ill be the most economical
may not be the most musical, and the most musical may not be the most
pleasurably effective. For Climax and Variety it may be necessary to
sacrifice something of rapid intelligibillty: hence involutions,
antitheses, and suspensions, which disturb the most orderly
arrangement, may yet, in virtue of their own subtle influences, be
counted as improvements on that arrangement.

Tested by the Intellect and the Feelings, the law of Sequence is seen
to be a curious compound of the two. If we isolate these elements for
the purposes of exposition, we shall find that the principle of the
first is much simpler and more easy of obedience than the principle of
the second. It may be thus stated:--

The constituent elements of the conception expressed in the sentence
and the paragraph should be arranged in strict correspondence with an
inductive or a deductive progression.

All exposition, like all research, is either inductive or deductive. It
groups particulars so as to lead up to a general conception which
embraces them all, but which could not be fully understood until they
had been estimated; or else it starts from some general conception,
already familar to the mind, and as it moves along, casts its light
upon numerous particulars, which are thus shown to be related to it,
but which without that light would have been overlooked.

If the reader will meditate on that brief statement of the principle,
he will, I think, find it explain many doubtful points. Let me merely
notice one, namely, the dispute as to whether the direct or the
indirect style should be preferred. Some writers insist, and others
practise the precept without insistance, that the proposition should be
stated first, and all its qualifications as well as its evidences be
made to follow; others maintain that the proposition should be made to
grow up step by step with all its evidences and qualifications in their
due order, and the conclusion disclose itself as crowning the whole.
Are not both methods right under different circumstances? If my object
is to convince you of a general truth, or to impress you with a
feeling, which you are not already prepared to accept, it is obvious
that the most effective method is the inductive, which leads your mind
upon a culminating wave of evidence or emotion to the very point I aim
at. But the deductive method is best when I wish to direct the light of
familiar truths and roused emotions, upon new