538 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



by the same author. jSTow of the 41,500 periods of the 'History,' there 

 are forty-five hundreds whose average is less than twenty words per sen- 

 tence. These we may take to represent the dialogue portions of the 

 work. The exact average of these 4,500 periods is 18.62 words per 

 sentence, that is, 4.81 words per sentence less than the average for the 

 entire 'History.' If we replace these sentences by others of normal 

 length, we augment the total aggregate by 4,500 times 4.81 or 21,645 

 words. That is, if the portions of the 'History' which contain an 

 excessive amount of dialogue were replaced by an equal number of 

 sentences of normal length, the five volumes would contain 41,500 X 

 23.43 -j- 21,645 or 993,990 words. Dividing this number by 41,500 

 we obtain 23.95 words per sentence, a result not essentially different 

 from the actual average, 24.43. 



But whether the presumption is for or against limitations of the 

 Sherman principles is of little consequence in a matter so easily tested 

 by experiment. I have prepared a table giving the approximate sen- 

 tence-lengths for widely divergent forms of composition by the same 

 author. The averages by hundreds, as well as the final average, have 

 been given in order to show the variation in the averages of consecutive 

 hundreds in each work. 



It is needless to continue this table, for a mere inspection of the 

 figures already given must once and for all settle the 'single set of 

 constants' theory. In fact the question suggests itself, whether the 

 number of different sets of constants which an author may employ is 

 not limited merely by his versatility as a writer. So far as sentence- 

 length is concerned, this conjecture is fully corroborated by a partial 

 examination of Goethe's works. The results are exhibited in the fol- 

 lowing table : 



* The individual averages are for 500 periods each, the total for 2,500 

 periods. 



