the reading of a
new poem. It is true that if the sense of privation has been acute, the
pleasure is proportionally increased; and that few pleasures of any
great intensity grow up from indifference: still, remission and
alternation may give a zest for enjoyment without any consciousness of
pain.

The principle of Comparison is capriciously made use of by Paley, in his
account of the elements of Happiness. He applies it forcibly and
felicitously to depreciate certain pleasures--as greatness, rank, and
station--and withholds its application from the pleasures that he more
particularly countenances,--namely, the social affections, the exercise
of the faculties, and health.

* * * * *

[SIMPLICITY OF STYLE A RELATIVE MERIT.]

The great praise often accorded to Simplicity of Style, in literature,
is an example of the suppression of the correlative in a case of mutual
relationship. Simplicity is not an absolute merit; it is frequently a
merit by correlation. Thus, if a certain subject has never been treated
except in abstruse and difficult terminology, a man of surpassing
literary powers, setting it forth in homely and intelligible language,
produces a work whose highest praise is expressed by Simplicity. Again,
after the last century period of artificial, complex, and highly-wrought
composition, the reaction of Cowper and Wordsworth in favour of
simplicity was an agreeable and refreshing change, and was in great part
acceptable because of the change. It does not appear that Wordsworth
comprehended this obvious fact; to him, a simplicity that cost nothing
to the composer, and brought no novelty to the reader, had still a
transcendent merit.

* * * * *

It has been a frequent practice of late years to celebrate the praises
of Knowledge. Many eloquent speakers have dilated on the happiness and
the superiority of the enlightened and the cultivated man. Now, the
correlative or obverse must be equally true: there must be a
corresponding degradation and disqualification attaching to ignorance
and the want of instruction. This correlative and equally cogent
statement is suppressed on certain occasions, and by persons that would
not demur to the praises of knowledge: as, when we are told of the
native good sense, the untaught sagacity, the admirable instincts of the
people,--that is, of the ignorant or the uneducated. Hence the great
value of the expository device