perfluous; but the
question of superfluity must, as I showed just now, be determined in
each individual case by various conditions too complex and numerous to
be reduced within a formula. The same may be said of Simplicity, which
is indeed so intimately allied with Economy that I have only given it a
separate station for purposes of convenience. The psychological basis
is the same for both. The desire for simplicity is impatience at
superfluity, and the impatience arises from a sense of hindrance.

The first obligation of Simplicity is that of using the simplest means
to secure the fullest effect. But although the mind instinctlvely
rejects all needless complexity, we shall greatly err if we fail to
recognise the fact, that what the mind recoils from is not the
complexity, but the needlessness. When two men are set to the work of
one, there is a waste of means; when two phrases are used to express
one meaning twice, there is a waste of power; when incidents are
multiplied and illustrations crowded without increase of illumination,
there is prodigality which only the vulgar can mistake for opulence.
Simplicity is a relative term. If in sketching the head of a man the
artist wishes only to convey the general characteristics of that head,
the fewest touches show the greatest power, selecting as they do only
those details which carry with them characteristic significance. The
means are simple, as the effect is simple. But if, besides the general
characteristics, he wishes to convey the modelling of the forms, the
play of light and shade, the textures, and the very complex effect of a
human head, he must use more complex means. The simplicity which was
adequate in the one case becomes totally inadequate in the other.

Obvious as this is, it has not been sufficiently present to the mind of
critics who have called for plain, familiar, and concrete diction, as
if that alone could claim to be simple; who have demanded a style
unadorned by the artifices of involution, cadence, imagery, and
epigram, as if Simplicity were incompatible with these; and have
praised meagreness, mistaking it for Simplicity. Saxon words are words
which in their homeliness have deep-seated power, and in some places
they are the simplest because the most powerful words we can employ;
but their very homeliness excludes them from certain places where their
very power of suggestion is a disturbance of the general effect. The
selective instinct of the artist