without reservation. Though, up to a certain point,
it is well for the qualifying clauses of a period to precede those
qualified; yet, as carrying forward each qualifying clause costs some
mental effort, it follows that when the number of them and the time they
are carried become great, we reach a limit beyond which more is lost
than is gained. Other things equal, the arrangement should be such that
no concrete image shall be suggested until the materials out of which it
is to be made have been presented. And yet, as lately pointed out,
other things equal, the fewer the materials to be held at once, and the
shorter the distance they have to be borne, the better. Hence in some
cases it becomes a question whether most mental effort will be entailed
by the many and long suspensions, or by the correction of successive
misconceptions.

Sec. 28. This question may sometimes be decided by considering the capacity
of the persons addressed. A greater grasp of mind is required for the
ready comprehension of thoughts expressed in the direct manner,
where the sentences are anywise intricate. To recollect a number of
preliminaries stated in elucidation of a coming idea, and to apply them
all to the formation of it when suggested, demands a good memory and
considerable power of concentration. To one possessing these, the direct
method will mostly seem the best; while to one deficient in them it will
seem the worst. Just as it may cost a strong man less effort to carry a
hundred-weight from place to place at once, than by a stone at a
time; so, to an active mind it may be easier to bear along all the
qualifications of an idea and at once rightly form it when named, than
to first imperfectly conceive such idea and then carry back to it,
one by one, the details and limitations afterwards mentioned. While
conversely, as for a boy, the only possible mode of transferring a
hundred-weight, is that of taking it in portions; so, for a weak mind,
the only possible mode of forming a compound conception may be that of
building it up by carrying separately its several parts.

Sec. 29. That the indirect method--the method of conveying the meaning by
a series of approximations--is best fitted for the uncultivated, 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. In pleonasms, which are comparatively
prevalent among the un