THE GENESIS OF PERSONAL TRAITS 155 



this. One group of our societary associations is with Greece and another 

 with Rome. Political Science brings up the one group of associations, 

 Social Science the other. If a writer has but one set of associations, a 

 single word will fully express his meaning; but if he knows two lan- 

 guages and has a double set of words, each must find expression to 

 relieve the subconscious memory. A style of this nature is called 

 literary. With the single set of expressions the writer seems ab- 

 rupt. A complaint is often made that I am elliptical in expression. 

 I doubt not that many a reader has said this already in reading this 

 article. If, however, he will go back to the places where I seem to have 

 left out some step in the sequence of the thought, he may find that at 

 that point he has some double association of words that I have dis- 

 regarded. A fluent writer says in each sentence, or at least in each 

 paragraph, "my thought is so in Greek, it is so in Latin, and finally so 

 and so in English." The good writer in this sense uses all the synonyms 

 in his own or the reader's mind before he passes along to the next topic. 

 He brings up the whole range of his reader's sensory associations in- 

 stead of calling for will power to suppress them. Concise, straightfor- 

 ward construction demands will power to follow. Every idea is then 

 expressed once and only once. Those who are dominated by sensory 

 associations can not readily follow such a writer. Like birds they fly 

 several times around a spot before lighting. 



This means that an ornate style is a defect and not a mark of genius. 

 The study of languages weakens the will, or, to state the thought in 

 another way, it prevents the growth of motor coordinations. If so, 

 children should not be taught two languages. Moreover, they should 

 be corrected when they use many adjectives or words of more than two 

 syllables. Only short, concise expressions can come quickly enough to 

 aid a child in his decisions. Any delay in the formation of trains of 

 thought retards action and prevents the growth of will power. Only 

 the child who thinks more quickly than he acts can develop adjustive 

 reactions and thus escape from the domination of sex and sensory asso- 

 ciations. The effects of these double word associations are everywhere 

 visible. 



I shall offer additional illustrations from the field of art, where sex 

 and sensory dominance also has a crushing power. Time and space 

 can not be directly pictured in art; nor can rest and motion be por- 

 trayed. These relations are brought into consciousness only through 

 associations with surfaces and lines. Pictures are either color masses, 

 or perspectives taking the thought beyond the visualized surfaces to the 

 real world back of them. Most pictures combine these two factors, 

 surfaces and lines. The differences among pictures is in the proportion 

 and relation of these factors. If the color masses are in the foreground, 

 and the lines creating the perspective in the background, the picture 

 indicates a sensory dominance on the part of its maker. If the lines 



