TEE THEORY OF STYLE 79 



Spencer comes to consider figurative language. The main object of 

 figures of speech is to bring one "more easily to the desired concep- 

 tion," that is, they tend to simplicity and clearness rather than to 

 impressiveness and stimulation of the feeling. The metaphor owes its 

 superiority over the simile to the great economy it achieves. Whately, 

 on the other hand, had maintained that " all men are more gratified at 

 catching the resemblance for themselves, than in having it pointed out 

 to them." Spencer opposed this view. He probably recognized that 

 underlying it was a principle that could be formulated in direct antith- 

 esis to his theory of style, not economy of mental energies and sensi- 

 bilities, but the greatest possible stimulation. Not the minimum of 

 effort, but the maximum of response! Attention is correlative with 

 interest and it must be aroused rather than economized. It is not mere 

 clearness of exposition, but the power to evoke, that is the supreme 

 virtue of style. 



Later in his essay Spencer stumbles on the secret of his so-called 

 direct manner. " Mental excitement spontaneously prompts the use 

 of those forms of speech which have been pointed out as the most 

 effective." In other words, the inverted order is the emotional order 

 distinguished by force, while the natural order is the intellectual order 

 distinguished by clearness. When one reads what the essay contains 

 concerning the economy of the mental sensibilities, the paradoxical 

 character of the whole theory is greatly emphasized. Climax is more 

 fruitfully described as an exploitation of the mental sensibilities than 

 as an economy of the same. It is the cumulative effect of a summation 

 of stimuli. What is the value of saying that antithesis and variety 

 economize the attention rather than that they arouse the attention? 

 The greatest possible emotional effect is the main purpose aimed at in 

 the employment of the various figures of speech. 



When Spencer comes to speak of poetry and proclaims its superiority 

 to prose, into which view his brief for the inverted order leads him, 

 there become marked the inadequacy and lack of discrimination of his 

 whole theory of style. The principles that explain a prose style fail to 

 account for a poetic style inasmuch as their purposes are different. To 

 adopt Spencer's phraseology for a moment, economy of the mental 

 energies is frequently at variance with economy of the mental sensibili- 

 ties. Or, as I very much prefer to say, the appeal to the understanding 

 is not always consistent with the appeal to the emotions; and in poetry 

 clearness of expression is very often sacrificed to force. This conflict 

 is apparent if we consider the question of rhythm. According to 

 Spencer rhythmical structure is an economy of the reader's or hearer's 

 attention. The strain required by the total irregularity of prose is 

 diminished. If Spencer implies here by the indefinite word economy 

 that the recipient's intellectual powers are utilized to the utmost and 



