THE THEORY OF STYLE 81 



sians " is poor in its intellectual content, while it voices in the Bible 

 story the ignorant fury of the populace. In the consciousness of this 

 double aspect of the question Aristotle describes perfection of style as 

 being clear without being mean. Now Saxon words tend to meanness 

 and may, even on account of their simplicity, fall short of clearness. It 

 is very obscure to say that an object is round, because round may mean 

 circular, spherical, cylindrical, discoid, etc. Similarly Saxon words 

 may be simple at the expense of clearness and precision. It seems per- 

 fectly natural that Spencer should find the language of the twelfth cen- 

 tury inadequate to the needs of the twentieth. But even when clear, 

 the Saxon, perhaps on account of its very familiarity, lacks the distinc- 

 tion that Aristotle recognizes as a requisite of perfect style. Choice of 

 words is largely a matter of context, but magnificent may be preferable 

 to grand or to the Saxon great on many grounds, among which its 

 emotional suggestiveness should not be neglected. At any rate the 

 attempt to hold university men of the twentieth century to the vocabu- 

 lary of the subjugated portion of the population of England in the 

 twelfth and thirteenth centuries is an absurdity that no theory of style 

 can sanction, whether it lays emphasis on clearness, force or elegance. 



More important than the mere choice of words in lending elevation 

 and distinction to language is the use of figurative expressions. In the 

 words of Aristotle " the greatest thing by far is to have a command of 

 metaphor. This alone can not be imparted by another ; it is the mark 

 of genius — for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resem- 

 blances." Spencer similarly recognized that genius naturally tends to 

 produce that style of composition which on analysis proves the most 

 effective. The kinds of sentence which are theoretically best are those 

 generally employed by superior minds, and by inferior minds ivlien 

 excitement has raised them. 



When we regard the theory of style from the standpoint of recent 

 psychology, a whole series of problems are seen to be involved — the 

 nature of literary genius, association by similarity and its relation to 

 the feelings, and connected with all these — and offering, perhaps, the 

 best point of attack for our present purpose — the functioning of the 

 creative imagination. 



One might expect some light on the workings of the imagination 

 from those who approach psychology from a pragmatist position and 

 especially from such as treat the genetic and functional phases of psy- 

 chology, particularly in view of the part played by the imagination in 

 shaping our conduct — a part so great that we may be said to rehearse 

 in imagination our vices and virtues before putting them into practise. 

 In fact, the justification of recent psychologists in retaining the classi- 

 fications and subdivisions of faculty psychology would seem to be the 

 hope of confirming popular convictions in reference to mental science 



VOL. LXXVI. — 6. 



