exceptional elements. A perfect exemplification is wellnigh as valuable, in the realm of interpretation, as a perfect definition.

NOTE. If, for instance, we were seeking to exemplify crystallization by exhibiting a real crystal, we should look for one as free as possible from imperfections, and we should leave out of account the breaks and dislocations that are found in the majority of specimens. These are individual and accidental; they do not belong to the class. In like manner, especially in exemplifying intricate subjects, it is advisable to illustrate, as far as may be, one thing at a time; an example may easily be confusing by being too complex.

3. ANTITHESIS, in exposition, is a very lucid means of exhibiting important distinctions between ideas that superficially are much alike. Its use, therefore, is not so much in displaying contrary ideas, which contrast, in fact, is obvious

without explanation, — as in finding the point where two like ideas are in sharp distinction; which point will be found to contain the most distinctive feature of each.

EXAMPLES. The following, drawing a distinction between poetry and eloquence, ideas in large proportion alike, reduces this distinction to a serviceable antithesis:

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Poetry and eloquence are both alike the expression or utterance of feeling: but, if we may be excused the antithesis, we should say that eloquence is heard; poetry is overheard. Eloquence supposes an audience. The peculiarity of poetry appears to us to lie in the poet's utter unconsciousness of a listener. Poetry is feeling confessing itself to itself in moments of solitude, and embodying itself in symbols which are the nearest possible representations of the feeling in the exact shape in which it exists in the poet's mind. Eloquence is feeling pouring itself out to other minds, courting their sympathy, or endeavoring to influence their belief, or move them to passion or to action."1

The following, by a skilful exegesis of terms, shows that happiness and joy, though ideas almost wholly coincident, have a point of exact antithesis: :

"Now there is even a distinction of kind between the two, a distinction beautifully represented in the words themselves. Thus HAPPINESS, according

1 MILL, Dissertations and Discussions, Vol. i, p. 97.

to the original use of the term, is that which happens, or comes to one by a hap, that is, by an outward befalling, or favorable condition. Some good is conceived, out of the soul, which comes to it as a happy visitation, stirring in the receiver a pleasant excitement. It is what money yields, or will buy; dress, equipage, fashion, luxuries of the table; or it is settlement in life, independence, love, applause, admiration, honor, glory, or the more conventional and public benefits of rank, political standing, victory, power. All these stir a delight in the soul, which is not of the soul, or its quality, but from without. Hence they are looked upon as happening to the soul and, in that sense, create happiness. . . . But Joy differs from this, as being of the soul itself, originating in its quality. And this appears in the original form of the word; which, instead of suggesting a hap, literally denotes a leap, or spring. . The radical idea then of joy is this; that the soul is in such order and beautiful harmony, has such springs of life opened in its own blessed virtues, that it pours forth a sovereign joy from within. The motion is outward and not toward, as we conceive it to be in happiness. It is not the bliss of condition, but of character. There is, in this, a well-spring of triumphant, sovereign good, and the soul is able thus to pour out rivers of joy into the deserts of outward experience. It has a light in its own luminous centre, where God is, that gilds the darkest nights of external adversity, a music charming all the stormy discords of outward injury and pain into beats of rhythm, and melodies of peace."1

Here the antithesis is: happiness comes from without; joy springs up from within.

Another application of antithesis in exposition is the employment of the OBVERSE, as means of exhibiting what the idea is by setting over against it what it is not. This has been sufficiently explained and exemplified above, p. 466, 2.

4. ANALOGY, by which is meant similarity of relation in diverse subjects, is a much-valued means of making clear the relations between ideas. Taking obscure and remote principles of things, it makes them familiar by identifying them with principles that we see all around us; and thus the abstruse becomes simple.

EXAMPLES. The following is an illustration, and so an exposition, of the sudden outbreak of the French Revolution: "But thus may any chemical liquid, though cooled to the freezing-point, or far lower, still 1 BUSHNELL, Sermons for the New Life, p. 226.

continue liquid; and then, on the slightest stroke or shake, it at once rushes wholly into ice. Thus has France, for long months and even years, been chemically dealt with; brought below zero; and now, shaken by the Fall of a Bastille, it instantaneously congeals: into one crystallised mass, of sharp-cutting steel! "1

The following analogy is used to illustrate how one's own egoism is the centre of its peculiar world of events: "An eminent philosopher among my friends, who can dignify even your ugly furniture by lifting it into the serene light of science, has shown me this pregnant little fact: Your pier glass or extensive surface of polished steel, made to be rubbed by a housemaid, will be minutely and multitudinously scratched in all directions; but place now against it a lighted candle as a centre of illumination, and lo! the scratches will seem to arrange themselves in a fine series of concentric circles round that little sun. It is demonstrable that the scratches are going everywhere impartially, and it is only your candle which produces the flattering illusion of a concentric arrangement, its light falling with an exclusive optical selection. These things are a parable. The scratches are events, and the candle is the egoism of any person now absent — of Miss Vincy, for example. Rosamond had a Providence of her own, who had kindly made her more charming than other girls, and who seemed to have arranged Fred's illness and Mr. Wrench's mistake in order to bring her and Lydgate within effective proximity."

It is often remarked that analogy, as a form of argument, is precarious. This is true; in the next chapter we shall see why. As an instrument of exposition, however, analogy is of great value. Its distinctive function is to illustrate; in argument, too, this is so. While we must be cautious about depending on it as establishing the truth of a position, yet not infrequently it may so clearly elucidate the relations of the question that the truth of it becomes self-evident.

II.

Exposition Extensive: Division. -Treating an object not as a specific thing or member of a class but as a whole class in itself— determining, that is, the breadth or range over which 1 CARLYLE, French Revolution, Vol. i, p. 205.

2 GEORGE ELIOT, Middlemarch, Chap. xxvii.

3 See below, p. 615. For analogy in general, see above, p. 77.

its application extends - results in a process complementary to definition, the process, namely, of division.

NOTE. — In defining an animal, on p. 558, above, the qualities sought were what belonged to the object before any thought of its different kinds was considered. The animal was simply viewed as a species in the larger class of material things, and the features that distinguished it from other material things were singled out. But now, in turn, we may take this same object as a class, and institute inquiry how many kinds of animals there are, and on what principles they are distinguished from each other; this leads to determining the various classes, orders, genera, and species that make up the vast animal kingdom.

Division, as a literary process, and classification, as a scientific process, are in principle exactly the same, requiring the same mental acumen and accuracy. The literary view is here adopted because the capacities of average readers must be kept in mind, and therefore not thoroughness alone but simplicity must be worked for. In literary presentation the processes of division and subdivision are not ordinarily carried to so minute stages as scientific severity requires; though as far as they go they are subject to the same laws.

For the requirements of a rhetorical outfit there are to be distinguished two aspects of division.

1. Logical Division. — This is the core of exposition extensive, as logical definition is of exposition intensive. On its scale, large or minute, it works for thoroughness; seeking, that is, to cover a whole range of concepts in such way that no distinction of that scale be left unaccounted for. Its highest problem is to make its work self-verifying; that is, to secure such mutual relation between the members, and such covering of the field traversed, as shall be a guarantee to the mind of writer and reader of a complete and closed circuit. For this, rules go only a little way; it must come mostly by logical tact.

The following details of logical division, with the laws governing them, must be kept in mind.

1. The PRINCIPLE of division. By this is meant a certain definite character attributed to the whole field of view, to which all the dividing members are equally related. It is analogous to the point of view as determining the details of a field of description.1

NOTE. It is obvious, then, that the same field of concepts may be divided in many different ways, according to the principle adopted. Thus, on the principle of race, mankind would be divided into Caucasians, Mongolians, Malays, etc.; on the principle of religion, into Christians, Jews, Mohammedans, etc.; on the principle of language, into Aryans, Semites, Turanians, etc. So, too, the people of any nation are popularly divided on the principle of social orders, into the aristocracy (or upper classes), the middle class, the lower classes.

In the beginning of his Introduction to the Classification of Animals Professor Huxley, after mentioning several principles of classification adopted by others - as the principle of physiological function, the principle of geographical distribution, the principle of succession in time (as controlling in Paleontology) — avows as his principle of classification, anatomical

structure.

Two things are requisite in the character taken as the principle of division: first, it must be the same for all the members in other words, one principle- otherwise crossdivision and therefore confusion results; secondly, it must be a literal character, that is, not based on figure or fancy, and essential, that is, not put on arbitrarily without regard to the object's nature.

EXAMPLES. - I. Of mixed principles of division. If we should divide literature into prose, verse, history, fiction, and religious literature, the first two divisions would be on the principle of expression, the third and fourth on the principle of kind of material, and the fifth on the principle of aim or sentiment. But fiction may also be verse, and must be either verse or prose, and any of these kinds may be religious; - in fact, the cross-divisions are so numerous that the whole list is really no division of the subject at all.

1 See above, p. 481.