nergy in the mere act of listening to
verbal articulations, or in that silent repetition of them which goes
on in reading--if the perceptive faculties must be in active exercise
to identify every syllable--then, any mode of so combining words as
to present a regular recurrence of certain traits which the mind can
anticipate, will diminish that strain upon the attention required by the
total irregularity of prose. Just as the body, in receiving a series
of varying concussions, must keep the muscles ready to meet the most
violent of them, as not knowing when such may come; so, the mind in
receiving unarranged articulations, must keep its perceptives active
enough to recognize the least easily caught sounds. And as, if the
concussions recur in a definite order, the body may husband its forces
by adjusting the resistance needful for each concussion; so, if the
syllables be rhythmically arranged, the mind may economize its energies
by anticipating the attention required for each syllable.

Sec. 56. Far-fetched though this idea will perhaps be thought, a little
introspection will countenance it. That we do take advantage of metrical
language to adjust our perceptive faculties to the force of the expected
articulations, is clear from the fact that we are balked by halting
versification. Much as at the bottom of a flight of stairs, a step more
or less than we counted upon gives us a shock; so, too, does a misplaced
accent or a supernumerary syllable. In the one case, we _know_ that
there is an erroneous preadjustment; and we can scarcely doubt
that there is one in the other. But if we habitually preadjust our
perceptions to the measured movement of verse, the physical analogy
above given renders it probable that by so doing we economize attention;
and hence that metrical language is more effective than prose, because
it enables us to do this.

Sec. 57. Were there space, it might be worthwhile to inquire whether the
pleasure we take in rhyme, and also that which we take in euphony, axe
not partly ascribable to the same general cause.

PART II. CAUSES OF FORCE IN LANGUAGE WHICH DEPEND UPON ECONOMY OF THE
MENTAL SENSIBILITIES.

i. The Law of Mental Exhaustion and Repair.

Sec. 58. A few paragraphs only, can be devoted to a second division of
our subject that here presents itself. To pursue in detail the laws of
effect, as applying to the larger features of composition, would carry
us beyond our limits. But we ma