NOIN E. ſ！ №. C. №. º GEORGE THE ORIGTN AND DEVELOPMENT OF HERBERT SPENCER'S PRINCIPLE OF ECONOMY - A Dissert, a tion Submitted in Partial Full – fillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the University of Michigan By Ceorge Bion Denton March 22, 1916 TABLE OF CONTENTS BTBI, IOCRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iV I. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 II. ITT . IV. Static view of Economy, l. Dynamic view, 3. Problem arising, 5. ECONOMY IN SPENCER'S EXPERTENCE TO 1844 . . . 7 Engineering Economy, 7. FConomy applied to language , 9. Lucid Short hand, 9. Rational- ized system of letters, ll. Ideas about a Universal Language, ll. SPENCER'S TWO ESSAYS ON COMPOSITION . . . . . l 3 Existence of essay, Force of Expression, 13. Date of this essay, lä. Relation to The Philosophy of Style, 16. Th general, TT6. Principle of Economy, 20. IDFAS ABOUT A UNIVERSAL TANGUAGE . . . . . . . 24 Relation of memoranda, Ideas about a Univer- sal Language to The Philosophy of Style and to Force of Expression, 24. Analogie S bet- Ween memoranda and section on Words in The Philosophy of Style, 26. (l) Recurrence , 27. TET Erevity, 34.TT3) Imitation, 36. (4) Spe- cific and generic words, 39. PHRENOLOGY IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE . . . 43 Spencer's psychological thinking to 1855, #2. Farly phrenology, 43. Principles of Psychology, 46. Phrenology and Principles of Psychology contrasted, 48. Psychologi- cal features of The Philosophy of Style, 53. (l) Faculties, 54.TIn The Shilosophy of Style, 54. In Principles of Psychology, 55. In British philosophers, 57. In phrenology, 58. (2) Fatigue, 60. In The Philosophy of Style, 60. In British philosophers and Trinciples of Psychology, 62. In phrenol- ogy, 62. (3) Attention, 63. In The Phil- osophy of Style, 63. Th Principles of Psy- ghology, 66. In British philosophers, 72. Tn phrenology, 76. In the Organ of "londer, WI. WII. WIII. IX. NOTES 77. "Thy name "attention" was chosen, 81. Ceneral summary, 82. - BRITISH PSYCHOLOGY IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE . . 84 Problem, 84. (1) British psychology in The Philosophy of Style, 85. Sensationalism, 85. Associationalism, 94. (2) British psychology in phrenology, 97. Sensationalism, 98. Assoc- iationalism, 102. (3) Spencer's knowledge of British psychology in 1844, 104. Sensational- ism, l05. Associationalism, l06. Source of his knowledge, 108. Ignorance of British philosophers, l08. British psychology in rhetoricians, 109. Campbell, ll O. Lord Yaimes, ll:4. Summary, 115. SPENCER AND THE RHETORICIANS . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Spencer's debt to the rhetoricians in The Philosophy of Style, ll 7. Campbell, ll 8. Lord Kaimes, 127. Latham, 128. Whately, 129. Blair, lºl. Bearing of these borrow- ings upon the relation between The Philosophy of Style and Force of Expression, 134. FX- tent of Spencer's originality, lºg. QUCTATIONS AND ALLUSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 Authors and works prior to 1844, 142. Shelley, la 3. Contemporary authors and Works, 148. Emerson, lá 9. Alexander Smith, 152. Justus von Liebig, 154. WON BAER'S FORMIUIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . lf 7 Won Baer's forumla in The Philosophy of Style, 157. Spencer's relation with this forumla, 158. His discovery of it in 1851, 159. Consequent limitation of our hypothesis, 160. CONCLUSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 Complete hypothesis, 161. Solution of orig– inal problem, 162. - iV BIBLIOGRAPHY Baldwin, James Mark, Stout , Bayne, Blair, and G. F. , Attention. In Dictionary of Philosophy and Psy- Ghology TEdited by TTETTWTHTVGTTTCCT. Thomas, Alexander Smith. In Dictionary Of National Biog- raphy, (Edited by Sidney Tee), W. T.III, 1898. Hugh, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. Eighth edition. London, ISOI. Three vols. Campbell, George, Combe, Cooke, The Philosophy of Rhetoric . New edition. Balt- imore : Fielding, Lucas, Jun., and P. H. Nicklin ; Boston: T. B. Wait & Co., no date. Ce orge, - A System of Phrenology. Third American from FEETFETFTETTETFETETition. Revised and en- larged by the author. Boston: Marsh, Capen, and Tyon, 1835. George Willis, A Bibliography of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Boston and New York: Hought on, Mifflin & Co., 1908. Duncan, David, Iife and Letters of Herbert Spencer. New York : Applet on, l908. Two vols. Holländer, Bernard, Spencer as a Phrenologist. In Westminster Re- view, v. 139, 1893, pp la 2–154. Home, Henry, (Lord Kaimes) Elements of Criticism. With Analyses and Trans- lations of Ancient and Foreign Illustrations. Ed— ited by Abraham Mills. Second edition, corrected. New York : Conner & Cooke, l833. - Hume, David, A Treatise of Human Nature. Being an attempt to introduce the experimental method of reasoning into moral subjects and Dialogues concerning Natural Religion. Edited, with pre liminary dis– sertation and notes, by T. H. Green and T. H. Grose . 2 volumes. New edition. Tondon : Longmans, Creen, and Co., 1886. - James, "illiam, Principles of Psychology. New York: Henry Holt, 1902. 2 volumes. Chapter on Attention. Latham, Robert Gordon, The English Language. Third edition, revised an d greatly enlarged. London: Taylor, Walton, & Maberly, 1850. Spencer, Herbert, An Autobiography. New York : Appleton, 1904. Two v Ols. Spencer, Herbert , Essays : Scientific, Political, and Speculative . Reprinted, chiefly from the Quarterly Reviews. London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts, 1858. Spencer, Herbert, The Filiation of Ideas. "A brief intellectual history" of the author. In Duncan's Life and Letters of Herbert Spencer, Tv. II., Aſpendix B, pp. 304-365. Date d, March, l899. - Spencer, Herbert , Grammar. An essay in Facts and Comments, pp. 280–291. Wi Spencer, Herbert, Ideas about a Universal Language. In Autobiography, v. I., Appendix E, pp. 617-621. Spencer, Herbert, Imitation and Benevolence. In Zoist, V. I. , 1843–1844. Spencer, Herbert, A New Form of Viaduct . In Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal, July, lê41. Spencer, Herbert, The Philosophy of Style. In Testminster Review, v. 58, 1852, pp. 436–459. Spencer, Herbert The Philosophy of Style. Together with An Essay on Style by T.H. Wright. Edited with introduction and notes by Fred N. Scott, Ph.D. Boston : Allyn and Bacon, 1892. Spencer, Herbert, , The Principles of Psychology. Tondon: Tongman, Brown, Creen, and Longmans, l855. Spencer, Herbert, On a Proposed Cephalograph. In Autobiography, v. I. , Appendix H, pp. 634–638. Spencer, Herbert, scale of Equivalents. In Autobiography, v. I., Appendix D, pp. 6l3–6l 6. Spencer, Herbert, Style. Essay in Facts and Comments, pp. 97-105. Spencer, Herbert , Style Continued. Essay in Facts and Comments, pp. 106–lll . Wii Spencer, Herbert, A Theory Concerning the Organ of "onder. In Zoist, v. II. , 1844. Spencer, "illiam Ce orge, A System of Lucid Shorthand. Devised by "illiam George Spencer, with a prefatory note by Herbert Spencer. New York : Appleton, 1894. Spurzheim, J. G. , Phrenology or the Doctrine of the Mental Phenomena. Revised edition from the second American edition, in two volumes, published in Boston 1833. Intro– duction by Cyrus. Elder. Philadelphia : Tippine ott, 1908. - Thately, Richard, Elements of Rhetoric : Comprising an Analysis of the Taws of Moral Evidence and of Persuasion, with Rules for Argumentative Composition and Elocution. New Edition. New York: Sheldon & Co., 1869. CHAPTER I. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM. Herbert Spencer's Principle of Economy, plain enough at the opening of The Philosophy of style and throughout the major part of the essay, cannot but become obscure to the careful reader in the closing paragraph. The cause of this obscurity is to be found (as Professor. F. N. Scott has pointed out ) (l) in the sudden change and enlargement of meaning which, at the very close of the essay, is given to the conception of Economy. The comparison of a passage from the beginning of The Philosophy of Style with one. from the close will bring out the difficulty. The first and major part of the essay is summarized in the third paragraph, as follows: On seeking for some clue to the law underlying these current maxims [i.e., the rules of rhetorics: We may see shadowed forth in many of them, the im- portance of economizing the rêa der's or hearer's attention. To so present ideas that they may be apprehended with the least possible mental effort, is the de §ideratum towards Which most of the rules above quoted point. When we condemn writing that is Wordy, or confused, or intric ate ––– when we –2– praise this style as easy, and blame that as fa- tiguing, we consciously or unconsciously assume this desideratum as our standard of judgment. Re- garding language as an apparatus of symbols for the conveyance of thought, we may say that, as in a mechanical apparatus, the more simple and the better arranged its parts, the greater will be the effect produced. In either case, whatever force is absorbed by the machine is deducted from the result. A reader or listerner has at each moment but a limited amount of mental power available. To recognize and interpret the symbols presented to him requires part of this power: to arrange and combine the images suggested requires a fur- ther part ; and only that part which remains can be used for the realization of the thought con- veyed. Hence the more time and attention it takes to receive and understand each seriterce, the less time and attention can be given to the contained idea; and the less vividly will that idea be con– ceived. Let us then inquire whether economy of the recip- ient 's attention is not the secret of effect , alike ... in the right choice and collocation of Words, in the best arrangement of clauses in a sentence, in the proper order of its principal and subordinate propositions, in the judicious use of simile, meta- phor, and other figures of speech, and even in the rhythmical sequence of syllables (2). Tn addition to the applications here mentioned Spercer extends the principle of economy, in the latter part of the e SSay, without changing its fundament al character, to in- clude climax, antithesis, anticlimax, and variety (3). Throughout, it is a static principle : it deals with lang- uage as it is . It has concern only with the individual -3- mind, and the purposes of one individual in attempting º t; O convey his thought to the mind of another. It regards language as a more or less mechanical apparatus, following the laws of physics and having the merits of a machine. It approaches the problem of language exclusively from the position of psychology. Only in the last paragraph (4) of the essay does the character Of the * of Economy deviate from that of the passage quoted. In this concluding paragraph, Spencer reasons thus: If we glance back at the past and remember that, in the far past, men had only nouns and verbs to convey their ideas with, and that from then to now the growth has been towards a greater complexity and variety in their combinations, we may infer that We are now, in our use of sentences, much what the primitive man was in his use of Words, and that a continuance of the process that has hitherto gone on must produce increasing heterogeneity in our modes of expression. As now in a fine nature the play of the features, the tones of the voice and its cadences, vary in harmony with every thought - uttered; so in one possessed of a fully developed , power of speech, the mould in which each combina- tion of Words is cast will similarly vary with, and be appropriate to , the sentiment. That a per- fectly endowed man must unconsciously write in all styles, we may infer from considering how styles Originate . . . . . . . . . . . . . Evidently in each case the habitual mode of utterance must depend upon -4- the habitual balance of the nature. The pre- dominant feelings have by use trained the intell- ect to represent them. . . . . . . . . . . . . Tet; the powers of speech be fully developed, however --- let the ability of the intellect to convey the emotions be complete --- and this fixity of style will disappear. The perfect writer Will express himself as Junius, when in the Junius frame of mind; when he feels as Lamb felt , will use a like familiar speech; and will fall into the rugged- ness of Carlyle when in a Carlylean mood. Now he will be rhythmical and now irregular; here his language will be plain and the re ornate; some- times his seriterices will be balanced and at other times unsymmetrical; for a while there will be a considerable sameness and then again great vari- ety. From his mode of expression naturally re- sponding to his state of feeling, there will flow from his pen a composition changing to the same degree that the aspects of his subject change . He Will thus Without, effort G onform to What We have seen to be the laws of effect. And while his work presents to the reader that variety needful to pre- vent continuous exertion of the same faculties, it will also answer to the description of all highly organized products, both of man and of nature ; it will be not a series of like parts simply placed in juxtaposition, but one whole made up of unlike parts that are mutually dependent (5). The Principle of Economy is here represented as dynam- ic ; language itself changes and progresses. The merit of any particular bit of writing has to be judged in the light of the advancement of the society out of which it comes. This is the point of view of evolution, and it is also the point of view of society as distinguished from the indi- vidual. Finally, the composition is regarded as an organ- –5– ism, in which the parts have the functions and relation- ships of organs in a living being. Contrasting the two views, the reader will note that the Principle of Economy in the first and major part of the essay is static, individual, mechanical, and psycho- logical ; in the last two paragraphs it is dynamic , so cial, organic, and evolutionary. The latter view is the more significant, it is in closer harmony with the general Spencerian philosophy, and it furnishes greater possibil- ities as the basis for literary criticism (6). Why then, should Spencer have treated that view meagerly in one paragraph? wº the narrower view first, thus misleading the reader, and left the general principle to the very close of the essay? As Professor Scott says in commenting upon the concluding sentence of the essay: "This is the fundamental principle with which, in the opinion of the editor, Mr. Spencer would have done well to open -6- his essay. He would thus have brought his various excep- tions, opposing rules, supplementary principles, and so forth, under one universal all-pervading law" (7). To the solution of this difficulty the present study is chiefly devoted. An investigation of the origin of the Principle of Economy in Spencer's experience and a trac- ing of its development in his thinkins may, it is thought, furnish a solution. Such an historical study, besides resolving the main difficulty, Will furnish material for a better understanding of some obscure points in the essay, and, incidentally, will prove of more general interest by contributing to knowledge of the literary, philosophical, and Scientific influences at Work upon Spencer in his earlier years, and of the development of Spencer's psycho- logical theories. CHATTER II. ECONOMY IN SPENCER'S EXPERIENCE TO 1844. The beginnings of the Principle of Economy must be sought in a period of Spencer's experience at least twelve years prior to the publication of The Philosophy of Style. From 1837 to 1841, Spencer's training and practice was that of a civil Engineer, and after four years of attempt at journalism, he returned to engineer— ing in 1845 to remain until 1848, when he permanently took up a career of authorship (8). What should the profession of railroad engineering have taught him ––– what but Econ- omy? --- economy in the choice of materials, economy in their arrangement, economy in the distribution and location and construction of bridges, tracks, and grades. The prob- lem of engineering economy led him to design a bridge for special purposes, an account of which he published under the title, "A New Form of Viaduct", in the Civil Engineers' and Architects' Journal for July, l841. This article closes with the passage : To those with whom appearance is the main point in railway works, the design will probably afford some amusement ; but every one will I think per- ceive that elegance of effect is not attempted, an economical and durable structure being the only object in view (9). Spencer's constitutional dislike for routine work caused him to devise various aids, while he was employed as an engineer, for economizing his own efforts in the per- forman Ce Of calculations and other operations which must be often repeated. Among these, were devices recorded in the following articles: "skew Arches" (an easy Way of project- ing shadows) (10), "Transverse Strain of Beams" (a formula) (ll), "Scale of Equivalents" (a means of reducing rapidly English measures to the decimal system) (12), "Velocimeter" (a means of getting velocities of locomotives by inspect- ion) (13). concerning his motive for inventing the Scale of Equivalents, Spencer Wrote in the Autobiography: Having a dislike to the mental lab our which the required calculations implied, I was prompted to find a method of effecting the change in an easi- er way. The simple appliance which served for -9– this special purpose was afterwards developed into a more complex appliance available for general purposes of many kinds (14). From the realization that it was desirable to economize his own energies by tools of thought, simply and advan- tage ously arranged, for engineering work, he might natur- ally have been led to perceive that in composition a like simplification and arrangement of the tools of expression would be welcomed as an economy of the addressee's mental energies, and in that degree effective . These miscellaneous applications of economy were not, however, the only aspects of the principle with which young Spencer had to deal in the early forties of the century. Economy applied directly to problems of language, We know, occupied his mind at that time. From a time when Herbert Spencer was a young boy, his father had been formulating a system of phonetic shorthand, the purpose of which was to enable a person to write accurately and phonetically, with a continuous movement of – 10- the pen, with simplest strokes and least expenditure of time and effort, any word in the English language. This short hand became the common medium of correspondence be- tween father and son; and being convinced by his father that it was superior to Pitman's Phonography, young Spencer wrote an exposition of the elder Spencer's system, in 1843, intended for publication (15). That Spencer value d this system largely because it was a means of economy is attest- ed by a paragraph from his preface to Lucid Short hand, published in 1894: And now let me explain why I am anxious that the system should not be lost . It is not merely as a better shorthand that preservation of it is import- ant. Existing shorthands serve very well --- es– pecially Phonography. . . . . . . . . . . . . The action I now take in the matter results from the convict – ion, long since formed and still unshaken, that Lucid Short hand ought to replace ordinary writing. Possessing, as it does, not equal legibility but greater legibility (the distinction among the symbols being so much more marked), and having at the same time the brevity which short hands in general possess, the use of it for all purposes would be immensely advantageous to mankind. It only needs to ask what would be the effect of saving more than half the time now devoted to Writing by men of business, journalists, authors, and people at large, to see that a doption of it would achieve a large economy of life (16). —ll- From his father's application of the Principle of Economy to language, Herbert Spencer turned to an appli- cation of his own. "A rationalized system of letters for writing, " he wrote in the Autobiography, "raised the thought of a rationalized system of letters for printing . . . . . 17 This inea, which Spencer ascribes to about 1842, was for the design of printed letters which should be simpler and more uniform than those in use , and inicate t; he relationships of the various sounds (17). The complex forms of many printed letters, he no doubt felt, unnecessarily increased the child's difficulty in learning them, and wasted the adult 's energies in their recognition. Writing and reading made easier by father and son, What more natural than that the language itself should be reformed by rational methods? "Probably thoughts about the one led to thoughts about the other," wrote Spencer in the Autobiography. In consequence, in about 1844 he set —l 2- down Ideas about a Universal Tianguage . "A predominant aim was brevity"; the language proposed was monosyllabic, euphonic , and furnished with a logical principle for the cºng Of words. This was reform in the direction of econ- omy --- with a vengeance (18) : Step by step, Spencer is led, by his engineering stud- ies, his constitutional dislike of routine, the Lucid shortland, and his own consequent investigations of econ- omy as applied to means of communication, to his specu- lations on a universal language. What more likely than that, from economy in the structure of a language, he should logically turn to economy in the use of language, and form- ulate his ideas in an essay upon the Principle of Economy applied to composition? —l 3– CHAPTER III. SPENCER'S TWO ESSAYS ON COMPOSITION. The earliest publication of any essay on composition by Herbert Spencer was October, 1852, when The Philosophy of Style appeared in Westminster Review. An earlier formula- tion of Spencer's views upon style, however, was probably embo died in an essay entitled Force of Expression. The precise date of this earlier essay cannot , perhaps, be de- terminea, but an approximate date is essential to the present inquiry. Indisputable references to this essay appear nowhere in Spencer's extant papers prior to 1852. When The Philosophy of Style Was already completed. True, Spencer in his Auto- biography identifies this essay with one referred to, in a letter early in 1843, as sent "on speculation"to Tait's Magazine (19). But as the article, whatever it may have been, was not accepted by Tait, and neither its title nor content S is indi Gate d in the letter, the correctness of –l4– Spencer's recollection may be doubted. Mr. Duncan, in his Tife and Letters of Herbert Spencer, points out that the reference may be to an article entitled "Honesty is the Best f Policy" which was sent to Tait's Magazine at that time, and later appeared, or one by the same title, in the Birmingham Pilot (20). In speaking of Force of Expression, Spencer variously assigns it to the years 1843 and 1844 (21). Yet there is nothing absolutely conclusive to be learned of t; he date from otective evidence, so far 3 S anything in the Autopics. an. or Mr. Duncan's Work goes to show. - "Perhaps he wrote a second article for Tait, but it is not mentioned in the correspondence," writes Mr. Duncan (22). This remark is not to be understood as throwing any doubt upon the existence of an essay on style at some time prior to the Writing of The Philosophy of Style. The existence of such, an essay is attested by a distinct reference in a letter -15- from Herbert Spencer to his father, written at the time The Philosophy of Style was published, in 1852 (23). He refers to "the original essay", and by the phrase "if you have any recollection of that" implies that it had been Written some little time previous. As Force of Expression certainly existed before 1852, it is likewise extremely probable that it was written in 1843 or later. Spencer writes in the Autobiography: Not until at the age of twenty-three when there occurred to me an idea respecting force of expression, did the subject of style attract me (24). This statement is borne out by a passage in a letter to his father in 1843 : I have lately got in my head a theory of com— position by the aid of which I expect to be - able to write more effectually than I could (25). That young Spencer was particularly interested in the sub- ject of style at about this time is also illustrated by other passages from his letters. In speaking of the essay "Honesty is the Best Policy", he wrote: -16– There is, T believe, a better selection of illustration, figures, and sillfige in it than in anything I have yet written (26). And in regard to an address he wrote for the Anti-State Church Association, he comments: I am not by any means satisfied With it myself, however, and in fact I am getting so fastidious in matters of that kind that I hardly ever feel satisfied with what I write (27). Such conscious application to the study of style in 1843, Whi Gh contrasts sharply with his earlier life, gives prob- ability to Spencer's choice of 1844 as the date of the earlier essay on style. Considerations arising from the hypothesis offered in the present investigation would suggest that, while Spencer is right in assigning Force of Expression to the year 1844, it should be assigned to the latter part of that year rather than to the former as Spencer seems to think likely. The date 1844 for Force of Expression assumed, What is the relation of that essay to The Philosophy of Style ºf This is the question to the answering of which most of the present -17– inquiry Will be devoted, and out of which the solution to the problem state d in the introductory section, must arise. Force of Expression furnished at least the germ of The Philosophy of Style, for Spencer everywhere relates the two --- twice in the Autobiography (28), in an essay entitled Style Continued, and in a letter to his father written in 1852 (30). But just how much of The Philosophy of Style is to be traced to the essay Force of Expression? Spencer's general statements do not make this clear, and the fact that the essay was published only after the revision of 1852 and no copy of the . original is known to exist (31), makes direct comparison impossible . In the Autobiography Spencer writes of Force of Express- ion at one place, that it was later published in Westminster Review "with improvements" (32). In the essay Style Con- tinued he says it was published "somewhat improved" (33). These expressions would lead one to think that the bulk of – 18- the essay The Philosophy of Style Was as in Force of Express- ion. Spencer's letter to his father in 1852, however, seems to imply a more thorough reconstruction. He wrote: You Will find it a great improvement upon the original essay (34). Another passage in the Autobiography suggests both con– clusions : This essay, or rather a revised and developed version of it , I proposed for The Westminster Review ; and, occupying part of the early autumn in re-writing it, published it in October; after re-naming it 'The Philosophy of Style' (35). The word 're-writing' and the implication that some consider- able time was spent in revision point to important, alter- at ions in the original essay; but this impression is somewhat modified by what immediately follows in regard to the re- naming: The change was not of my desiring, but resulted from the editorial wish to have something more taking than 'Force of Expression'. As I had been thus prompted to use too comprehensive a title, it was half amusing half annoying to hear from the edit or after its publication, the criticism that the essay contained only the backbone of the sub- ject with which I had proposed to deal, and which the original title covered (36). It is here evident that Spencer considered that he was cover- — 19- ing merely the same part of the general subject in The Philosophy of Style, as in the earlier essay. Writing as late as l900, or thereabouts, Spencer may have been mistaken in putting things into the earlier essay which were not there; but his recollections, recorded in Style Continued, indicate that he remembered Force of Express- ion as dealing With the same matters as The Phillsophy of Style: More than half-a-century ago some incident raised in me the inquiry why certain words and collocations of words are more effective than others (37). And again : - - - - - - - e. the problem then presented led me to consider it from a psychological point of view (38). These passages suggest much both of the content and method of the later essay. Spencer's remark in 1843, that he had lately gotten in his head "a theory of composition", certainly imples a prin- ciple of unification rather than a compilation of precepts –20- such as constituted the rhetorics of that time. And a principle of unification is precisely What The Philosophy of style pretends to embody: No general theory of expression seems yet to have been enunciate d'. The maxims contained in Works on composition and rhetoric are presented in an unorganised form. Standing as isolated dogmas --- as empirical generalizations, they are neither so clearly apprehended, nor so much re- spected as they would be were they deduced from Some simple first principle . . . . . . . however in- fluential the truths thus dogmatically embodied, they would be much more influential if reduced to something like scientific ordination. In this, as in other cases, conviction will great ly strength- en when we understand the Why. And We may be sure that a perception of the general principle of which the rules of composition are partial ex- pressions will not only bring them home to us with greater force, but will discover to us other rules of like origin (39). Thus, it may be reasonably inferred that the general pur- pose of the two essays was the same ; namely, to bring the task of composition under a single controlling principle. What was that principle ºf In The Philosophy of Style it was the principle of Economy --- economy of the recip- ient's "atterntion" on the orie hand, and economy of his "Sermsibilities." On the other. Whether this principle also –21– underlay the earlier essay can only be conjectured. TWO points, however, indicate that it was. The history of Spen- cer's relations with the Principle of Economy to the time of the writing of Force of Expression , traced in Chapter II, shows that he might very naturally have arrived at that principle applied to composition. Again, if there is any relation between the earlier and later essays on style, it is difficult to imagine (since economy constitutes the whole of The Philosophy of Style ) what the one could have borrowed from the Other * * Principle of Economy were involved. We may go a little beyond this, for it is certain that Spencer was making practical use of the principle of Economy applied to composition, before 1852. Several passages from his letters of the time indicate his concern with the subject of style. He wrote June 16, 1847: I am prosecuting my studies on style (which I am doing with the intention of shortly commencing my 'Moral Philosophy'), and am adopting the plan of copying out specimen sentences. Whenever I meet with any that are peculiar either by their clear- ness, harmony, force, brevity, novelty, or dis- –22– tinguished by any peculiarity, I copy it out . I Wish to collect samples of all possible arrangements and effects that have anything good in them (40). March 1, 1849, he wrote: The chapter that has pleased is the one I have lately finished on the Rights of Children. It is mannered in style. I shall have to remodel it when I make my final revision . . . . . . . . I do no t, think there will be any need to fear taking upon myself the responsibility of publication, seeing that the work is so popular in its aspirations, and Written in a style that is likely to commend it to the general reader (41). August 24, 1849, he wrote : I am still not satisfied with the style, though I am with the matter (42). In March, 1851, when he began revising Social Statics, he Wrote : I am surprised to find so many defects (43). And : I have been subjecting Macaulay's style to the same minute criticism that I am now giving my own, and I find it will not stand it at all (44). Had he any guiding principle in making these criti- cisms of his own and others' Writing 7 Spencer in his Auto- –23– biography gives this evidence : Among my papers I believe there still exists the set of sheets thus revised of 'Social Statics ". Inspection makes it manifest that the great aim was condensation --- abidgement being here and there made by the omission of a syllable (45). Clearly, the principle of Economy was here narrowly applied. The general comparison of Spencer's two essays, which has just been completed, suggests a very great similarity between them. As a working hypothesis for investigation, the following may be proposed: Almost all of The Philosophy of Style appeared in substance in Force of Expression. The rest of this inquiry Will examine this hypothesis in order 1. to define its limits more closely and 2. to ascertain its truth. –24– CHAPTER IV. IDEAS ABOUT A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE. The only extant writing of Spencerts that Gomes from 1844 or there abouts and that bears in anywise directly upon problems of language, is the one entitled Ideas about a Universal Language, published as Appendix E of the Auto- biography, v. I. (46). These notes consist of l. memoran- da actually set down, according to Spencer, "either at the close of 1843 or at the beginning of 1844, " and 2. comments upon them, apparently Written While the Autobiography was in preparation and purporting to give what Spencer then recalled of plans not recorded in the memoranda themselves (48). The memorands proper consist of 1. a "list of single syllables, " (49), in reality "a calculation respect- ing the number of good monosyllables that can be formed by the exhaustive use of good consonants and good vowel sounds" (50), and 2. five short paragraphs of rules re- lating to the formation of the words in this ideal language (51). According to the comment, there were also some original "notes for a system of verbs," which Spencer published only in brief summary (52). The notes are all concerned only with words; syntax, beyond it s influence upon the forms of words, is not touched upon; there is no mention of grammatical construction, senterce structure, or word order. The ideas upon language expressed in these memoranda, being Written at the time Force of Expression was com- posed, may fairly be assumed to represent, wherever ap- plicable, such ideas as Spencer would have been likely to incorporate in that essay. And if any of these ideas of the memoranda also appear in The Philosophy of Style, they may be regarded as quite certàinly present in Force of Expression. The earlier and later essays, then, Will be regarded as estical in substance to t he externt of the parts in Which such similarities are found to exist be – tween the memoranda and The Philosophy of Style. However, –26– from what has been said of the nature of the notes on language, such similarities Will, necessarily, be looked for, in The Philosophy of Style, only in the section on economy in the use of words. In this section (53), Spencer recognizes four S Ource S of economy in Words, the first three of which are proper- tie S of Anglo-Saxon or non-Tatin English : l. Economy due to the recurrence of the association between the word and its meaning, in the mind of the individual (54). 2. Economy due to the brevity of the word (55). 3. Economy due to the imitative character of the word. 4. Economy due to the specific, opposed to the gen- eric, character of the word (56). TO the first three of these ideas there exist analo – gies in the memoranda, or in the comments, or in both; but to the fourth the re is no conclusive likeness. –27– l. The recurrence of arm as Sociation as a fact, or in economy is illustrated by two cases in the section on words in The Philosophy of Style. The first Words that a child learns are Anglo-Saxon ones, says Spencer ; therefore, the associations between these words and their meanings are repeated more times than are the associations between other Words and their meanings; therefore, the Anglo-Saxon words more readily call up in the mind their meanings; the refore, the use of Anglo-Saxon words is more economical than the use of Latin Words. A child's vocabulary is almost wholly Saxon. He says, I have, not T_possess --- I Wish, not I desire; he does not reflect. The thinks The does" not beg for amusement, but for play; he calls º things nice or nasty, not pleasant or disagree- able. The synonymes which Fe Tearns in Efter years never become so closely, so organically connected with the ideas signified, as do these original Words used in childhood; and hence the association remains less powerful. But in What does a powerful association between a word and an idea differ from a weak one º Simply in the greater ease and rapidity of the suggestive act- ion. It can be in nothing else. Both of two words, if they be strictly synonymous, eventually call up the same image. The expression --- it is acid, must in the end give rise to the same thought as --- it is sour; but because the term –28– acid was learnt later in life, and has not been so often followed by the thought symbolized, it does not so readily arouse that thought as the term sour (57). The principle is also illustrated with the adult in the learning of a foreign language : If we remember how slowly and with what labour the appropriate ideas follow unfamiliar words in another language, and how increasing familiarity With such words brings greater rapidity and ease of comprehension until, from its having been a conscious effort to realize their meanings, their meanings uitimately come without any effort at all ; and if we consider that the same process must have gone on with the words of our mother tongue from childhood upwards, we shall clearly See that the earliest learnt and oftenest used Words, Will, other things equal, call up images With less loss of time and energy than their later learnt synonymes (58). - The philosophy of this reasoning is that to secure maximum efficiency, one idea should be represented by only one symbol. If only one symbol exists, that symbol must always be used to express that idea ; the TGG Ulrren Ce of the association between word and meaning must be greater than in the case where two or more symbols exist; and, therefore, the association will be stronger and the economy greater. A corollary to the rule above is used by Spencer in -29 e his Universal Language. Related ideas will be more readily recalled if represented by related symbols. If a group of ideas with some common feature is represented by a group of symbols with a corresponding identity of some feature, the association of any One of these ideas with its symbol will aid in forming the association of every other idea of the group with its symbol; and every recurrent association of the idea with symbol will increase the number of repetitions of the association between idea and symbol for the entire group, and thus produce an economy of energy necessary for the recall of the thought when the word is present. That is, if the word kat is used to represent a full-grown feline, then it would be an economy to repre- sent a small or young feline by the word kit. Not only this, but if the differences between relat- ed ideas of any group are represented according to some system of symbols equally representative of the differ- -30- - ences common t; O all groups of related ideas, then the association between these differences and their symbols Will like Wise be strengthened through their constant re- currence in every group of related ideas, and a consequent economy will be produced. In other words, if kat is the symbol used to represent a full-grown feline, then rat. may well represent the full-grown rodent ; and, if a small kat is a kit, then a small rat may most economically be represented as a rit. The memoranda at one point provide : All Words Which are relate d to one another in meaning to have their relationships indicated by identity of consonants --- the vowel sounds being different ; . . . . . . . (59 ) And again it is stated: All nouns to be perfect articulations, begin– ning and ending with consonants, and let them show their relationships to each other by the initial or terminal consonant . All abstract nouns might, for instance, commence with nasals. All in animate nouns With mute 8 . All animate with semi-vocals (60). These suggestions in Spencer's original memoranda provide for symbols which would satisfy the purposes ex- –31 plained above: but the memoranda themselves do not set forth the reasons for the provisions. Spencer's comment, however, explains how the system might be actually carried out and why he had regarded it as especially advantageous. There were , I remember, sundry plans not here set down, by the aid of which the choice of words for things and actions was to be made systematic ; so that there should be comparatively little ar- bitrary choice. A cardinal idea was that in each genus of things or actions, the generic Word should always have the indefinite, or most gen– eral, vowel-sound, the e in err --- the sound made Without any adjustment of the vocal organs, and the sound first made by the infant. This would, as it were , express the genus in its undifferen- tiated state ; and the specific kinds of things falling within the genus, would severally have the same consonants but would contain the various definite vowels, simple and compound. Thus, Sup- posing an elevation of surface, small or great, to be expressed by a syllable which, between its initial and terminal consonant S, had the indefin- ite vowel sound of e in err, then the kinds of elevation --- hillock, mound, hill, mountain, great mountain, peak, &c. --- would be severally indicated by Words in which the same two consonants would include between them others of the various vowels (61). The basis for all that Spencer says in this comment is given in the memoranda proper, and here is shown merely the Way the system would be applied. A monosyllabic word consisting of consonant , vowel, and consonant makes poss- ible the representation of three different sets of relat- ionships and differences. The initial consonant may be used to indicate, as Spencer suggests, some such general character of the Word as its abstractiness or concreteness, its animateress or inanimateress. The vowel, by variation, may be used to indicate differences arranged according to scale. And the final consonant may be used to indicate the identity of any genus of "things or actions". In all these cases there is the repetition of one or more features in a number of words representing ideas related in the same respects as are the common features of their symbols. There is, in other Words, a recurrence of the association between idea and symbol; and it is to precisely this fact that Spencer, in his comment, ascribes the advantage of his system. After introducing another feature of his sys- tem, Spencer closes the paragraph above quoted, With this serit ence : The merital association Would be rendered irre – sistible, both by its naturalness and by its per- petual recurrence (62). –33– "That Spencer says of "naturalness" may, for the mom- ent be passed over; it is plain that recurrence of association is at the bottom of the Universal Tanguage as it was also at the bottom of his first argument in favor of Anglo-Saxon English in The Philosophy of Style. The only difference is that in The Philosophy of Style Spencer endeavors to show the advantage of recurrent association as it appears in the use of an existing, imperfect tongue; While in the memoran da he tries to make the most of that advantage in the construction of a prospective, ideal language. Anglo-Saxon words secure the strength of re- current association through the length of time during which they are repeated ; the words of the Universal Tang- uage secure it through the increased repetition of re- lated symbols in related words. An extension of this principle of association appears again in The Philosophy of Style in an other section: –34– - - - - - - We see that alike in the order of the words, in the frequent use of figures, and in extreme conciseness, the natural utterances of excitement conform to the the oretical conditions of forcible expression. - Hence, then, the higher forms of speech acquire a secondary strength from association. Having, in actual life, habitually heard them in connec – tion with vivid mental impressions; and having been accustomed to meet With them in the mos powerful Writing; they come to have in themselves a species of force. The emotions that have from time to time been produced by the strong thoughts Wrapped up in these forms, are partially aroused by the forms themselves. They create a certain degree of animation; they induce a preparatory sympathy, and when the striking ideas looked for are reached, they are the more vividly realized (63). From the evidence given, it is clear that paragraph 4 at least , of The Philosophy of Style contains the same substance as muet have appeared in Force of Expression. 2. Brevity is the second source of economy which Spencer recognizes in Anglo-Saxon Words : The further superiority possessed by Saxon English in its comparative brevity obviously comes under the same generalization. If it be an advantage to express an idea in the 'smallest number of words, then will it be an advantage to express it in the smallest number of syl- lables. If circuitous phrases and needless ex- pletives distract the attention and diminish the strength of the impression produced, then do surplus articulations do so. A certain effort, though commonly an inappreciable one, must be required to recognize every vowel and consonant . If, as we so commonly find, the mind soon becomes fatigued when we listen to an indistinct or far removed speaker, or when we read a badly written manuscript ; and if, as we cannot doubt, the fatigue is a cumulative –35– result of the attention required to catch suc- cessive syllables; it obviously follows that at- tention is in such cases absorbed by each syl- lable. And if this be true when the syllables are difficult of recognition, it will also be true, though in a less degree, when the recog- nition of them is easy. Hence, the shortness of Saxon Words becomes a reason for their greater force as involving a saving of the articulations to be received (64). The general principle is here laid down that the Short – er any word, the greater the economy it a chieves. Brevity is understood in its purely physical sense of temporal length, and the syllable is the unit of measure. The same thinking precisely, there can be no doubt, underlay Spencer's Universal Tanguage. In the prefatory comment, Spencer wrote : The primary aim was that of obtaining the greatest brevity, and, consequently, a struc- ture mainly, or almost wholly, monosyllabic was proposed. Hence the table With Which the memoranda begin, is a calculation respecting the number of good monosyllables that can be formed by the exhaustive use of good consonants and good vowel sounds (65). The statement of the purpose is borne out by the "list of single syllables" which constitutes part of the original memoranda (66). There is still further evidence –36– in the rule, given in the memoranda, for the formation of one part of speech from another: The change of nouns into a djectives and adjec – tives into verbs, to be produced by the addition of consonants without in any case making an addi- tional syllable (67). It is plain, then, that paragraph 5 of The Philosophy of Style in all probability also constituted part of Force of Expression: 3. The third source of economy in words recognized by Spencer is their imitative character. This quality is of two kinds : direct imitation by representation of the actual sound made by the thing signified, and analogical imitation by use of a symbol which through its sound pro- duces upon the mind an effect similar to the effect of t; he non-auditory qualities of the thing signified. Again, that frequent cause of strength in Saxon and other primitive words --- their imitative char- acter, may be similarly resolved into the more general cause . Both those directly imitative, as splash., bang, whiz , roar, &c., and those analog- –37 – ically imitative, as rough, Smooth, keen, blunt, thin, hard, crag, &c., by presenting to the per- ceptions symboTs having direct resemblance to the things to be imagined, or some kinship to them, save part of the effort needed to call up the in- tended ideas, and leave more attention for the #: ideas themselves (68). The memoranda proper make provision for this second sort of imitation through the sound of the symbol to be employed: The compound vowels ah, ow, u, wah, &c. (69), which are not capable of the short sound, to be used for adjectives ; and the vowels to be in some de- gree indicative of the quality of the adjective. Let, for instance, all adjectives indicative of good quality be made with the ah and those of the bad with the ow (7 O ). - - The comment considerably elaborated the idea; and after showing how the principle applies to nouns, Spencer developed its application to adjectives as suggested in the - passage of the memoranda just quoted. He wrote : Of course the same system would be adopted in the choice of words for a djectives and verbs: the degree of a quality and the power of an action being similarly indicated by gradations from the feebly-sounding vowels to the loud-sounding vow- els. The result of these Selections would be . that even when some sentence was very indistinct- ly heard, it would be known at once whether it concerned small things and feeble actions or great things and forcible ones. –38– Systematic choice of Words was to be earried out in another way. The most euphonious conson- ants were to be used for things and qualities and acts of most frequent occurrence in speech, and the less and less euphonious ones for the things and qualities and acts gradually de- creasing in the frequency of their use. While this would serve as one guide in the selection of consonants, another guide would be the ana- logical Onomatopoeia : the euphonious consonants being used for things which appeal agreeably to the feelings, and the less and less euphonious ones for things which are less attractive in their natures, or are repulsive. Two such words as "rough" and "smooth" exemplify the use of both consonants and vowels under guidance of analogical onomatopoeia; for the vowel sound in "smooth" is one appropriately indicating some– thing unresisting and the regular, such as a smooth surface, while the first consonant sound in "rough" Well expresses the irregular and resist- ing quality of a surface. Evidently selections of vowels and consonants, if habitually made in these ways, would still further limit the arbi- trariness of choice , and would still further tend to make the language both euphonious and expressive (71). Of the use of imitation with nouns, he suggested: - A further idea was to use what may be called analogical Onomatopoeia : the small and petty things being in every case indicated by thin un- sonorous vowels, and great or imposing things by open and sonorous vowels: the degrees in size following the scale, e, a , 5 (ah), aw, o, oo. Varietions among these various sizes were to be implied by compound vowels severally formed out of these simple vowels. Thus a hill- ock, or very small elevation, would, using the same consonants, have the vowel e (as in see ); an elevation of medium size, as a hill, would have the open a (as in ah), while the greater ele- vations, mountains and peaks, would have the vowel sounds avi, o, oo, to severally distinguish their respective sizes. This done systematic aly Would, besides excluding, in large measure, arbitrary choice, give to the very sounds them– —39 – selves a great suggestiveness. The mental asso- ciation would be rendered irresistible, both by its naturalness and by its perpetual recurrence (72). By the "naturalness" of the association in these cases Spencer meant the similarity between thing and symbol. He was making conscious use of a mode of relating elements of thought recognized by all psychologists as far back as Arist ot, le. From the evidence here given, paragraph 6 of The Philosophy of Style also appeared in Force of Expression. 4. The fourth source of economy in words Spencer finds to be the superiority of specific and concrete Words over generic and abstract. In The Philosophy of Style he wrote : The economy of the recipient's mental energy into Which We thus find the Several causes of the strength of Saxon English resolvable, may equally be traced in the superiority of specific over generic words. That concrete terms produce more vivid impressions than abstract ones, and should, when possible, be used instead, is a thorough maxim of composition. As Dr. Campbell says, "The more general the terms are , the picture is the fainter; the more special they are, the brighter. " We should avoid such a senterce as : ––– –40- In proportion as the manners, customs, and amusements of a nation are cruel and barbarous, the regulations of their penal code will be severe. And in place of it we should write : --- In proportion as men delight in battles, tourneys, bull-fights, and combats of glad— iators, will they punish by hanging, behead- ing, burning, and the rack. This superiority of specific expressions is clearly due to a saving of the effort required to translate words into thoughts. As We do not think in generals but in particulars ––– as, Whenever sny class of things is referred to, we represent it to ourselves by calling to mind individual members of it --- it follows that When an abstract Word is used, the hearer or reader has to choose from among his stock of images, one or more, by which he 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 pro- ăuced (73). Between this passage and the notes on the Universal Tianguage there is only one, a very slight, analogy. º passage in The Philosophy of Style º an ab Stract; or generic Word as faint, lacking in vividness, indefinite, as compared with a concrete or specific term. The memo- randa proper, it will be recalled, provided that abstract Words should begin with nasals, while the comment indicated that all generic words should have the vowel e in err. In the murmuring sound of the nasal and the obscure sound –41– of the vowel, the character of the word was no doubt meant to be portrayed. It may be sufficient to quote again from the comment, : A cardinal idea was that in each genus of things or actions, the generic word should always have the indefinite, or most general, vowel-sound, the e in err --- the sound made without any ad- justment of the vocal organs, and the sound first made by the infant. This would, as it were, express the genus in its undifferentiated State ; . . . . . . . . . (74). On the other hand, if the memoranda and the comment may be regarded as equally representative of Spencer's views in 1844, there is a slight discrepancy between these views and those of The Philosophy of Style in the passage above quoted. In The Philosophy of Style, it will be seen, Spencer used the terms abstract and generic as inter- changeable. In the notes on the Universal Tianguage, how- ever, he distinguishes between abstract and generie, f Or the first is indicated by the initial consonant while the second is represented by the vowel . On the whole, then, it would be impossible, perhaps, to decide whether or not paragraphs 7 and 8 of The Philos- –42– ophy of Style were also contained in Force of Expression. The evidence in this chapter shows that paragraphs 4, 5, and 6 of The Philosophy of Style in all probability appeared in Force of Expression, but that paragraphs 7 and 8, although they may very well have appeared in the earlier essay, did not necessarily appear there. –43– Chapter W. Phrenology in The Philosophy of Style . Tr) the * of documents from 1844, other than Ideas about a Universal Language, which can be compared directly with The Philosophy of Style, internal evidences in the latter essay must be resorted to in attempting to determine the date of its composition. As psychology is the basis of explanation throughout the essay, this psychol- ogy may be examined as furnishing a possible clue to dating The Philosophy of Style. If the psychology can be assoc- iated with some particular period of Spencer's life, the date of composition of the essay can be determined. In his early years, Spencer was a phrenologist. He gives an account of his conversion in the Autobiography: Between 1820 and 1830, phrenology had been drawing attention; and there came over to Eng- land, about 1830 or after, Gall's disciple, Spurzheim, who went about the country diffusing knowledge of the system. Derby was among the towns he visited. Being then perhaps ll, or perhaps l?, I attended his lectures: having, however, to overcome a considerable repugnance –44– to contemplating the row of grinning skulls he had in front of him. Of course at that age faith was stronger than scepticism. Accepting un- critically the statements made , ſ became a be- liever, and for many years remained one . (75) In 1842, Spencer had his head examined by a phrenol- ogist, one J. Q. Rumball; and of the characterization and the opinions of his friends, he gives extracts in the Autobiog- raphy (76). In 1843, he published in the phrenological journal, the Zoist, an article on "A New View of the Funct- ions of Imitation and Benevolence" (77) and in 1844 two more articles, entitled "On the Situation of the organ Of Amativeness" and "A Theory Concerning the Organ of Wonder", in the same periodical (78). Although Spencer continued an adherent of phrenology, he Was becoming somewhat skeptical, apparently, for his articles suggest new interpretations of various phrenological faculties. Of the earliest article, he says in the Autobiography: Of course it was heretical (79). In referring to the later articles, he writes, –45– ------ - - my interest still continued, and in respect of parts of which I again enunciated heterodox views (80). - In The Filiation of Ideas , he writes, Though When twenty-one to twenty-four my scepticism had not risen to the height it event- ually reached, yet, as might be anticipated, I entertained sundry phrenological he resies, and expressed them in articles published in a quar- terly journal called The Zoist (81). Mr. Duncan observes in regard to the year 1843, His letters show that he approached the study of mental functions through the averſue of phren- ology, his conclusions being reached, as he more than once is careful to mention, not theoretically only, but by observation (82). An instance of such correspondence is found in the year 1844, in which he characterizes the heads of his friends, Mr. and Potter, in phrenological terms (83). Early in 1846, Spencer devised a Cephalograph, an instrument for making accurate measurements of skulls. Con- cerning this device he writes in a prefatory note in the Autobiography: A sample instrument, which T had made , was so ill made that it would not work. Partly - –4 6– disgust and partly pre-occupation prevented me from prosecuting the matter at the time, and before my thoughts were again turned to it, I had become sceptical about current phrenological views, and no longer felt prompted to employ a better instrument-maker (84). After this date there is nothing to indicate further interest in phrenology, and the subject is not mentioned in his letters. Apparently, his belief in phrenology was on the wane shortly after l846. In 1855, Spencer published his Principles of Psychology. No one would think of calling this work phrenological in character; the refore, a decided change in his psychological thinking must have taken place sometime between 1846 and 1855. Did this occur before 1852 when The Philosophy of Style was prepared for publication º If so, we have but to ask what is the psychology underlying that essay, in order to determine whether it was written about 1844 or about 1852. First, then, the date of the origin of Prin- ciples of Psychology must be as certained. –4 7– Spencer, in the Autobiography, gives an account, With ample evidence, of the genesis of this work: When recalling the doings of past years, I have sometimes been at a loss to decide how it was, and when it was, that I first entertained the thought of Writing upon Psychology. Had I been forced to say, I should have said that the begin- ning of 1854 was the time, and that the composition of an essay on "The Cenesis of Science" was the cause. I should have been quite Wrong, however. To my surprise, correspondence proves that the design dates back to the beginning of l852; and that I had then reached some, at any rate , of the lead- ing ideas eventually set forth. A letter written to my father on the l8th of March, l852, contains the paragraph : – "I shall shortly begin to read up in preparation for my 'Introduction to Psychology. ' Probably it will be the close of next year before I have, it ready for the press. Iºint end it to be prelimi- nary to a large Work on Psychology, probably ex- tending to more than one volume . This introduct- ion will contain the general principles, and will fore Shadow the character of the book it self." The first sentence implies that the intention had a risen some time before this date ; for T speak of the work to my father as though he had already been told of it. Probably it was during my stay at Perby, at the close of the preceding December, that I named the intention to him. It is further manifest that there must already have been reached the general conceptions eventually set forth; since, otherwise, there would have been no thought of "a large Work on psychology probably extending to more than one volume." A fortnight later, namely on the 25th, I wrote home +--- "I am just beginning to read Mill's Logic. This is my first step towards preparing for my 'Intro- duction to Psychology' which I mean to begin vigorously by and by . " No further reference to the subject appears in the correspondence until a letter of October 1, in which I find the paragraph ––– "I am busy with the Psychology, and have drawn - –48– up an out line of the section on the ' Universal Postulate . " " Thus it appears that the general interest in mental phenomena indicated in the last chapter as having been shown in sun dry Ways, and which T there inferred was increased by reading Lewes's Biographical History of Philosophy in the autumn of l851, quickly, under that stimulus, began to have results. It was there remarked, that some original conceptiónnin relation to the subject was needed to give me the requisite spur; and this requirement was, it seems, fulfilled " much sooner than I supposed (85). From this account only one inference is possible --- Spencer had given up his old phrenology and adopted his new psychology by the beginning of 1852; and as The Philosophy of style was made ready for publication in the fall of 1852 (86), it should, if written at that time, reflect Spencer's psychological thinking of 1855 rather than phrenology. It remains for us only to see how far the Principles of Psychology deviated from phrenology, before examining the psychology underlying The Philosophy of Style. For this ( purpose, it is necessary to quote Spencer's criticism of phrenology, in Principles of Psychology: –49– And here this doctrine of the hereditary transmission of tendencies tº Owards certain com- plex aggregations of psychical states correspond- ing to complex aggregations of external phenomena, and the consequent organization of such tendencies in the race, suggests a few remarks on the tenets of the phrenologists. - That an organized tendency towards certain com- plex aggregations of psychical states, supposes a structural modification of the nervous system ––– a special set of complex nervous connections where – by the numerous excitations constituting the emotion may be co-ordinated --- no one having even a superficial knowledge of Physiology can doubt. As every student of the nervous system knows, the combination of any set of impressions, or motions, or both, implies a ganglion in which the various nerve-fibres concerned are put in connection. To combine the actions of any set of ganglia, implies some ganglion in connection with them all. And so on in ever-ascending stages of complication: the nervous masses concerned, be- coming larger in proportion to the complexity of the co-ordinations they have to effect. The in- duction that the same thing holds throughout , is, I think, irresistible. And if so, it follows that every emotion implies some portion of ner- vous structure by Which its various elements are united ––– a portion which is large in proportion as the se elements are many and varie d'; and which, in virtue of its co-ordinating function, is more especially the seat of the emotion. That, in the ir antagonism to the unscientific reasonings of the phrenologists, the physiologists should have gone to the extent of denying or ig- noring any localization of function in the cer– ebrum, is, perhaps, not to be wondered at : it is in harmony with the course of controversies in general. But no physiologist who calmly considers the question in connection with the general truths of his science, can long resist the con- viction that different parts of the cerebrum sub- serve different kinds of mental action. To Gali- zation of function is the law of all organization whatever : separateness of duty is universally accompanied with separateness of structure : and it would be marvelous were an exception to exist –50– in the cerebral hemispheres. Let it be granted that the cerebral hemispheres are the seat of the higher psychical activities; let it be granted that among the se higher psychical act – ivities there are distinctions of kind, which, though not définite, are yet practically recog- nizable; and it cannot be defiied, without going in direct opposition to established physiologi- cal principles, that these more or less distinct kinds of psychical activity must be carried on in more or less distinct parts of the cerebral hemisphe res. To question this, is not only to ignore the truths of physiology as a whole ; but especially those of the physiology of the ner- vous system. It is proved experimentally, that évery bundle of nerve-fibres and every gang Lion, has a special duty ; and that each part of every such bundles and every such ganglion, has a duty still more special. Can it be , then, that in the great hemispherical ganglia alone, this specialization of duty does not hold 2 If it be urged that there are no marked divisions among the fibres of the cerebrum, T reply ––– neither are there among those contained in one of the bundles proceeding from the spinal chord to any part of the body : yet each of the fibres in such bundle has a function more or less special ; though a function included in that of the bundles considered ss a Whole. And this is just the kind of specialization which may be presumed to exist in different parts of the cerebrum. Just as there are aggregated together in the sciatic nerve, a great number of nerve- fibres, each of which has a particular office referring to some one part of the leg, but all of which have for their joint duty the management of the leg as a whole; so, in any one region of the cerebrum, each nerve-fibre may be concluded to have some particular office, which, in common with the particular offices of , thousands of neighbouring fibres, is merged. in some general office which that region of the cerebrum fulfils. Indeed, any other hypothesis seems to me, on the face of it , unternable . Either the re is some arrangement, some organization, in the cerebrum, or there is none. If there is no organization, the cerebrum is a chaotic mass of fibres, in- –51– capable of performing any orderly action. If here is some organization, it must consist in that same ' physiological division of lab or ' in which all organization exists; and there is no division of labour, physiological or other, of which We have any example, or can form any concep- tion, but what involves the concentration of special kinds of activity in special places. But to coincide with the doctrine of the phreno– logists in its most abstract shape, is by no means to Go incide With the ir concrete embodiments of it. Indeed the crudity of their philosophy is such, as may well make many who to some extent a- gree with them, refrain from any avowal of their agreement : more especially when they are met by so great an unwillingness to listen to any criticisms on the detailed scheme rashly promulgated as finally settled. Among other objections to the phrenologist's teachings, it may be noted that they put forth their body of doctrines as in itself a complete system of Psychology. To one who has read thur far, it is needless to point out the absurdity of this position. At best, Phrenology can be but an appen- dix to Psychology proper; and one of but compar- ative unimportance, scientifically considered. Again they are unwarranted in their idea of a precise demarcation of the faculties. Were there anything like that definite distinction in the functions of the different parts of the cerebrum, which is indicated by the lines on their busts, and apparently supposed by them really to exist, there would be some signs of it in the cerebrum it- self. In other parts of the nervous system, where the re is a decisive difference of function, there is decisively marked separation of structure. The only localization which we may presume to exist, and which the necessities of the case imply, is one of a comparatively vague kind --- one which does not suppose specific limits, but an insensible shading- off. And this is just the conclusion to which all the preceding investigations point. For as we have seen that every mental faculty, rightly understood, is an internal plexus of nervous relations, corres– ponding to some plexus of relations among external phenomena that are habitually experienced; and as the different plexuses of external relations, in proportion as they become complicated, also –52– become less definite in their distinctions, so that when we reach those extreme ly involved, extensive, and variable plexuses of relations to which higher faculties respond, there comes to be a great overlapping and entanglement of the different plexuses; it follows that the answer- ing internal plexuses must be fused together --- it must be as impossible to demarcate the in- ternal nervous aggregations, as it is to de- marcate the aggregations of external relations. Moreover, I conceive that the phrenologists are Wrong in assuming that there is something spe- Gific and unalterable in the natures of the var- ious faculties. Responding, as they do, to the particular assemblages of phenomena habitually surrounding any race of organisms, they are only so far fixed and specific as these are fixed and specific. A permanent alteration in one of the se assemblages, would in time establish a special feeling responding to the modified assemblage. A habit --- say of sitting in a particular place in a particular room, and of being un- comfortable elsewhere --- is nothing but an incipient feeling answering to that particular group of outer relations; and were all the successors of the person having this habit, to be constantly placed in the same relations, this incipient feeling would become an estab- lished one . So little specific are the facul- ties, that no one of them is quite the same in different persons : they severally differ as the Several features differ. Yet further, the current impression of phreno– logists seems to be, that the different portions of the cerebrum in which they locate different faqulties, are of themselves competent to pro- duce the manifestations assigned to them. The portion of the brain marked "acquisitiveness", is supposed to be alone concerned in producing the desire of possession. But it is a corol- lary from the general argument of this chapter, that the desire includes a great number of minor desires elsewhere located. As every more complex aggregation of psychical states, is evolved by the union of minor aggregations previously established — — — results from the con– solidation or co-ordination of these ; it follows that that which becomes more especially the –53– seat of this more complex aggregation, or higher feeling, is simply the centre of co-ordination by which all the minor aggregations are brought into relation. Hence, that particular portion of the cerebrum in which a particular faculty is said to be located, must be regarded as an agency by which the various actions going on in other parts of the cerebrum are combined in a par- ticular way. Saying no thing of the many minor objections that may be made to the phrenological doctrine, in respect of its localizations, and more es– pecially in respect of its very faulty, un- analytical nomenclature of the faculties; it is thus sufficiently clear, that defensible as it is in its fundamental proposition, it is in many other points quite indefensible (87). Three features of the psychology underlying The Philo- sophy of Style need to be examined particularly. These are l. the Faculties, 2. Fatigue, 3. Attention. In each case, the investigation will undertake to answer three questions: l. Does the treatment resemble that in Spencer's Principles Of Psychology? 2. Does it resemble that of the British philosophers? 3. Does it resemble that of Phrenology? From these answers may be determined the source of the psychology in The Philosophy of Style and, consequently, the date of it s origin. –54– l. The Faculties as they appear in the essay on style may first be examined. In The Philosophy of Style Spencer makes repeated reference to the "faculties" (88), implying by such expressions as "every faculty" (89) and "group of faculties" (90) that the faculties are numerous. Moreover, he names Several, such as the "faculty of reverence" (91) and faculty of "approbation" (92). In the second place, Spencer regards the faculties not merely as subjective entities, modes of operation of the mind, but as physiological organs. The evidence for this inference is his theory of the physiological fatigue of the faculties, and will be dealt with in Section 2. of this chapter. | Finally, he presents a rough classification of the faculties. He Writes : Now, the truth at once recognised in these, its extreme manifestations, may be traced through2 out ; and it may be shown that a like in the re- flective faculties, in the imagination, in the perceptions of the beautiful, the ludicrous, the sublime, in the sentiments, the instincts, in all the mental powers, however we may classify them ––– action exhausts; . . . . . . (93) Apparently, this is not meant for a systematic classifi – cation, but at the same time, it seems possible to distin- guish three or four groups, such as "reflective faculties", "sentiments", "instincts", and possibly "perceptions". In the first part of the essay, Spencer frequently speaks of "perceptive faculties" (94). Nothing in Spencer's Principles of Psychology resem- bles the minute and numerous faculties of The Philosophy of Style. In the Psychology, Spencer uses the same sort of analysis in general as that employed by the British philosophers in resolving mind into its structural elements. The operations of mind are to be explained by association of the elements of experience, within the life time either of the individual or of the race. The aspects of Intelligences -- - * * –56– which Spencer treats are Reflex Action, Instinct, Memory, Reason, the Feelings, the will (95), and none of these is altogether ăist inct from another. At the beginning of his chapter on The Feelings, he writes: The assertion that those psychical states which we class as feelings, are involved with, and inseparable from, those which we class as purely intellectual processes --- that they form but another aspect of the mental phenomena already described; is an assertion that Will appear untenable . Habitually contemplating the contrast between the cognitive and emotive faculties from a subjective point of view, we conclude that it is a strongly marked contrast ; and to say that there is really no line of de- marcation between reason, and sentiment or pass- ion, Will, by most , be thought a contradiction of direct internal perceptions. Nevertheless, if the general doctrines that have been enunciated are true ––– if all mental phenomena are incidents of the correspondence between the organism and its en- vironment ; and if this correspondence is a thing of degree, which passes insensibly from its lowest to its highest forms; then, we may be certain, a priori, that the Feelings are not, scientifically considered, divisible from other phenomena of consciousness (96). In fact, Spencer's chief criticism of the phrenolog- ical doctrine is that it makes too rigid the demarcation of the faculties (97). How far this view is from that in The Philosophy of style appears in the fact that in this essay -º- t; he effect of Antithesis, Climax, and Antic limax, is ex- plained upon the assumption that the faculties are absolute- ly independent of each other. For instance, he Writes : In Anti thesis, again, we may recognize the same general truth. The opposition of two thoughts that are the reverse of each other in some prominent trait insures an impress– - ive effect ; and does this by giving a momentary relaxation to the faculties addressed (98). This could be possible only if the faculties were so in- dependent of each other that one could be fatigued without affecting the other. No such distinctness of faculties and their functions is contemplated in Spencer's criticism of t; he phrenological faculties in Principles of Psychology. It is not difficult to show that , although the term faculty is common to all the British philosophers, the sig- nification of it with them was considerably different from that with Spencer. In the first place, the philosophers, though differing considerably among themselves in regard to –53– the number of faculties, conceived of a very limited number of faculties, usually a three to five-fold division, com— prising such general faculties as intellect, emotion, Will (99). Spencer names only a few faculties, but implies Iſārly , º by speaking of them as in "groups", and by giving them minute functions, expressed in the names. In the second place, none of the British philosophers associated the men- tal faculti e S With distinct, orgºne of the brain. Hartley, who had some notion of the relation between mental powers and the brain, gives no suggestion of orgºne corresponding to the faculties, in his theory of vibrations (100). The rest concerned themselves only with the subjective aspect of the faculties. Thus, the re appears no possibility that Spencer should have derived his "faculties" from the Brit- ish philosophers. On the other hand, when a comparison of the faculties in The Philosophy of Style. With those contemplated by the –59– phrenologists is made, considerable likeness is found. In the first place, phrenology recognized thirty-five or more organs or faculties of the mind. There were names such as "reverence" (101), "ideality (102), and "approbative = ness" (log), to correspond to Spencer's "reverence" (log), "beauty" (105), and "approbation" (106). Th phrenology the se faculties, like Spencer's were not only minute and highly specialized in function, but dis– tinctly marked off from one another (low). Tilze Spencer's faculties, too, those of the phrenologists had e psycholog- - º ical basis, besides definite anatomical localization in the brain (lù8). Finally, Spurzheim classifies the faculties into In- tellectual and Affective , with subdivisions of Reflective and Perceptive under the first head and Sentime nt; s and Pro- pensities under the second (109). It has already been – 60– pointed out (ll,0) that Spencer, in The Philosophy of Style, has a classification suggesting "reflective faculties", "perceptive faculties", "sentiments", and "instincts". In general, then, while the faculties in The Philosophy of Style have no counterpart in Spencer's Principles of Psychology and none in the works of the British philosophers, they aro very like the faculties of the phrenologists, and suggest that the essay was written in large part while Spencer was still a phrenologist, possibly in 1844. 2. Although Spencer's theory of fatigue as a factor in mental phenomena is most definitely stated in the second part of The Philosophy of Style, yet it is implied through- out . The explanation of the general * of economy applied to attention in the third paragraph of the essay assumes the influence of fatigue. There he writes: A reader or listener has at each moment but a limited amount of mental power available . To recognise and interpret the symbols present- ed to him requires part of this power : to arrange and combine the images suggested requires a further, part ; and only that part which remains –61– can be used for the realization of the thought conveyed (lll). The theory is stated explicitly at the beginning of the eecond part of the essay: Without going at length into so wide a topic as the exercise of faculties and its re- active effects, it will be sufficient here to call to mind that every faculty (when in a state of normal activity) is most capable at the outset ; and that the change in its con– dition, which ends in what we term exhaustion, begins simultaneously with its exercise. This generalization, with which we are all familiar in our bodily experiences, and which our daily language recognizes as true of the mind as a Whole, is equally true of each mental power, from the simplest of the senses to the most complex of the sentiments. If we hold a flower to the nose for long, We become in- sensible to its scent. We say of a very brilliant flash of lightning that it blinds us; which means that our eyes have for a time lost their ability to appreciate light. After eating a quantity of honey, we are apt to think our tea is without sugar. The phrase "a deafening roar", implies that men find a very loud sound temporarily incapacitates them for hearing faint ones. Now, the truth at once recognised in these, its extreme manifestations, may be traced throughout ; andºmay be shown that alike in the reflective faculties, in the imagination, in the percept- ions of the beautiful, the ludicrous, the sublime, in the sentiments, the instincts, in all the mental powers, however We may classify them ––– action exhausts ; and that in propor- tion as the action is violent, the subsequent prostration is great (ll 2). Whence comes this theory of fatigue? It is not un- –62– - common in the psychologies of the present day, but in 1852 and before One would have looked for it in vain in the Works Of British psychologists (113). It would have fitted in very well with some phases of Spencer's own biological view of psychology set forth in Principles of Psychology; but nothing of the sort appears there. The phrenologists, on the other hand, make considerable use of fatigue. Spurzheim recognizes the theory of fatigue in the following passage, and applies it in several places throughout his work : The faculties of animal life G annot act incessantly, they require repose. Study of the same subject, too long protracted, causes fatigue ; by changing this We may still continue our labors. Now if the brain were a single organ, that performed all the functions of the mind, why should it not be still further fatigue d by this new species of action? Al- though our eyes be fatigued by looking at pictures, We can still listen to music, because there is a particular organ for each of the se sorts of impressions (114 ). As during watching the same organ is not al- ways active, but reposes at intervals; so, during – 6.3– sleep, all the organs do not sink into inactivity together, but a particular one continues its function, and then the peculiar state called dreaming Supervenes . . . . . . Every corporeal organ being fatigued takes rest, and this state of rest is sleep; but single, or even several #º may be active While the others repose ll 5). Again, some phrenologists, for instance Call, considered mental traits to be the result of absence of a faculty, or of its exhaustion or fatigue. Spurzheim, in discussing the organ of "cautiousness", denies Gall's theory that coward- ice is due to the exhaustion or weence of an organ of courage. One passage Will suffice to show how its appli– cation by the phrenologist a might have suggested the use Which Spencer makes of the same principle : Finally, cruelty never results from the in- activity, or exhaustion, or fatigue, of bene- volence . Benevolence, when active, always prevents cruelty; but when inactive, other feelings, destructiveness for instance, en- couraged by self-love, firmness and selfish motives generally, may act in a cruel man- ner (ll 6). 3. As Attention is the psychological factor upon which all the first part of The Philosophy of Style is based, -º- - Spencer's theory of attention requires especial study to determine at just what stage Of his psychological thinking it enter S. Attention, in the essay on composition, has several features in common With at tention as it is generally regard— ed in our own day. On the subjective side, the result of at tent i on º the ide a seems to be to increase the effectiveness of that idea . Spencer uses most commonly the terms "vivid" (ll 7 ), "forcible" (118), and "effective" (119 ) to denote the influence of at tent- ion upon the content of mind. However, the strictly "selective" function of attention, emphasized by common observation and the remarks of philosophers, is not regarded, and the effect of attention upon retention in memory does not arise for con- sideration. The physiological character of Spencer's view of attention is most noticeable . Attention is apparently a – 6.5- reservoir of physical energy at the service of mental life. Every mental act of any sort requires attention; it uses up energy. The energy of attention is associated with the activity of the Whole mind, or rather with every part of it . It is a fixed amount --- " A reader or listener has at each moment but a limited amount of mental power available" (120) -- – and it may be temporarily drained to varying degrees of fatigue or exhaustion. The attention is "absorbed" (121) Or "frittered away" (122), or there is a "strain upon the attention" (123). Moreover, it may be drained through many channels; that is, it is applicable to the needs of any faculty. Finally, attention apparently reenforces the acti – vity of specialized portions of the brain; and apparently this physiological reenforcement corresponds to the mental effectiveness produced by attention. Attention may be taxed either by severe demands upon one faculty or by multi- –66– tudinous demands upon many faculties simultaneously. The se relations of at tention to the functioning of the faculties cannot well be illustrated by excerpts from the essay, but no one reading the essay can doubt that Spencer so conceives them. In one place he begins, " . . . . . . . if some subtlety in the argument absorb the attention --- if every faculty be strained in endeavouring to catch the speaker's or writer's drift ---" (124). Very clearly "straining every faculty" is the same as "absorbing the attention"; and indicates as clearly as may be in brief the relation of attention and faculties explained above . Naturally, attention as it appears in this essay must be compared With attention in Principles of Psychology. In The Philosophy of Style, the Word "attention" appears Seventeen times in the fifty paragraphs which constitute the first part of that essay (125). In Principles of Psychology, the –67– word "attention" appears twenty times in six hundred and twenty pages. Six of these latter instances have no psyche- logical significance (126): and of the remaining fourteen, not one indicates anything like a theory of attention. The passages containing these fourteen mentions of "attention" are given below : e - e - e. e. e. e. So, too, is it with sounds. They may create either pleasurable or painful states of consciousness: they often distract our attention against our will : When loud, they cause involun- tary starts in those who are awake ; and either waken those who sleep, or modify their dreams (127). . . . . . . . . By means of the light it radiates or reflects, an outward thing renders itself visible to us when afar off. Objects in a state of sonorous vibration arrest our attention at vari- ous degrees of remoteness. We are made aware of the presence of odoriferous substances whilst only in their neighbourhood (128). Carrying with us this idea, and calling to mind the description given in the last chapter of the mode in which the retiria is constructed, and the relations among its elements established, it will, I think, become possible to conceive how that wonderful perception which we have of visible space, is generated. It is a peculiarity of sight, as contrasted with all the other senses, that it makes us partially conscious of many things at once. On now raising my head, I take in at one glance, desk, papers, t able, books, - 68– chairs, Walls, carpe t , Windows, and sundry ob- jects outside ; all of them simultaneously im– pressing me with various details of colour, which more or less tend to suggest surface and structure. It is true that I am not equally conscious of all these things at the same time. I find that some one object to which my eyes are directed, is more distinctly present to my mind than any other; and that the one point in this object on which the visual axes converge, is more vividly perceived than the rest. In fact, I have a perfect perception of scarcely more than an in- finitesimal portion of the whole visual area. Nevertheless, T find that even While concen– trating my attention on this infinitesimal por- tion, I am in some degree aware of the whole. My complete consciousness of a particular letter in the title on the back of a book at the other side of the room, does not seem to exclude a consciousness that the re are accompanying letters — — — does not seem to exclude a con- sciousness of the book --- does not even seem to exclude a consciousness of the table on which the book lies --- nay, does not even seem entirely to exclude a consciousness of the wall against which the table stands, Of all the Se hings I feel myself conscious in different degrees of intensity --- degrees that become less, partly in proportion as the things are unobtrusive in colour and size, and partly in proportion as they recede from the centre of the vi Sula field. Not that these various surround- ing things occupy consciousness in the sense of being definitely known as such or such ; for I find, on experiment, that while keeping my eyes fixed on one object , I cannot make that assertory judgment respecting any adjacent ob- ject which a real cognition of it implies, with- out becoming, for the moment, imperfectly conscious even of the object on which my eyes are fixed. But notwithstanding all this, it remains true that the se various objects are in some sense present to my mind ––– are incipiently perceived ––– are severally tending to fill the conscious- ness --- are each of them partially exciting the various mental states that would arise Were –69– it to be distinctly perceived (129). . . . . . . . . Generalizing the facts then, it would seem, not so much that Sensation and Percept— ion vary inversely, as that they exclude each other with varying degrees of stringency. When the sensations (considered simply as physical changes in the organism ) are weak, the objective phenomenon signified by them is alone contem- plated: the sensations are altogether excluded from consciousness, and cannot be brought into it. Without a de Gj de Ó effort . When the Sen Sat- ions are rendered somewhat more intense, the perception still remains equally vivid --- still remains the sole occupant of consciousness; but as, by their increasing intensity, the sensations tend to force themselves into con- sciousness, it requires less effort than before to make them the subject of thought. Crad- ually as the intensity of the sensations is further increased, a point is approached at which consciousness is as likely to be occupied by them, as by the external fact they imply --- a point at which either can be thought of with equal facility, and at which each tends in the greatest degree to draw at tention from the other #13.5. What now is the real nature of this mutual exclusion? Is it not an instance of the general fact that consciousness cannot be in two distinct states at the same time? I cannot know that I have a sensation, without , for the moment, having my attention occupied solely with that sensation: I cannot know the external thing causing it, without, for the moment, having my attention occupied solely with that external thing ; and as either cognition rises, the other C & 8 SG S . If, as Sir William Hamilton asserts, the two cognitions always coexist, though in in- verse intensities, then it must happen, that if, beginning at either extreme, the conditions be slowly changed, so that While the cog- nition most distinctly present to the mind –70– becomes gradually less distinct, the other be- comes gradually more distinct ; there must arrive a time when they will be equally distinct --- When the subjective and objective phenomena will be thought of together with equal clear– ness; which is impossible. It is very true, as shown above, that under such change of conditions, there arrives a time When the sub- jective and objective phenomena attract the attention in equal degrees, and are thought of alternately. With equal facility. And it may even be admitted that while either is being thought of, the other is necent in thought. But this is quite a different thing from saying that they occupy consciousness together (131). - e. e. e. e. e. e. . A little consideration Will show, that during one of these seemingly homogeneous states of consciousness, produced by a per- sistent sensation, the attention is tran– sitorily occupied with various other things ––– with surrounding objects, with sounds, With the idea of self, &c. &c. -- none of which are wholly absent from the mind. Whence it is C lear that What We are liable t; O take for an unbrolzen State of conscious- ness, is really a state broken by numerous incidental states --- by fleeting thoughts, which, passing through it, serve to divide it out into portions, and reduce it to a series of states (132). . . . . . . . . Teaving out of sight for a moment that fleeting state of consciousness which marks a transfer of the attention, and which strictly considered is a change, We may say that by unlikeness and likeness we mean respectively, change and no change in consciousness (133). --------- Though, by moving them slowly and With attention, the muscles of the fingers may be made to produce differently-formed letters; yet, on the attention being relaxed, –71– and the usual speed resumed, they reassume their old character (134). . . . . . . . . But many of the impressions and motions involved are certainly unconscious. The sensations which the knife-handle gives; the contractions by which it is grasped; and the muscular changes which the arms are every moment undergoing, scarcely ever, if at all, occupy the attention (135). Nevertheless, the truth of the general doctrine that the psychical life is distin- guished from the physical life by presenting successive changes only, instead of successive and simultaneous changes, may be even further shown from the very facts here cited. For though, when subject to a visual impression, we become našentiy conscious of many things; yet, there is always some one thing of which We are conscious in a higher degree than the rest. And beyond this, it is observable that When we so direct our attention to any one thing as to perceive it in the true sense of the Word — — — to know it as such or such, we are almost exclusively occupied with that one thing, or some particular part of that one thing (136). . . . . . . . . It is an established fact, that among animals in general, Ourselves included, a sensation or nervous stimulus, which , if slight, simply arouses attention and produces some slight muscular action, will, if it be - comes intense, cause convulsive contractions of the muscles in general (137). - There is nothing in the se passages even remotely suggesting the physiological theory of attention underlying –72– The Philosophy of style. Attention, in short, plays no part in Spencer's psychological thinking of 1855, the term is mentioned merely incidentally in Principles of Psychology, and there is no reason to a S Sociate his use of attention in the essay on style with his biological and evolutionary psychology. Tet us now look for Other possible Sources of "at tention." as Spencer employed it in The Philosophy of Style. The history of psychology has not yet been written, and there- fore it would be impossible to say absolutely, without a thorough study of every British philosopher from Tocke to Mill, that mone of the British school of philosophers con- ceived "attention" as Spencer used it . Yet modern writers upon psychological matters assert that the British thinkers did not so employ the term. In fact, few of the British school --- or any others for that matter --- devoted much –73– study to attention. Th the article on "Attention" in Baldwin's Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology is Written : º - With some notable exceptions (Wolff, Yant, and James Mill) the attention was greatly neglected until more modern times, notable by the Friglish empiricists . . . . . . . It was considered an unanaly- sable attribute of the soul, and direct evidence of the independent activity of the mental prin– ciple (Hamilton, Carpenter, McCosh). With Leibnitz it was the essential mode of receiving º: experiences which he termed apperception 138 ). r Trofessor James Write S : Strange to say so patent a fact as the per- petual presence of selective attention has received hardly any notice from psychologists of the English empiricist school. The Germans have explicitly treated of it, either as a faculty or as a resultant, but in the pages of such writers as Locke, Hume, Hartley, Mill, and Spencer the word hardly occurs, or if it does, it is parenthetically and as if by in- advertence (139). _* Such works, British or Continental, as did treat of attention in one way or another, were probably all unknown to Spencer, not only in 1844 and 1852, but throughout his life. Spencer was not well read in philosophy. By 1853, –74– he knew something of Berkeley, Hume, Hamilton, and Reid ––– how much would be hard to say (140). The extent of his philosophical reading about 1850, when Social Static s was written, and throughout his life may be gained from a letter by Spencer to Teslie Stephen, 1899: Your assumption is a very natural one , but it is utterly mistaken. When Social Statics was written I had none of that preparation which you Supp O Se . When With my uncle, from thirteen to sixteen, my acquirements were limited to Euclid, algebra, trigonometry, mechanics, and the first part of Newton's Principia. To this equipment I never added. During my eight years of engineering life I read next to nothing ––– even of pro- fessional literature. Then as always, I was an impatient reader and read nothing continuously except novels and travels, and of the se but little. I am in fact constitutionally idle. I doubt whether during all these years I ever read any serious book for an hour at a stretch. You may judge of my condition with regard to lºnowledge from the fact that during all my life up to the time Social Statics Was Written, there had been a copy of Tocke on my father's Shelves Which I never read — — — I am not certain that I ever took it down. And the same holds of all other books of philosophical kinds. I never read any of Bacon's writings, save his essays. I never looked into Hobbes until, when Writing the essay on "The Social Organism, " I wanted to see the details of his grotesque c on- ception. It was the same with Politics and with Ethi C.S. At the time Social Static S Was Written I knew of Paley nothing more than that he enunciated the doctrine of expediency; and of Bentham I knew only that he was the promulgator –75– of the Greatest Happiness principle . The doctrines of other ethical Writers referred to Were known by me only through references to them here and there met with . I never then looked into any of their books; and more over, I have never since looked into any of their books. When about twenty-three I happened to get hold of Mill's Logic, then recently published, and read with approval his criticism of the Syllogism. When twenty-four I met with a translation of Yant and read the first few pages. Forthwith, rejecting his doctrine of Time and Space, I read no further. My ignorance of ancient philosophical Writers was absolute. After Social Statics was published (in 1851) I made the acquaintance of Mr. Lewes, and one result was that I read in his Biographical History of philosophy . . . . And, Tshort Ty after TTT (in 1852), a present of Mill's Logic having been made to me by Ceorge Eliot, I read that through : one result being that I made an attack upon one of his doctrines in the Westminster. Since those days I have done nothing Worth mentioning to fill up the implied deficiencies. Twice Of thrice I have taken up Plato' Dialogues and have quickly put them down with more or less irritation. And of Arist ot, le I know even less than of Plato. If you ask how there comes such an amount of incorporated fact as is found in Social Statics, my reply is that when preparing to write it I read up in those directions in which I expected to find materials for generalisation. I did not trouble myself with the generalisations of Others. And that indeed indicates my general attitude . All along I have looked at things through my own eyes and not through the eyes of others. I believe that it is in some measure because T have gone direct to Nature, and have escaped the Warping influences of traditional beliefs, that I have reached the views I have reached . . . . (141). From this reading, surely, he could not have gotten his –7 6– theory of attention in The Philosophy of Style. If, then, it is not a borrowing from the older em– piricists, nor truly a Spencerian contribution, whence does it come º Tet us turn t; O Spurzheim and look for attention. Attention, certainly Was not a fundamental and characteris– ti G. conception of phrenology; yet it was a conception the phrenologists were constantly meeting On the Continent . Spurzheim did not attack vehemently such conceptions as Memory, Association, and waii. but he attempted to reinter- pret them in terms of phrenology. And thus he does with the conception of attention. He wrote : . The Word at tention denotes no more than the active state of any intellectual faculty: or, in other terms, attention is the effect of the intellectual faculties, acting either from their proper force, or from being excited by external impressions, or by one or several affective faculties. Hence there are as many species of attention as fundamental faculties of the mind. - - - - - It is, indeed, absurd to expect success in an art or science , when the individual power on which its comprehension depends is inactive . Again, the more active the power is, the more it is attentive (142). - –77 – Coupled With the phrenological view of physiological exhaustion of the faculties, this doctrine Would hold that at tention is the State of greatest physiological activity of an "organ" of the brain, and the greater the task of the organs or faculties the º: the exhaustion of the at ten – tion. There is apparently much in this phrenological view Which is like that of Spencer in The Philosophy of Style. Inasmuch as attention is not a fundamental doctrine of phrenology, it may be necessary to look somewhat farther for other possible influences up on the theory as presented by Spencer in The Philosophy of style. A possible influence may be found in the he terodox phrenological article of Spencer's, entitled "A Theory concerning the Organ of Wonder, º published in the Zoist in 1844. Spencer there proposes that what is commonly regarded by phrenologists as the Or- gan of Wonder is in truth an organ whose main function is - 7 3 - to recall impressions once received (143). This theory was proposed by Spencer as supplementary to an article of the previous year, entitled "Imitation and Benevolence" (144). In that article, he reinterpreted the Organ of Imitation into an organ whose function was to excite sympathetic states of mind, while the Organ of Benevolence became "the grand centre of sensation, and is excited by the affections of all the other organs" (l.45). The names for the three Organs, "on der, Imitation, and Benevolence, became then Reviv isence, Sympathy, and sensitiveness, respectively. The Whole theory he summed up as follows, in the later article : It was maintained that it is the primary office of the organ entitled Imitation, to excite in the mind of one being the feelings exhibited in another, and it is the aim of the present essay to Show that the true duty of the adjoining organ, hitherto called Worlder, is the revival of intellectual perceptions. It is the object of both to bring certain other faculties into activity. By the one, feelings are recalled; by the other, impressions (146). The next to the last, S entence is to be noted: Reviv- -'79 - isence act, S as a reenforcement of the intelle C tual facul — ties. In this respect it is like the attention of The Phi- losophy of Style . It is true, however, that Spencer applies it, in the article, to the service of memory only. None — the less, it would fit in very well with the theory of atten– tion, and might have been adapted to that purpose in the essay on style . It might be straining a point to insist upon this in- terpretation, if it were not for the fact that Bernard Holländer of Vienna has made such an interpretation more likely by an article on "Spencer as a Phrenologist" in Westminster Review (147). The position of the Organ of Wonder is in the frontal lobe of the brain, and Holländer points out that Spencer, by assigning to it the function he does assign, anticipates the Work of Professor Ferrier in regard to localization of functions in the brain. Holländer quotes from Terrier in regard to the function of "area l?", which corresponds to the Organ of Wonder : * - - - - - - - - - ... the excitation of Which causes the eyes to open Widely, the pupils to dilate, with movements of the eyeballs and head. It gives the appearance of attention, and the movements in dicated are essential to the revivification of ideas (148). It has been a matter of knowledge for a great many years that attention is closely associated with memory (149). It is true enough, as a retter of fact, , that the location of attention in the frontal lobe is to day generally re- garded as correct by psychologists; but the point of evi- dence, of course, is not that Spencer should have guessed the right part of the brain, but that a phrenologist of to — day should have identified Spencer's function of reviv scence With a tºt ention. This fact, makes more probable that Spencer, who had a keen perception into the relationships of psychological functions, should have realized that an organ which played the part in memory Which he ascribes to Re- –81– viviscence might also play the part in perception of mean- ing of language ascribed to Attention. If these conjectures be accepted, the source of the - function of attention in The Philosophy of Style is accounted 4. for . The choice of the name "attention" alone remains un- certain. Spencer would probably have refrained, in any Case , from using "Revivisence", because of the awlºriness of that name (150) and because its use would have prejudiced readers who were opposed + C) pronology. "Attention" may have been suggested partly by the phrenological use of the word as in Spurzheim's work, and partly by its random appearance in Wörks of rhetorie which, as will be shown in Chapter VII, were probably employed by Spencer in 1844. For example, In the Philosophy of Style, Spencer quotes from Blair the statement — — — . . . . . long sentences fatigue the reader's attention ( lāl) – 82– and in another place, Spencer's expression "the attention is kept suspended" is apparently a rewording of Dr. Camp- bell's expression "keep up the attention" ( lā2). Although the rhetoricians apparently attached no special meaning to the word "attention" in the se cases, Spencer might have found the term one convenient to express his theory. º Summarizing, we may say that the following points in regard to the psychology underlying The Philosophy of Style have been made highly probable : l. While Spencer was a phrenologist in 1844, when the essay Force of Expression was written, he was not an ad- herent of that school of psychology by l852, when The Philosophy of Style was published, for the plans of his Principles of Psychology, which was not phrenological in character, were largely devised before that time. º 2. Nonetheless, as regards the Faculties, Fatigue, and Attention, as they appear in The Philosophy of Style, the psychology of that essay shows characteristics like those of phrenology and unlike those of Spencer's psy- chology in his Principles of Psychology as well as unlike those of other British philosophers. 3. It may, therefore, be supposed that The Philosophy of Style was, in large part, written in a period of phreno– logical thinking, and repeated what had appeared in Force of Expression. º –84– CHAPTER WI. BRITISH PSYCHOTOGY IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYTE If in The Philosophy of Style phrenological thinking is at least distinguishable, British psychology is everywhere un- mist, altable . This fact makes it necessary to answer t;W O questions : Does not the underialble presence of association- ali Sm throw doubt upon the conjectural presence of phrenology? and, Cannot associationalism furnish a clue to the dating of the essay's origin as well as phrenology? Both questions may be answered, No ; but in order so to answer them, one must undertake three investigations: l. to determine what are Spencer's associational views underlying The Philosophy of Style, 2. to determine what are the re- lations of associational doctrines in general to phrenology, and 3. to determine what are the extent and the source of Spencer's knowledge of British associational psychology. The first section of this chapter will set forth the doctrine –85– of association as it underlies The Philosophy of Style . l. At the basis of the psychology of The Philosophy Of Style are the two fundamental assumptions of British psy- chology --- sensationalism and association. Spencer's sensationalism assumes that the original ele- ments of all individual experience are "impressions". Wher – ever the mind comes into contact, so to speak, With What are regarded, from the view of common sense, as the objects of the external World, the mind is impressed by elemental sen- sations, designated by philosophers as "impressions". Im- pressions themselves last only so long as the correspondent objects of the material universe are present to the senses, or, perhaps, only a moment longer: None the less, though the impression itself is gone, something remains as a result of this original experience. This something is the mind's potentiality of forming, under proper conditions, an exper- -86- ience correspondent to the original impression. The idea, as this secondary or reflective experience is called, resembles the original impression, and apparently differs from the im– pression in nothing other than, perhaps, a decreased vi Vid- ness and intensity. Experience, in this view then, consists entirely of these two kinds ––– impressions and ideas ; and, as the latter can arise only through the former, there can be In O experience whose element S have a source other than im- w pressions. The most fanciful imaginings, however much they may seem to differ from the individual's sensational exper- ience, come under the same generalization. They are merely complex experiences made up of simple ideas corresponding to impressions received by the individual previously, and now grouped in new ways. This analysis of experience into impressions and ideas has, in the preceding paragraph, been ascribed to Spencer; –87– yet it must be admitted that of these matters Spencer, in The Philosophy of Style, says nothing explicitly, and the word "impression" is not used by him in the sense here given. The reason is not that Spencer's psychological doctrine is mis- represented, but that he has little occasion to express this phase of it, being little concerned with the origin of ideas and much concerned with their recall by language means. Only in the discussion of onomato poetic Words does he have occasion to mention the connection between ideas and the sense im– pressions which produce them. There he speaks of "imitative" words as "presenting to the perceptions symbols having direct resemblance to the things to be imagined, or some kinship to f - º º them" (l.53). The word "impression" itself is not used, but in the revised version of 1858 (154) the phrase quoted is re- placed by one presenting the same idea in more philosophical language : imitative Words "have a greater or less likeness to – 88– the things symbolized; and by making on the senses impressions allied to the ideas to be called up , " become particularly effective. Here the relation between "impression" and "idea." is undoubtedly in accord with the doctrine of the British psy– chological school; and, at any rate, no assumption other than sensationalism could so well explain Spencer's evident theories in regard to the abstract and concrete. Ideas, according to Spencer, exist in the mind only in the form of "images". (155). Thus, when one thinks of a particular person, he must call to mind some image of the in- dividual; and likewise, when one thinks of the concept "horse", for instance, he must have before his mind's eye some image of a horse With all its attributes of color, size, and shape . To be sure, according to this view, it is probably not necessary that all the sensible attritubes of the horse be present in mind, but it is necessary that all those be present which -º- constitute an image such as might be gained through one of the senses. When one starts to think "horse", there "tends to arise", ( and when one completes the process, there does arise), "in the mind, a picture answering to the º (156), and the horse must be black or brown or some color at least. What is true in this regard of the more specific ideas is equally true of the most general concepts. "We do not thin]: in generals but in particulars. " (l.57). When we think a class– idea, "We represent it to ourselves by calling to mind in- dividual members of it. " (158). Or, in other Words, to re- present the general idea, the thinker "has to choose from among his stock of images, one or more, by which he may figure to himself the genus mentioned." (159). Apparently there are just two differences between the general and the specific in thought. The general may require a series of images to represent it , and it is always less - º –90– "definite" than the specific. Spencer's notion that several images may sometimes be employed to represent one idea may perhaps be understood in the light of a statement of David Hume's respecting general terms. " . . . . perhaps, " seys he , "the mind may not be content with forming the idea of only one individual, but may run over several, in order to make it- self comprehend its own meaning, and the compass of that collection, Which it intends to express by the general term." (160). Possibly, too, this use of several images is respon- sible for the indefinite character of the generic idea. When the mind, as Hume says, is obliged to "run over" several images, it will be able to fix. On none, as none Will be re- cognized as exactly corresponding to the mind's "meaning". Such a hesitant, hovering attitude of the mind (if it exist ) might be supposed to produce the "indefinite" character Whi Gh Spencer ascribes to the generic idea. At best , however, Spencer's notion is obscure, and as Will become apparent, seems to involve some contradiction. A first reading of The Philosophy of Style might give the impression that Spencer maintained, not only that generic ideas are "indefinite", but that they are likewise less vivid than specific ideas. Spencer does not , however, imply this characteristic , and it is not essential to his thinking. In the section on words, he says that "concrete terms produce more vivid impressions than abstract ones" (161). But this characteristic apparently pertains to the term and not to the idea, for he says: This superiority of specific expressions is clearly due to a saving of the effort required to translate words into thoughts . . . . . . 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 sug- gested, an economy is achieved, and a more vivid impression produced (162). If the lack of vividness is due to the generic term, there is no reason to suppose that the generic idea itself is less –92– vivid than the specific, provided it is called up by some means other than that of language. An idea of "justice" or of "mankind" ought to be for Spencer as vivid as an idea of some particular person or object. But what could be a "vivia", "indefinite" idea? The two attributes, though not antipodal, are at least partly contradict ory. If Spencer had drawn any line of distinction between the "generic" and the "abstract", the difficulty might perhaps have been solved ; but , as was pointed out in Chapter TV, he confuses them to the extent of using them as interchangeable terms. The generic would, if the distinction had been made, then be vivid; and the abstract, in definite. One can see how "mankind", being represented in the mind by an image of one man or by images of several men, might be just as vivid as any specific term; while "justice", being incapable of representation by any one or any number of images, should not be vivid. At the sº time, an idea, corresponding to which there are no images in the mind, is, from the sensational view point, a contradiction in terms: there are no ideas except as they exist in images before the mind. Yet, it is, after all, just such an image less idea that Spencer, in places in The Philosophy of Style, conceives the abstract to be . 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 un- til that object is known (lé3). Again, we have this explanation: Take the often-quoted contrast between – –– "Great is Diana of the Ephesians, " and --- "Diana of the Ephesians is great." Then the first arrangement is used the utterance of the Word "great" arouses those vague associations of an impressive nature with which it has been habitually connected : the imagination is pre- pared to clothe with high attributes whatever follows; and when the words — — — "I)iana of the Ephesians" are heard, all the appropriate imagery which can, on the instant, be summoned, is *" in the formation of the picture : . . . . . . (164). -94- The passages just quoted, it is true, have to do with the effect of abstract terms, and it may be argued, perhaps, that they show nothing of abstract ideas. However, in this case, there is apparently no difference between the character of the term and of the idea, for in another place Spencer Writes — — — that SO abstract an idea as that attaching to the word "future", does not present itself to the mind in any definite form (165). The assumption of British associational psychology is so obvious in many places in The Philosophy of Style as to make almost unnecessary any demonstration of it. The term "association" in the psychological sense, is employed in the essay at four different points --- in the discussion of | words (ló6), in the discussion of order of sentence elements (167), in the discussion of suggestion (168), in the dis– cussion of poetry (169). None of the so-called laws of –95– association, however, either as presented by Aristotle or Hume, are mentioned by name. Association according to two of these laws, nonetheless, is employed. All association by language necessarily makes use of association by contiguity, since Words and their meaninge must be learned by their simultaneous appearance in experience . In the discussion of imitative words (170) the principle of association by re- semblance is represented. These uses, on the Whole, though, cannot be regarded as significant, for they might well be accident al. Associations are designated as "powerful" (l71), or "strong" (l72), in proportion to the "ease and rapidity of the suggestive action" (l73). An association becomes power- ful through repetition (174), as has been fully explained in Chapter IV. This is sound associational psychology. Perceptions of objects and processes of reasoning are alike regarded as complex, consisting of concatenations of simple ideas or impressions. The mind, after recognizing and interpreting the bare symbols, is obliged to arrange and combine the suggested images to constitute thoughts (175). Even in the case of perceiving Words, the syllables must be connected by the mind (176). All thoughts are "built up" according to some natural or customary order of associating their element S ; and for that reas on the elements of sentences must be ordered according to such associations. For instance, in beginning t; he discussion of order in sentences, Spencer Writes : 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 adopted should be such, that each of them may be understood as it comes, without wait- ing for subsequent ones; so in every sentence the sequence of Words should be that which suggests the component parts of the thought con– veyed in the order most convenient for the building up that thought (177). - The force of suggestion in writing depends upon –97– association . The several circumstances here specified bring with them hosts of appropriate associa- tions. Our attention is rarely drawn by the buzzing of a fly in the Window, save when everything is still. Whilst the inmates are moving about the house, mice usually keep silence ; and it is only when extreme quiet- ness reigns that they peep from their re- treats. Hernce, each of the facts ment ioned presupposing numerous others, calls up these With more or less distinctness, and revives the feeling of dull solitude with which they are connected in our experience (178). In agreement with associational psychology, too, Spencer recognizes the effect of habit upon the time and effort required to associate. In the case of receiling Words in a foreign language, "from its having been a con– scious effort to realize their meanings, their meanings ultimately come without any effort at all" (179). 2. We may now study the relations between Phrenology and the British psychology of Berkeley and Hume. Taturally, as sensationalism and associationalism constituted the fundamentals of a rival system, phrenologists could not have looked with especial favor upon these doctrines. Yet, these same doctrines explained far more satisfactorily than any others some of the phenomena of consciousness; and , es- pecially, they explained those points where phrenology was vague or non-committal, where it had provided no definite machinery. In general, then, the phrenologists tended to minimize the importance of sensationalism and associational- ism without completely denying their validity; but as sen– sationalism and associationalism could not be ignored, they were frequently admitted into phrenological doctrines as supplementary explanations, usually after being reinter- preted in a somewhat modified form. | The only fundamental objection of Phrenology against sensationalism was a protest against Tocke's tabula rasa. Spurzheim very justly observes: Now if the ideas and sensations of man and animals are either produced or excited solely or especially by one or other of the five senses, they ought to manifest capacities according to xternal circumstances and accidental impress– ions; their faculties ought to bear relation to the state of the five senses, and to the ed- ucation these have received ; and individuals ought to be susceptible of change and modi- fication at pleasure. Daily experience, how – ever, contradicts this hypothesis with all its conclusions (180). Contrary to Tocke's view, the phrenologists conceived of the mind as constituted of a large number of more or less independent faculties which, in the individual, varied among themselves, not only in degree of susceptibility to impression from the external World, but in the extent to which they directed or inclined their possessor toward the various a spects of life (191). This view certainly opposed tabula rase, but it merely complicated the operation of Sensationalism and as Sociation. Phrenology did not deny the educability of the faculties (182), but held that a large part of the result was due to natural bent rather than ex- ternal experience (183). -100- If any clash occur between Phrenology and sensationalism, it must be on the matter of abstra G + i de as . The phrenologists believed With the British psychologists that information in regard to the external world came through impressions upon the senses. Spurzheim asserts : The external senses permit man and animals to communicate with the beings around them ; it is by their medium that determinate conscious- hº the external world is acquired; . . . . . . (184). - whether or not the phrenologists believed that there was any experience in which the senses played no part , is uncertain. From Several general statements of Spurzheim, one might be led to believe that there Was such a non-sensory experience (185), but when the details and examples are examined, the view appears to be , not that the faculties alone can produce experience, but that the senses cannot produce experience without the faculties. Spurzheim writes: It is easy to show, in a general Way, that –101– the not ions of external objects acquired by man and animals, a re not merely dependent on the external senses, and in particular cases that SU Gh and Such a talent i S. no tº the effect; of this or that individual sense (186). The whole relation is perhaps put most succinctly in this passage by Spurzheim : I Once for all observe generally, that when any function results from the active state of an external sense, the faculty which con- ceives the idea is internal. We have seen - above, that the faculties which take cognizance of extent and size, form and number, are inter- nal. In this manner we may also conceive how internal faculties employ different external senses, if that be possible, and how some – times they can make use only of a single sense. The mind, for inst ance, Wishes to move a body from one place to another, and this can be done only by means of the muscular system; the mind wishes to perceive music, and this also can be done only by means of the auditory nerve ; but the mind Wishes to perceive the size or form of a body, and this may then be done either by the sense of sight or by that of feeling. Not- Withstanding these modifications, it remains always certain that every reaction of the mind upon external bodies has its cause in some in- ternal faculty, while the sensations, which result from the passive state of the five ex- ternal senses, constitute their immediate sphere of activity (187). It may be pointed out , however, that most of these internal faculties, such as Form, Size, Causality, take cog- nizance of abstreet relationships, and that a sensationalist -lô2– would object on the ground that the se notions either could not be represented by single images in the mind or could not be represented before the mind at all. Admitted; but Phreno– logy merely says that the proper organs of the mind do handle the se relationships; it does not say how, imaged or unimäged, these notions appear in mind, and he who chose might borrow machinery from sensationalism to supply the details. Of association, . On the other hand, the phrenologists made some positive use. George Combe deals with association in his A System of Phrenology. The metaphysicians have endeavored, by re- flecting on their own consciousness, to dis– cover universal laws, by which the succession of ideas in mankind in general is regulated. They imagine our thoughts to follow each other in an established order, and have attempted to find out the cause of it , and the circumstances Which determine the Order . Success in such an attempt appears to me to be opposed by im– possibility, and incompatible with success (188). After confuting the metaphysicians, he proceeds: Although, however, it is in vain to expect to find any law or principle regulating the association of one idea with another, the mutual influence of organs by association is —l C3- determinate . There are also natural associa — tions betwixt certain external objects and the internal faculties : and, lastly, artificial associations may be formed betwixt objects and the feelings of the mind; and the laws which regulate these constitute certain knowledge, and are interesting to be known (189). - These "laws", according to combe, Së €. In to be three in num- ber : 1. the association of movements, once performed with organs of the mind; 2. association of the ides raised by the activity of an intellectual faculty, with the feeling nat- ural to some propersity or sentiment ; 3. the convenient arrangement of one organ of mind in relation to another according to the need of commerce between them (190). These º views may not be altogether clear, and no doubt there is much expressed to which the British psychologist would not agree. In discussing the faculty of language, he writes: If a horse, for instance, is presented to the mind, the faculty of Language gives the desire to find a name or sign, by which to indicate the conception of it, and also the power of associating the appearance of the object, with the sound or name when invented (191). - – 104- Spurzheim expresses views similar to those of Combe. In criticism of the views of Dugald Stewart upon association. he Write S : These propositions I conceive are erroneous: association, in my opinion, being only an effect of the mutual, influence of the fundamental faculties. One being active, excites another, or several, and the phenomenon is association ; which occurs not only among the intellectual faculties, when What is called association of ideas results, but also among the affective and intellectual together; and, indeed, among all the fundamental faculties. The sight of a rose may recall one we love ; ambition may excite courage, or an intellectual faculty; artificial signs may arouse the perceptive faculties ; and these , in their turn, make us remember artibrary signs (193 ) . 3. If the presence of ideas borrowed from British psy– chology in The Philosophy of Style is to offer no bar to the assumption that Spencer was a phrenologist when that essay was written, then must yet be shown the source and extent of Spencer's knowledge of sensationalism and associationalism. We may turn first to answering the question, "as Spencer familiar with British psychology to any extent in 1844, when – 105– he is definitely known to be a phrenologist The answer is a positive "yes". As regards sensational- ism, Spencer, in his phrenological article A. Theory concern- ing the Organ of Wonder (193), published in 1844, uses all three of the terms, "impression", "idea", and "image", apparently in the senses employed by British psychologists. In one place he speaks of "recalling impression" and of the "revival of ideas" (l.94). In another he writes : It cannot be said that the impressions re- quire no recalling, for this would imply that all images that have been received into the mind exist visibly before it, and our daily experience proves that this is not the case ; we know that our perceptions become dormant, ––– that they are capable of being separately called up, and hence we must infer the exist– ence of a power for their revival (195). This sent ence might doubt less pass for One extracted from the writing of one of the British psychologists. There are further traces of sensationalism in the phren- ological article entitled "Imitation and Benevolence", pub- - lished in the Zoist, January 1844 (196). There he speaks of – 106– "exterior impressions" (197), and of "pleasurable and painful impressions" (198). Moreover, the following passage from that art, i cle suggests the Vic W of British psychologists as to What, constitutes an actual idea as opposed to a sign or abstract term: I had previously noticed that there was a species of indefiniteness about the perception of Benevolence which it was not easy to under- stand. The emotions arising from Combativeness or Acquisitiveness are simple and easily com— prehensible, but if we endeavour to individual- ize the feeling of Benevolence We cannot do it With the same ease. There is a species of complexity about the impulse which prevents it from being readily identified and imaged in its uncombined form before the mind (lº 9 ). It will be noticed that Spencer doubts that Benevolence is a single perception partly because, like an abstract term, it is "indefinite" in character. Again, it cannot be "individual- ized", for no one impression is its correspondent. Finally, it cannot be "imaged in its uncombined form" because no image Will represent it. The evidence of Spencer's knowledge of associational- ism is at least equally good. It has already been shown that -107- in the momorania Ideas about a Universal Language, set down about 1844, Spencer made use of the principle of recurrence of association (200). The term itself, however, does not appear in that Writing. In The Organ of "ſonder occurs this passage : Memory implies three actions : 1. The reception of impressions. 2. The revival of them; and 3. The association of those that require connecting, such as names With things and persons, objects with places, events with times, and so on (201). In Chapter II of this investigation mention has been made of the preface which young Spencer prepared in 1843 for his father's Lucid Short hand (202). This preface opens with the following sentence : Written language may be defined as an arrange- ment of visible signs fixed upon as the represen– tatives of certain vocal articulations, which signs are by practice so associated with the sounds they represent that the one cannot be placed before the mind Without suggesting the other (2O3). - From these indications it is plain that Spencer not only knew the terms of British psychology by 1844, but used them in Writing. If he could employ the se terms in an article of – 108- avowed phrenological character, he would doubtless have experienced no feeling of incongruity in using associational- ism and sensationalism for explanatory purposes in an essay not devoted to phrenological principles. di G ºn ti We The presence of traces of British psychology in Spencer's writings of 1844 and thereabouts might be regarded as in- upon his part. Such, however, is not the case ; he knew neither the philosophers of Britain nor those of the Continent. In his Autobiography, relative to the year 1844, Spencer Write S : Up to this time I had never paid any attention to mental philosophy, save under the form of phrenology; respecting some doctrines of which my criticisms, as we have seen, imply a leaning towards subjective analysis. But the science of mind had no temptation for me, otherwise than as affording these occasions for independent judgment : the re had never been any deliberate study of it. All through my life Tocke's Essay had been before me on my father's shelves, but I had never taken it down; or, at any rate, I have no recollection of having ever read a page of it. My glance over a small part of Mill's Logic, named in a preceding chapter, had, in- deed, shown that there was a latent interest in of a knowledge of the works of British philosophers – 109– psychological questions of the intellectual class; but nothing more had come of it. Now, however, I was led to consider one of the cardinal problems which the theory of human intelligence presents. For I found in Mr. Wilson's house (rather oddly, as it seemed, for there was not a soupcon of philosophy in him a copy of a translation of Yant's Critique of Pure Reason, at that time, I believe, recently published. This I commenced reading, but did not go far. The doctrine that Time and Space are "nothing but " Subjective forms, ––– pertain exclusively to consciousness and have nothing beyond c on- sciousness answering to them, --- I rejected at Once and absolutely; and, having done so, went no further. Being then, as always, an impatient reader, even of things which in large measure interest me and meet with a general acceptance, it has always been out of the, question for me to go on reading a book the fundamental principles of which I entirely dissent from. Tacitly giving an author credit for consistency, I, Without thinking much about the matter, take it for granted that if the fundamental principles are wrong the rest cannot be right ; and thereupon cease reading ––– being, I suspect, rather glad of an excuse for doing so (204). The question naturally arises, If Spencer was practically ignorant of the British psychologists, in 1844, where did he get his knowledge of sensationalism and associationalism? As will be shown in the next chapter, there is every reason to suppose that in preparing the first essay upon composition Spencer had recourse to the works of leading rhetoricians of º i. - –ll Q- the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. If this be ad- mitted, it is easy to show whence came Spencer's British psychology; and, certainly, when the evidence is examined, it must be admitted that some of the British psychology appearing in The Philosophy of Style at least , was suggested by these rhetories. The Works which, in all probability, furnished Spencer wº all his knowledge of British psychology in 1844 - * were Lord Kaimes' Elements of Criticism and George Campbell's Philosophy Of Rhet, ori C. We may first examine British psychology as it is pre- - - sented by Campbell. Part ii of Chapter W, Book T, of the Philosophy of Rhetoric, Campbell introduces "to explore more accurately those sources in our nature, which give being to experience, and consequently to all those attainments, moral and intellectual, that are derived from it" (205). He proceeds : These sources are two, sense and memory. The senses, both external and internal, are the original inlets of perception. They in- –ll l- form the mind of the facts, which in the present instant , are situated within the sphere of their activity, and no sooner discharge their office in any particular instance, than the articles of information exhibited by them, are devolved on the memory. Remembrance instantly succeeds sensation, insomuch that the memory becomes the sole repository of the knowledge received from sense; Knowledge which, without this repository, would be as instantaneously lost as it is gotten, and could be of no Service to the mind . . . . . . . Memory therefore is the only original voucher extant, of those past realities for which we had once the evidence of sense. Her ideas are, as it were , the prints that have been left by sensible impressions. But from these two faculties, con– sidered in themselves, there results to us the knowledge only of individual facts, and only of such facts as either heretofore have come, or at present do come under the notice of our senses (206). He then turns from this popularized exposition of sen– sationalism to an explanetion (following Hume) of how the idea of causation is built up in the mind by association. He c Oric ludes that discussion : Hence, if objects of any kind, in a particular manner circumstance d, are remembered to have been usually, and still more if uniformly, succeeded by certain particular consequences, the idea of the former, in the supposed cir– cumstances introduced into the mind, immediately associates the idea of the latter; and if the object itself, so circumstanced, be presented to the senses, the mind instantly anticipates the appearance of the customary consequence (207). -ing- In Book I, Chapter vii, Section iii, Campbell gives Hume's principles of association; namely, resemblance, con- tiguity, and causation. This classification Campbell crit- ſeizes by contending that "order both in space and time Ought to have been included." (208). Book II, Chapter vii, Section i, attempts a more phil- osophical exposition of the fundamentals of British sen- Sati Onal and associational psychology. Berkeley (209), Hume (210), and Locke are all quoted, and "the elesent Inquirer into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful" (2ll) is alluded to . The relation of language to ideas, language and association, and the nature and difficulties Of the abstract are discussed (2 2). One passage will suffice to show the adequacy of the treatment : I have hitherto, in conformity to what is now become a general and inveterate custom, and in order to avoid tire some circumlocutions, used the terms sign and idea as exactly correlative . This, I am sensible, is not done with strict ºf –l 13– propriety. All Words are signs, but that the signification cannot always be represented by an idea, Will, I apprehend, be abundantly evident from the observations following . All the truths which constitute science, which give exercise to reason, and are discovered by philosophy, are general; all our ideas, in the Stric tist sense of the word, are particular. All the particular truths about which we are conversant, are properly historical, and com— pose the furniture of memory. Nor do T in- clude under the term historical, the truths which belong to natura Thistory; for even these are too general. Now, beyond particular truths or individual facts, first perceived and then remembered, we should never be able to proceed one single step in thinking, any more than in conversing, without the use of signs. When it is affirmed that the Whole is equal to all its parts, there cannot be an affirm- a Fiºr. Tº Tich"TS Tore perfectly intelligible, or which commands a fuller assent . If, in order to comprehend this, T recur to ideas, all that T can do, is to form a notion of some individual whole, divided into a certain number of parts, of which it is constituted, suppose of the year divided in to the four seasons (213). Now all that I can be said to discern here, is the relation of equality between this particular whole and its com— ponent parts. If I recur to another ex- ample, I only perceive another particular truth. The same holds of a third and of a fourth. But so far am I, after the perception of ten thousand particular similar instances, from the discovery of the universal truth, that if the mind had not the power of consider- ing things as signs, or particular ideas as representing an infinity of others, resembling in one circumstance, though totally dissimilar in every other, I could not so much as con- ceive the meaning of an universal truth. Hence it is that some ideas, to adopt the expression of the author above quoted (214), are par- ticular in their nature, but general in their representation (215). –ll 4- Much more is discussed, but already enough has been quoted to supply Spencer with all the British psychology Of which he makes use. In the next chapter will be shown that, in one instance certainly, Spencer did make use of Campbell's exposition of British psychology (216). It may be Worth adding that the following explanation (from Campbell) of the way in which words are associated with their meanings is remarkably like the definition of language given by Spencer in the preface to his father's short hand : For, having often had occasion to observe particular words used as signs of particular things, we hence contract a habit of associating the sign with the thing signified, insomuch that either being presented to the mind, fre- quently introduces, or occasions, the apprehen- sion of the other (21.7). To analyze what Lord Kaimes has to say of British psy– º chology would add nothing to what is offered by Campbell. Association he refers to occasionally, but does not treat. Abstraction and abstract terms, however, are dealt with in –ll 5- at least two places: once in Chapter xviii, Section 2 (218), and once in the Appendix of Terms Defined or Explained, in paragraphs numbered 41 to 44 (219). Summing up the evidence advanced in this chapter in answer to the two questions posed at the beginning, we may say : 1. The presence of British psychology in The Philosophy of Style in no wise prejudices the assumption that traces er Phrenology also exist in that essay, for We have found that phrenologists such as Combe and Spurzheim made O G casional use of associationalism and that Spencer himself uses the termin– ology of British psychology in several instances as early as l644. 2. The presence of British psychology in The Philosophy Of Style gives In O warrant for assuming that the essay is of later date than 1844, for, as has been shown, Spencer was familiar with some features of that psychology as early as 1844; and if, as we may suppose, he read "aimes and Campbell –ll 6– in preparation for the * Fºrce of Expression, we can point to the probable source of all the British psychology Which he uses in the later essay. British psychology in The Philosophy of Style, then, harmonizes with our general hypothesis rather than militates against it . – 117- CHAPTER WIT . SPENCER AND THE RHETORICIANs. At the head of The Philosophy of Style in The Westminster Review (220) stand the following titles of works upon rhetoric employed by Spencer in Writing that essay: l. Elements of Rhetoric . By Richard Whately, D.D., Archbishop of Dublin. John W. Parker. Tectures on Rhetoric and Belles Tettres . By Hugh Blair, D. D. The Philosophy of Rhetoric . By George Campbell, D. D. - Elements of Rhetoric . (221). By Tord Kalimes. - To these should be added The English Language by Robert Gordon Latham. In the first version of the essay, Spencer quotes once from Whately (222), once from Blair (223), once from Camp- bell (224), twice from Yaimes (225), and once from Iatham (226); and these are the only mentions of these authors or allusions to them. Spencer's in debtedness to the se Works, however, is greater than the specific references to them in —ll 8- The Philosophy of Style would suggest. TO Campbell, perhaps, The Philosophy of Style owes most . In the discussion of specific and general words, wº quotes Campbell: The more general the terms are, the picture is the fainter; the more special they are , the brighter (227). Not merely this quotation, however, but the entire treatment of specific and generic words is derived from Campbell's work. In paragraph 7 (228) of The Philosophy of Style Spen- cer sets forth in much the same way as Campbell (229) the superiority of specific over generic words, and illustrates his statements with sentences, different , however, from those employed by compbell. In paragraph 8 (230) Spencer undertakes to explain the reason for this auperiority, by - º showing the psychological processes involved in interpreting specific and generic words. The explanation, as has already * * been shown (231), harmonizes very well with the sensationalism – 119- of Berkeley, Hume, and other British psychologists. In a Similar way, Campbell, after discussing the superiority of specific words, looks for the cause. Upon this point he writes very briefly : Indeed what was explained above, in regard to abstraction, and the particularity of our ideas, properly so-called, may serve in a great measure to account for the effect which speciality hath upon the imagination (232). A footnote appended to the word "above" refers the reader to Book II, Chapter VII, Section I, where is given a complete exposition of Berkeley's and Hume's views upon abstraction and abstract terms (233). A comparison of the passages from Spencer and from Campbell will convince one that Spencer merely followed Campbell's suggestion and made explicit the explanation for which Campbell furnished him the materials and clue. Economy secured through brevity in language appears in several instances in The Philosophy of Style. In paragraph 2 – l 20– Spencer says: We are told that "brevity is the soul of Wit" (234). Campbell likewise quotes: 'Brevity, ' , says Shakespeare, ' is the soul of wit" (235). Campbell includes this sentence between the two following: On this article it may be extablished as a maxim that admits of no exception, and it is the only maxim which this article admits, that the fewer the words are, provided neither propriety nor perspicuity be violated, the expression is always the more vivid . . . . . . . Thus much is certain, that of whatever kind the sentiment be, Witty, humorous, grave, animated, or sublime, the more briefly it is expressed, the energy is the greater, or the sentiment is the more enlivered, and the particular quality for which it is eminent, the more displayed (236). Spencer not only assumes, as does Campbell, that the fewer the words, the better the expression, but argues that the shorter the word itself is, the greater the effect. Camp- bell agrees to this idea in part ; monosyllables, he contends, are frequently desirable because of their brevity, though – 121- other circumstances sometimes make them. undesirable (237). Length, Spencer argues, is a matter of syllables. If it be an advantage to express an idea in the smallest number of Words, then will it be an advantage to express it in the smallest number of syllables (238). Campbell has a similar argument. In general, he says, the Latin language may be regarded as superior to the English, for it is able to express an idea in fewer words. Some allow- ance, however, he contends, must be made : For when, in the declensions and conjugations, the inflection, as is frequently the case, is attended with an increase of the number of syl- lables, the expression on the whole cannot always be denominated briefer, even when it con– sists of fewer words (239). Several of Spencer's points in regard to economy in the arrangement of the elements of an expression 8 re assented by passages in Campbell's work. Spencer begins the discussion of arrangement with this case: We cannot more simply do this than by con– sidering the proper collocation of the substan– tive and a djective. Is it better to place the adjective before the substantive, or the e+e- -122– e-bººt-i-º-e-r-er-thre substantive before the ad– jective º Ought we to say with the French --- un cheval noir; or to say as We do ––– a black horse 2 (240). Campbell, on the other hand, observes : We in Britain think it; most Suitable to nature to place the adjective before the substantive ; the French and most other Europeans think the contrary (241). From the position of adjective and substantive, Spencer proceeds to the arrangement of larger elements of the sen– tence : On applying a like analysis to the larger divisions of a sentence, we find not only that the same principle holds good, but that the advantage of respecting it becomes marked. In the arrangement of predicate and subject, for example, we are at once shown that as the predicate determines the aspect under which the subject is to be conceived, it should be placed first ; and the striking effect pro- duced by so placing it becomes comprehensible. Take the often-quoted contrast between --- "Great is Diana of the Ephesians," and --- "Diana of the Ephesians is great. " . . . . - . . . . . It is true, that the general habit of our language resists this arrangement of predicate, copula, and subject ; but we may readily find instances of the additional force gained by conforming to it (242). -- Similarly, Campbell remarks: No law of the English tongue relating to the disposition of Words in a sentence, holds more generally than this, that the nominative has the first place, the verb the second, and the accusative, if it be an active verb that is employed, has the third; if it be a sub- stantive verb, the participle, a djective, or predicate of whatever denomination it be , occupies the third place. Yet this order, to the great advantage of the expression, is often inverted. Thus in the general uproar at Ephesus, on occasion of Paul's preaching among them against idolatry, we are informed, that the people exclaimed for some time Without inter- mission, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians." (243). Alter the arrangement, restore the grammatical order, and say, "Diana of the Ephesians is great"; and you destroy at once the signature of impetuosity and ardor re- sulting, if you please to call is so, from the disarrangement of the words (244). Spencer carries the principle further : The right succession of the principal and subordinate propositions in a sentence will manifestly be regulated by the same law. Re- gard for economy of the recipient's attention which, as We firld, determines the best order for the subject, copula, predicate and their complements, dictates that the subordinate proposition shall precede the principal one when the sentence includes two . Containing, as the subordinate proposition does, some qualifying or explanatory idea, its priority must clearly prevent misconception of the principal one ; and must the refore save the merital effort, needed to correct such mi S- conception (245). If we go back to what Spencer has said of the order of ad- - jective and substantive, and of predicate and subject, we – 124- can find the psychological reasoning behind his dictum that subordinate clause should precede principal clause . The word "black" indicating an abstract quality arouses no definite idea. It simply prepares the mind for a onceiving some object of that colour; and the attention is kept suspended until that object is known (246). In the passage concerning the expression "Great is Diana of the Ephesians", Spencer goes on to say : When the first arrangement is used the utterance of the word "great" arouses those vague associations of an impressive nature With which it has been habitually connected; the imagination is prepared to clothe with high attributes whatever follows; and when the words --- "Diana of the Ephesians" are heard, all the appropriate imagery which can, on the instant, be summoned, is used in the formation of the picture : the mind being thus led directly, and Without error, to the in- tended impression (247). Let these two explanatory passages be applied to what has just been quoted of Spencer's view in regard to the order of subordinate and principal clauses, and then let the whole be compared With Campbell's view in regard to the same matter. Campbell, beyond any doubt, furnishes the germ of —l 25– Spencer's theory. Here is Campbell's remark : Thus the words "Unless ye repent", enunciate nothing, and therefore convey to the reader no information of judgment, purpose, or desire. They give indeed the expectation of such in- formation, and thereby keep up the attention, till We hear What follows. No sooner are the words "ye shall perish" added, than we have the explicit declaration of a certain juágment or sentiment of the speaker (248). Compare the wording: "enunciate nothing" and "arouses no definite idea", but "give the expectation of such in- formation" and "prepares the mind", so that "they . . . keep up the attention, till we hear what follows" and "the atten– tion is kept suspended until that object is known." In one other instance, Spencer, beyond a doubt, re- ceived the material and the suggestion for his treatment from Campbell. Spencer wrote : Let us begin with the figure called Synec– doche. The advantage sometimes gained by putting a part for the whole is due to the more convenient , or more accurate, present – at ion of the idea thus secure d. If , instead of saying "a fleet of ten ships", we say "a fleet of ten sail", the picture of a group of vessels at sea is more readily suggested; and is so because the sails constitute the most conspicuous parts of vessels so circumstanced: whereas the word ships would very likely remind us of vessels in dock. Again, to say "All hands to the pumps" is better than to say, "All men to the pumps;" as it suggests the men in the special attitude intended, and so saves effort (249). One need but quote two passages from Campbell to show the ex- - tent of Spencer's indebtedness : For an illustration of this in the synec – doche, let it be observed, that by this trope, the word hand is sometimes used for man, es– pecially one employed in manual labour. Now in such expressions as the following, - All hands employ'd the royal Work grows warm ; it is obvious, from the principle above explained, that the trope contributes to vivacity, and could not be with equal advan- tage supplied by a proper term. But in such phrases as the se, 'One of the hands fell over- board' : 'All our hands were asleep', it is ridiculous, as what is affirmed hath no par- ticular relation to the part specified (250). Again, I shall give another example. A sail. With us frequently denotes a ship. Now to say, "We descried a sail at a distance, ' hath more vivacity than to say, 'We descried a ship', because in fact the sail is that part which is first discovered by the eye ; but to say "our sails ploughed the main', instead of 'our ships ploughed the main', would justly be accounted nor sensical, because what is metaphorically termed ploughing the main, is the immediate action of the keel, a very different part of the vessel (251). Evidently, Spencer appropriates Campbell's explanations of the effectiveness of synecdoche as well as his examples of that figure. From Lord Kaimes, Spencer apparently borrowed very little directly for the Philosophy of Style. No doubt Spencer's views upon the proper ordering of the elements of a sentence, to which (as has been shown) Campbell contributed considerable, were also influenced by the opinions of Lord Yaimes expressed in Chapter XVIII, Section 2 (252). , of his Elements of Crit- icism; and certainly Spencer has in mind one passage from this discussion when he classifies styles according to sen- tence arrangement. Spencer wrote : The habitual use of seriterices in which all or most of the descriptive and limiting elements precede those described and limited, gives rise to what is called the inverted style ; a title, which is, however, by no means confined to this structure, but is often used where the order of the words is simply unusual (253). Upon this point Kaimes observes : In a natural style, relative words are by juxtaposition connected with those to which -128- they relate, going before or after, according to the peculiar genius of the language. Again, a circumstance connected by a preposition, follows naturally the word with which it is connected. But this arrangement may be varied, when a different order is more beautiful ; a circumstance may be placed before the Word with which it is connected by a preposition ; and may be interjected even between a relative word and that to Which it relate S. When Such libert, ie S are frequently taken, the style becomes invert– ed or transposed (254). Yaimes, while recognizing the occasional advantage of this "inverted" order, is far from attempting an explanation of its merit. Indeed, to a person of Spencer's temper Of mind the following passage from Kaimes must have proved 3. challenge gladly accepted --- especially, since Campbell's work (published fourteen years after that of Kaimes) was at hand to give assistance : The transposing words and members out of their natural order, so remarkable in the learned languages, has been the subject of much speculation. It is agreed on all hands, that such transposition or inversion bestows upon a period a very sensible degree of force and elevation; and yet writers seem to be at a loss to account for this effect (255). The only indication that Spencer made any use of the works of Latham occurs in the opening paragraph of the essay. J. —l 29- There Spencer remarks : As Dr. Latham, condemning the usual school- drill in Lindley Murray, rightly remarks: --- "Gross vulgarity is a fault to be prevented; but the proper prevention is to be got from habit --- not rules." (256). This reference is to the preface of Latham's The English Language, published in 184l. One other small point is borrowed from this work. In The Philosophy of Style Spencer Wrote : In pleonasms, which are comparatively preval- ent among the uneducated, the same essential structure is seen ; as, for instance in --- "The men, they were there". Again, the old possess- ive case --- "The king, his crown," conforms to the like order of thought (257). In The English Language, Part V, chapter iv, Section 499 (258), Latham gives a list of pleonasms. of the four there given, those used by Spencer are the last two and appear in the same order. Although many topics discussed by Whately may have suggested views set forth by Spencer, the analogies are – 130- scarcely close enough to allow one certainly to determine that they are Spencer's sources. One classification, however, he apparently borrowed from Whately. Kaimes, Campbell, and Blair, all discuss the imitative character of language ; that is, the imitation of sense through sound (259). But Whately alone discusses imitation in the individual word with the same distinctions as those employed by Spencer. The latter Wrote : Both those directly imitative, as Splash, bang, whiz, roar, &c., and those analogically imitative, as rough, smooth, keen, blunt, thiri, hard, crag, &c. . . . . . . . . . (26O) Two analogies are noticeable in Whately's discussion of the same subject --- he mentions two of the imitative words listed by Spencer; namely, "rough" and "smooth" (261): and he employs the same classification: But, last ly, it seems not to require any ex- cessive exercise of fancy to perceive , if not , properly speaking, an Imitation, by words, of other things besides sound and motion, at least, an analogical aptitude (262). —l 31– It has been shown already that Spencer borrowed most of his treatment of synecdoche from Campbell; and it remains only to show that what he did not take from this source he approp- riated from Blair. Spencer explains the advantage of using the term "sail" for "ship" by reference to Campbell's ex- planation (263); but his illustration apparently is derived from Blair, for while Spencer gives as an example the phrase "a fleet of ten sail", Blair Writes: It is very common, for instance, to describe a whole object by some remarkable part of it : as, when we say, "a fleet of so many sail," in the place of "ships": . . . . . . . (264) All of Spencer's paragraph on synecdoche has now been accounted for, except the last sentence. This reads: Bringing "gray hairs with sorrow to the grave," in another expression, the effect of which has the same cause (265). The parallel is found in Blair : For instance ; when grey hairs are put for old age, as, "to bring one's grey hairs with sorrow to the grave"; . . . . . . . . . (266) – 132– In discussing modifications of his general principle for the arrangement of sentences, Spencer observes : That the indirect me thod - - - the method of conveying the meaning by a series of approx– imations --- is best fitted for the unculti- wated, may indeed be inferred from their habitual use of it. The form of expression adopted by the savage as in "Water --- give me." is the simplest type of the approximate arrangement (267). Blair, in a discussion of the origin and development of language, writes this : Let us figure to ourselves a Savage, who beholds some object, such as fruit, which raises his desire, and who requests another to give it to him. Supposing our Savage to be unacquainted with words, he would, in that case, labour to make himself be understood, by pointing earnestly at the object which he desired, and uttering at the same time a passionate cry. Supposing him to have ac- quired words, the first word which he uttered would, of course, be the name of that object. He would not express himself according to our English order of construction, "Give me fruit"; but according to the Tatin order, "Fruit give me"; "Fructum da mihi " : For this plain reason, that his attention was wholly directed towards fruit the desired object. This was the ex- citing idea: the object which moved him to speak; and, of course, would be the first named. Such an arrangement is precisely putting into words the gesture which nature taught the Sav- age to make , before he was acquainted with words; and the refore it may be depended upon as certain, that he would fall most readily – 133- into thi S arrangement (268). In passing, one might note the differences between these two passages. Spencer asserts confidently that the order illus- trate d is the order adopted by the savage. One might expect that a Statement of this sort should rest upon the authority of an anthropologist ; Spencer is satisfied With the Statement, of a clergyman and rhetorician. Not only this, but Spencer speaks with even greater assurance than his authority. Blair assumes an hypothetical savage and reasons out What he must necessarily say. Spencer takes Blair's conclusions and states them as if they were observed racts. Perhaps it is not re- markable that some one has said, "Scratch Spencer, and you find ignorance . " As an illustration of English prose according in all re- spects with the theory of Economy, Spencer quotes a passage from Ossian (269). Now to anybody who is familiar with the -134- limited character of Spencer's reading, especially in literary fields, it will seem strange that Spencer should have been familiar with Ossian. The problem is readily solved, however, by glancing into Yaimes and into Blair, who both have freauent occasion to comment upon the excellencies of style in Ossian. Both, to o quote the exact passage which Spencer chooses for illustration (270). and, no doubt it was taken by him from Blair, for the wording follows that in Blair precisely, while t; here are considerable variants in Yaimes. From Spencer's use of the rhetoricians and grammarians referred to, four arguments may be derived in support of the hypothesis that the major part of The Philosophy of Style was also contained in Force of Expression. The first in- volves some matter from Blair and Whately not yet mentioned in this discussion. In "A Theory concerning the Organ of Wonder", a phrenological article published in 1844 in the - 135– Zoist, Spencer names a list of poets among whom he includes Bunyan. In explanation, he appends the following footnote : Bunyan was a true poet, philosophically speaking, though not conventionally recognized as such (27 l). That a Writer may be a poet though his work is not in verse is a view upheld by Blair, and unfavorably commented upon by "hately (272). It will be necessary to quote only from Blair : In reviewing the Epic Poets, it were unjust to make no mention of the amiable author of the Advantures of Telemachus. His work, though not composed in Verse, is justly entitled to be held a Poem. The measured poetical Prose, in which it is written, is remarkably harmonious; and gives the Style nearly as much elevation as the French language is capable of supporting, even in regular Verse (273). One could searcely insist that Spencer derived his idea of poetry from this statement of Blair's, but such an assump- tion has the strength of concord with other facts and the present general hypothesis. If Spencer got his idea from his source, then he must have been familiar with the books -136- on rhetoric referred to, in 1844 ; and if such Were the Case, then there is every reason to suppose that those parts of The Philosophy of Style which borrow from the rhetorics appeared in Force of Expression. The second argument rests on a statement of Spencer's in the Autobiography; relative to an incident of about 1840, Spencer remarks : Some criticisms which I had made on a pamphlet recently published by my uncle Thomas, suggested this last remark; but nothing in the Way of study came from this opening of my eyes. Not un- til, at the age of twenty-three, when there - occurred to me an idea respecting force of ex- pression, did the subject of style attract me . But then, having a theory to work out, I found all relevant books became interesting, and the re presently resulted an essay on the subject (274). If any weight is to be given to this statement of Spencer's, We are to understand that previous to his writing the earlier essay on composition, he read some "relevant books" and that these contributed something to that essay. But what books, if not Yaimes, Campbell, Blair, and "hately, Would he have — lº'7- been likely to read? These, surely, are the most distinguish- e d which were accessible. And if he did read the Se Works and use them in writing the earlier essay on style, why not 8 SS Ulrºle that those parts in the later essay which borrow from these Works Were also in Force of Expression? The third argument returns to what has been said con- cerning the memoranda Ideas about a Universal Language in an earlier chapter of this study. There it was pointed out that three of the four points which Spencer makes in regard to Economy applied to Words in The Philosophy of Style have parallels in the memoranda. But now We may show that the point in regard to brevity in words was suggested, probably, by Campbell, that the point in regard to imitation was cer– tainly derived from Whately, and, moreover, We may add that the latter also indicates the advantage in using Words of Old English derivation (275). The fourth point in regard to – 138– Words, which we could not be sure had an analogy in Spencer's memoranda, we found was suggested by Campbell. Now, if some or any of these points in regard to Economy applied to words both were suggested by the rhetoricians and appeared in the memoranda, then the rhetoricians must , in all probability, have been read by Spencer about 1844, and such other perts Of The Philosophy of Style as show their contribution must , doubt – - less, have constituted part of Force of Expression. If the force of these arguments be denied, one may have recourse to a fourth contention. There c an be no doubt that The Philosophy of Style owes considerable to Force of Express– ion. Spencer everywhere relates them, and, as has been shown, at the time The Philosophy of Style was published Spencer wrote to his father making reference to this relationship. Suppose, then, that one subtract from The Philosophy of Style such parts as show the contribution of the rhetoricians. If - 139- these parts Were not in Force of Expression, What remains in The Philosóphy of Style contributed by the earlier essay? If we observe that the points suggested by the rhetoricians, and especially by Campbell, cover almost every important topic considered by Spencer, We may say that the earlier essay CO In- tributed nothing to the later, unless its cornt, ribution con– tained matter suggested by the rhetorics. It appears, then, that Spencer must have used the rhetorics in writing Force. - of Expression and that the substance of The Philosophy of Style is identical with that of the earlier essay. Readers are inclined to give Spencer credit for too \ great originality in The Philosophy of Style, and in doing so they overlook the fact that Spencer claims originality only for a principle which explains well-known observations. Spen- cer admit S that the rhet, ori Gians have discovered What are the merits of a composition, and, in general, he accepts their -140- authority. The second paragraph of The Philosophy of Style makes clear Spencer's position; but, the reader is led to over- look its importance in limiting Spencer's claim, owing to the startling originality of the principle set forth in the third paragraph, immediately following . The second paragraph should be quoted: No general theory of expression seems yet to have been enunciated. The maxims contained in works on composition and rhetoric are presented in an unorganised form. Standing as isolated dogmas --- as empirical generalizations, they are neither so clearly apprehended, nor sa much respected as they would be were they deduced from some simple first principle . We are told that "brevity is the soul of Wit". We hear styles condemned as verbose or involved. Blair says that every needless part of a sentence "interrupts the description and clogs the image"; and again, that "long sentences fatigue the reader's attention". It is remarked by Lord Kaimes, that "to give the utmost force to a period, it ought, if possible, to be closed with the word that makes the greatest figure". That parentheses should be avoided, and Saxon words should be used in preference to those of Latin origin, are established precepts. But, however influential the truths thus dogmatically em– bodied, they would be much more influential if reduced to something like scientific ordination. In this, as in other cases, conviction Will be greatly strengthened when we understand the why. And we may be sure that a perception of the ~ general principle of which the rules of com— position are partial expressions will not only bring them home to us with greater force, but –l41– will discover to us other rules of like origin (276). Plainly, the purpose of the essay is not to set forth new and undiscovered merits of composition, but merely to explain merits already recognized. The maxims, precepts, advantages, and merits to be explained, then, Spencer must have obtained from rhetoricians, and without such details to explain he could scarcely have written either the earlier or the later essay, based upon the Principle of Economy. - º –l42– CHAPTER VIII. QUOTATIONS AND ALLUSIONS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE. This chapter Will examine the quotations and allusions in The Philosophy of Style to disc over whether they were more likely chosen in 1844 than in 1852. In the first place, the quotations from and allusions to Writers no t, living in 1844 may be studied. In this case little light can be shed on the problem of dating the essay, for the quotations could very well have been chosen either in 1844 or in 1852. The list includes 1 . writers merely allu de d to and 2. actual quotations. In the first list stand Francis Bacon (277), Alexander Pope (278) mentioned in the first fifty-seven paragraphs, and Goldsmith (279), Samuel John S.On (280), Junius (281), Lamb (282), in the last paragraph. In- vestigation shows nothing, except that Spencer had read some of Pope by l844 (283). In the second list stand The Battle –l43– of Flodden Field (284), Blair's Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Tettres (285), Campbell's The Philosophy of Rhetoric (286), Coleridge's Ancient Mariner (287), and Sonnet on Mrs. Siddons (288), Lord raines' Elements of Criticism (289), "eats' Hyperion (290), Milton's Paradise Lost (291), Ossian (292), Scott's Lady of the Lake (293), Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (294), Shelley's Prometheus Unbound (295), and Sterne's Tristram Shandy (296). The probability of Spencer's having read the rhetoricians mentioned has already been dealt with, and the source of the quotation from Ossian has been de- termined (297). There is evidence that Spence r had read some Milton (298). A study of Spencer's attitude toward Shelley in The Philosophy of Style and in his life, so far as his attitude can be ascertained, may help slightly in fixing the date of composition of that essay. In the essay he writes: –l44– A passage in the "Prometheus Unbound", of Shelley, displays the power of the metaphor to great advantage : . . . . . . This last expression is remarkable for the di St, inct ne SS With Which it realizes the features of the scene ; bringing the mind as it were , by a bound to the desired con- ception ( 299). The apparent enthusiasm of this praise of Shelley, with the fact that Spencer was particularly interested in Shelley about 1844 and only then, suggests that the quotation and the commentary were made by Spencer in 1844 rather than in 1852. The earlie St, mention of shelley in the published letters of Spencer occurs February l, 1845. This letter, to Spencer's friend Lott, gives some account of two other friends, Mr. and Mrs. Potter, whom Spencer visited during "the first few days Of less (300). He writes of Mr. Potter: He is I believe very poetical ––– admires Shelley enthusiastically and conceives him by far the finest poet of his era, in which I quite coincide with him (301). This mention would make very probable Spencer's knowledge of Shelley at least as early as the latter part of 1844, since -145- he speaks as if already familiar with the poet in January, l&45. There are two other mentions in the same year, on March 18 and August 1. Again writing to Lott on the earlier of these dates, Spencer says: I lately bought Shelley's poems in four vol— umes. It will be a great treat to you to read them, which you shall do the first time T come over. His 'Prometheus Unbound" is the most beautiful thing I ever read by far (302). On the latter date he writes to the same friend: They [Shelley's essays and letters do not Y give any indication of the genius that shines through his poetry. Of this last I have become a more and more devoted a dimirer. I cannot but thirik his 'Prometheus Unbound' the fine St. Gom- position in the language (303). In the Autobiography Spencer gives an account of a con- versation with William Howitt in the middle of January, 1846. He Write S : The only further thing I remember about him Was his remark that Teat S Would have been a greater poet than Shelley had he live d - – - a belief in which I suspect he was right. Probably this remark was called forth by some –l46– laudation of Shelley uttered by me, for T still greatly admired him, as was shown so on after by a letter to Lott, in which I rejoiced that he was at length reading "Prometheus Unbound", my especial favourite (304). The se remarks would imply that Spencer ceased to be so ardent an admirer of Shelley sometime before the end of his days. The fact that this mention of Shelley in 1846 is the last from Spencer, of which we have any record, Would indicate that his estrangement from the poet's works came early. In comment upon the first mention of Shelley in February, 1845, Spencer wrote in the Autobiography: Both on my own behalf and on behalf of my friend, I Ought perhaps to say that the great a drairation of Shelley above indicated did not continue. He , in after years, lost it almost entirely; and in me it diminished considerably. Why this was I do not feel certain (305). - Whether Spencer was acquainted with Shelley prior to the latter part of l844 cannot be definitely determined; but an interest in the writing of poetry in 1843 suggests the probability. The following passage occurs in the Autobiog- - 147- | Éraphy: Other passages tell me of ambitions which I had utterly forgotten; one of them sufficiently daring. "I feel more and more determined to write a poem in a few years hence, and am gradually working out the plot in my mind and putting down memoranda of thought and sentiment . The title I intend to be 'The Angel of Truth'. Inclosed I send you a few lines by Way of specimen of a first attempt. They are supposed to be part of the winding-up of a meditation upon the state of the World during the Dark Ages." The verse-making disorder, which seems to be escape d by but few of those who have any in- tellectual vivacity, did not last long. The project named must have been soon abandoned, and a later one, which I recall, was not per- severed in . This later one Was a drama to be entitled "The Rebel:" the plot of it be ing not, as the reader may suppose, one exhibiting successful rebellion, but one exhibiting the failure and disappointment of a high-minded hero, consequent on the weakness and baseness of those with whom he acted. But nothing was done be- yond thinking over the indi dents and characters to be embodied. - Among old papers there are some verses which, I suppose, must have been written about this . time (306). Duncan supposes that one of these poems referred to is one still extant , consisting of about fifty lines, entitled The Cloud ef Spirits (307). At any rate, the names and subject matter of the proposed poems are what might have been ex- º - pected of a young poetic al aspirant under the influence of –l48– Queen Mab and The Rev Olt of Islam. The whole probable period of Spencer's great enthusiasm for Shelley, then, extends from 1843 to somewhat beyond l846. The enthusiasm seemingly expressed in The Philosophy of Style would suggest that the Shelley quotation was chosen in this early period rather than in 1852. The contemporaries quoted or alluded to by Spencer are : Carlyle (308), Emerson (309), Latham (310), Liebig (311), Alexander Smith (312), Tennyson (313), and Whately (314). Car- lyle is merely alluded to in the last paragraph, and therefore that mention is of no significance. Tennyson's Marianna (quoted by Spencer) was published in 1830; Whately's Elements of Rhetoric, in 1828; Emerson's Lectures on the Times, in l841; Latham's The English Tauguage, in 184 l ; Justus von Liebig's Animal Chemistry in 1842. Although both Tennyson and Emerson were doing some of their best work between 1844 –l49– and 1852, in both cases Spencer chose quotations from tº heir Works published prior to 1844. Moreover, in the cases of Emerson, Latham, and Liebig, Spencer chose quotations from what in 1844 were recent W Orks. A study of Spencer's reading of Emers on gives results similar to those obtained from the study of his reading of Shelley. Spencer was somewhat acquainted with Emerson, cer– tainly by 1844. We find the following in tº wrotestaºz. There is proof that about this time, too, I made acquaintance With some essays of Emerson, which had recently been republished in England With an introduction by Carlyle. The proof is a passage in a letter written to Lott in 1844. "I have read Emerson and have passed it on according to command. Here and there I met with passages that I was much pleased with, but as a whole it is rather too mystical to please me . As Carlyle says his ideas are 'struggling towards an embodiment. " Certainly they have as yet only here and there attained it ; his essays give rather the shadows of his thoughts than the thought s themselves. But I greatly admire the spirit of the man though I cannot agree with many of his most prominent ideas. The doctrine in- dicated in various parts of the book that we attain truth by admitting into our minds the gleams of the 'universal soul' is somewhat analogous to the view (erroneously as I think ) entertained by the Quakers respecting the prompt- ings of the spirit ; which promptings of the - 150– spirit are nothing more than the actings of their excited moral Sentiments. " Subsequent reading of other collections of his lectures and addresses, less mystical in their characters, raised my estimate of Emer- son. Out of the mass of his sayings, inco- herent or but slightly coherent, as he himself remarked, there occasionally came one which impressed me and remaine d. That I enjoyed his essays is proved to me by the remembrance that Some six months afterwards I read one of them a loud to a friend - – - a remembrance which doubt, less OWe S it, S Survival to the curious comparison my friend made . He said that the feeling produced in him was like that pro- duced by distant thunder (315). The work of Emerson's alluded to in this passage is the Essays, first series, which was edited by Carlyle in 1841, and contained in the preface the remark quoted by Spencer in his letter (316). In two other instances Spencer's letters quote or allude to Emerson's writings. In a letter of March 18, 1845, Spencer writes: --- You agree I believe with Emers on that the true Sert iment of love between man and Woman arises from each serving as the representative of the other's ideal (317). This passage, though perhaps not paraphrasing accurately any -151– single statement of Frerson's, in all probability alludes t; O the essay on "Love", ind luded in the first series. The second instance occurs in a letter of early 1845. Spencer writes: There is no place where I can so palpably realize Emerson's remark that "Nature is the circumstance which dwarfs every other cir- cumstance" (318). This passage occurs in the essay Nature in the second series, also edited by Carlyle, late in 1844 (319). In the passage first quoted above, Spencer speaks of "other collections of his lectures and addresses". It is to this group that the Lectures on the Times, from which come s the passage quoted in The Philosophy of Style, belongs; and at least two volumes, containing this work, appeared in Eng- land in 1844 (32O). Whatever Spencer had read of Emerson's it was at least enough to alarm his father in regard to the influence which – 152– that Writer Was apparently gaining over the young philosopher. The father writing to his brother Thomas, said: I showed Herbert that I was a good deal con– cerned as to the notions he appears to be deriving from the reading of Emerson; . . . . . . (321) As there are no further mentions of Emerson in the corres- pondence, it is quite likely that young Spencer's enthusiasm wore off in this case as with phrenology and Shelley. Alexander sº A Life Drama, from which Spencer quotes tWO passages in The Philosophy of Style, Was not published until 1853 (322), and the refore seems to stand in opposition t; O our hypothesis that the essay was in substance written in l644. However, Spencer may have interpolated the se passages from Alexander Smith, and the re is, indeed, reason to believe that , if the essay Was Written in 1844, Spencer would not have allowed it to go to press in 1852 without taking the opportunity of inserting something from Alexander Smith. The -153- circumstances are these : Smith was discovered, so to speak, - by George Henry Lewes, who used the London Leader of which he was editor, to further the reputation of that poet during the year 1852 (323). Spencer had but recently made the friend— ship of Lewes (324) and, through his influence no doubt, be- came fired with enthusiasm for Smith's poetry. With the Se fact, S in mind, and the testimony of a Writer in Macmillan's Magazine for February, 1867, we shall readily see why these quotations appear in Spencer's essay. ~ Among those who were at once impressed by the specimens of Smith's poetry, and vividly inter- ested in their unknown author, Was Mr. G. H. LeWes. Frank, generous, and discriminating, then as now, Mr. Lewes used his literary position in the editorship of the Leader newspaper, and the whole power of his name, in aid of the new reputation. It is also within the knowledge of the present writer that among those who then, or immediately afterwards, helped, by their expressions of admiration, to secure for the new poet a high reception in good quarters, was Mr. Herbert Spencer (325). - "Did I mention to you when in Derby last the new poet º Alexander Smith?" writes Spencer early in September, 1852, -lā4– to a friend. "I consider him unquestionably the poet of the age. Though a Scotchman (and I have no partiality for the race ) I am strongly inclined to rank him as the greatest poet since Shakespeare. I know no poetry that I read over and over again with such delight." (326) The Philosophy of Style shows the same enthusiasm for Smith, and one quotation from A Life Drama is introduced "as a fine instance among the many which that poem contains." (327) In speaking of the reception accorded The Philosophy of Style, Mr. David Duncan, Spencer's biographer, remarks --- "Among the private commendations was one from Alexander Smith, of Edin- burgh, who was flattered by the recognition given him in the article." (328). The presence of the two quotations from A Life Drama in The Philosophy of Style cannot , then, be con- sidered as a serious objection to our hypothesis. One other objection may be considered. Justus von * - - 155– Liebig's Animal Chemistry was published not until 1842 and Spencer did not read German (329). How could he have gotten hold of it? This is easily answered. Liebig submitted his Animal Chemistry as a report to the meeting of the Chemical Section of the British AS Sociation for the Advancement of Science, held June 1842 (330). In the Autobiography, Spencer indicates the journals and magazines which he usually read about the year 1843 (331). Among these is the Athenaeum. The issue of that periodical for July 2, 1842, contains an ab– stract of Liebig's report to the Association, containing the passage alluded to by Spencer in The Philosophy of Style (332). Does it not seem more likely that Spencer should have recalled this reference two years later, when he wrote Force of Ex- pression, than that he should have failed to make use of it until 1852. When The Philosophy of Style was prepared for the press? ---- - - - - -156- On the whole, it appears that the quotations and allus- ions in The Philosophy of Style Support our hypothesis by according with it. - 157– CHAPTER IX. WON BAER's FORMULA AND THE PHTLosophy OF STYLE. "e may now turn to the question, Ts there anything in The Thilosophy of Style as it appeared in "ſe strainster Review, aside from the quotations already noted, that could not have been in the first essay? Of The Philosophy of Style Spencer writes in his Auto- biography: Let me add that in it s closing paragraph occurred the first sign that von Baer's formula, expressing the transformation passed through during the development of every organism, was in course of extension to other things. The essay ends with the statement that a perfect compo – sition will "answer to the description of all high' organized products, both of man and of nature : it will be , not a series of like parts placed in juxtaposition, but One whole made up of unlike parts that are mutually dependent" ––– (the conception of progress set forth in Social Statics, pp. 451:55. And on the ad– joining page is the partially equivalent state- ment that progress in style "must produce in- creasing heterogeneity in our modes of express– ion" (333). - A passage in Spencer's Reasons for Dissenting from the Philos- ophy of Comte also acknowledges this influence of von Baer's – 158– formula (334). Spencer's relation to von Baer's formula (and other biological and evolutionary formulae ) is traced step by step at one point in the Autobiography. Here only that portion to the year 1852 is pertinent: Early in the course of the foregoing narrative, when briefly describing Various essays, T in- dicated the Ways in which they severally dis- played approaches to the conception eventually reached; and before giving, in its original crude form, the programme of the system in which it was proposed to elaborate this conception, I described the general course of thought by which, as seen in these steps, the conception had been arrived at . Here, while noting the further developments which took place subsequently, it will be well to set down succinctly all the successive steps with the ir respective dates. They run as follows :- l650. Recognized the truth that low types of organisms and low types of societies, are alike in the trait that each consists of many like parts severally performing like functions ; while high types of organisms and high types of societies, are alike in the trait that each con– sists of mariy unlike parts severally performing unlike functions (Social Statics, pp. 451-3): the tacit implication being that in these cases progress is from the uniform to the multiform. 1851. Made acquaintance with the expression of Milne-Edwards, "the physiological division of labour," as applied to organic life ––– an expression which, suggesting the thought that in animals as in Societies the division of labour increases as organization advances, brought into clearer light the meaning of the "increasing subdivision of functions" on which I had commented in drawing the above parallel, —l 59– and the meaning of the change from uni- formity of structure to multiformity of struct- Ulré . 1851–2. A disclosure to me, and reception by me, of von Baer's formula ; ––– every Organism in the course of its development changes from homogeneity of structure to heterogeneity of Structure. 1852. In treating of the development of style there were expressed simultaneously, as being equivalents, the ideas that progress is from a state in which there are many like parts simply aggregated, to a state in which there are many unlike parts mutually dependent, *::: * it is from homogeneity to heterogeneity 335). - According to Spencer's Own testimony, von Baer's formula Was first known to him in 1851. In preparation for the first number of The Testminster issued under his auspices, Chapman asked me to write, for his quarterly review of contemporary literature, a notice of a recently- issued edition of Carpenter's Principles of Phy– Siology, Ceneral and Comparative. This I agreed to do. In the course of such perusal as Was needed to give an account of its contents, I came across von Baer's formula expressing the course of development through which every plant and animal passes --- the change from homo- geneity to heterogeneity. Though at the close of Social Statics there is a recognition of the truth that low types of society in common with low types of organisms, are composed of many like parts performing like functions, whereas high types of society in common with high types of organisms, are composed of many unlike parts performing unlike functions, implying that ad- v ance from the one to the ot, he r is from uni- formity of composition to multiformity of composition; yet this phrase of von Baer ex- pressing the law of individual development, - 160– awakened my attention to the fact that the law which holds of the ascending stages of each individual organism is also the law which holds of the ascending grades of organisms of all kinds. And it had the further advantage that it pre- sented in brief form, a more graphic image of the transformation, and thus facilitate d further thought. Important consequences eventually ensued (336). Since this formula of von Baer's was known to Spencer not until 1851, the last see tion of The Philosophy of Style, containing the organic interpretation of Economy, could not have been part of the earlier essay. Aside from the two quo- tations already noted, this passage of the essay is the only one which gives any evidence excluding it from the essay of 1844. —l 61- CHAPTER X. CONCLUSIONS. \ It is now possible to state with precision the hypothesis which, from this investigation, best accords with the facts in explaining the discrepancy between the treatment in the first fifty-seven paragraphs of The Philosophy of Style and that in the last paragraph. It has been made very probable that this first part of the essay was written in substance about 1844, under the title Force of Expression. "ith the ex- ception of the last part of paragraph 32 and the first part of paragraph 36 --- containing those passages quoted from Alexander Smith's A Life Drama — — — there is no reason to suppose that any part of the first fifty-seven paragraphs was not contained in the earlier essay. In fact, all the evi- dence points to the conclusion that this part of the essay remained practically unchanged in the version published in the Testminster Review . On the other hand, it has been —l 62– demonstrated that the last paragraph could not have appeared in the earlier essay. The hypothesis then may be state d thus: THE FIRST FIFTY-SEVEN PARAGRAPHS OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE, wººd. EXCLUSIVE OF THOSE PARTS OF PARACRAPHS 32 AND 36 AS– CONTAIN QUCTATIONS OR ALLUSIONS TO THE WORK OF ALEXANDER SMITH, ARE WRITTEN ABOUT l844; THE LAST PARAGRAPH WAS ADDED FOR PUB- LICATION IN THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW IN 1852. Although Spencer had accepted the evolutionary theory as true somewhat earlier, he did not become devoted to it until about 1852. His articles and works from that time on all owe their main ideas to biology and evolution. Von Baer's for- º mula, which as Spencer says, appears for the first time in The Philosophy of Style, º continued to play a greater part in * his thinking, and occurs time and again in his later works. The situation in Spencer's mind prior to the publication of – 163– t; he essay on style is clear: The substance of the e SSay On style seemed to him both true and valuable, though, in its present form, it had little enough relation to those ideas in which he was then most interested. The material of the essay did not lend itself readily to transformation into biological and evolutionary forms. Yet Spencer, incline d to See all things in their evolutionary perspective , could not publish the conclusions of the essay as purely static truths. Indeed, he was beginning to see that truths must be dynamic and growing in order to be true . Only one thing was left for him to do: try to indicate briefly the evolutionary possi- bilities of the subject in the hope that such a statement would correct any distortion of perspective in the major part Of the essay. This corrective he embodied in the last para- graph. Tride ed, if one looks at the construction of the essay, he will see that such may very well be the case. Paragraph —l 64– 57 is a summary; it summarizes not merely the second part of the essay but the Whole, and forms a very appropriate con– clusion. Paragraph 58 has, then, the appearance of being (what in ºn probability it is an atterthought or postscript to a finished essay. These conclusions would solve the problem with which the investigation began. The individual, mechanical, and psy- chological view of the principle of economy set forth in the great part of the essay ––– purely static in character --- might very well have been conceived at a time when evolution- ary principles had no strong hold upon the mind of Spencer. The social, organic, and evolutionary view suggested in the Closing paragraph ––– dynamic in character --- would nat- urally have suggested itself to Spencer in 1852. Thus the two parts of the essay, being written at different times and under different influences, would give rise to the dis– crepancy which puzzles readers. – 165– 7 l O9 ll. 13. l4. 15. 16. 17. NOTES See his edition of the essay, Introduction, pp. XV - XX . Westminster Review, v. 58, 1852, pp. 436–437. Westminster Review, v. 58, 1852, pp. 456-457. In later versions of the essay this paragraph is divided into two . - Westminster Review: , v. 58, 1852, pp. 458–459. For a comparison of these two interpretations of the Principle of Economy and a statement of their relative importance, see F. N. Scott's edition of the essay, Introduction, pp. xvii-xx. Scott's edition of The Philosophy of style, p. 44. Autobiography, v. I. , chs . VI-IX, XVII-XIXa ; Duncan, Life and Letters, V. I. , chs. III, W. p. 213. See also Autobiography, v. I - , p. 203. Civil Engineers' and Architects' Journal, l839. See also Autobiography, v . I. , p. 603 ; Tife and Letters, v. II • , p. 308. Civil Engineers' and Architects' Journal, 1841, See also Autobiography, v. I. , pp. 221–222; Life and Tetters, v . I. , p. 43–44. Autobiography, v. I. , pp. 613-616; Life and Letters, v. II., p. 308. Autobiography, v. I. , pp. 609-612; Life and Letters, v. T.I., pp. 308-309. v. I. , p. 189. Autobiography, V. I. , pp. 244-246. p. 5. Autobiography, V - I - , pp. 246-247. –l 66– Ibid., pp. 247–248, 617-621. 8 Autobiography, V. I. , p. 25 pp. 50–51, and footnote p. 51. Autobiography, V. I., p. 258; pp. 468–469. Life and Letters, V. I. , p. 51, footnote. Tbid., p. 86. Autobiography, v. T., pp. 181-182. Life and Letters, V. I. , p. 54. Ibid., pp. 50–51. Ibid., p. 54. v. I. , p. 258, pp. 468–469. Facts and Comments, p. 107. Life and Letters, V. I. , p. 86. In a letter to the Writer, Mr. David Duncan states : "When writing the Life and Letters of Herbert Spencer, I searched for the unpublished essay on "Force of Ex- pression', but with out success. I came to the c on- clusion that he had destroyed it ; treating it as a rough draft, of no further use after it had been transformed into the essay on 'The Philosophy of Style". At any rate it is not to be found among his papers, nor are there any references to it beyond What are to be met With in the Autobiography and the Life and Letters." v. I., p. 258. Facts and Comments, p. 107. Life and Letters, V. I. , p. 86. v. I. , p. 469. v. I., p. 469. Facts and Comments, pp. 106–107. — 167– 39 . 40. 4l. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. Ibid., p. 107. Westminster Review, V. 58, l852, p. 436. Life and Letters, V. I., p. 71. & Ibid., pp. 74–75. Ibid., p. 75. Ibid., p. 79. Ibid., p. 79. Autobiography, V. I., p. 426. pp. 617-62.l. Autobiography, v. T., p. 617. Ibid. , p. 619. Ibid. , p - 617. Ibidž, p. 617. Iºta, p. 618. Ibid., pp. 620–62.l. Westminster Review, v. 58, 1852, pp. 437-439. Ibid., p. 437-438. Ibid., p. 438. Ibid., p. 439. Ibid., pp. 437-438. Ibid., p. 438. Autobiography, V. I. , p - 618. Ibid., p. 618. Ibid., p. 619. Ibid., p. 619. –168– 7 O. 71. 72. Westminster Review, v. 58, 1852, pp. 452–453. Ibid., p. 438 . . . . Autobiography, v. I., p. 617. Ibid., pp. 617-618. Ibid., p. 618. Westminster Review, v. 58, 1852, pp. 438-439. In Spencer's memoran da these vowels are indicated in his father's short hand. The translation is made by use of the table on page 16 of W. G. Spencer's Lucid Short hand. Autobiography, v. I., p. 618. Ibid., p. 620. Ibid., p. 619. Westminster Review, V. 58, lê52, p. 439. Autobiography, V. I. , p. 619. Autobiography, V. I. , pp. 227–228. Ibid., pp. 228-231. Zoist, I - , 1843. Zoist, II . , 1844. v. I. , p. 261. Ibid., p. 262. Life and Letters, v. II., p. 310. Ibid., v. T., p. 51. Autobiography, v. I., p. 298. Ibid., p. 634. Ibid., pp. 452–454. Ibid., p. 469. —l 69 – 96. 97. 98. 99 . 100. Principles of Psychology, pt. IV, ch. 8, pp. 606–611. Westminster Review, V. 58, 1852, pp. 446, 454 twice, 55 Six time S. Ibid., p. 446. Ibid., p. 455. Iota. K) • 456. Ibid., p. 456. Ibid., p. 455. Ibid., p. 454. - Principles of Psychology; part IV, chapters TV, V, VI, WII, VIII, IX. Ibid., p. 584. Ibid., p. 609. Westminster Review, v. 58. , 1852, p. 456. The writer knows of no instance of numerous faculties in the writings of British philosophers. - Observations on Man, Chapter I., section I. Spurzheim, Phrenology, pp. 225-228. Some phrenologists called this organ "veneration." Ibid., pp. 243–245. Ibid., pp. 212-214. Westàinster Review, v. 58, 1852, p. 456. Ibid. , p. 456. - Ibid., p. 456: Spurzheim, Phrenology, pp. 90–98. Introduction by Cyrus Elder, pp. 17–20. Notice that Elder reasserts the pre- cise demarcation and unalterability of the faculties in face of Spencer's criticisms. – 170– 114. ll 5. ll 6. 117. 118. 119. 120 . 12 l . 122. 123. l24. 125. l26. 127. 128. l29. 130. Spurzheim, Phrenology, pp. 90–98. Ibid., pp. 149–151. p. 55. Westminster Review, v. 58, 1852, p. 437. Ibid., p. 455. The Word fatigue, apparently, appears, out side of modern Works, only in the Works of phrenologists. p. 95. p. 96. p. 210. Westminst er Review, v. 58, 1852, p. 439. Ibid., p. 440. Ibid., p. 45l. The word "effect" is many times employed. Ibid., p. 437. Ibid., p. 438. Ibid., p. 45l. Ibid., p. 454. Ibid. , p. 446. Ibid., pp. 436, 437 three times, 438 twice, 439, 440, 443, 446, 449 twice , 451, 454 four times. These occur on pages l?2, 127, 209, 363, 449, 616. p. 194. p. 195 . . p. 235. p. 281. —l 71– 150. 151. 282. 2 9 9 315 477. p. 495. p. 503. p. 546. Article on Attenti or . Principles of Psychology (James), V - I - , p. 402. Some knowledge of the se philosophers is shown in the article, "The Universal Postulate", Westminster Review, V. 59, lê53. - Life and Letters, V. I., pp. 145-147. Phrenology, p. 380. pp. 316–325. Zoist , I. , 1843. Ibid. , , ). 377. Zoist, II., 1844, p. 322. Westminster Review, v. 139, l893, pp. 142–154. • Ibi d. , p. 148. Dugald Stewart has a chapter on this relationship, and, of course, it is generally recognized by modern psy- chologist S. Zoist, T.I., 1844, p. 320. ". . . . it is an awkward title but may serve the purpose until a better can be found . " Westminster Review, v. 58, 1852, p. 436. – 172– 152. Philosophy of Rhetoric , Book III., Ch. W., Sec. II., p. 506. 153. Westminster Review, v. 58, 1852, p. 439. 154. This is the second published version, and the one used - in all subsequent reprintings. 155. Westminster Review, v. 58, 1852, p. 439. 156. Ibid., p. 439. l67. Ibid., p. 439. 158 . , Ibid., p. 43 159. Ibid. , p. 439. l60. Treatise on Human Nature, Book I. , Part I., Sec. 7, p 329. 16 l. Westminster Review, v. 58, 1852, p. 439. l62. Ibid., p. 439. l63. Ibid., p. 440. 164. Ibid., 44l. l65. Ibid. , p. 448. 167. Ibid. , p. 44l. - }} Q 166. Ibid. p. 437-438. P p 168. Ibid. , 451. 169. Ibid., pp. 452–453. 170. Thi d. , pp. 438–439. 171. Thid., pp. 437-438. 172. This word is substituted for "powerful" in the version of 1858. 173. Westminster Review, v. 58, 1852, pp. 437-438. – 175– 179. 180. l8l. 182. 1835. 184. 185. I. 86. 187. 188 . 189. 19 C). 19 l. 192. 193. 194. 195. Ibid., pp. 437-438. Ibid., p. 436. Tbid. Ibid., p. 439. , p. 438. Ibid., p. 451. Ibid., pp. 437-438. Phrenology, Part I., Section IX., Chapter I., pp. 253–254. Ibid., Part I., Sections IV and VII. Ibid., Tart II. , Section III. , pp. 414–418, especially p. 418. Ibid. , p. 418. Ibid., Part I., Section IX., Chapter I . , p. 253. Ibid., p. 283; Part T.I., Section I., Perception, p. 377. Ibid. , See also Part II., Section III., p. 409. (modes of Activity of the Faculties), p. 499. Ibid., pp. 500-501. Ibid., pp. 501-503. Ibid., (Faculty of Language), p. 420. Phrenology, Part II. , Section I. , pp. 387-388. Zoist, v. II. , 1844. This article is treated in Chapter W. Ibid., p. 320. Ibid., p. 319. 196. v. II., see Chapter W. l27. Ibid., p. 373. 198. Ibid., p. 374. 199. Ibid., p. 372. 200. Chapter TW. 201 - Zoist, v. II. , 1844, p. 323. 2O2. pp, *- |O 203. p 1. 204. V. I. , pp. 288-289. 205. p. 71. 206. pp. 71–72. 207. p. 73. 213. his illustration, I suppose, WO uld not be accepted by Hume, for The Seasons are no more ideas than The Year is , being no more susceptible of represent at ion in images. 214. Hume ; quoted, p. 215. Campbell, Philosophy of Rhetoric, Book II., Ch. VII., Sec - I - , pp. - 216. Chapter VII. 217. Campbell, Philosophy of Rhetoric, Book II., Ch. VII., Sec I. , p. 327. —l 75– 218. 238 . 239. v. 58, 1852, p. 435. The corre G tº t it le is Element S of Criti Gi Sm. Westminster Review, v. 58, 1852, p. 448. Tbid., p. 436. Ibid., p. 439. Ibid., p. 436 and p. 442. Ibid. , p. 435. Ibid., p. 439. Ibid., p. 439. Philosophy of Rhetoric, Book III, Ch. I., Sec, I. Westminster Review, v. 58, 1852, p. 439. Chapter WI. Philosophy of Rhetoric , Book III., Ch. I., Sec. I., p. 362. Campbell's exposition of British psychology is treated in Chapter VI. Westminster Review , V. 58, 1852, p. 436. Philosophy of Rhetoric, Book III, Ch. II., Sec. I. p. 416. Ibid. , p. 416. Ibid., Book III., Ch. IV., Sec. I., p. 480, See. II., p. 491. A discussion of Chinese monosyllables, Sec. III. , p. 500. Westminster Review, v. 58, 1852, p. 438. Philosophy of Rhetoric, Book III., Ch. IV., Sec. III., pp. 498–499. –176– Westminster Review, v. 58, 1852, p. 440. Philosophy of Rhetoric , Book III., Ch. III., Sec. II - , p. 444. Testminster Review, v. 58, 1852, pp. 441-442. Spencer calls this exclamation "often-quote d", no doubt because he found it in Whately's Elements of Rhetoric, Part III., Ch. II. , Sec. 11, p. 361, as well as in Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric, whence Whately took it. Philosophy of Rhetoric , Book III. , Ch. III., Sec. II . , p. 443. Westminster Review, v. 58, 1852, p. 443. Ibid., p. 440. Ibid., p. 44 l. Philosophy Of Rhetoric , Book III., Ch. W., Sec. II. , p : 506. 7 Westminster Review, v. 58, 1852, p. 44 Philosophy of Rhetoric , Book III. , Ch. I. , Sec. II. , Part T.I., p. 378. Ibid., p. 378. pp. 266-281. Westminster Review, v. 58, 1852, p. 445. Elements of Criticism, Ch. XVIII. , Sec. 2., p. 268. Ibid. , p. 281. "Westminster Review, v. 58, 1852, p. 435. Ibid., p. 446. p. 407. Yāimes, Element s of Criticism, Ch. XVIII., Sec. 3., pp. 282-288 ; Campbell, Philosophy of Rhetoric , Book III., Ch. I., Sec. III., Part I., pp. 411–412; Blair, – 177 – Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, XIII., p. 311, WI, pp. 117–119. "estminster Review, v. 58, 1852, pp. 438–439. Elements of Rhetorie, Book III., Ch. II., Sec. 3., p. 339. Ibid. , p. 339. pp. 125–127. Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, XIV. , p. 340. Westminster Review, v. 58, 1852, p. 447. Tectures on Rhetoric and Belles Tettres, XV., p. 344. Westminster Review, v. 58, l852, p. 446. Lectures On Rhetoric and Belle S Lettres, VII. , pp. 135–136. - Westminster Review, v. 58, 1852, p. 450. Kairnes, Elements of Criticism, Ch. IV., p. 120; Blair, Tectures on Rhetoric and Belle S Tettres, IV., pp. 74–75. p. 324. Whately, Elements of Rhetoric, Book III - , Ch. III. , Sec. 3, p. 383. Ilectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, XLIV, p. 259. v. I. , pp. 181–182. Elements of Rhetoric, Book T II . , Ch. I. , Sec. 2., p. 303. Westminster Review, v. 58, 1852, p. 436. Ibid. , P: Ibid. , p . Ibid., p. 458–459. – 173– Ibid., p. 458–459. Ibid., p. 458–459. Ibid. , p. 458–459. Life and Letters, V. I. , p. 55. Testminster Review, v. 58, 1852, p. 442. Ibid., p. 436. Ibid., p. 439. Ibid., p. 44l. Ibid., p. 448. Ibid., pp. 436, 442. Ibid., p. 442. Ibid., p. 445. Ibid., p. 450. Ibid. , p. 448. Ibid., p. 442. Ibid. 4 p. 448. Ibid. , p. 435. In Chapter VII. Ilife and Tetters, V. I. , p. 55. Westminster Review, v. 58, 1852, p. 448. Autobiography, V. I. , p. 297. 2 Ibid., p. 298. Ibid. , p. 308. – 179 – 31 7. 3.18. 33 2l O9 Life and Tetters, V. I., p. 68. 3 3. 9 Autobiography, V. I., p. Ibid., p. 299. Ibid., pp. 259-260. Life and Letters, v. L., pp. 55-56. Westminster Review, v. 58, 1852, p. 459. Ibid. , 4 48. p Ibid. --- Ibid., p. , p. 435. Ibid., pp. 448, 449. Ibid., p. 450. Ibid., p. 448. Autobiography, V. I., pp. 278-279. Cooke, A Bibliography of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Boston: Hought on, Mifflin, 1908, p. lll . Autobiography, V . I. , p. 307. Ibid., p. 310. The date of the letter is indicated by Spencer, only as "subsequent" to one of March 31. Cooke, A Bibliography of Ralph "aldo Emerson. Nature, an Essay ; and Lectures on the Times, London: H. C. Clark & Co., 1844. Nature: An Essay, and Orations, Tondon: William Smith, 1844. See Cooke's A Bibliography. Autobiography, v. T. , p. 358. Dictionary of National Biography. Autobiography, v. I. , p. 399–400. – 180– 3.25. p. 343. 326. Life and Letters, V. I., p. 87. 327. Westminster Review, v. 58, 1852, p. 328 . Life and Letters, V. I., p. 37. 3.29. There is no evidence to show that he could read Cerman. His education in Latin, Greek, French, and English are re G Cunted in the Autobiography and in the essay on Grammar ; and there are indications of his use of French. No mention is made of the German language, and Yant's Critique apparently was read (to the extent that Spencer did rºad it ) in translation. - 33l. Autobiography, v. I., pp. 276-277. 3.32. Athenaeum, 333. Autobiography, V. I. , pp. 470-471. 3.34. Scott's &A. Hav ck The ſºlo-pla of Sº b} . X* M - X vſ. 335. Autobiography, v. II. , pp. 193-195. 336. Ibid. , V. I. , pp. 445-446. RULES COVERING USE OF MANUSCRIPT THESES IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN LIBRARY AND THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OFFICE Unpublished theses submitted for the doctor's degrees and deposited in the University of Michigan Library and in the Office of the Graduate School are open for inspection, but are to be used only with due regard to the rights of the authors. For this reason it is necessary to require that a manuscript thesis be read within the Library or the Office of the Graduate School. If the thesis is borrowed by another Library, the same rules should be observed by it. Bibliographical refer- ences may be noted, but passages may be copied only with the permission of the authors, and proper credit must be given in subsequent written or published work. 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