great. Division two. Explanation
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: of climat antithesis and anticlimax, paragraph sixty one. Keeping in
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: mind these general truths, we shall be in a condition
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: to understand certain causes of effect in composition. Now to
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: be considered every perception received in every conception realized entailing
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: some amount of waste, or, as Liebig would say, some
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: change of matter in the brain, and the efficiency of
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: the faculties subject to this waste being thereby temporary, though
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: often but momentarily diminished. The resulting partial inability must affect
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: the acts of perception and conception that immediately succeed, and
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: hence we may expect that the vividness with which images
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: are realized will in many cases depend on the order
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: of their presentation, even when one order is as convenient
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: to the understanding as the other paragraph sixty two. There
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: are sundry facts which all illustrate this and are explained
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: by it. Climax is one of them. The marked effect
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: obtained by placing last the most striking of any series
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: of images, and the weakness, often the ludicrous weakness, produced
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: by reversing this arrangement depends on the general law indicated
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: as immediately after looking at the sun, we cannot perceive
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: the light of a fire, while by looking at the
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: fire first and the sun afterwards, we can perceive both.
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: So after receiving a brilliant or weighty or terrible thought,
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: we cannot appreciate a less brilliant, less weighty, or less
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: terrible one, while by reversing the order we can appreciate each.
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: In antithesis. Again, we may recognize the same general truth
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: the opposition of two thoughts that are the reverse of
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: each other in some prominent trait insures an impressive effect,
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: and does this by giving a momentary relaxation to the
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: faculties addressed. If, after a series of images of an
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: ordinary character appealing in one moderate degree to the sentiment
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: of reverence or approbation or beauty, the mind has resented
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: to it a very insignificant, a very unworthy, or a
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: very ugly image, the faculty of reverence or approbation, or beauty,
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: as the case may be, having for the time nothing
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: to do, tends to resume its full power, and will
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: immediately afterwards appreciate a vast, admirable or beautiful image better
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: than it would otherwise do. Conversely, where the idea of
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: absurdity due to extreme insignificance is to be pronounced, it
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: may greatly intensify by placing it after something highly impressive,
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: especially if the form of phrase implies that something still
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: more impressive is coming paragraph sixty three. Thus we see
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: that the phenomena of climax antithesis and anticlimax alike result
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: from this general principle. Improbable as these momentary variations in
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: susceptibility may seem, we cannot doubt their occurrence when we
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: contemplate the analogous variations in the susceptibility of the senses.
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: Referring once more to phenomena of vision, everyone knows that
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: a patch of black on a white ground looks blacker,
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: and a patch of white on a black ground looks
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: whiter than elsewhere as the blackness and the whiteness must
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: really be the same. The only assignable cause for this
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: is a difference in their actions upon us, dependent upon
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: the different states of our faculties. It is simply a
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: visual antithesis Division three, need of variety, paragraph sixty four.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: But this extension of the general principle of economy, this
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: further condition to the effective composition that the sensitiveness of
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: the faculties must be continuously husband includes much more than
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: has been yet hinted. It implies not only that certain
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: arrangements and certain juxtapositions of connected ideas are best, but
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: that some modes of dividing and presenting a subject will
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: be more striking than others, and that too, irrespective of
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: its logical cohesion. It shows why we must progress from
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: the less interesting to the more interesting, and why not
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: only the composition as a whole, but each of its
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: successive proportions should tend towards a climax. At the same time,
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: it forbids long continuity of the same kind of thought,
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: or repeated production of like effects. It warns us against
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: the error committed both by Pope in his poems and
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: by Bacon in his essays, the error, namely of consistently
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: employing forcible forms of expression. And it points out that
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: as the easiest posture by and by becomes fatiguing, and
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: is with pleasure exchanged for one less easy, so the
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: most perfectly constructed sentences will soon weary, and relief will
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: be given by using those of an inferior kind paragraph
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: sixty five. Further, we may infer from it not only
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: that we should avoid generally combining our words in one manner,
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: however good, or working out our figures and illustrations in
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: one way, however telling, but that we should avoid anything
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: like uniform adherents, even to the wider conditions of effect.
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: We should not make every section of our subjects progress
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: in interest. We should not always rise to a climax.
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: As we saw that in single sentences, it is but
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: rarely allowed to fulfill all the conditions to strength. So
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: in the larger sections of a composition we must not
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: often conform entirely to the law indicated. We must subordinate
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: the component effect to the total effect paragraph sixty six.
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: In deciding how tactically to carry out the principles of
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: artistic composition, we may derive help by bearing in mind
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: a fact already pointed out the fitness of certain verbal
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: arrangements for certain kinds of thought. That consistent variety in
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: the mode of presenting ideas which the theory demands, will
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: in a great degree result from a skillful adaptation of
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: the form to the matter. We saw how the direct
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: or inverted sentence is spontaneously used by excited people, and
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: how their language is also characterized by figures of speech
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: and by extreme brevity. Hence, these may, with advantage, predominate
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: in emotional passages and may increase as the emotion rises.
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: On the other hand, for complex ideas, the indirect sentence
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: seems to be the best vehicle in conversation. The excitement
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: produced by the near approach to a desired conclusion will
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: often show itself in a series of short, sharp sentences,
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: while in impressing a view already enunciated. We generally make
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: our periods voluminous by piling thought upon thought. These natural
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: modes of procedure may serve as guides in writing. Keen
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: observation and skillful analysis would in like manner detect further
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: peculiarities of expression produced by other attributes of mind, and
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: by paying due attention to all such traits, a writer
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: possessed of sufficient versatility might make some approach to a
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: completely organized work. Division four. The ideal writer, paragraph sixty seven.
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: This species of composition, which the law of effect points
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: out as the perfect one, is the one which high
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: genius tends naturally to produce. As we found that the
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: kinds of sentences which are theoretically best are those generally
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: employed by superior minds and by inferior minds when excitement
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: has raised them, so we shall find that the ideal
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: form for a om essay or fiction is that which
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: the ideal writer would evolve spontaneously, one in whom the
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: powers of expression fully respond to the state of feeling,
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: would unconsciously use that variety in the mode of presenting
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: his thoughts, which art demands. This consistent employment of one
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: species of phraseology, which all have now to strive against
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: implies an undeveloped faculty of language. To have a specific
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: style is to be poor in speech. If we remember
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: that in the far past men had only nouns and
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: verbs to convey their ideas with, and that from then
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: to now the growth has been towards a greater number
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: of implements of thought, and consequently towards a greater complexity
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: and variety in their combinations, we may infer that we
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: are now in our use of sentences much what the
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: primitive man was in his use of words, and that
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: a continuance of the process that has hitherto gone on
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: must produce increasing heterogeneity in our modes of expression. As now,
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: in a fine nature, the play of the features, the
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: tones of the voice, and its cadence vary in harmony
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: with every thought uttered, so in one possessed of a
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: fully developed power of speech, the mold in which each
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: combination of words is cast will similarly vary with and
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: be appropriate to the sentiment paragraph sixty eight. That a
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: perfectly endowed man must unconsciously write in all styles, We
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: may infer from considering how styles originate. Why is Johnson
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: pompous Goldsmith simple, Why is one author abrupt, another rhythmical,
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: another concise? Evidently, in each case the habitual mode of
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: utterance must depend upon the habitual balance of the nature.
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: The predominant feelings have by use trained the elect to
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: represent them, and while long though unconscious discipline has made
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: it do this efficiently, it remains, from lack of practice
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: incapable of doing the same for the less active feelings.
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: And when these are excited, the usual verbal forms undergo
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: but slight modification. Let the powers of speech be fully developed. However,
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: let the ability of the intellect to utter the emotions
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: be complete, and this fixity of style will disappear. The
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: perfect writer will express himself as genius when in the
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: genius frame of mind, when he feels his Lampfeldt, we
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: use a like familiar speech, and will fall into the
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: ruggedness of Carlisle. When in a Carlinian mood, Now he
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: will be rhythmical, and now irregular. Here his language will
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: be plain, and there ornate. Sometimes his sentences will be
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: balanced and other times unsymmetrical. For a while there will
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: be considered durable sameness, and then again great variety. His
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: mode of expression naturally responding to his state of feeling,
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: There will flow from his pen a composition changing to
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: the same degree that the aspects of his subject change.
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: He will, thus, without effort, conform to what we have
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: seen to be the laws of effect. And while his
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: work presents to the reader that variety needful to prevent
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: continuous exertion of the same faculties, it will also answer
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: to the description of all highly organized products, both of
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: man and of nature. It will not be a series
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: of like parts simply placed in juxtaposition, but one whole
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: made up of unlike parts that are mutually dependent. End
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: of Part two, end of Philosophy of Style by Herbert
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: Spencer