The Philosophy of Style | Page 4

may figure to himself the genus mentioned. In doing this,
some delay must arise some force be expended; and if, by employing a
specific term, an appropriate image can be at once suggested, an
economy is achieved, and a more vivid impression produced.

ii The Principle of Economy applied to Sentences.
§ 11. Turning now from the choice of words to their sequence, we shall
find the same general principle hold good. We have a priori reasons for
believing that in every sentence there is some one order of words more
effective than any other; and that this order is the one which presents
the elements of the proposition in the succession in which they may be
most readily put together. As in a narrative, the events should be stated
in such sequence that the mind may not have to go backwards and
forwards in order to rightly connect them; as in a group of sentences,

the arrangement should be such, that each of them may be understood
as it comes, without waiting for subsequent ones; so in every sentence,
the sequence of words should be that which suggests the constituents of
the thought in the order most convenient for the building up that
thought. Duly to enforce this truth, and to prepare the way for
applications of it, we must briefly inquire into the mental act by which
the meaning of a series of words is apprehended.
§ 12. We cannot more simply do this than by considering the proper
collocation of the substantive and adjective. Is it better to place the
adjective before the substantive, or the substantive before the adjective?
Ought we to say with the French--un _cheval noir;_ or to say as we
do--a black horse? Probably, most persons of culture would decide that
one order is as good as the other. Alive to the bias produced by habit,
they would ascribe to that the preference they feel for our own form of
expression. They would expect those educated in the use of the
opposite form to have an equal preference for that. And thus they
would conclude that neither of these instinctive judgments is of any
worth. There is, however, a philosophical ground for deciding in favour
of the English custom. If "a horse black" be the arrangement,
immediately on the utterance of the word "horse," there arises, or tends
to arise, in the mind, a picture answering to that word; and as there has,
been nothing to indicate what kind of horse, any image of a horse
suggests itself. Very likely, however, the image will be that of a brown
horse, brown horses being the most familiar. The result is that when the
word "black" is added, a check is given to the process of thought.
Either the picture of a brown horse already present to the imagination
has to be suppressed, and the picture of a black one summoned in its
place; or else, if the picture of a brown horse be yet unformed, the
tendency to form it has to be stopped. Whichever is the case, a certain
amount of hindrance results. But if, on the other hand, "a black horse"
be the expression used, no such mistake can be made. The word
"black," indicating an abstract quality, arouses no definite idea. It
simply prepares the mind for conceiving some object of that colour;
and the attention is kept suspended until that object is known. If, then,
by the precedence of the adjective, the idea is conveyed without
liability to error. whereas the precedence of the substantive is apt to
produce a misconception, it follows that the one gives the mind less

trouble than the other, and is therefore more forcible.
§ 13. Possibly it will be objected that the adjective and substantive
come so close together, that practically they may be considered as
uttered at the same moment; and that on hearing the phrase, "a horse
black," there is not time to imagine a wrongly-coloured horse before
the word "black" follows to prevent it. It must be owned that it is not
easy to decide by introspection whether this is so or not. But there are
facts collaterally implying that it is not. Our ability to anticipate the
words yet unspoken is one of them If the ideas of the hearer kept
considerably behind the, expressions of the speaker, as the objection
assumes, he could hardly foresee the end of a sentence by the time it
was half delivered: yet this constantly happens. Were the supposition
true, the mind, instead of anticipating, would be continually falling
more and more in arrear. If the meanings of words are not realized as
fast as the words are uttered, then the loss of time over each word must
entail such an accumulation of delays as