regulation for the details of life is numbers: fixed numbers, therefore,
should be introduced into all our conduct. M. Comte's first application
of this system was to the correction of his own literary style.
Complaint had been made, not undeservedly, that in his first great work,
especially in the latter part of it, the sentences and paragraphs were
long, clumsy, and involved. To correct this fault, of which he was
aware, he imposed on himself the following rules. No sentence was to
exceed two lines of his manuscript, equivalent to five of print. No
paragraph was to consist of more than seven sentences. He further
applied to his prose writing the rule of French versification which
forbids a _hiatus_(the concourse of two vowels), not allowing it to
himself even at the break between two sentences or two paragraphs; nor
did he permit himself ever to use the same word twice, either in the
same sentence or in two consecutive sentences, though belonging to
different paragraphs: with the exception of the monosyllabic
auxiliaries.[27] All this is well enough, especially the first two
precepts, and a good way of breaking through a bad habit. But M. Comte
persuaded himself that any arbitrary restriction, though in no way
emanating from, and therefore necessarily disturbing, the natural order
and proportion of the thoughts, is a benefit in itself, and tends to
improve style. If it renders composition vastly more difficult, he
rejoices at it, as tending to confine writing to superior minds.
Accordingly, in the Synthese Subjective, he institutes the following
"plan for all compositions of importance." "Every volume really capable
of forming a distinct treatise" should consist of "seven chapters,
besides the introduction and the conclusion; and each of these should be
composed of three parts." Each third part of a chapter should be divided
into "seven sections, each composed of seven groups of sentences,
separated by the usual break of line. Normally formed, the section
offers a central group of seven sentences, preceded and followed by
three groups of five: the first section of each part reduces to three
sentences three of its groups, symmetrically placed; the last section
gives seven sentences to each of its extreme groups. These rules of
composition make prose approach to the regularity of poetry, when
combined with my previous reduction of the maximum length of a sentence
to two manuscript or five printed lines, that is, 250 lette