\ 
 
 Weil's 
 
 Order of Words in the Ancient 
 
 L cUngCt^ge S compared m'tk ?fa Modern 
 
 Super, 
 
CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PB 213.W42 1887 
 
 Order of words in the ancient languages 
 
 1 
 
 3 1924 026 504 278 
 
The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://archive.org/details/cu31924026504278 
 
THE 
 
 OEDEE OF ¥OEDS 
 
 ANCIENT LANGUAGES COMPARED WITH THAT 
 OF THE MODERN LANGUAGES. 
 
 HENEI T£EIL. 
 
 EranslateU, fottfj Notes aittr tuitions, 
 
 CHAKLES W. SUPEK, Ph.D., 
 
 President or the Ohio University. 
 
 'Language is an art and a glorious one, whose influence extends over 
 
 all others, and in which finally all science 
 
 whatever must centre." 
 
 BOSTON: 
 GINN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS. 
 
 1887. 
 © 
 
V 
 
 \. 
 
 HE 
 
 
 . i D» ri ;-\ 
 
 
 TY 
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1887, by 
 
 CHARLES W. SUPER, 
 in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 J, S. Cashing & Co., Pbintebs, Boston. 
 
INTRODUCTION TO THE TRANSLATION. 
 
 The English-speaking student who enters upon the study of an 
 ancient language is soon led to ask, " Why is the order of words 
 to which I am accustomed so different from this ? and why does 
 an ancient writer put his thoughts together in a way that seems so 
 unnatural?" When he comes to the German he finds its arrange- 
 ment a little less unusual ; while if he undertakes the French he 
 soon discovers far more points of agreement than dissimilarity 
 between the new language and his own. There may be nothing 
 surprising to him in the fact that hardly any two languages desig- 
 nate the same object with precisely the same term ; but why should 
 the component parts of a complex thought be arranged so differ- 
 ently with respect to one another? We read what Greek and 
 Eoman and Hebrew and German thinkers have said upon all 
 questions of general human interest and see nothing foreign in 
 their ideas. There is no ancient history, or philosophy, that is 
 materially unlike in its principles what is called modern history, or 
 modern philosophy. When we have extracted the ideas from the 
 unfamiliar words and their strange arrangement, we find nothing 
 about them which, generally speaking, impresses us as strange. 
 We must conclude, then, that the human mind is the same in all 
 ages, where the civilization is virtually on the same level. In 
 poetic composition it is easy to see why words cannot be ar- 
 ranged in the same order when a thought in different languages 
 is expressed in words of different lengths and differently accented. 
 In prose, the reason of the divergence is much more difficult to 
 discover. 
 
 Perhaps no one would maintain that any amount of research 
 will ever make it possible to account for the minor divergences of 
 speech. Countless idiomatic expressions owe their existence to 
 
4 INTRODUCTION TO THE TRANSLATION. 
 
 circumstances entirely beyond the reach of even plausible divi- 
 nation. Stereotyped formulas are repeated by each succeeding 
 generation of the unthinking multitude in whose mouths the in- 
 heritance receives no increment. "With it speech is not really the 
 expression of thought ; it is hardly more than the verbal utterance 
 of concepts called into existence by impressions on the sensorium 
 from without. But even under such conditions language is an 
 object of interest as the tangible and visible form of national or 
 tribal feeling : the interest is a far higher and nobler one when it 
 concerns language which is something more than a mere inheri- 
 tance, and which has become a vehicle of new thoughts called into 
 being in a mind conscious of its power and capable of moulding 
 these thoughts into forms that will impress themselves inefface- 
 ably upon human civilization. 
 
 A well-known English author says that nothing can be more 
 evident than that custom makes the Briton prefer one order of 
 words and the Frenchman another. This is only removing the 
 difficult point one degree further back. We may well ask, ac- 
 cepting the statement as true, what makes custom in such a case ; 
 for it is coming to be more and mdre admitted among students of 
 sociology that no custom is purely arbitrary. If there is no reason 
 for it now apparent or discoverable, it has survived by tradition 
 after the cause which called it into existence ceased to be opera- 
 tive. Several French writers have maintained that their language 
 follows the natural order in the arrangement of words. The same 
 claims have been put forth by writers of other nationalities in 
 behalf of their vernacular ; nor is there any real difference between 
 these and the theories about the languages spoken in Paradise. 
 We are led to conclude that the question of the order of words 
 has been rarely approached in a philosophical spirit, and that it 
 has been generally decided on purely subjective grounds. Though 
 the dead languages have been carefully studied during the last 
 three or four centuries, I am not aware that much has been done 
 toward a systematic and thorough examination of the question 
 which is the theme of the present volume. The consideration of 
 the subject is confined pretty generally to a single author or to 
 one work of an author, and is not pursued upon a sufficiently com- 
 
INTRODUCTION TO THE TRANSLATION. 5 
 
 prehensive plan to lead to results capable of wide or universal 
 application. Most students, I am led to believe, complete their 
 collegiate course in the ancient languages, in the firm belief that 
 there is an irreconcilable difference between ancient and modern 
 modes of expression ; and that the divergences can be referred to 
 no general principles. 
 
 But the question of the order of words as determined by the 
 order of the ideas of which they are the visible and audible ex- 
 pression, has not only a philosophical interest, but a pedagogical 
 value also. Every time a student carefully and appreciatively 
 examines a sentence left on record by a thoughtful writer of an- 
 tiquity, he receives a lesson in vigorous and systematic thinking. 
 If he recognizes the psychological kinship between his own mind 
 and the mind that speaks to him from the written page out of 
 the remote depths of antiquity, and through the agency of a 
 foreign idiom, he must be dull indeed if the discovery does not 
 delight his soul, cultivate his intellect, and enlarge his mental 
 horizon. 
 
 Having for a good many years been aware of the existence of 
 the confusion and uncertainty in the minds of students, of which 
 I have above spoken, and not knowing where to direct them for 
 an authoritative guide in the investigation of the order of words, 
 I was greatly delighted when some years ago I found in the little 
 work of Professor "Weil, of Paris, a lucid and systematic introduc- 
 tion to the study of the whole question. Even if we dissent from 
 his conclusions in part or in whole, we cannot read his book with- 
 out being stimulated to further research, and led to entertain the 
 belief that the order of words in the ancient languages is not so 
 much unlike the modern as is commonly supposed. The fact that 
 so eminent a philologist has seen no reason to change his views 
 after a study of the subject extending through nearly two score 
 years, ought to convince any one that they cannot be easily over- 
 thrown. But I am less concerned about convincing my readers 
 than about stimulating them to thought, upon a question of so 
 much importance. If I have aroused investigation and indicated 
 a method which will lead to fruitful results, I care not at all 
 whether the results of others' studies correspond with mine. I 
 
6 INTRODUCTION TO THE TRANSLATION. 
 
 had far rather they should differ toto coelo, if in that way the 
 cause of truth be the more promoted. 
 
 The author's notes I have in nearly all cases marked with the 
 signature W. A very few I have omitted where their retention 
 seemed of no importance to the English reader. Here and there 
 I have added a line or a word in the text when this brief expla- 
 nation obviated the necessity of a note. In a few cases I have 
 incorporated a note by the author into the text where this seemed 
 to me an improvement. Many of the quotations from the Greek 
 and the Latin are given without translation in the original work. 
 Besides, as the French translation, where the author has added 
 one, would be of little value to the English reader, I have in many 
 cases omitted it and supplied its place with an English translation. 
 Where the author's words would be of interest to those who read 
 French, I have retained them enclosed in brackets. In all cases 
 where it seemed advisable I have supplied an English version, 
 whether a French one was given or not. Where a suitable one 
 was within reach, I used it ; where not, — and this was the case in 
 a majority of instances, — I made one or changed another's to suit 
 my purpose. Some who will read these pages could doubtless 
 have made better ; a large number will perhaps think they could 
 do so until they have themselves made the trial. 
 
 As the class of readers for which the translation is intended is 
 less learned than that for which the original was prepared, there 
 was heed of a considerable number of notes by the translator. 
 Some were also rendered necessary by the change in the point of 
 view from French to English. It has been no easy matter to 
 decide how numerous or how long to make them. The thesis 
 touches upon many points of interest to philologists ; but how 
 many of these by-paths, frequently so alluring, one ought here 
 to follow, and how far to follow them, are questions upon which 
 there will probably be a wide divergence of opinion. I have been 
 guided by what I regarded as the needs of the class for which 
 the translation is primarily intended. 
 
 If this little work contributes anything toward removing the ob- 
 stacles that lie in the path of the student of the ancient classic 
 tongues ; especially if it enables him to see design and symmetry 
 
INTRODUCTION TO THE TRANSLATION. 1 
 
 where he has found only chance and irregularity ; if, in short, it 
 makes the study of the noblest languages of antiquity, in however 
 slight a degree, more attractive, more profitable intellectually, and 
 more humanizing, the object of the translator will be fully attained. 
 And I doubt not that of the author also. 
 
 I ought perhaps to add that the translation has been made under 
 circumstances of no small difficulty. The frequent interruptions 
 due to the claims of a laborious position left but snatches of time 
 for any self-imposed task. This fact does not detract from the 
 intrinsic merit of the performance, but it may account for minor 
 errors and for some defects of style that would not have been 
 overlooked under more favorable conditions. 
 
 I desire to express my grateful acknowledgments to Professor 
 J. N B. Greenough, of Harvard University, for valuable suggestions, 
 and to my colleague Professor J. P. Gordy, for his generous aid in 
 reading the proofs. 
 
 c. w. s. 
 
 Athens, O., January, 1887. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction to the Translation 3 
 
 Preface ... 9 
 
 Introduction by the Author 11 
 
 Notes 17 
 
 CHAPTER I, 
 
 The Principle of the Order of Words 21 
 
 The Syntactic March is not the March of Ideas 21 
 
 An Attempt to set forth the March of Ideas 28 
 
 Applications of the General Remarks 31 
 
 Modifications of the Principle of the Order of Words 35 
 
 The Pathetic Order of Words 43 
 
 Notes 47 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Relation between the Order of Words and the Syntactic 
 
 Form of the Proposition 52 
 
 Classification of Languages according to Construction 52 
 
 Place of the Verb 57 
 
 Descending and Ascending Construction 59 
 
 What is the most Perfect Construction % 67 
 
 Construction in the Free Languages .... 70 
 
 The Period 74 
 
 Notes 79 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Relation between Words and the Rhetorical Accent . . 85 
 
 Ascending Accentuation .... 87 
 
 Descending Accentuation 93 
 
 Repose of Emphasis 100 
 
 Oratorical Rhythm 108 
 
 False Emphasis 109 
 
 Notes Ill 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Since the appearance of the second edition of this work, M. Abel 
 Bergaigne has published the beginning of a study on grammatical 
 construction considered in its historical development in Sanskrit, 
 Greek, Latin, the Romanic and Germanic languages. 1 M. Ber- 
 gaigne attempts with as much learning as ingenuity to determine 
 the primitive usage in matters of grammatical construction with 
 respect to the idioms which are the object of his researches ; and 
 going still farther back to discover by conjecture the arrangement 
 of the constituent parts of the proposition in the mother tongue of 
 the Indo-European family. On the other hand, M. G. von der 
 Gabelentz has published some articles on comparative syntax. 2 
 Among the facts gathered by this linguist, I regard as particularly 
 interesting those pertaining to the function of the particle fa in 
 the Japanese language. In his general views upon the principle 
 of the order of words there is nothing that I did not point out 
 twenty -five years before him. The results of neither of these in- 
 vestigations has led to a change in my own views. That of von 
 der Gabelentz has added nothing of importance, whereas Ber- 
 gaigne's point of view is wholly different. 
 
 Excepting some slight retouches of style, this third edition is an 
 exact 'reproduction of the second (1869), which in its turn differed 
 from the first (1844) only in a few modifications and additions. 
 It would have been easy to extend the little work, but its concise- 
 ness has perhaps counted for something in the favorable reception 
 that has been accorded to it. I refrain therefore from adding any 
 additional matter. It were to be wished in the interest of readers, 
 that writers should take for a motto, Meya ftifiXiov piya ko.k6v. 
 
 Pabis, June, 1879. 
 
 1 Me'moires de la Socie'te' de Linguis- 2 Ideen zu einer vergleichenden Syntax 
 tique de Paris, Vol. Ill, p. 1 seqq., in ZeitschrififurVolkerpsychologie. Vol. 
 p. 124 seqq., p. 169 seqq. VI, p. 376 seqq., and Vol VIII, p. 129 
 
 seqq., p. 300 seqq. 
 
THE ORDER OP WORDS 
 
 ANCIENT LANGUAGES COMPARED WITH THE 
 
 MODERN. 
 
 AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION. 
 
 It is proposed in this essay to treat of the order in which words 
 or groups of words that are used in the formation of a sentence 
 may properly follow each other. Words are the signs of ideas ; 
 to treat of the order of words is, then, in a measure, to treat of the 
 order of ideas. From this point of view our subject has a claim 
 to be regarded as one of some importance. Grammarians have 
 very carefully studied isolated words, as also their syntactical con- 
 catenation ; but most of them have given no attention to the order 
 in which words may follow each other. Nevertheless the study of 
 this order would seem to be a considerable part of grammar, for 
 the object of grammar is to explain how thought is translated into 
 words. Thought is in perpetual movement; the forward move- 
 ment of speech cannot then be reasonably ignored. 
 
 Before entering upon our subject, let us glance rapidly over what 
 both ancient and modern writers have said upon it. Among the 
 former, Dionysius of Halicarnassus has devoted a special treatise 
 to <rwOetns ovoji&Twv ; Cicero in the Orator, and in his other writ- 
 ings on rhetoric, and Quintilian in his Institutiones Oratoriae, treat 
 at length of compositio verborum. They all agree in acknowledg- 
 ing the importance of this subject. Dionysius goes even so far as 
 to claim that the choice of words is not of as much consequence as 
 the order in which they are placed. That which should determine 
 this order, according to the ancient rhetoricians, is the more or 
 less harmonious collocation of the letters placed at the end or the 
 
12 THE ORDER OF WORDS. 
 
 beginning of the words which follow each other ; the rhythmic 
 movement produced by the succession of long and short syllables, 
 which they call respectively conglutinatio verborum and numerus; 
 and finally reasons of euphony of which the ear alone is a compe- 
 tent judge. 
 
 If this were true, if in reality the order of words were entirely, 
 or almost entirely, a matter which concerns the ear, as the most re- 
 spectable authorities assert, it would be better to exclude the Greek 
 and the Latin from these researches. We do not know the exact 
 pronunciation of these languages ; we reproduce it even less than 
 we know it. Besides, euphony varies with the organs and habits of 
 peoples. "What is agreeable to the French ear is not always so to 
 the English or German ear : the more reason then why a collection 
 of words considered harmonious in our day could not have been 
 so to Cicero or Pericles. We are therefore as badly situated as 
 possible for judging the euphony of a Greek or Latin sentence. 
 Nevertheless it cannot be denied that those who are versed in the 
 ancient languages feel the peculiar charm resulting from the ar- 
 rangement of the sentence by the classic prose writers. What is 
 more, we moderns try to imitate them, and pride ourselves upon 
 being able to write more or less well the language of Cicero or 
 Demosthenes. Of two things one must be true : either there is a 
 very extraordinary blindness among modern writers, or the ancient 
 masters of the oratorical art have not sought out and unravelled all 
 the causes of this arrangement — an arrangement the appositeness 
 of which they had such an exquisitely keen perception. It will be 
 surmised that any one who undertakes to determine the principles 
 of this arrangement should incline toward the latter opinion. It 
 is doubtless somewhat venturesome to pretend to be a better judge 
 of Greek or Latin than Dionysius or Cicero ; but it is less so than 
 one might suppose at first sight. It happens every day that men 
 who possess a certain art in its fullest perfection, who have the keen- 
 est and justest judgment in all that relates thereto, expound the 
 processes of this art in a much less satisfactory manner than those 
 who seek to render themselves masters of it by study. The former 
 judge in such matters by their feelings, or, in other words, by a 
 method that is sufficiently reliable in practice, but confusing in 
 
THE ORDER OF WORDS. 13 
 
 theory ; the latter judge by the understanding, which is insufficient, 
 perhaps, in practice, but which is excellent in theory. We 
 rarely take pains to think out. the reason of those things with 
 which we are so familiar as not to be easily mistaken, but we 
 study thoroughly those things which we can only learn by study. 
 This is my apology for daring to maintain that the ancients have 
 not always sufficiently fathomed the secret laws of an art which 
 they apply as masters. 
 
 Let us try to prove by an example the statement we have just 
 made. Cicero in the 64th chapter of the Orator cites the follow- 
 ing passage taken from a speech of the tribune C. Carbo, O Marce 
 Druse, patrem appello. Tu dicere solebas sacram esse rempublicam, 
 quicumque earn violavissent, ab omnibus esse ei poenas persolutas. 
 Patris dictum^sapiens temeritas filii comprobavit. 1 And he adds, 
 "The cadence of this sentence ending in a double trochee, gained 
 for the orator the most vociferous applause." I ask whether it was 
 not the rhetorical harmony that gained the applause. Change the 
 order of the words and say, e.g., comprobavit filii temeritas — it 
 will no longer have the same effect, yet the words are the same, 
 the sense is the same. We answer that it is because the mind is 
 satisfied, but the ear is not. Cicero has elsewhere called attention 
 to the fact that what is called rhythm in prose is not always pro- 
 duced by verse properly so called. 2 This remark can readily be 
 turned against its author. In the first place it is very certain that 
 the order of the words comprobavit filii temeritas does not offend 
 the ear in the least. Thus changed, the sentence ends in a paeon, 
 a rhythm or foot which Cicero elsewhere recommends, and which 
 Aristotle and others put in the front rank. We are thus fully 
 convinced that it is neither the paeon nor the dichoreus which 
 makes this turn of the sentence languid, and that grand. It is 
 not the rhythm of the syllables, but the order of ideas which pro- 
 duces this effect. By placing the verb at the end, as Carbo has 
 done, the sentence is rounded out, and the contrary terms sapiens 
 and temeritas are pitted against each other. The prudence of the 
 father, the rashness of the son, — what is the relation that exists 
 between these contrary terms ? Have they joined in conflict, de- 
 stroyed each the other ? No ; comprobavit, one has proven and 
 
16 THE ORDER OP WORDS. 
 
 the parts of a sentence consists in always placing the most im- 
 portant idea at the head, that is, in the most prominent part of 
 the sentence, and in always giving to the ideas which represent a 
 greater interest the precedence over those which represent a less. 
 It is evident that he regards that order as natural which is called 
 the pathetic, the order of great emotion. He appears to suppose 
 that the grammatical or metaphysical order — in fine, the French 
 order — is always the exact opposite of the natural order, the 
 order of the Latin. According to him, the farther we depart from 
 the legitimate arrangement of the French sentence, the better we 
 speak. He professes to believe that rotundus est sol is better than 
 sol est rotundus; to hear ./Kims amat patrem would have sounded as 
 harsh to the Romans as to us the order, " by the son is loved the 
 father." One sees that this savant allows himself to be so far 
 carried away in the heat of the discussion as to ignore the differ- 
 ences of languages, and to advance a theory that cannot be sus- 
 tained ; but he had a keen perception of the beauty and advantages 
 of the Latin construction, nor did he fail to make some very good 
 observations upon it. 
 
 The first really philosophical grammars of the German language 
 could not avoid discussing the construction of this language, a 
 construction which is determined by the syntactical relations of 
 the parts of the proposition, but which does not follow the analyt- 
 ical order. Herling and Becker 7 have treated this part of their 
 subject with the same profoundness as the other parts of grammar. 
 They have not confined themselves to establishing the usual con- 
 struction of the German, but they have sought the reasons of the 
 different inversions. They have called particular attention to the 
 fact that there exists an intimate relation between accentuation 
 and the order of words. 8 Although I have felt obliged to take 
 issue with these grammarians in seeking a principle that regulates 
 the order of words independent of syntax, I am glad to recognize 
 the fact that their works first gave me light upon this subject and 
 led me to reflect upon it. 
 
 Among the works which treat specifically of the Latin construc- 
 tion I shall cite but two, the only ones that I have myself been 
 able to read. Dr. R. Sturenburg in the notes which he has added 
 
THE ORDER OF WORDS. 
 
 17 
 
 to an oration of Cicero — that for the poet Archias — has sought 
 to explain the arrangement of the Latin sentence by the emphasis. 
 He distinguishes four kinds of emphasis, — a grammatical, a logi- 
 cal, an emphatic, and, fourthly, an emphasis which results from 
 emotion intentionally restrained. The grammatical emphasis gives 
 the usual order of words. A word which is affected either by the 
 logical or grammatical emphasis is placed before the rest ; a word 
 which has the restrained emphasis is placed after the others. Dr. 
 F. Raspe has appended to his edition of Cicero de Legibus a 
 treatise on the order of words in Latin, in which he develops a 
 theory proposed by Goerenz in his commentaries on several works 
 of Cicero. This theory makes us acquainted with a particular 
 sonus possessed by the Latin language, which rests upon the first, 
 the fourth, the seventh, and the last word of each proposition. I 
 confess that in spite of my efforts I have not been able to compre- 
 hend this theory. 
 
 1 The section here referred to is 
 perhaps of sufficient importance to 
 merit a place entire. Fluit omnino 
 numerus a primo turn incitatius brevitate 
 pedum, turn proceritate tardius. Cursum 
 content iones magis requirunt ; expositi- 
 ons rerum, tarditatem. Insistit autem 
 ambitus modis pluribus, e quibus unam 
 est secuta Asia maxime, qui dichoreus 
 vocatur, quam duo extremi chorei sunt, id 
 est, e singulis longis et brevibus; expla- 
 nandum est enim, quod ab aliis iidem 
 pedes aliis nominantur vocabulis. Di- 
 choreus non est Me quidem sua sponte 
 vitiosus in clausulis, sed in orationis nu- 
 mero nihil est tarn vitiosum, quam si sem- 
 per est idem. Cadit autem per se Me 
 ipse praeclare ; quo etiam satietas formi- 
 danda est magis, me stante C. Carbo, 
 C. F. tribunus plebis in condone dixit 
 his verbis, 
 
 O Marce Druse, patrem appello. 
 Saec quidem duo bints pedibus incisim : 
 dein membratim, 
 
 tu dicere solebas sacram esse rempub- 
 licam. Saec item membra ternis. Post 
 ambitus, 
 
 quicumque violavissent, ab omnibus 
 esse ei poenas persolutas. Dichoreus; 
 nihil enim ad rem, extrema ilia, longa 
 sit, an brevis. Deinde, 
 
 Patris dictum sapiens, temeritas filii 
 comprobavit. Hoc dichoreo tantus cla- 
 mor concionis excitatus est, ut admira- 
 bile esset. Quaero, nonne id numerus 
 effeceritl Verborum ordinem immuta: 
 fac sic comprobavit filii temeritas : jam 
 nihil erit, etsi temeritas ex tribus brevibus, 
 et longa est ; quern Aristoteles ut optimum 
 probat ; a quo dissentio. At eadem 
 verba, eadem sententia. Animo istuc 
 satis est, auribus non satis. Sed id cre- 
 brius fieri non oportet. Primum enim 
 est numerus agnoscitur : deinde satiat : 
 postea cognita facilitate contemnitur. 
 
 2 See note 9 , p. 113, and compare 
 H. Spencer's Essay on the Origin and 
 Function of Music. 
 
18 
 
 THE ORDER OF WORDS. 
 
 3 De Compositione Verborum, chap. 
 5. Td 6v6fiara rdrreiv irpb rStv pT\itA.T(ov. 
 It is incorrect to translate, as has often 
 been done, "to place the subject be- 
 fore the verb." In reality, Aristotle 
 (de Interpretatione, chap. 5) uses the 
 term Svo/m solely to designate the 
 nominative, which he distinguishes 
 from the oblique cases or m-ifo-eis ov&- 
 fmros; but Dionysius proves by his 
 examples (jiijviv &etde, the first words 
 of the Iliad) that he does not make 
 this distinction. It is possible that he 
 did not fully comprehend the author 
 from whom he borrowed his ideas. 
 An analogous passage from Priscian 
 makes one suspect this. This gram- 
 marian says (Institutiones Gram- 
 maticae XVII) : Sciendam tamen quod 
 recta ordinatio exigit, ut pronomen vel 
 nomen praeponatur verba, ut ego et tu 
 legimus, Virgilius et Cicero scripserunt, 
 quippe cum substantia et persona ipsius 
 agentis vel patientis, quae per pronomen 
 vel nomen significatur, prior esse debet 
 naturaliter quam ipse actus, qui accidens 
 est substantiae. Licet tamen et prae- 
 postere ea proferre auctorum usurpatione 
 /return. When we compare with this 
 extract the terms used by Dionysius 
 in the following, Ti /ihv -yip (ov6ixo.to) 
 t$v oiitriav BrjKovv T& de (ffifiaTa) rb 
 avnfrefS'i}K6s ' irp6repov 8* eivai rtf <p6tret 
 r)}v ovfflav tuv avfA^e^TiKSrav, we are 
 led to conclude that the two authors 
 have drawn from the same source. W. 
 
 4 Demetrius, de Elocutione, Walz. 
 Rhetores Graeci, p. 564 : Tb irepl ov, 
 the thing spoken of. "Htoi airb rijs 
 opBijs &pKreov, tf airb rrjs alriariKTis ws 
 to \eyerai 'E,irl8a/ii>ov . . ., one must 
 begin either with the nominative or 
 the accusative in sentences in which 
 the infinitive is construed with the 
 subject of the accusative. W. The 
 topics touched upon in these notes 
 will be found fully discussed in Lersch, 
 
 Die Sprachphilosophie der Alten, Bonn 
 1838-40; Steinthal, Geschichte der 
 Sprachwissenschaft bei den Griechen 
 und Romern, Berlin 1863. See also, 
 Max Miiller's Science of Language, 
 First Series, Lecture III, and the 
 article Grammar by Professor Sayce 
 in the Encyclopedia Britannica. 
 
 6 For the grammarians of the Mid- 
 dle Age, see Thurot, Extraits de divers 
 manuscrits latins pour servir a Vhistoire 
 des doctrines grammaticales du moyen 
 age, p. 341 ff . For Plato's use of the 
 term hyperbaton, see Protagoras, p. 
 343 E. It is to the hyperbaton that 
 the explanations of the ancient scho- 
 liasts refer which begin with these 
 established formulas : ordo est, rb 
 effis. These interpreters only bring 
 together the elements of the gram- 
 matical group. This is still a long 
 remove from our analytical construc- 
 tions. 
 
 6 Beauzee, Orammaire gfnerale, Paris 
 1767. Batteux, Traiti de la construc- 
 tion oratoire, 1763, and Principes de 
 literature, 1774. See also Dumarsais, 
 Encyclope'die, under the articles Lan- 
 guages, Construction; and Spencer's 
 Essay on Style. 
 
 7 Herling, Die Syntax der deutschen 
 Sprache, 2 Bde, 1830 ; K. F. Becker, 
 Ausfiihrliche deutsche Grammatik, 
 2 Bde, 1836-39. 
 
 Dr. Stiirenburg's work was pub- 
 lished in 1839 ; that of Dr. Raspe in 
 1844. An excellent chapter on the 
 order of words in Latin is found in 
 Reisig's Lateinische Sprachwissen- 
 schaft. A new edition of Haase's 
 edition of this standard treatise is 
 now (1886) in course of publication 
 under the joint editorship of Schmalz 
 and Landgraf. Some judicious re- 
 marks upon the same subject are to be 
 found in the Handbuch der class. Al- 
 terthumswissenschaft now appearing 
 
THE ORDER OF WORDS. 
 
 19 
 
 from the press of Beck, Nordlingen. 
 For Pronunciation the English reader 
 may consult A. J. Ellis' Practical 
 Hints on the Quantitative Pronuncia- 
 tion of Latin and the first vol. of 
 Roby's Latin Grammar. 
 
 8 The word " accent" embraces the 
 meaning of both accent and empha- 
 sis. The French rhetoricians, how- 
 ever, speak of two kinds of accent, 
 the tonic and the oratorical or pathetic 
 accent. Their term being more com- 
 prehensive than ours, it is sometimes 
 difficult to decide whether it had bet- 
 ter be rendered by accent or by em- 
 phasis. The word 'accent' is for- 
 mally the Latin word accentus, less its 
 
 termination, which in turn is a literal 
 translation of the Greek irposiptila. 
 But the signification of the modern 
 word is not that of its ancient proto- 
 type. Accentus, from accino, is liter- 
 ally the attuning of a thing. It is 
 composed of ad and cantus, just as its 
 Greek equivalent is formed from irp6s 
 and cpSn. Quintilian and other Roman 
 rhetoricians, however, mention the 
 fact that Latin is less musical than 
 Greek, whence it follows that the 
 accentus of the one cannot have been 
 precisely the same thing as the irpos- 
 tpSla of the other. Its modern repre- 
 sentative of course means something 
 quite different. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE PBTNCTPIiE OF THE OKDER OF "WOEDS. 
 The syntactic march is not the march of ideas. 
 
 Let lis forget for a moment the constructions peculiar to the 
 French, German, English, Greek ; let us rid ourselves of all that 
 we know of the variations in the usage of one language as com- 
 pared with another, and let us ask ourselves, what principle, 
 judging by simple common sense, ought to regulate the order of 
 words. "We answer, because we try to trace in words the faithful ) 
 image of thought, the order of words ought to reproduce the order '. 
 of ideas ; these two orders ought to be identical. 
 
 This principle I adopt fully, and shall try to develop it in this 
 chapter. But, though adopting it, I do not understand it as 
 many grammarians have done. It has often been invoked by 
 them to prove that the analytical construction which is character- 
 istic of several modern languages, and especially of the French, is 
 the only one which corresponds to the order of our ideas. 1 I am 
 not willing to admit this claim, either for this language or any 
 other, and I believe that with slight modifications the signs of our 
 ideas are always presented in the order of our ideas, and that the 
 differences which have been cited are for the most part only 
 seeming differences. 
 
 "When grammarians speak of the order of ideas they have in 
 mind the order of the constituent parts of the proposition as 
 exhibited by syntactic analysis. The subject, the attribute, the 
 different complements 2 of both, are the basis of all syntax. They 
 constitute a system which applies equally to all languages, a 
 thread which serves as a guide through all the most complicated 
 constructions. Why, we shall be asked, not hold to a system so 
 general, so transparent? Why not admit the fact that this system 
 reveals to us in itself the forward movement of our ideas, and 
 
22 THE ORDER OF WORDS. 
 
 that consequently it is the natural basis of the order of words ? 
 We can answer this question only after we have examined the 
 ' theory of the proposition itself. 
 
 Although all may be agreed when in a given case it is required 
 to determine the parts of a proposition, it seems to me that we 
 may distinguish two different methods of stating the fact. Some- 
 times we wish to express general propositions, such as, virtue is 
 a good, vice is an evil. Then it is said, the proposition is the 
 complete expression of a judgment (this is the definition of 
 Beauzee) . It naturally falls into two parts, a thing and a mode 
 of being, between which we wish to establish a relation of agree- 
 ment or disagreement. These two parts are the subject and the 
 attribute. "We are obliged to express first the subject and then 
 the attribute under penalty of violating the logical order. 
 
 Sometimes we attach more importance to the sensible actions, 
 which are expressed in most propositions and of which the relations 
 are indicated by cases in inflected languages and by prepositions. 
 Looked at in this light the subject is the person or thing from 
 which the action proceeds, the verb is the expression of the action, 
 the objects are the persons or things upon which the action is 
 directed. Darium vicit Alexander. From whom does the action 
 proceed? Begin where the action begins, namely, with Alexander. 
 Darius is the person toward whom the action is directed. Place 
 the name of Darius last. The verb which expresses the relation of 
 the two persons, the manner in which the one acts upon the other, 
 is the middle term, and ought to be placed between the others. 
 Say then, "Alexander conquered Darius," under penalty of sinning 
 against nature. By saying Darium vicit Alexander, you reverse 
 natural order. To use the words of Beauzee, "you go from the 
 end to the beginning, from the last term to the origin, from the 
 bottom to the top ; you invert nature quite as much as a painter 
 who should exhibit the picture of a tree with the root above and 
 the leaves in the earth. By saying Darium Alexander vicit, you 
 depart even more from the natural order, you break the connection, 
 you bring together the parts that have no affinity, as if by mere 
 chance." 
 
 These arguments, one must admit, are at the same time very 
 
THE ORDER OF WORDS. 23 
 
 simple and very forcible. Still, in the end, one is astonished to 
 see the ancients convicted of being deficient in logic, and especially 
 of being less natural than the moderns. The ancients, we may 
 add in extenuation, had all the varied terminations by means of 
 which they were able to find in their sentences the different parts 
 even when they were widely dispersed. This is a weak excuse if 
 it be really true that the order which is common in our language 
 is the only logical and natural one. That you are rich and have 
 the means to spend extravagantly without impairing your fortune 
 is no reason why you should not be censured if you do so. Besides, 
 if the ancients had inflections, we have prepositions, and in French, 
 as in English, it is in truth only the nominative and accusative 
 which are so much alike that they might cause confusion if the 
 adopted order be widely departed from. 3 Let us examine, then, 
 the force of the arguments upon which the generally received 
 opinion rests. The proposition is the complete expression of 
 a judgment, the two parts of which ought never to be confounded, 
 but to follow each other regularly according to the logical order 
 exhibited in the operations of the human mind. This is the first 
 argument. It is true that one can reduce to the form of a judg- 
 ment all that we say, and when there was given to this ensemble of 
 words forming complete sense the somewhat unphilosophical name 
 of proposition, it was perhaps done from this point of view. And 
 more, our modern languages, in accord with our grammarians, tend 
 to give their sentences the form of a judgment. These languages, 
 including even the German, which is however tolerably free in 
 respect to the order of its words, are especially careful to divide 
 the sentence into two very distinct parts, between which is placed 
 the copula as the sign of equation. We shall return hereafter to 
 this philosophical, or rather, mathematical, conformation of the 
 sentence which has become customary with us. But is it essential 
 to the nature of language ? Can we say that the function of the 
 subject consists in being the object of a judgment expressed by 
 the attribute ? If you say, Hunc juvenem intemperantia perdidit, 
 you do not express a judgment on intemperance, but simply state 
 a fact ; and if it is absolutely necessary that this should be a judg- 
 ment, it is more natural to say that you express a judgment on the 
 
24 THE OBDER OF WORDS. 
 
 young man, who, however, is not the subject of the sentence. The 
 same observation may be applied to a great number of sentences. 
 The subject has not, therefore, and certainly had not originally, this 
 philosophical value which our grammarians give to it and wfiich 
 our modern languages seem to affect for it. Hence the pattern 
 after which all our sentences are modelled and which has shaped 
 grammatical forms, is not primitively that of a judgment or of an 
 algebraic equation. 
 
 The second argument proceeds, it seems to me, from a more 
 correct point of view. According to it the subject is not the first 
 term of a judgment, but the being from which the action proceeds : 
 the other parts of the proposition are the term which enunciates 
 this action, the object upon which it passes over, the circum- 
 stances of time, of place, etc. Finally, the entire proposition has 
 the form of a sensible action. Nothing could better co-ordinate 
 with the other facts of a language and with the nature of the mind 
 which we must suppose to have existed in man before the forma- 
 tion of languages. Etymology is coming more and more to discover 
 in the verbs the roots of all the other words in the language. 4 
 It appears then that man placed in the midst of this world so 
 well calculated to impress his senses, first directed his attention to 
 the changes, the movements, the actions, in a word, which are 
 brought to his notice. Movement has awakened our first thoughts ; 
 we should not be surprised to see the form of our thoughts ascend 
 to the same source, and to find in sensible action the prototype of 
 the proposition. There is nothing more gratifying to the intelli- 
 gence than to find the vocabulary and the syntax of our languages 
 proceeding from the same source. 
 
 Of course it is not always a sensible action, often it is not an 
 action at all that we express. But we are not here concerned 
 about the content of a thought ; it is only a question of its form, 
 of the connection and syntactical relation of its parts. One can 
 express a mode of being only by using the form employed in sen- 
 tences which express action. "We say, " The lion is a beast with 
 a mane," " This man has talent," exactly as we say, " The lion has 
 torn his prey." Even when the attribute is not expressed by a 
 verb, but by an adjective or a substantive, there is need of a verb 
 
THE ORDER OF WORDS. 25 
 
 to give the sentence life. It is true that this verb, the verb "to lie," N 
 does not express action ; but it is only because we have come by 
 force of abstraction to deprive it of all special sense. This is 
 evident in French and in the other Romance languages, where 
 certain forms of the substantive verb are derived from the Latin 
 verb stare. 5 Finally, in spite of our abstractions, the peculiar 
 characteristic of the sensible action must always be attached to all 
 our verbs and to all our propositions ; it is the characteristic of 
 time. "Hope implies desire." "Possession gives real enjoy- 
 ment." Pascal. These propositions are true of all time ; never- 
 theless they must of necessity be enunciated in the present. 
 Syntax makes us see hope and possession as acting, desire and 
 enjoyment as acted upon. Nothing, however, was further from 
 the thoughts of the philosopher than these relations borrowed from 
 the material world. It is because he has been obliged to use the 
 scheme established by usage for the sentence ; in other words, to 
 subject himself to the law of syntax. This law constrains us to 
 clothe our thoughts not in a metaphysical garb, but in one essen- 
 tially dramatic. The being that acts, the action, the being that 
 receives the impulse of the action, that which is affected by it in 
 the most indirect manner, time, place of action, etc., — these are 
 the parts and elements of the syntactic drama. The grammatical 
 relations are the only relations that exist between the immutable 
 personages of this drama. 
 
 , When it happens that the order of the thought is not the same 
 with the order of the dramatic forms that are assigned to it, then 
 it is that the order of words agrees with the thought itself and 
 not with the form that the thought may have taken ; which is 
 certainly most natural and logical. But could this case occur? 
 could these two movements be different from each other ? Doubt- 
 less they could, since the form is not obligatory. The same thought 
 may be expressed in different syntactic constructions, so that the 
 ideas which concur "to form the thought have sometimes one part, 
 sometimes another, in the drama of the sentence. In spite of this 
 change of parts, ideas do not change places in the march of 
 thought. Consequently the words which express these ideas 
 ought not to change places in the order of the sentence. Let us 
 
26 THE ORDER OF WORDS. 
 
 illustrate our meaning by examples. Livy, in the thirty-fourth 
 chapter of the first Book of his History, speaks of Demaratus and 
 his two sons Lucumo and Arruns. He relates first the history of 
 Demaratus and Arruns, and then continues, Imcumoni contra, 
 omnium heredi bonorum cum divitiae jam animos facerent, auxit 
 ducta in matrimonium Tanaquil, etc. Observe the cast of this 
 phrase. Tanaquil is the subject ; it is from her that the action 
 expressed by auxit proceeds. She therefore occupies the first 
 place in the march of the syntactic drama. Yet the author has 
 given to her the last place in the order of words. He begins his 
 sentence with Lucumoni, and he has done well, for Lucumo occu- 
 pies the first place in the march of his thought. Change now the 
 grammatical rdle of Lucumo, as you wish; put it in the nom., 
 gen., ace, or abl., — it matters little provided it be by this idea 
 that you enter the subject-matter of the sentence. Tou can say, 
 Lucumo in majores spes adductus est matrimonio Tanaquilis, or 
 Lucumonem in majores spes erexit ducta in matrimonium Tanaquil. 
 But if, while preserving the relations of syntax you wish to change 
 the order of words, Tanaquil auxit animos Lucumoni, you perplex 
 the reader by substituting an order of words contrary to the order 
 of ideas. Albeit in the example given one can with some difficulty 
 comprehend your meaning. But take some verses from Horace 
 of which the sense would be entirely destroyed by a like trans- 
 position. Nihil est ab omni parte beatum; abstulit clarum cita 
 mors Achillem, longa Tithonum minuit senectus. (Carm. II, 16, 30.) 
 We shall not touch upon the relations of syntax ; we shall only 
 change the order of words by making what is called construction. 
 {Nihil est ab omni parte beatum) , mors cita abstulit Achillem clarum, 
 senectus longa minuit Tithonum. One no longer gets the connec- 
 tion of ideas. It is not then arbitrarily, nor forced by the 
 difficulties of the metre, that Horace has separated the adjectives 
 clarum and longa from the substantives to which they belong, since 
 the thought is obscured the moment you put them together. 
 
 So then, in translating from one language to another, if it is 
 not possible to imitate at the same time the syntax of the original 
 and the order of the words, retain the order of the words and 
 disregard the grammatical relations. The passage from Horace 
 
THE ORDER OF WORDS. 27 
 
 is proof of this. " There is no perfect happiness. A premature 
 death carried off illustrious Achilles ; a long old age wore out 
 Tithonus." Here we have a translation which seems to be 
 entirely faithful, but which nevertheless does not render the sense 
 of the original. Let us abandon this specious fidelity, and let us 
 follow as near as may be possible the order of ideas and words we 
 find in the Latin. "There is no perfect happiness. In the height 
 of his glory a premature death snatched away Achilles ; in the 
 bosom of an eternal life Tithonus was worn out with old age." 
 H n'y a pas de bonheur parfait. Uhe mort pr4coce enleva I'illustre 
 AclMlle; une longue vieillesse consuma Tithon. In order to trans- 
 late the sentence from Livy we must seek to give a force to the 
 expression which will allow us to assign the first place to Lucumo in 
 the order of words. We shall then make it (the word Lucumo) 
 the subject of the proposition ; that is, we shall put it in the nom- 
 inative, though in Latin it is in the dative. The great secret of 
 a good translation is to find forms of expression which will allow 
 the translator to adopt into a foreign idiom the order of words 
 which is found in the original. 6 
 
 If one intended to translate into Latin this passage from Vol- 
 taire, H avait un beau-pdre, il V obliged, de se pendre; il avait un 
 beau-frere, il le Jit Str angler (He had a father-in-law, he forced 
 him to hang himself ; he had a brother-in-law, he caused him to 
 be strangled) , he would change the grammatical construction, but 
 would not interfere with the order of ideas, putting, for example, 
 Soceram ad suspendium adegit, affinem strangulari jussit. In 
 Latin each member is composed of but one proposition ; in French 
 it is composed of two. This is because in the French, grammatical 
 propriety does not permit the object to be put first. On the other 
 hand, the concatenation of ideas demands that the object should 
 stand first. What is to be done in this dilemma ? It is impossible 
 to violate the law of grammar, but it is equally impossible, at 
 least for an author who has a proper appreciation of what he is 
 saying, to reverse the order of the thought. Therefore to satisfy 
 grammar and thought, Voltaire adopted the order above given. 
 In Latin one gains the same end in a more direct manner without 
 cutting the sentence in two ; but by marking the opposition of the 
 
28 THE OKDER OF WOEDS. 
 
 two parts of each sentence by a pause of voice (after socerum 
 and after affinem), like that which is indicated by the comma. 
 If it were desired to indicate this pause in a more marked manner, 
 it would only be necessary to add a word of secondary emphasis 
 and signification; e.g., socerum ille ad suspendium adegit, or so- 
 cerum enim, quidem, etc. 
 
 We are made to feel that there is a progression of thought 
 which differs from that of syntax, because it is independent thereof, 
 and because it remains the same amid the diverse transformations 
 of the sentence, and even when we translate into a foreign tongue. 
 But, it may be asked, what is that progression of thought,«and 
 upon what principle is it founded? Grammar has succeeded in 
 making a complete analysis of the syntactical relations, and has 
 formed them into a lucid system. Can it be that it is not possible 
 to analyze the march of thought, to recognize and distinguish in 
 it certain parts which are found in all sentences? Since it "is a 
 march, can we not find halting- places that may be pointed out? 
 "We propose to attempt such an analysis. 
 
 An attempt to set forth the march of ideas. 
 
 Thought being in its nature pure and simple, should from the 
 nature of the case at the origin* of languages also have its most 
 direct expression in a sound equally simple ; that is, it ought to be 
 expressed by a single word, one might even say by a monosyllable. 
 But let us not take account of the number of syllables because a 
 matter of no importance to our thesis. A single word ought to suffice 
 for the expression of the thought so far as it relates to the present 
 instant ; and it ought to be perfectly clear and intelligible to him 
 who hears it pronounced. (Primitive) man saw an occurrence, a 
 change, an object that made an impression on him. He felt the 
 need of reacting upon this impression by an intellectual act, and of 
 communicating it at the same time to another person. He ex- 
 pressed this by a simple word, which though brusque was per- 
 fectly clear, because the object to which it related, which had 
 given it birth, was present and served as a commentary, so to 
 speak, for him who heard. We every day see children, per- 
 
 * That is, as soon as men began to give verbal expression to their mental 
 concepts. 
 
THE OEDER OF WORDS. 29 
 
 sons of uncultivated minds, all men, indeed, under the influence 
 of sudden and profound emotion, express themselves by such 
 exclamations, Hie lightning! a shot! my father! It is usual to 
 explain this mode of speech by ellipses, See the lightning that ap- 
 pears, etc. This explanation is in harmony with our theory of the 
 proposition. But as, in the times of which we are speaking, 
 thought was not yet expressed in the forms of a complete propo- 
 sition, it would be a mistake to assume the validity of this theory in 
 the case before us. These exclamations, although we properly trans- 
 late them by substantives, have a more living, a more verbal char- 
 acter, because they contain within themselves an entire sentence. 
 
 As long as thought and word followed each other closely or 
 immediately, the very instant of perception, the unity of speech 
 would correspond exactly with the unity of thought. But when 
 the thought related to the past, or when it sprang in a less direct 
 manner from the perception of sensible objects, the simple expres- 
 sion could no longer be easily comprehended by him to whom it 
 was addressed, and the sentence had of necessity to be taken to 
 pieces. It was in the first place necessary that this other person- 
 age, with whom it was desired to communicate, should be placed 
 at the same point of view with the speaker ; it was necessary that 
 a word of introduction should precede the remark which it was in- 
 tended to utter ; it was necessary to lean on something present and 
 known, in order to reach out to something less present, nearer, or 
 unknown. There is then a point of departure, an initial notion 
 which is equally present to him who speaks and to him who hears, 
 which forms, as it were, the ground upon which the two intelligences 
 meet ; and another part of discourse which forms the statement 
 (T6nonciation) , properly so called. This division is found in 
 almost all we say. 
 
 For example, the fact that Romulus founded the city of Rome, 
 can, in languages that admit of a free construction, be stated in 
 several different ways, preserving all the while the same syntax. 
 Suppose that some one has related the story of the birth of 
 Romulus and the marvellous events that attach thereto, he might 
 add. Idem Romulus Bomam condidit. While showing a traveller 
 the city of Rome, we might say to him, Hanc urbem condidit Bo- 
 
30 THE ORDER OE WORDS. 
 
 mulus. Speaking of the most celebrated foundings, and after 
 mentioning the founding of Thebes by Cadmus, that of Athens by 
 Cecrops, we might add, Condidit Romam Romulus.'' The syntax 
 is the same in the three sentences ; in all three the subject is Ro- 
 mulus, the attribute founded, the direct object Rome. Neverthe- 
 less, three different things are said in the three sentences, because 
 these elements, though remaining the same, are distributed in a 
 different manner in the introduction and the principal "part of the 
 sentence. The point of departure, the rallying point of the inter- 
 locutors, is Romulus the first time, Borne the second, and the third 
 time the idea of founding. And so the information that is to be 
 imparted to another, the goal of the discourse, is different in the 
 three forms of expression. 
 
 This distinction must be insisted on, for it forms the basis of the 
 theory which we are trying to establish. In these three examples 
 the fact under consideration is the same, yet things altogether dis- 
 tinct and different are stated to the hearer. The fact does not 
 change ; the sensible and exterior action is the same : these are the 
 reasons why the syntax has remained the same ; for the syntax, 
 as we have seen above, is the image of a sensible fact. The pro- 
 gression, the relations of the thought, change : this is why the suc- 
 cession of the words ought to change also, for it is the image of 
 the progression of the thought. Syntax relates to the exterior, to 
 things ; the succession of the words relates to the speaking sub- 
 ject, to the mind of man. There are in the proposition two differ- 
 ent movements : an objective movement, which is expressed by syn- 
 tactic relations ; and a subjective movement, which is expressed by 
 the order of the words. It may be said that the syntax is the 
 principal thing because it inheres in the objects themselves, and 
 because it does not vary with the points of view from moment to 
 moment. But this is precisely the reason why we should attach 
 the greatest importance to the succession of words. For in speech 
 — or in spoken language — the most important thing is the instant 
 of conception and utterance. Into this instant is compressed all 
 the life of speech : before it, speech had no existence ; after it, 
 speech is dead. This moment makes the individuality of thought 
 and spoken language, and the signet of this individuality is the 
 order in which the ideas and signs are produced. 
 
THE ORDER OF WORDS. 31 
 
 Application of the foregoing general remarks. 
 
 The most general initial notions, and therefore also the most 
 frequently employed, are the relations of time and place. These 
 are comprehended by every one, and are a sort of mental com- 
 partments' in which the intellect easily places all that it can appre- 
 hend. Here we have the reasons why stories begin thus, "In 
 Ephesus theie was formerly," etc. Tempore quo in homine non, ut 
 nunc, omnia in unum consentiebant is the beginning of the fable 
 of Menenius Agrippa. Xiyofufv ^u.eis ol %irapTiy}Tai ytvecr8a.L hi ttJ 
 AaKeSai/xovL Kara rpitrjv yevajv rrp/ air 1/j.io V\av<ov 'Eiti/cijSeos muSa. 
 (Herodotus, VI, 86.) (We Spartans say that there lived in L., 
 etc.) One easily gains a starting-point by means of these general 
 notions, just as one takes the cardinal points of the compass in an 
 unknown country. Thus the French language (and the English) , 
 so exact in the observance of the analytic order, allows these 
 general circumstances to occupy the place ordinarily reserved for 
 the subject. 
 
 We read in the letters of Cicero to Atticus (II, 1), Calendis 
 Juniis, eunti mihi Antium et gladiatores M. Metelli cupide relin- 
 quenti, venit obviam tuus puer (On the first of June, as I was 
 going to Antium and leaving behind me the, etc.) . This is exactly 
 the reverse of what is generally called the logical order : the sub- 
 ject is put at the end ; the complements of the verb are found at 
 the beginning. This is the tower of Babel, M. de Bonald would 
 say, the false language of the pagans ; the perversity of speech 
 reflects the perversity of men. This order of words undoubtedly 
 sounded better to the ears of Cicero than the natural and logical 
 order, Beauzee and other grammarians would say. But there is 
 nothing more simple, nothing less artificial, less rhetorical, than 
 this entirely familiar sentence. Change the order, make the con- 
 struction logical, begin with tuus puer. Translate into French, 
 Ton esclave m'a rencontr4, etc. (Your slave met me). You no 
 longer say what Cicero wished to say. If he were intending 
 to reply to the question, " When did you meet my messenger?" 
 he would have disposed the words in the order we have indicated. 
 In this case meeting the messenger would have been the point of 
 
II 
 
 32 THE ORDER OF WORDS. 
 
 departure, the known fact; and the circumstances of time, etc., 
 the goal of the discourse. But in the sentence from Cicero, these 
 circumstances serve as an introduction for what we wish to come 
 at in general ; namely, meeting the slave sent by Atticus. The 
 contrary case is presented in the opening sentence of another 
 letter. (VI, 1), Accept tuas litteras a. d. quintum Terminalia 
 Laodiceae. One can enter into the sentence by different gates, 
 but there is nothing arbitrary in the choice that is made. 
 
 Often we are satisfied with a still more general and indefinite 
 notion, as when we begin by, " one day," " somewhere," etc. 
 Olim rusticus urbanam murem mus (Hor. Sat. II, 6, 79. ) 8 The 
 Romans were fond of beginning their stories with Olim. It often 
 happens then that something which expresses the cause, motive, or 
 means, is the point of departure from which we set out to arrive at 
 the fact itself. Concordia res parvae crescunt, discordia magnae 
 dilabuntur. But nothing hinders our sometimes setting out from 
 a fact to reach the cause or the means. For example, Parvae 
 res augentur audacia, magnae prudentia conservantur. In the 
 former of these propositions the effects of concord and discord are 
 the goal of the speaker ; in the latter, this goal is the means which 
 it is necessary to employ both in the beginnings and at the height 
 of fortune. Voltaire says of a young man, " He killed himself to 
 extricate himself from an unfortunate predicament." It is because 
 he is treating of suicide, and because he indicates the different 
 motives which determine men thereto. One killed himself because 
 he could not endure his misery ; another, because he was disgusted 
 with his good fortune ; and finally the one above spoken of, in 
 order to extricate himself from an embarrassing situation. Sui- 
 cide was therefore the thing known : the author adds the motive. 
 But if he had wished to make us acquainted with the strange ex- 
 pedient thought of by this young man to get himself out of his 
 embarrassment, he would have said, "In order to get out of his 
 embarrassment, he slew himself." We perceive that the form of 
 the expression changes nothing in the thing : the cause was ex- 
 pressed by a single word in the first example, in the second by a 
 group of words. It could also be done by a partial proposition, 
 Quia natura mutari non potest, idcirco verae amicitiae sempiternae 
 
THE ORDER OF WORDS. 33 
 
 # 
 sunt. (Cic. Lael. chap. 9.) (Because nature can not be changed, 
 therefore true friendships are everlasting.) Here the whole first 
 proposition is the initial notion of the thought. Cicero wishes to 
 establish the fact that true friendships are everlasting. Verae 
 amicitiae sempiternae sunt, quia natura mutari non potest. Here 
 we see how the sentence is arranged when the speaker or writer 
 wishes to mark the cause of this fact. 
 
 In general there is no syntactical part of the sentence, whatever \ 
 may be its name, form, or extent, which may not have, in a given 
 case, the initial notion of the thought. It would be useless, I think, 
 to multiply examples of this.. One case, however, deserves to be 
 distinguished among others. It happens sometimes that we can 
 find nothing which will prepare the hearer for that which we wish 
 to communicate to him, and that, not wishing to enter into the 
 matter without preparation, we begin with that which is most 
 general,, most indispensable, but also most insignificant ; namely, 
 with the idea of existence pure and simple. "There was a king." 
 v Eot6 ir6Xi^'E<f,vprj. I propose to tell you something that you do 
 not yet know or that you are supposed not to know (otherwise I 
 should not tell it) ; it is evident that I must lay hold on something 
 that you already know, that I must make a beginning, be it only 
 for form's sake. 
 
 This is the first rule for the communication of ideas. The Book 
 of Genesis, which narrates the creation of the world, that is, the 
 beginning of things, could not find in all the universe an initial 
 notion to which it might attach itself, for the universe did not 
 yet exist. How does the sacred writer proceed in this case ? He 
 takes for a beginning the idea of beginning itself ; and in truth 
 it seems impossible to take any other. 
 
 Let us come down to less lofty examples. Let us analyze the 
 opening of the Cyropedia of Xenophon, a work written in a style 
 of the utmost simplicity and naturalness. Only at the second 
 chapter does the author enter upon his narrative. Let us see how 
 he has managed the arrangement of his sentences. Ilarpos fx.lv 8rj 
 XeyeraL 6 KCpos yevecrOai Kapftvcrcyu . . . fi-qTpo^ Sc 6/x.oA.oyeiTai M.av8dvi]S 
 yevecrBat, . . . tfiuvai Se 6 KtSpos Xeyerai . . . etSos fitv koAAiotos, tyvyflv 8e 
 <piXav6pwrrararos . . . iiraiSevOr) ye p,r)V h> Tiepcrwv vd/iots. What is the 
 
34 THE ORDER OE WORDS. 
 
 • • 
 
 beginning of all these propositions ? Two genitives, two accusa- 
 tives, an infinitive, a verb. This is the answer those would give 
 who take the syntax as the basis of the order of words. But this 
 answer would tell us nothing. On the contrary, it would involve 
 us in greater, difficulties, or it would even have us believe that the 
 author had written at hap-hazard, without any logical principle. 
 Let us then abandon the forms of- syntax, which, as may be easily 
 seen by this very example, are quite arbitrary, and let us hold to 
 ideas. The author has put at the head of all these propositions 
 two general ideas, — father, mother, natural traits, education, 
 looks, soul. These are followed by particular ideas, — Cambyses, 
 Mandane, etc. General ideas are the framework or outlines in 
 which we may place any other as well as Cyrus ; commonplaces well 
 known to every one, and which, for this very reason, are capital 
 initial notions. The point which the author wishes to reach, the 
 real object of his communication, is special ideas, which in the 
 case before us fill up the general outline or scheme. These ideas 
 are announced in the second place." This natural progression, and 
 one that is related to the original decomposition of the thought, is 
 followed in all these cases : the progression claimed to be logical, 
 which requires, first the subject, then the attribute, then the com- 
 plements, has been neglected. Translate this extract into English 
 or French ; you will displace the points of departure of the original, 
 for they are the points of departure of the thought in the original, 
 but you will make each of these points of departure the subject of 
 a proposition. The father of Cyrus was Cambyses ; his mother 
 was Mandane, etc. 
 
 Thukydides begins his history of the Peloponnesian "War — it is 
 the 24th chap, of the first Book — as follows, "EmSaiivos earn 7t6Xk iv 
 Sc^ia eoTrAeoim tov ' loviov koXttov • irp<xroiKov<ri 8' avrrjv TavXavrioi . . . 
 Tavrrjv airuuairay fi.lv KepKupaiot, oi/aorrjs 8' eykvero $a\tos . . . £wwkl- 
 
 crav 8e kw, tu>v K.opw9i.u>v Ttves. 9 It is easy to apply to this extract 
 like observations with the foregoing. "We will put by the side 
 of these G-reek passages the first lines of Voltaire's History of 
 Charles XII., "Sweden and Finland constitute a kingdom having 
 a breadth. ... It extends from south to north . . . under a severe 
 climate which has almost no spring nor autumn. Winter reigns 
 
THE ORDER OF WORDS. 35 
 
 there nine months. . . . Summer produces. . . . The animals are. 
 . . . The men are. . . ." It will be seen that it is always the same 
 march in French (or in English) as in Greek. It is true that the 
 French propositions begin with their subjects, and that the Greek 
 propositions have at their head, sometimes this member of the 
 sentence, sometimes that, but the order of ideas and words is not 
 less the same in the two (or three) languages. 
 
 Modifications which the peculiar genius of a language may bring 
 to the principle of the order of words. 
 
 To what may we then reduce the differences of construction 
 which we find existing among languages whether ancient or mod- 
 ern? Languages have been divided into logical or analogical, into 
 transpositive or inversive, according as they do or do not observe the 
 order of syntactic analysis which has been established as the nor- 
 mal order. The majority of grammarians have given a diploma 
 of honor to the analytical languages, the construction of which has 
 been proclaimed as the only natural one. A minority has risen 
 against this outrage upon the ancients, and, while rehabilitating 
 the order of the Greek and the Latin, have felt called upon to dis- 
 parage in some measure that of most modern languages. It has- 
 been assumed on both sides that there is an abyss between the- 
 two systems of construction ; but it appears that the difference is. 
 not where it has been sought. 
 
 The ancient languages follow a different order from the modern 
 languages. By advancing this proposition I do not believe that 
 I am proposing a hypothesis, but stating a palpable fact. But 
 additions have been made to the facts. Men have unconsciously 
 mingled with the objective truth elements of subjective judgment. 
 In order to confine one's self strictly to fact, this much at least 
 may be said : in the ancient languages the relation of syntax to 
 the order of words is different from that of the modern languages. 
 It remains then to discover which of the two has been changed, 
 the order of words or the syntactical arrangement of most of the 
 sentences. But men have gone beyond the fact and fallen into an 
 error which recalls a well-known optical illusion. Persons on 
 
36 THE ORDER OE WORDS. 
 
 board of a moving boat believe upon ocular evidence that the 
 banks of the river are in motion ; tne world for a long time sup- 
 posed that the motion of the sun was a fact attested by the sense 
 of sight. The senses, however, only show us a change in the rela- 
 tion of places, and men mistook the body whose movement was 
 the cause of this phenomenon. The same thing, it seems to me, 
 has befallen the grammarians. 
 
 If we really arranged words in a different order from the an- 
 cients, it would justify the supposition that a change had taken 
 place in the succession of ideas, in the logical processes even, 
 which would constitute a very grave difference indeed. But there 
 is nothing of the kind, and we observe the same order of ideas and 
 words. Good translations attest this ; and if we seem to observe 
 a different one, it is because we choose from other points of ob- 
 servation the syntactic forms with which it is necessary to clothe 
 thought. Men have been mistaken because in treating of the 
 order of words they have taken the sentence ready made, with all 
 its elements and all its relations carefully determined. It seems 
 as if the arrangement of the words had been regarded as ancillary 
 labor which was performed only after the thought had already been 
 transformed into words. But if the order of words corresponds to 
 the order of ideas, if this march of ideas exists in the thought itself 
 before it has been clothed in grammatical forms, if the syntactical 
 conformation only comes after and has merely a secondary influ- 
 ence upon the order of words, then it is evident that the aspect of 
 the things is entirely changed. Here then lies, as we think, the 
 difference between the ancient and modern languages. 
 
 The ancients in their languages followed the order of their ideas, 
 and chose, in order to place them in a proper setting, that syntac- 
 tical conformation which was the least artificial and most animated. 
 They did not concern themselves to make the movement of ideas 
 and the syntactical movement correspond with each other. The 
 i! movement of the ideas is shown by the order of the words, the syn- 
 | tactical movement is expressed by terminations. This is all that 
 any one could ask ; this done, it is permissible to intersect the syn- 
 tactical construction in every direction, to enter, to cross it, and to 
 come out where one pleases. 
 
THE ORDER OF WORDS. 37 
 
 In the modern languages we follow the order of ideas as in the 
 ancient ; this is the law of every reasonable being. The order of ( 
 ideas is shown by the order of words. But this order of words 
 serves at the same time more or less to express the syntactical re- 
 lations. Our languages tend more and more to replace this double 
 march of the sentence by a single one. The subject was originally 
 but the point of departure of a sensible act which serves as a model 
 for the construction of the sentence. Our languages tend to make 
 of the subject the point of departure for the thought itself. This 
 is the reason why our languages oblige us to choose a conformation 
 of the sentence in which the syntactical march shall not deviate 
 too greatly from that of the thought. What they demand, then, is 
 not the sacrifice of the order of one's ideas to the syntax ; on the 
 contrary, they would have the syntax conform to the required 
 order of the words ; and we reverse the true relation of things by 
 saying that the order of words is determined by the syntax. What 
 is called inversion is not, in most cases, an illegitimate displace- 
 ment of words ; for to displace words would be to displace ideas, 
 a mistake which a good writer would not make : but it is the em- 
 ployment of a different syntax, the author choosing, after the man- 
 ner of the ancients, the most animated syntax, in place of that 
 which accords in its march with the march of ideas. 
 
 " He would call them back, and his voice affrights them ; 
 They run ; his whole body is soon but one sore, 
 With our mournful cries the plain resounded." 10 
 
 Jf Racine had written in prose, he would certainly not have put, 
 " The plain resounded with our mournful cries." This turn of the 
 phrase, which rudely interrupts the order of ideas, would be much 
 more daring than even the verse of tragedy. Prose would substi- 
 tute for the sentence in the verse something like, " Our mournful 
 cries resounded in the plain." It will be seen that the poet has 
 not inverted the order of ideas and words, and that it is only by I 
 the choice of the syntax that analogical languages are distinguished J 
 from the transpositive. 11 
 
 I have tried to show that men think and express themselves in 
 the same order, whether they speak a modern language or use 
 one of the ancient languages. It will be understood, and I hasten 
 
38 THE ORDER OE WORDS. 
 
 to add, that this assertion is not absolute. However rich a lan- 
 guage may be in syntactical resources, it cannot possibly provide 
 such a variety of forms as shall in all cases be analogous to the in- 
 numerable modifications of which the march of the thought is sus- 
 ceptible. These two marches or progressi&ns cannot therefore be 
 always in accord. In modern languages, and even in that which 
 is so to speak the most modem of them all, the French, one may 
 deviate, in certain cases, from the strict order of analysis. In 
 such cases the order of ideas has gained the mastery over the syn- 
 tactical order. On the other hand, the natural march of ideas is 
 sometimes sacrificed in order to suit one's thoughts to the syntac- 
 tical order. Such cases are more difficult to verify, as they are 
 much less evident ; they are also, it seems to me, much more un- 
 common than the others. 
 
 Nevertheless, if I am not mistaken, the style of our languages 
 exhibits some little of this inconvenience to which a writer is put 
 who adopts an order analogous to the syntax. Let us cite a few 
 examples. Voltaire expresses himself as follows on the condem- 
 nation of Augustus de Thou : " All that can be said of such a sen- 
 tence is that it was not passed by justice but by commissioners. 
 The letter of the murderous law was precise. It is not alone the 
 prerogative of lawyers but of all men to say whether the spirit of 
 the law was not perverted. It is a sad contradiction that a few 
 men should put to death as a criminal him whom a whole nation 
 judges innocent and worthy of esteem." (Commentaire sur le 
 livre des delits, etc.) The thoughts contained in these sentences 
 fit perfectly to each other, but the sentences themselves are un- 
 connected. Each sentence seems to have a beginning, an inde- 
 pendent march, as if it were a stranger to the other sentences 
 which surround it. This is because the syntactic march deviates 
 here from that of the ideas ; it is because the points of departure 
 of each sentence 1 are not taken as they would have been in Greek 
 or Latin. Let us translate this piece into Greek, in order better 
 to appreciate this difference in the style of the languages. Hep! 
 Toiavrrjs Kptcrtus (the author has just given a history of the case) 
 toBto f^ovov av \eyoiro, on ou^ ol xvpioi avn)? Znpivav Sucaorcu, dXAa 
 TraprjXXayp.evoi. wes enrn/Ses eis tovto Xc/ctoi. Ta fiev p^p.ara a.Kpi/3rj 
 
THE ORDER OF WORDS. 39 
 
 r/v toS VO/J.OV rem <£ovtou • ttjv 8k Sidvoiav tov vo/jlov crKiij/acrdai, el ovk apa, 
 Siearpa^nj, iravTos iuriv, ov r&v vo/ukuiv povtov. Et 8' wr dXtycov Ttvw 
 Bannaaartu. <Ls aSucos u>v, os dvamos T£ xai iroWav <z£ios KexpiTai wro tSv 
 woXitw (XTravTOV, 7ra>s °VX' t0 '"' y e Sclvotoltov av etiy Kai a\oyu>Ta.TOV> 
 "If there are two milliards in a kingdom, all the commodities and 
 manual labor will cost double what they would cost if there were 
 but one milliard. I am as rich with fifty thousand livres income, 
 when I buy a pound of meat for four sous, as with a hundred thou- 
 sand when I pay eight for it ; and so with other things in propor- 
 tion. The true wealth of a kingdom does not then consist of gold 
 and silver : it consists in the abundance of all commodities, in 
 work and industries. It is not long ago that there might be seen 
 on the river La Plata a Spanish regiment, the officers of which had 
 golden swords, but they were without shirts and bread." (Dial, 
 d'un philos. et d'un controleur, etc.) I believe that in the ancient 
 languages a writer would have commenced the second sentence 
 with "fifty thousand livres income"; the third with "gold and 
 silver"; the fourth with "golden swords." In virtue of these 
 changes the ensemble of the sentences would have formed a con- 
 tinuous whole. 
 
 ' ' In truth it is not gold and silver which make life comfortable 
 — it is natural disposition. A people which should have only these 
 metals would be very miserable ; a people that without these metals 
 should put to a happy use all the productions of the earth would- 
 be truly a rich people. France has this advantage, with a great 
 deal more ready money than is necessary for circulation." (S. de 
 Louis XIV. chap. 30.) If the two members of the second sentence 
 began with the idea of these metals, and if the third began with 
 this advantage, the discourse would be more connected, but it 
 would not therefore be more French. Let these passages from 
 Voltaire be compared with selections taken from ancient authors ; 
 a marked difference in the character of the composition will be 
 evident. 
 
 Greek and Latin sentences form a chain of which the parts 
 interlink. French sentences may be compared to a necldace of 
 pearls ; they are joined only by the thread of the thought. It is 
 true that the articulation of connected discourse in the ancient Ian- 
 
40 THE ORDER OF WORDS. 
 
 guages is produced by several means which are foreign to the sub- 
 ject of this thesis, such as the employment of relatives instead of 
 demonstratives, the various forms of attraction, the great number 
 of conjunctive adverbs, and so on. But among these means, that 
 which seems to hold the first place, is the fact that the succession 
 of words, independent of syntax, retraces for us the faithful image 
 of the succession of ideas. The old French had not yet entirely 
 lost the happy flexibility of the Latin. Naturally and without 
 studied effort, but with a perfect grace, Joinville writes sentences 
 like the following : " Et si ce ne vous plet a faire, si le faites aquiter 
 du tr6u que il doit a l'Ospital et au Temple, et il se tendra a pai6 
 de vous. Au Temple et a l'Ospital il rendoit lors tr6u pour ce 
 que," etc. (Chap. LXXXIX). (If this does not please you to do, 
 if you will cause him to be acquitted of the troth that he owes, etc.) 
 
 Translations, even the most faithful, lend credibility to this 
 difference in the genius of languages, for, though following closely 
 the Greek and the Latin, they have not ceased to be French. I 
 select a passage translated by M. Cousin from Plato : " Je dis done 
 qu'il y a dans le corps et l'ame je ne sais quoi qui fait juger qu'ils 
 sont l'un et l'autre en bon 6tat, quoi qu'ils ne s'en portent pas 
 mieux pour cela. Voyons si je ne pourrai faire entendre plus claire- 
 ment ce que je veux. Je dis qu'il y a deux arts qui se rapportent 
 au corps et a, l'ame. " 
 
 Avow ovtolv rolv Trpayfidroiv 8vo \4yio Terras- 12 The Greek takes 
 its point of departure in the two things, the body and the soul, which 
 have just been spoken of ; thence it leads us to the two arts, the 
 new ideas, which are the goal of the sentence, " Celui qui rdpond 
 a l'ame j'appelle politique. Pour l'autre qui regarde le corps, je ne 
 saurais le designer d'abord par un seul nom. Mais, quoique la cul- 
 ture du corps soit une, j'en faits deux parties, dont l'une est la 
 gymnastique et l'autre la mddecine. En divisant de meme la poli- 
 tique en deux, je mets la puissance legislative, vis-a-vis de la 
 gymnastique, et la puissance judiciaire vis-a-vis de la m^decine." 
 avTL<TTpo<f>ov p.kv ry yvp.vatrri.Ky ttjv vop.oderiia)v, avTio-Tpotf)ov 8e ry larpiKrj 
 ttjv 8'ikoj,oo-vv7)v. In the Greek the dative twice precedes the accusa- 
 tive, because gymnastics and medicine are known. " Elle (la flat- 
 terie) ne se met nullement en peine du bien ; mais par l'appat du 
 
THE ORDER OF WORDS. 41 
 
 plaisir elle attire la folie et s'en fait adorer. La cuisine s'est glissee 
 SOUS la medecine." vtto /xkv ovv ttjv taTpiKTjV rj oif/oironKri viroSiSvice. 
 (Gorgias 464.) 
 
 Cookery is tbe subject of the sentence, and for this reason 
 stands first in French. But it is the new idea which the author 
 wishes to introduce to us, and which stands in relation to medicine, 
 a thing already known. This is the reason why medicine is ex- 
 pressed in Greek before cookery. I will not pursue this investi- 
 gation further. The more excellent a translation is and the more 
 accurately it brings out the delicate shades of meaning of the 
 original, the more we are inclined to believe that the divergences 
 belong to the very genius of the two languages. There is nothing 
 more easy and more simple than the turns of expression so frequent 
 
 in Homer, Tov 8' a7rajU.e6/3o/xevos irpocri<f>7i TroSas cokus A^iAAevs. This 
 
 verse, simple as it is, could not well be rendered into modern 
 French. " Achille aux pieds legers lui repondit" (Achilles with 
 nimble feet to him replied) is very abrupt, very disconnected. 
 Homer is making the transition from the speaker whom we have 
 just heard to him whom we are about to hear. In the translation 
 we find the latter upon the stage without knowing how he got 
 there. Joinville was still free to say (Chap. LXXX) : " A ceulz 
 parla le roy en tel maniere " (To them spoke the king in this wise) . 
 In place of regarding the syntactic march, he follows the march of 
 the thought. In the case above cited he has just named the lords 
 that constitute the council of Saint Louis. 
 
 These transitions of thought which are so perfectly rendered in 
 the ancient languages may be infinitely varied ; nor is it possible 
 to reduce them to a system. 13 We believe, however, that there 
 are two types so distinctly marked that they may be indicated 
 with precision. If the initial notion is related to the united notion 
 of the preceding sentence, the march of the two sentences is to 
 some extent parallel ; if it is related to the goal of the sentence 
 which precedes, there is a progression in the march of the dis- 
 course. Edito imperio signum secutum, est. Jussa miles exsequi- 
 tur. Clamor Iiostes circumsonat. Superat deinde castra hostium et 
 in castra consulis pervenit. (Livy III, 2-8.) 
 
 Here we have a progression from one sentence to the next. 
 
42 THE ORDER OF "WORDS. 
 
 The goal of the first sentence is the signal given. This is the 
 point of departure of the second, Jussa. The point of departure 
 of the third, clamor, is an expression varied from the goal of the 
 second, miles exsequitur. In the third the cry has reached the 
 besiegers ; in the fourth we see it continue its progress till it 
 reaches the besieged. These are the parts of the chain that inter- 
 link, — if I may be allowed to designate by this figure what bears 
 an individual character in this march of the discourse. Thus far 
 there has been progression, but setting out from this point we 
 shall have some parallel links. Alibi pavorem, alibi gaudium in- 
 gens facit. Romani, civilem esse clamorem atque auxilium adesse 
 inter se gratulantes, ultro ex stationibus ac vigiliis territant hostem. 
 Consul differendum negat. The alibi of the second phrase refers 
 back to the alibi of the first with which it is contrasted. Romani 
 of the third is the same thing as the second alibi. Consul of the 
 fourth is opposed to Romani of the third. We have here then in 
 every case points of departure that are related to points of de- 
 parture of the preceding sentences, and this constitutes what I 
 have called the parallel march of the sentences. "Whether the 
 march be progressive or parallel the relation to what precedes is, 
 as may be seen, either that of equality or of opposition. Never- 
 theless the relation of equality is more closely related to the pro- 
 gressive march, the relation of opposition to the parallel march. 
 
 In the example from Livy, the progressive or parallel form of 
 the sentences corresponds to the progressive or parallel form of 
 the facts ; and it is in this accordance between the objects of the 
 recital and its form that the greatest charm of this passage con- 
 sists. Yet these relations of sentences do not belong exclusively 
 to narrative ; a purely intellectual development may also furnish 
 them. Quod semper movetur, aeternum est. Quod autem motum 
 affert alicui, quodque ipsum agitatur aliunde, quando finem habet 
 motus, vivendi finem Jiabeat necesse est. Solum igitur quod seipsum 
 movet, quia nunquam deseritur a se, nunquam ne moveri quidem 
 desinit. Quin etiam ceteris quae moventur hie fons, hoc principium 
 est movendi. Principii autem nulla est origo. Nam ex principio 
 oriuntur omnia : ipsum autem nulla ex re alia nasci potest. u (Cic. 
 Tusc. I, 23-4.) Once only does the initial notion of a sentence 
 
THE ORDER OF WORDS. 43 
 
 support itself upon the goal of the preceding. This is in the propo- 
 sition which begins with Principii autem. Here we have then a 
 progressive march. In the others the march is parallel, and in a 
 large majority the connection is made by means of a relation of 
 opposition. 
 
 By an artifice which is very familiar to ancient authors, the pro- 
 gressive march is employed in place of the parallel march in the 
 rhetorical figure called chiasmus, which consists in a cross arrange- 
 ment of the symmetrical parts of the discourse. Audires ululatus 
 feminarum, infantium quiritatus, clamores virorum, says Pliny, 
 
 Ep. VI. BacriA.eiis yap kolI Tvpavvos cwrai/ i)(0pbs i\ev6epta kcu vo/aois 
 
 eraimois (Demos. Phil. II). 15 (For every king and every absolute 
 monarch is the opponent of liberty and the enemy of laws.) 
 
 The pathetic order. 
 
 The two elements of tfie sentence which we have named the 
 initial notion and the goal, do not always follow each other in the 
 order in which we have considered them here. There are two con- 
 ditions under which they follow each other in the reverse order from 
 that indicated above, and there are other cases in which the initial 
 notion is wholly wanting. We claim that in the movement from 
 the initial notion to the goal had in view, we have revealed the 
 movement of the human mind itself. It may cause surprise, per- 
 haps, that we should be willing to admit the reversal of this march 
 or movement lest we should also overturn our whole theory at the 
 same time. We shall return to this objection farther on. For the 
 present let us begin with an example. In the Persae (v. 181 ff.) 
 of Aeschylus, Atossa narrates her dream in these words, — 
 
 'ESofcmjv /jloi 8vo yvvaLK eveifwve, 
 'H p.h> irorAotcn HepcriKois rjcrKefjbevr], 
 'H 8' avre kwpiKoicriv, ets oij/iv ju.oA.av. 
 
 (There seemed to come into my view two women richly clad, 
 the one in Persian robes, the other in Dorian.) She had re- 
 ported a vision, she therefore begins very properly with the verb 
 'ESo^drrjv ; next come the object of this vision, 8vo yvvaiKe, then 
 the details. 
 
44 THE ORDER OE WORDS. 
 
 Meye0ei re tu>v vvv kK.irpiiTaTTO.ra. woA.ii 
 KaAAei t a/iu/ia), koX KaxrLyvrjTa yevoi/s 
 Tavrot) • irdrpav 8' evaiov, fj p.\v 'EAAaSa 
 KXrjpta A,axoi!cra yatav, 77 8e fidpfiapov. 
 
 (In stature they were taller than are the women of our day ; in 
 beauty faultless, and sisters of the same race. But they dwelt in 
 different countries!, the land of Greece had fallen to the lot of one ; 
 a foreign to the other.) 
 
 The reader will notice in these sentences the march that we have 
 called attention to, above. At first we have general schemes or 
 outlines which are then filled up with special ideas. In the verses 
 which follow, the queen narrates the quarrel of the two women, 
 the attempt of Xerxes to ,f asten them to his chariot, the difference 
 in the way they bore the yoke, the one with joy and pride, the 
 other with aversion at the insult. The march of all these sentences 
 is like the march of those which precede. Then Atossa continues 
 iriirreb 8' J/aos wats. The real goal of this sentence is evidently the 
 fall, iriirTu. "E/aos wats is added because one of two women is 
 spoken of in the preceding sentence. These two words would 
 then have been a very appropriate point of departure. It will be 
 seen that the order of the two elements of the sentence is reversed. 
 This takes place because Atossa is carried away by her emotion. 
 Thus far her narrative had been orderly and deliberate, but having 
 reached its crisis she is no longer able to follow the thread of her 
 recital ; she sees only the fall, and this word escapes her lips in 
 spite of herself. It is not till afterward that she becomes aware 
 of the gap in her account, when she traverses again that part of 
 the way over which she had before passed with unbecoming haste. 
 
 In the Antigone of Sophocles, the messenger who relates the 
 sad end of Antigone and Haemon, having reported that Kreon and 
 his suite were coming toward the tomb, continues in these words, 
 (^(ovtJs 8' a.TT<a6ev opdtoiv k<i>kv/ji.&t(ov K\va tis d/crepioTov ap.<pl iraa-rdSa. 
 (Antig. 1206-7.) (And some one hears from afar the voice of 
 loud lament in the vicinity of that unconsecrated chamber.) The 
 continuity of the discourse would have required that he should first 
 designate the place whence the voice came ; for this place is known, 
 
THE ORDER OF WORDS. - 45 
 
 having just been spoken of. But startled as he has been by these 
 sudden misfortunes, he consoles himself at first by expressing the 
 thought that is the goal of the sentence after which comes the 
 one that is its point of departure. The peculiar effect of this order 
 will be better seen upon comparing it with a passage of Electra, 
 analogous as to matter but different in the turn of expression. 
 It is Chrysothemis who is speaking, 
 
 E7ret yap rj\6ov irarpos ap^aXov raifiov, 
 
 Op<3 KoXtitvrj's i£ a/cpas veoppvravs 
 n^yas yaXaKTOs . . . i<T)(&T7]s 8 opai 
 Ilupas V£0>p7} j36(TTpv)(ov reT/Jurj/jLevov. 
 
 (For as I was drawing near the ancient tomb of my father I saw 
 from the summit of the hillock fresh libations of milk . . . and I, 
 saw on the highest part of the mound a freshly-cut lock of hair.) 
 In this case the narrative advances step by step. 
 
 These examples are sufficient to show the character of the in- 
 verted order and the state of the soul whose natural expression it 
 is. When the imagination is vividly impressed, or when the sensi- 
 bilities of the soul are deeply stirred, the speaker enters into the 
 matter of his discourse at the goal, and we do not become aware, 
 till afterward, of the successive steps by which he could have en- 
 tered had his mind been in a more tranquil state. It is in the 
 poets chiefly, but sometimes in the orators, that these tropes are 
 found. In medias res auditorem rapiunt. It is their characteristic 
 in the composition of a story as well as in the details of diction. 
 
 Our modern languages, as we have seen, are sometimes ham- 
 pered by considerations of syntax when they are called upon to rep- 
 resent the regular advance of the ancient languages ; it is equally 
 the case when we attempt to imitate the pathetic march. This 
 constraint may have a double effect ; we may either refrain en- 
 tirely from expressing the emotions of the soul by the arrange- 
 ment of our words, or we may express them in a much more 
 violent manner than in the free languages, 
 
 T£>v if ®epp.OTrv\ais Oavovrotv 
 
 EixXe^s /uev a Tv\a, /caXos 8 6 ttot^os, 
 
 Bu)/.ios 8' 6 rcwpos, irpb yowv Se (lv&otk, 6 8 oiktos «ratvos. 
 
46 THE ORDER OP WORDS. 
 
 (Glorious is their lot, beautiful their end, an altar their tomb, 
 for tears they have remembrance, for mourning, praises.) Bco/^os 
 8' 6 tcu^os may be translated either, "their tomb is an altar," but 
 then we do not translate the animation expressed in the succession 
 of words; or "an altar is their tomb," and we translate it with 
 more force than the Greek. In the latter version the idea made 
 prominent is detached from the other idea to which it is joined ; a 
 little proposition apart is made of it. The emotion of the soul 
 shows itself despite the reflective character of the language used ; 
 and it shows itself more violently because it has an obstacle to 
 overcome. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to add that the inverted order of which 
 we have just spoken is very distinct from what is ordinarily called 
 inversion. Everything is called inversion which is a departure 
 from the analytic and syntactic order. We have given examples 
 which violate the syntactical order and do not follow this order 
 from the point of departure to the goal of the sentence. On the 
 other hand it may happen that the syntactic order is observed, and 
 that the goal of the sentence is announced before the initial notion. 
 A single chapter from Livy will furnish several examples. Tar- 
 quin crying out, Ferrum in manu est, Lucretia saying, Vestigia viri 
 alieni in lecto suntjuo, belong here. Ceterum corpus tantum viola- 
 turn est, animus insons, mors testis erit are expressed almost in the 
 analytic order ; nevertheless they deviate from the tranquil and 
 orderly march, which, while observing the legitimate order, would 
 have reversed the analytic order. In manu ferrum est. In lecto tuo, 
 Collatine, vestigia sunt viri alieni. Testis erit mors. (Bk. I, 58.) 
 
 Let us return now to the objection indicated above. To put 
 first an order conformable to the march of the thought itself, and 
 next to admit that we may, though expressing ourselves perfectly 
 well, speak in the inverted order, — is not this to tear down what 
 we have ourselves just built up ? I do not think that we need be 
 surprised at these apparent contradictions, but that we must recog- 
 nize the fact that language follows sometimes one principle, some- 
 times another. 
 
 There is nothing in nature which may not be drawn in different 
 directions by different influences in turn. The mind of man is 
 
THE ORDER OE WORDS. 47 
 
 subject to the same law. Why then should not languages which 
 are the image of the human mind be subject to it ? It is evident, 
 on the contrary, that a language will be perfect in proportion as it 
 is a faithful reflector of these varying states, a plastic wax capable 
 of receiving the impression of every inequality, every undulation 
 of the human mind. The Greek is recognized as being one of the 
 most perfect languages that has ever existed. However paradox- 
 ical it may appear I find the perfection of this language to lie 
 largely in the absence of every exclusive or unconditional rule. 
 Take a Greek grammar and examine the chapter on the corre- 
 spondence of the tenses, modes, hypothetical propositions, or any 
 other, and you will find everywhere that one is allowed to make 
 all possible combinations. The grammar does not give the inex- 
 orable law ; it allows the mind complete liberty to choose what can 
 best express all the delicate shades of its thought. Our languages 
 to a limited extent impose laws on the human mind. The Greek 
 receives it ; one can make a very greatly varied use of it, one can 
 also more easily abuse it. But in our languages the order of the 
 words is of all parts of the grammar that which yields most easily 
 to the momentary impulses of the mind. It is no contradiction 
 then to admit two opposite marches of this order, if the mind itself 
 varies in its march. The axiom which we have placed at the be- 
 ginning of this chapter is that the order of words should correspond 
 to the order of ideas. In order then to correspond to it, if the 
 latter changes or is reversed, the former must also change or 
 reverse its movement. 
 
 1 Compare notes 2 and 8 on p. 112. the following : " Moult de chevaliers 
 
 2 It is unfortunate that this very et d'autres gens tenoient li Sarrazin 
 serviceable term is not more generally pris en une court." Joinville. W. 
 used in our English grammars. As it * This statement is doubtless too 
 may designate any word that modifies, strong. That the great majority of 
 qualifies or limits another word, I roots in the primitive language or 
 have sometimes simply transferred it languages had a verbal nature is not 
 untranslated. disputed, but that some were purely 
 
 3 The old French form of the ac- demonstrative is equally certain; at 
 cusative case was different from the least there is no evidence as yet ac- 
 nominative. We find sentences like cessible that points to any probability 
 
48 
 
 THE jQRDER OF WORDS. 
 
 that these two classes can ever be re- 
 duced to one. By roots as here used 
 we mean the elements of speech which 
 existed before the development of 
 the means of grammatical distinction. 
 Their prime characteristic is that they 
 are or were monosyllabic; nor must 
 the terms verbal and demonstrative 
 when applied to them be understood 
 in strict literalness. Take, for exam- 
 ple, the radical element due ; add to it 
 the suffix s, the remnant of another 
 root, and we get dtcr, meaning 'leader'; 
 annex o, and we get duco, 'I lead'; 
 add tio or tus, and we get 'leading,' 
 and so on. The longer words are 
 formed by combining several roots. 
 It is held by many philologists that 
 there is nothing in a root which makes 
 it possible to determine whether the 
 noun-element or the verb-element pre- 
 dominates. See also Allen & Green- 
 ough's Latin Gram. Index, under 
 Roots. 
 
 6 The present tense of the French 
 verb 'to be' in all its forms is sim- 
 ply a corruption of the corresponding 
 Latin forms. They are 
 
 Latin Old French Mod. French 
 
 sum suys, seu suis 
 
 es es, ies, es 
 
 est est est 
 
 sumus somes sommes 
 
 estis estes, iestes etes 
 
 sunt sont sont 
 
 The imperfect, however, seems to be 
 derived from the same tense of the 
 verb ' stare.' The forms are 
 
 Latin 
 stabam 
 
 Oid French Mod. French 
 
 estoie e"tais 
 
 estoies otais 
 
 stabat estoit e'tait 
 
 stabamus estiens (ons) etions 
 
 stabatis estieiz e"tiez 
 
 stabant estoient e"taient 
 
 It may surprise us a little to discover 
 this lack of homogeneity ; yet, owing 
 to the colorless nature of the verb 
 expressing simple existence, there are 
 in all languages several verbs that 
 may perform its duties equally well. 
 Two or more of these are frequently 
 fitted together, so that what is lacking 
 in one is supplied by the other. Of 
 this the verbs given above are an ex- 
 ample. In Latin the verb ' to be ' has 
 two roots, found in esse and fui; in 
 English it has three, found in am, was, 
 and been respectively. Simple exis- 
 tence may be, and is, expressed in sev- 
 eral ways, all of the words so used, 
 however, expressing physical acts. 
 ' As,' the root from which the Latin 
 'es' and the English 'a-mi' are de- 
 rived, meant originally either ' to 
 breathe' or 'to sit'; so <pu meant 'to 
 grow.' Change in existence is also 
 expressed by several words even in 
 English: "He went mad," "he be- 
 came sick," "he grew excited," etc. 
 
 6 Translations can be most accu- 
 rately and elegantly made between 
 languages that have the most charac- 
 teristics in common. It is easier to 
 make a relatively faithful translation 
 from Greek or Latin into German, 
 among modern languages, than into 
 English or Erench. Again, there is 
 a closer resemblance between Greek 
 and German than between Greek and 
 Latin; for while these languages are 
 both considerably inflected, — the lat- 
 ter more than the former, — the Ger- 
 man, besides possessing a good de- 
 gree of inflection, readily admits the 
 formation of compounds, and the 
 powers of the Latin in this respect 
 are but limited. Voss's translation of 
 Homer may perhaps be considered as 
 the most successful translation of an 
 ancient poetic author into a modern 
 language tliat has ever been made. 
 
THE ORDER OF WORDS. 
 
 49 
 
 Professor Jowett's prose, translations 
 from the Greek are held in high re- 
 pute, but those who insist on a good 
 degree of literalness find fault with 
 them. Taylor's translation of Faust, 
 and Longfellow's of the Divina Corn- 
 media, though not from ancient lan- 
 guages, approach pretty closely to 
 what would seem to be Professor 
 Weil's ideal in this respect. Two 
 American translations of Homer, that 
 of Munford and that of Bryant, pos- 
 sess a high degree of merit. 
 
 7 Let the English reader take some 
 familiar passage, for example, "The 
 fear of the Lord is the beginning of 
 wisdom," and let him read it first with 
 the emphasis on fear, then on Lord, 
 next on beginning, and next on vnsdom. 
 He will get a. different meaning each ' 
 time. The same effects were produced 
 in the ancient languages, and likewise 
 in the more extensively inflected mod- 
 ern languages, by position. 
 
 8 In this verse the arrangement is 
 singularly felicitous. After introduc- 
 ing two persons, one a resident of the 
 country, the other of the city, rusticus 
 urbanum, Horace adds by way of ex- 
 planation that they were two mice 
 murem mus, and expects the reader " to 
 see the point" at a glance. 
 
 9 Professor Jowett translates this 
 extract as follows : " The city of Epi- 
 damnus is situated on the right hand 
 as you sail up the Ionic Gulf. Near 
 it dwell the Taulantians . . . The 
 place was colonized by the Corcy- 
 reans, but under the leadership of a 
 Corinthian, Phalias, son of Erato- 
 kleides . . . and Corinthians also joined 
 the colony." 
 
 10 Racine's words are, — 
 
 H vent les rappeler, et sa voix les effraie; 
 lis courent : tout eon corps n'est bient6t 
 
 qu'une plaie, 
 De nos cris douloureux la plaice retentit. 
 
 11 On comparing the phraseology of 
 the French [or English] and Latin, 
 we eome upon many facts which cor- 
 roborate the statement of the text. 
 Mihi est liber, mihi est nomen Carolo ; 
 j'ai un livre [I have a book], j'ai, je 
 porte le nom de Charles [my name is 
 Charles, I bear the name Charles]. 
 Aapeiou leal tlapvffaTiSos ylyvovrai ira7- 
 Ses Svo, Darius et Parysatis eurent 
 deux fils [Dar. and Par. had two sons]. 
 Mihi scribendum est, je dois ecrire, il 
 faut que j'ecrire [I must write]. We 
 change the syntax to get the two for- 
 ward movements into agreement, but 
 the ancients were not disagreeably 
 affected by their incongruity. Among 
 the means of bringing about this 
 agreement, the use of the passive de- 
 serves particular attention. I subjoin 
 the judicious remarks of M. de Sacy 
 in reference to this point : " We some- 
 times employ the passive when we wish 
 to fix the attention of those to whom 
 we are speaking on the person or 
 thing which is the object of the action 
 rather than on the acting subject. 
 Then the subject is expressed merely 
 as a part or circumstance of the ac- 
 tion by means of » preposition of 
 which it becomes the object. When 
 I am relating the history of Britan- 
 nieus, I end by saying, Brit, was poi- 
 soned at the table of Nero by Nero 
 himself. If, on the other hand, my 
 object was to expose in detail the 
 crimes of Nero, I should say, Nero 
 poisoned Britannicus at his table, be- 
 cause I am less concerned about mak- 
 ing known the death of Britannicus 
 than the crime of Nero. This use of 
 the passive is especially frequent in 
 languages having a fixed construction 
 and admitting but few inversions." 
 Principes de Grammaire ge'ne'rale 3 e 
 edit., p. 161. Becker (p. 20 of the 
 second vol. of his German Grammar) 
 
50 
 
 THE ORDER OF "WORDS. 
 
 is in agreement with the learned 
 Frenchman on this point. W. 
 
 The use of the passive is much 
 more extensive in English than in 
 French, or in fact than in any lan- 
 guage ancient or modern. See Matz- 
 ner's Eng. Grammatik, 3 to Aufl. I, 
 p. 344, and elsewhere. 
 
 12 I have left the original in the 
 text, and give the Greek of Plato with 
 the translation of Professor Jowett in 
 the notes : Tb tolovtov Xeyta kciX eV <rd>- 
 fxaTi tlvai koX £v tyvxy, 'd ft iroiei p.ev 
 SoKeiv eZ %X GLV T0 o~S>p.a Ka ^ T ^ v ty v %M v i 
 %X el °° bvSev fj.a\\oy. $epe $fi trot, iciv 
 dvi/ufjLai, <ra<pe(TTepov einSeil-<a o \eya>, 
 bvoiv ovtolv toiv irpayp,4.TOiv Svo \eyu 
 Texvas ' rijv fiev ^?rl ttj tyvxy ^oKirtR^v 
 Ka\u, t)}V Se eirl trypan fiiav /xey oVtojs 
 i>vofj.o.<iai ovk %x a ffol > i"*"* 1 ^e oio"i)% rrjs 
 tov (T&iiaTos Bepairelas Svo uopia Xeya, 
 tty p.ev yviiMOUTM^v, Tk\v Se larpiK^V 
 ttjs Se iroMriKTJs cur! p-ev rrjs yvp.va.o-Ti- 
 ktjs rty vofioderiK^v, avTiarpotpov Se tt) 
 iarpwrij t^v SiKaioavv-qv . . . xal tov p.ev 
 fieXTiffTOv ovSev (ppoyrl^et, Ttp Se oel 
 7jSi(TT(p BrjpeveTcu t))V avoiav teal e'lamxT^, 
 &ffre Soicei ir\e(o-TOv a|ta etyat, virb p.ev 
 oZv t^jv iarptK^v 77 b^oirouK^ viroSeSvKe, 
 . . . (Gorgias, 464 B, Chap. XX). 
 
 "And this applies not only to the 
 body, but also to the soul ; in either 
 there may be that which gives the 
 appearance of health and not the 
 reality. And now I will endeavor to 
 explain to you more clearly what I 
 mean : the soul and the body being 
 two, have two arts corresponding to 
 them. There is the art of politics 
 attending on the soul, and another 
 art attending on the body, of which I 
 know no specific name, but which 
 may be described as having two divis- 
 ions, one of which is gymnastic, and 
 the other medicine. And in politics 
 there is a legislative part, which an- 
 swers to gymnastic, as justice does to 
 
 medicine . . . and has no regard for 
 men's highest interests, but is ever 
 making pleasure the bait of the un- 
 wary, and deceiving them into the 
 belief that she is of the highest value 
 to them. Cookery simulates the dis- 
 guise of medicine." \ 
 
 13 It is perhaps not without interest 
 to examine in each particular case the 
 propriety of the transition : " I was 
 going down yesterday to the Peiraeus 
 with Glauco, the son of Aristo, to 
 witness the festival" . . . "After- 
 ward, we returned to the city." Nearly 
 thus does Plato begin his dialogue 
 Politeia. Then he goes on, KovriSiiv 
 oZv irdppoiBev T)p.as olKa.Se iipja\p.evovs 
 Tlo\4fiapxos 6 Ke<pd\ov ineXevae, etc. 
 "We are struck with the position of the 
 initial participle, but nothing could 
 be more natural. S. and G. enter the 
 Peiraeus on the day of the festival. 
 It stands to reason that they were 
 noticed by many persons. The idea 
 or notion of noticing makes the start- 
 ing point of the sentence. But who 
 is this that has observed them and 
 upon whom the author directs our 
 attention? The name of Pol. ought 
 properly to come next. The begin- 
 ning of Xenophon's Hellenics shows 
 us an analogous transition. Doricus 
 arrives with forty vessels : KariSbv Se 
 & Adrjvaiutv TifiepocKfaos iffi\ii7ive rots 
 o-rpariiyoTs. We may, if we wish, find 
 plenty of similar passages, though it 
 will hardly be possible to classify all 
 the instances that we may meet with. "W. 
 
 14 " That which is always moved is 
 eternal ; but that which gives motion 
 to something else, and is moved itself 
 by some external cause, when that 
 motion ceases, must necessarily cease 
 to exist. That, therefore, alone, which 
 is self-moved, because it is never for- 
 saken by itself, can never cease to be 
 moved. Besides, it is the beginning 
 
THE ORDER OE WORDS. 
 
 51 
 
 and principle of motion to everything 
 else ; but whatever is a principle has 
 no beginning, for all things arise from 
 that principle, and it cannot itself owe 
 its rise to anything else " (Yonge). 
 
 16 Compare Luke xvi, 3. "I cannot 
 dig; to beg I am ashamed." Many- 
 examples of this construction may be 
 readily found in Xenophon's Ana- 
 basis. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE RELATION BETWEEN THE ORDER OE "WORDS AND THE 
 SYNTACTICAL FORM OF THE PROPOSITION. 
 
 Classification of languages in respect to construction. 
 
 We have tried in the preceding chapter to trace back the 
 order of words to the order of ideas considered apart from the 
 syntax. Nevertheless in many languages, if not in a majority, 
 the syntax and the order of the parts of the proposition move for- 
 ward abreast, mutually influencing each other. It is of this mutual 
 relation between the syntactical interlacement and the succession 
 of words, that is, of construction properly so-called, that the 
 second chapter will treat. In the first chapter the general prin- 
 ciple was under discussion ; in the second we shall consider its 
 application to particular languages. 
 
 A general classification of languages in respect to construc- 
 tion has long been made. Abbd Girard was the first, I be- 
 lieve, to establish the distinction of analogous or analytical and 
 transpositive or inversive languages. May I be permitted, while 
 adopting this classification, to make it more general? The idea 
 of analogous languages is based upon the usage of the Romance 
 languages, and primarily upon the French. But there are other 
 languages the construction of which is in most cases closely bound 
 up with the syntactical relation of the parts of the proposition, with- 
 out being parallel to the analytical progression like the French con- 
 struction. These languages will of necessity come under the first 
 class. In languages of the second class the syntax does not make 
 the law for the arrangement of the sentence ; these languages are 
 then only inversive from our point of view ; strictly speaking, we 
 ought not to consider them with reference to the question of inver- 
 sion, for where there is no law there is no transgression of a law. 
 Our languages might perhaps more properly be called inversive, 
 
THE ORDER OF WORDS. 53 
 
 for the very reason that they are analogous. Let us change, then, 
 a little the idea and the names of these two classes when we dis- 
 tinguish them, and let us speak of languages with a free construc- 
 tion and languages with a fixed construction. 
 
 Free construction is a matter of privilege in inflected languages. 
 It is evident that the arrangement of the sentence can be indepen- 
 dent of the syntax only so far as the grammatical relations of words 
 are clearly indicated by sonorous and varied terminations. If the 
 inflections are lacking, or if the syntactical relations are indicated 
 by means of affixes or of prepositions, it is inadmissible to sepa- 
 rate those words which form a syntactical group. The order of 
 these groups themselves may be varied without inconvenience, yet 
 the genius of these languages, which is nothing more than estab- 
 lished usage, often keeps this freedom within narrower bounds 
 than clearness would demand. Certain languages too are without 
 inflections or affixes, and even, to a certain extent, without syn- 
 tactic particles. The office of these words in the sentence, their 
 connection and their mutual dependence, are wholly or almost 
 wholly determined by the order in which they follow each other. 
 This order is almost or quite invariable. Between absolute inva- 
 riableness and absolute inflexibility there are degrees. "We say 
 that the construction of a language is fixed, or that it is free, 
 according as it approaches most nearly one or the other of these 
 extremes. 
 
 If there are any languages which allow a free construction 
 Greek and Latin belong undoubtedly to this class. It is true 
 that the Latins were fond of placing the verb after its comple- 
 ments. It is true also that there are in Latin a large number of 
 ready-coined phrases which put the adjective after its substitute, 
 such as populus Romanus, res publico,, vir bonus. But one would 
 not found upon this fact a system of usual construction the rules 
 of which would be contradicted a hundred times on any page of 
 every Latin author. This is still more largely true of the Greek. 
 
 I do not wish to disguise the fact that the compiler of an excel- 
 lent grammar has formulated the rule that the normal construction 
 in Greek requires the attribute to be preceded by its complements, 
 and the subject, as well as every substantive, to be followed by it. 
 
54 THE ORDER OF WORDS. 
 
 Every other arrangement of the sentence he regards an inversion. 
 To Kiihner belongs the merit of being the first to treat in a special 
 chapter, of the order of words in Greek ; but the general rule that 
 he has placed at the head of the chapter is constantly violated on 
 his own admission, by Greek authors. He would appear therefore 
 to have set up the rule merely to conform to the practice of our 
 grammars, and under the influence of the systematizing spirit which 
 seeks to reduce syntax to a regular scheme. Few would refuse, I 
 think, to class Greek and Latin among the languages with a free 
 construction. If we examine these languages the construction of 
 which obeys either an immutable law or a usage more or less strict, 
 we shall very soon distinguish a certain number of diverse meth- 
 ods easy to grasp and to characterize. 1 
 
 In French as in the other Romance languages the fundamental 
 rule of construction requires -the subject to be placed first, then the 
 complements (or modifiers) of the subject, next the verb, and last 
 the complements of the verb. Stating the case in general terms 
 we may say that the dependent word is placed after that which 
 governs it. 
 
 The German, as well as all the languages of the same stock, 
 agrees with the French in an important particular. It requires that 
 in all principal sentences the verb should be put in the midst of 
 the sentence before the attribute and after the subject or that part 
 of the proposition which occupies its place. We say therefore 
 Gott schuf die Welt in the same order that we say in French Dieu 
 cr&a le monde (God created the world). But the complements, 
 whether of the subject or of the attribute, are generally placed 
 before the terms which they modify. The adjective is followed 
 by its substantive and preceded by its complements. If the verb 
 is in a compound tense, it is only the auxiliary that is put in the 
 middle of the sentence, the attributive part of the verb is put at 
 the end, after the complements. Of these complements that which 
 belongs most closely to the attributive part of the verb, usually 
 the direct complement (or object) , is placed last after the indirect 
 complement (or object), which in its turn is preceded by words 
 or phrases expressing circumstance. Accordingly a German 
 says, Eine ploetzliche Freude hat diesem UngluecMichen das Leben 
 
THE ORDER OE "WORDS. 55 
 
 gekostet (A sudden joy has to this unfortunate (person) the 
 life cost). Von der mitwelt verkannte Dichter erwarten von der 
 Nachwelt ein gerechteres Urfhe.il. (Literally, By contemporaries 
 unappreciated poets await from posterity a more just judgment.) 
 In subordinate sentences the verb, attributive as well as auxiliary, 
 is always placed at the end. Man weiss dass Bom den unterwor- 
 fenen voelkem seine Sprache aufzwang. (Literally, One knows 
 that Rome on the subject peoples its language imposed.) 2 
 
 English has adopted the French order for the complements of 
 the verb, but it has held to the German usage by placing the 
 governing substantive after the adjectives belonging to it and 
 after the substantives governed by it without the aid of a prep- 
 osition. The king's eldest son has given a feast to the citizens. 
 Le JUs aini du roi a donne" une fete aux citoyens. Des Koenig's 
 aeltester Sohn hat den Buergern ein Fest gegeben. 
 
 "Will it. be allowed to place by the side of these languages an 
 idiom so different from ours that the terminology employed in 
 our grammars can only be applied thereto by a sort of abuse of 
 language? The Chinese, a language composed of invariable mon- 
 osyllables, does not distinguish the parts of speech by any out- 
 ward sign: neither the verb, nor the noun, nor the particles, nor 
 any word has received a form peculiar to itself, nor does it bear 
 any characteristic stamp. Yet the construction of the Chinese 
 sentence is perfect ; and it is a curious fact that this construc- 
 tion has some affinity with the English. In Chinese, qualificative 
 epithets are placed before the name of the thing to which they 
 belong ; the subject is placed before the attribute ; the direct 
 complement is placed after the attribute and is followed by the 
 indirect complement. Adverbial phrases, simple or compound, 
 modifying or circumstantial, ■ generally precede the word which 
 they qualify. For example, Coeli filius potest designare virum 
 ad coelum. (The emperor may present to heaven a man to suc- 
 ceed him.) 3 
 
 As we have now passed outside the pale of European languages, 
 let us notice a type of construction, to wit, that offered by the 
 Turkish and by all the idioms of the Tartar family in general, such 
 as the Mandtchu, the Mongol, and others. In these languages the 
 
56 THE ORDER OE WORDS. 
 
 adjective is always placed before its substantive, the governed 
 substantive before the governing substantive, the complement 
 before the verb ; instead of prepositions they have postposi- 
 tions, the subordinate proposition precedes the principal. 4 "The 
 horses of the pasha's son," will be in Turkish, Padissae filii equi. 
 (Literally, The pasha's son's horses.) "He is going to light a 
 candle." Lucernam ascensum it. "We have seen that one finds 
 consolation in many ills in devout prayers." Piis precibus in mul- 
 torum malorum solatia inveniri vidimus. " The yellow stars called 
 the gate of the general of the army come after the constellation 
 Oudirabhalkouni." Exercitus ducis porta vocatae Jiavae stellae 
 Udir, stellas post veniunt. What is chiefly remarkable is that the 
 order of construction in these languages is not, as is the case in 
 the Romance languages, a usual order which may be modified in 
 cases more or less frequent but that it is fixed and immovable. 
 Yet several of these languages have a varied system of suffixes 
 which enable them to express with much precision all the relations 
 of the syntax of dependence. It is true the syntax of agreement 
 is less perfectly expressed. The place of each word is invariably 
 fixed in each sentence and all sentences are as it were cast in the 
 same mould. The governing word is always placed after the gov- 
 erned, and the principal verb, to which are related directly or indi- 
 rectly all the words of a sentence, should always be put at the end. 
 The employment of numerous participles causes the sense of a 
 passage to be suspended until the end where the verb which forms 
 the conclusion determines it. 
 
 Among the four systems that we have just sketched there 
 are two which are diametrically opposed and which furnish the 
 extreme points between which languages may oscillate. It is, 
 on the one hand, the order parallel to grammatical decomposition 
 and that which places the qualifying word after the word quali- 
 fied (le complement apr6s le terme complete^ ; on the other, the 
 order which places first the governed word, then the governing 
 word, and which is the exact counterpart of the analytical order. 
 The first of these systems is pretty generally followed in French ; 
 the second is invariably observed by the Turkish and the Tartar 
 languages. The German belongs about midway between the 
 
THE ORDER OF WORDS. 57 
 
 two systems. The construction of the principal propositions 
 resembles that of the French in that the verb cuts the sentence 
 into two distinct parts, the subject and the attribute ; the con- 
 struction of subordinate sentences in which the verb is put at the 
 end and groups of words which end, with a few trifling excep- 
 tions, with the governing word brings it nearer the Turkish. The 
 English by virtue of its origin, partaking as it does of both the 
 German and Romance nature, naturally occupies a place interme- 
 diate between the German and the French. Finally, a language 
 which is totally different, the Chinese, may be put with the Eng- 
 lish in this abstract classification when one takes account only of 
 the constituent parts of the sentence. 
 
 TJie place of the verb. 
 
 All these variations may be summed up under two points of 
 view. "We may consider, firstly, the place of the verb which 
 decides the physiognomy of the entire proposition; and, sec- 
 ondly, the arrangement of groups of words which determines the 
 form of the parts of the proposition. In respect to the verb it 
 may be said that our European languages are fond of placing it 
 between the subject and the attribute ; the Tartar languages are 
 compelled to put it at the end of the proposition. The Latin also 
 has a manifest preference for the latter order. 6 What is the dif- 
 ference between these constructions, if it be possible to discover 
 any ? It will of course be understood that we are not here con- 
 cerned about a fundamental difference in sense, but a character- 
 istic shade which they imprint upon the sentence as a whole. 
 If there is any language which employs the two constructions and 
 which does not employ them indirectly but in cases strictly deter- 
 mined it would doubtless be of this language that we should ask a 
 solution of this problem. Now we have seen that in German the 
 nature of the proposition decides the place of the verb : the prin- 
 cipal sentence corresponds to the French system, the subordinate 
 sentence to the Latin or even the Turkish system. Yet even in 
 the principal sentence, if the verb is in a compound tense the aux- 
 iliary alone stands in the middle of the sentence. At first sight 
 
58 THE ORDER OP WOEDS. 
 
 nothing seems more abnormal and arbitrary. Yet it may be that 
 this strange appearance conceals a reasonable sense. What is the 
 difference between a principal and a subordinate sentence? The 
 principal sentence expresses a thought ; it affirms. The subordi- 
 nate sentence contains only a part of the idea expressed in the 
 principal ; it does not affirm. " Was the guilty love by which he 
 is devoured already known in Athens?" (Ce coupable amour, 
 dont il est devor^e, dans Athenes deja s'£tait-il declared) The- 
 seus believes that Hippolytus is devoured by a guilty love, but it 
 is not that which he wishes to say, to affirm now. This is a known 
 fact which enters as a partial idea into the question which he pro- 
 poses and which is the object of the discourse. The principal 
 sentence establishes a relation between two ideas, the subordinate 
 sentence supposes this relation already established, it effaces the 
 dichotomy of the thought. It is in this way if I mistake not that 
 the difference between these two German constructions is to be 
 explained. 6 The verb placed in the middle of the sentence in 
 order to separate it and to bind together at the same time its two 
 principal parts gives the proposition the form of a judgment which 
 our modern languages show a tendency to claim for it. The sign 
 of affirmation serves as a copula. Now, every time the verb is 
 separated into constituent parts it is not the attributive but the 
 abstract part which contains the affirmation. For this reason the 
 auxiliary alone performs the functions and occupies the place of 
 the copula. In subordinate sentences the copula gives up its 
 characteristic position in order to indicate that these sentences 
 do not embody a judgment which we utter in the instant of their 
 enunciation, but at most a judgment expressed at some previous 
 time. 
 
 We believe then that wherever the verb occupies the middle 
 place it is for the purpose of indicating that the whole thought 
 contained in the entire proposition has been separated into two 
 ideas, expressed by two groups of words, confusion between which 
 is prevented by the interposed verb, and which are declared equal 
 by an act of our Judgment. Languages which put back the verb 
 to the end of the sentence do not bring out so prominently the 
 dichotomy and affirmative character of the proposition ; the 
 
THE ORDER OF WORDS. 59 
 
 Romance languages impress this character upon all kinds of prop- 
 ositions ; the German obliterates it in subordinate propositions. 
 
 A usage established in many languages of fixed construction 
 supports these observations. In French, in German, in English, 
 and in nearly all the languages of Europe the subject is placed 
 after the verb in interrogative sentences. 7 From our point of 
 view this may be explained with entire satisfaction. In reality 
 the interrogative proposition is not the total expression of a judg- 
 ment ; it is defective, and the judgment that it indicates is only 
 completed by the answer. This is the reason why the affirmation 
 in these propositions is not placed between the ideas of the sub- 
 ject and the attribute the union of which forms the total thought, 
 but it is placed at the beginning to indicate that the sentence con- 
 tains only the half of a judgment. The verb placed in the middle 
 means, if I may be allowed so to express myself, that the two 
 sides of the balance are in equilibrium ; the verb placed at the 
 beginning means that there is a weight lacking from one of the 
 two sides and that the thought is not yet in equipoise. 
 
 Descending and ascending constructions. 
 
 Let us pass to the second point which divides languages with a 
 fixed construction, that is, the arrangement of word-groups. We 
 have seen that several languages give the governing word the 
 precedence over the governed word ; that certain others place the 
 former after the latter ; and that others again according to the 
 nature of the complement follow one or the other of these usages. 
 Which of these forms of procedure is the most reasonable? Our 
 preferences incline rather toward the first which is represented by 
 the Romance languages. To put the term consequent after the 
 term antecedent seems to be logical : the opposite order has often 
 been attacked as contrary to good sense. Yet the Turkish lan- 
 guages, the construction of which follows with rigorous exactness 
 the second order of procedure, have their apologists and even 
 admirers. M. A. L. Davids, in the introduction to his Turkish 
 Grammar says "that the peculiar construction of the Turkish 
 gives to its periods a weightiuess and picturesque effect which 
 
60 THE OEDEE OF WOEDS. 
 
 add much to the dignity and expressiveness of the language " ; and 
 M. Davids but repeats in this matter the judgment of Sir W. Jones. 8 
 However much truth there may be in these eulogies we shall at 
 least do well to be on our guard against condemnations of the 
 genius of a language. That it may be lacking in logical precis- 
 ion in certain exceptional cases is to be admitted, but we should 
 not readily believe that it sins against logic in a fundamental and 
 well established rule- We shall not therefore pronounce against 
 any of these systems, but try to discover what is the difference in 
 character and what the effect it produces in discourse. This is 
 what will guide us in our examination. General rules in most 
 of these languages admit of certain exceptions the reasons for 
 which we propose to study. The ancient languages are not rigidly 
 held to any particular system, but this very liberty offers excellent 
 facilities for comparison because it sanctions the employment of 
 all these processes in turn. The first languages to be consulted 
 are those which, while distinguishing different kinds of comple- 
 ments, have assigned special functions to each of the two oppo- 
 site systems. We have already observed that there is in this 
 regard a striking analogy between the Chinese and the English. 
 The Chinese — for it may be well to repeat these details — appears 
 to class its complements under three heads, viz., the complements 
 of the substantive, the object of the verb, and the complements of 
 circumstance of the verb (circumstantial complements of the verb) . 9 
 The complements of the substantive are, in Chinese, held firmly 
 to the order which we, to avoid circumlocutions, will name the 
 order of ascending constructions. The objects of the verb are held 
 to the order of descending constructions. The circumstantial com- 
 plements more free in their construction, prefer nevertheless the 
 first of these orders. English usage as we have stated above does 
 not depart widely from these rules. The French even, although 
 the descending construction might be considered a fundamental 
 law of the language, approaches the Chinese by certain modifica- 
 tions which it admits into its system. The French places many 
 adjectives before the substantive which they limit or define ; it 
 allows adverbs and adverbial expressions to precede the verb, but 
 it is uncompromising in regard to the objective case. We are then 
 
THE ORDER OF WORDS. 61 
 
 authorized to distinguish two kinds of relations between the com- 
 plementary or qualifying idea and the complemented or qualified 
 idea. "To slay a man, to pay one's debt to his country." Here 
 we have the relation of the action to the object upon which it is 
 directed, a relation which is, so to speak, both sensible and mate- 
 rial. "A large apartment." "To speak well" (Bien parler). 
 Here we have a relation of grammatical definition which is not 
 borrowed from the sensible world, but a more abstract relation 
 that consists in restricting the comprehensiveness of an idea by 
 attaching another idea to it. 10 In the former of these relations the 
 two terms are more easily detached from each other and the imagi- 
 nation can picture to itself a progressive movement from the ante- 
 cedent term to the consequent term. In the second there is only 
 a decomposition of the idea effected by reflection in which the 
 imagination no longer sees two different parts to which it may 
 assign a priority and a posteriority. It is thus that we are able 
 to explain why in many languages complements of the first class 
 have a tendency to follow the idea to which they relate, and those 
 of the second class to precede it. Adverbs and adverbial phrases 
 are evidently placed between these two classes. Sometimes they 
 belong to the first class, Men parler; sometimes to the second, 
 parler d, peine (To speak with difficulty). The principles that we 
 have defined above are decisive for the Chinese construction, they 
 prevail largely in the English, and to a considerable extent in 
 French. "We must therefore seek to establish a more general 
 difference between the usages of construction. 
 
 Let us examine when it is necessary in French to depart from 
 the general rule and to place the qualifying word before the word 
 qualified. Articles and demonstrative pronouns — the man, this 
 man, I'homme, cet homme — precede the substantive, pronouns in 
 the objective case precede the verb. Descriptive epithets which 
 do not serve to distinguish one individual from another but which 
 bring out more conspicuously the most salient quality of the object 
 under consideration, poetic epithets and such as are addressed 
 chiefly to the imagination are usually placed before the substan- 
 tive, as, "the brilliant light, the dark mud, dark cares." "No 
 more money is needed to build an ugly prison than to make a 
 house pleasant" (Voltaire). 
 
62 THE ORDER OE WORDS. 
 
 It is evident that articles and determinative adjectives add an 
 idea to the substantive which is closely connected with it in 
 thought, and which one can detach from it only by au effort of 
 abstraction. Further, the pronunciation so blends these comple- 
 ments with their substantives as to form almost one word with 
 them. The union is a little less close between verbs and pro- 
 nouns in the objective, but it is plainly to be seen ; as soon as it 
 is relaxed and the pronoun becomes in some degree independent, 
 the order changes also, the pronoun assumes a full form and is 
 placed after the verb. A like observation may also be made for 
 qualifying adjectives. Those which only repeat in a more ener- 
 getic and more animated manner the idea expressed by the sub- 
 stantive would naturally be expected to attach themselves much 
 more closely than those which add a new idea. u "Judge then 
 finally, readers wise, which is of most value, to worship God with 
 simplicity, or" etc. If all readers were wise Voltaire would have 
 said, " wise readers." It will be observed that the latter mode of 
 expression forms a unity more nearly perfect than the former. 
 There is a large number of expressions in which usage requires 
 the adjective to precede the substantive because of the intimate 
 connection, the complete fusion of the two ideas, ' a young man,' 
 juvenis, une fausse clef, Greek avTiK\a6pov, German Nachschlus- 
 sel, where we express the compound idea with a single word. 12 
 
 It is evident from these facts that the ascending construction 
 binds more closely the ideas that have been put into relation with 
 one another and that the descending construction tends more to 
 detach them from one another. If we listen with attention it will 
 be noticed that the voice passes more quickly from the adjective 
 to the substantive and from the adverb to the verb in the phrases : 
 au second lime (at the second book) , un glorieux souvenir (a glo- 
 rious memorial) , il a fortement appuyi sur ce passage (he strongly 
 emphasized this passage) ; thafkit passes from the substantive to 
 the adjective and from the verb to the adverb when we say, 
 au lime second, un souvenir glorieux, il a appuyi fortement. If 
 there could be any doubt as to the truth of this remark one would 
 only have to compare the familiar pronunciation of " froid ex- 
 treme" in which the d is silent with the pronunciation of " pro- 
 
THE ORDER OF WORDS, 63 
 
 fond abime" in which the d is heard. "Un savant aveugle" 
 (a savant blind) (subst. adj.) is not pronounced like "un sa- 
 vant aveugle " (a learned blind man) (adj. subst.). 13 
 
 In the arrangement of groups of words the German follows an 
 order the opposite of the French ; but exceptional terms of expres- 
 sion denote, by the peculiar character which is impressed upon 
 them, the same principle and the same feeling. In German the 
 ascending construction prevails, but if it sometimes uses the 
 descending it is because the complement gains a greater inde- 
 pendence by detaching itself more from the idea of the word 
 which governs it. In French, we have seen, a contrary principle 
 brings about a contrary exception : here we find an external sign 
 of the difference in the pronunciation of the final consonant, 
 whereas in German this sign is found in the inflection. The 
 adjective placed before its substantive agrees with it in gender, 
 number, and case, but its form undergoes no change when placed 
 after the substantive. Durch grosse, herrliche Thaten (Through 
 great, glorious deeds), but (through deeds great and glorious), 
 durch Thaten gross und herrlich. 
 
 In effect, there is nothing more natural and nothing which can 
 be more easily explained than this union more or less close between 
 the two orders or kinds of construction. If you utter a word 
 which depends on a word to come you are not allowed to make a i 
 pause ; the attention is aroused, the mind is in suspense and! 
 demands that we give it the governing term, that on which thef 
 governed term may rest. If you utter first the word which gov-| 
 erns others there is sometimes demanded a complement, but it is 
 not demanded with such impatience ; one can more easily content 
 himself with what has been said whilst waiting to be fully satis- 
 fied. When saying for example Scipio Carthaginem, there is no 
 point of repose. Here is an accusative floating in the air, so to 
 speak. There is felt the need of resting somewhere, so give us 
 forthwith a verb to support it — add expugnavit. If you begin 
 the sentence with Scipio expugnavit, the mind wants to know the 
 name of the city conquered by Scipio, yet from the grammatical 
 point of view the words pronounced support each other and do 
 not require any additional support. This fact is still more striking 
 when the complements are not indispensable. 
 
64 THE ORDER OF WORDS. 
 
 Examples taken from the ancient languages in which great free- 
 dom of construction is employed will shed still more light on the 
 difference which we have pointed out. Lysias in his oration De 
 Pecuniis Publicis begins his narrative with these words 'Eparmv, 6 
 'Epacric^covTos -Tarr/p, eSavatraro -rapa tov eyu.oC ira-mov TaXavTa oho. 
 Here we have in succession the subject, the appositive, the verb, 
 the complements of the verb. This is the analytical order just as 
 we have it in French ; it is even carried to an extent which cannot 
 be imitated in French, for a numeral is put after a substantive to 
 which it belongs and in place of saying ' two talents ' the orator 
 says " talents two." And directly afterwards he says 'E7retS^ Se 
 irtKevrrjcre KaTaXL-riav mows Tpets, EpcuTKJiZvTa /cat Eparaiva kol Epacricr- 
 rparov. There is no doubt in regard to the character of these sen- 
 tences. The orator is explaining a complicated pecuniary transac- 
 tion and he endeavors to do it in such a way that his auditors, the 
 judges, may be able to follow him easily from point to point. For 
 this reason he does not interlink the elements of the sentence as 
 the ancient authors are in the habit of doing, but relaxes the bonds 
 that unite them in order to follow the descending construction. 
 As a result of this arrangement there occur rests between the 
 words, and the delivery of the sentence may be compared to a 
 liquid which is not poured out at once, but which is caused to flow 
 out drop by drop. Now change the order of the words and put 
 
 Epdruv irapa tov ifwv -ra-nrov 8vo rdXavra i8a.vtto~a.TO, Or Avo irapa tov 
 
 ip.ov -ra-Tirov EjoaTO)i/ TaXavTa l8a.velo-a.To — its characteristic analyti- 
 cal exposition has disappeared. The beginning of the Republic 
 of Plato is cited by the ancients 14 themselves as an example of the 
 decomposed order, and it is precisely that of the descending con- 
 struction. KaTej3i]v x#£S eh tov Tlapaia p.€Ta IWavKcwos tov Apicr- 
 toivos -Tpoo-ivio/j.a'os tc Tjj 8e<S (I went down yesterday into the 
 Peiraeus with etc.). 15 
 
 Let us cite Lysias again (contra Phil. § 18) : 'Op/j.u>p.-vos yap i£ 
 
 ilpoirov, -repulav Kara, tous aypovs, Kal lvTvy)(avtov tS>v -toXitZv tols 
 7rpccr/8urarots . . . tovtov; acj-ypiiro to. vira.p)(ovTa. (Setting out from 
 
 Oropus and going about the country he sought out the most aged 
 citizens and deprived them of their property.) This last example 
 is descriptive ; the participles precede in order to add to the vivac- 
 
THE ORDER OP WORDS. 65 
 
 ity of the picture which the speaker is slowly unfolding before our 
 eyes. 
 
 Numeral adjectives especially are very often placed after their 
 substantives when it is important to be exact. Examples are 
 abundant in Xenophon and Csesar : (EvrcSfov efeAaiW orafyious 
 
 8vo, Trapaxrayyas Sexa. Ei/TaO0a tp,ave.v i^Liepas rpeis, etc.). The abo- 
 rigines of Aristophanes in the Symposium of Plato have *x<upa<; 
 Terrapas, irpoo-wira Suo, KecfaaXr/v p.iav, wra rirrapa, ai'Sota 8vo. Our 
 languages cannot attain this precision of expression. The ascend- 
 ing order shows us a contrary character. '"Os p.kv ovv Set to. irpo<rrj- 
 kovto. iroiuv iOiXovrai vTrapjftw airapras stol/jlois, <5>s iyvu>KOT(i>v vp.S>v 
 Kal TmracrinevuiV, Tra.vop.ai Xiyuv (Dem. Phil. I. 43). (The first 
 clause is the object of Aeyov, and tdiXovras {nrdpxeiv as often in 
 Dem. is hardly different in meaning from iOiXeiv.) One does not 
 follow tranquilly these closely connected sentences, but is carried 
 by main force to the finale. 
 
 But the most striking examples of the descending construction 
 are found in the definitions of Aristotle, that great analytic genius 
 who invented a purely philosophical language for the Greeks, and 
 who, by his new forms of expression as much perhaps as by his 
 method and his universal. knowledge, appears to have prepared 
 the way for modern science. If among all the remains of anti- 
 quity there is nothing that so nearly approaches the French con- 
 struction as the definitions of Aristotle, would not this fact indi- 
 cate that those who speak thus have reflecting and methodical 
 minds ? Here are some examples drawn from his Rhetoric : 
 'Apery io~n 8vvap.t<s iropioTooj ayaBSiv Kal tpvXaKTiKrj, Kal Swa/us eiep- 
 yariK-q TroXXStv ko.1 p.eydXu>v, 'Kai ■ko.vtiov irepi 7ravra. (Virtue is the 
 faculty which provides us with what is good and preserves it to 
 us ; it is also a faculty capable of benefiting us in many and 
 important matters, even every object in every respect.) 
 
 TEcrn 8' ewawos Xoyos ip.<pavt£<j}v p.ey£#os dperij?. (Eulogy IS a dis- 
 course which sets forth the grandeur of virtue.) 'AvdyKTj </>iA.ov 
 eivai tov o-vvr)86p.evov tois ayaSois Kal o-vvaXyovvra tois Xvirijpois, p.r) 
 Sid ti erepov dXXa 81 ixelvov. (Of necessity to be a friend to any 
 one is to rejoice with him in his good fortune and grieve with him 
 in his sorrows, not from some other 'cause but for his sake.) 
 
66 THE ORDER OE WORDS. 
 
 The philosopher decomposes the idea which he wishes to define, 
 and while putting before you the result of this intellectual toil he 
 likewise passes in review one by one the elements of this idea in 
 their most developed state and as little as possible interlocked 
 with one another. This is his manner of procedure when he 
 frames a definition. But when at a subsequent time he comes 
 back Ugain to this definition he does not follow the order of the 
 first analysis. The elements which nftike up the idea being already 
 known, and the mind of the reader having been familiarized with 
 them, the author feels free to give a greater degree of unity to his 
 expression and to present under a more compact form the parts 
 ■which at first needed to be shown separate and distinct from each 
 other. When he gives for the first time the oft repeated definition 
 of tragedy he expresses himself in these terms : ' 
 
 'Eo-nv ovv Tpayip&ia. /JLi/jLtjcri'; wjoafceos cnrovSatas Kal TeXei'as (Tragedy 
 
 then is an imitation of an action important and complete) (Poetic, 
 chap. 6), — the words of the original preserving exactly the same 
 order with the French [and the English] . But when he subsequently 
 refers to this definition he renders it as follows : KeiT<u 3' fjfuv -n^ 
 
 TpaytpSlav rcXeias Kal 0X17? Trpa^ews etvat /j.[jj.rj<riv. The Greek uses the 
 
 liberty which the laws of his language allow him, and without chang- 
 ing the terms, solely by the manner in which he arranges them, he 
 collects into a bundle what he had at first exhibited by piecemeal : 
 he puts before us as a totality what he had at first decomposed 
 into its constituent parts. This shade in the difference of meaning 
 cannot be represented in French. The same thing is seen in chap. 
 11, where the definition of the peripetia is given : 'Eot-iv &e wepurereLa 
 
 y\ ets to Ivavriov rS>v Trparrop.iv<av /teraySoX^, KaOairep eipj/rai. 16 (The 
 
 peripetia, as has already been defined, is an unexpected reverse of 
 fortune in the persons acting, necessarily or probably arising from 
 the incident.) 
 
 One rarely finds in Plato definitions so well developed and bear- 
 ing the stamp of careful analysis. Plato is not fond of minute 
 analysis. He seeks to bind together, to construct ; he strives 
 after unity. Accordingly when there are terms in his worko 
 which come near to being definitions, he expresses himself in 
 language which is almost the exact opposite of that which we 
 
THE ORDER OF WORDS. 67 
 
 have seen in Aristotle : his words when taken together form a 
 well-rounded whole. This is his definition of poetry or rather of 
 Trovq&is : H €K tov fj.yj oj/tos cis to ov Iovtl brmovv alrta Traxra eon irotij- 
 o-ts. (All creation or passage of non-being into being is poetry or 
 making.) 
 
 "We read in the Phaedo this definition of -death, 'H rrj's i/^x5 s ■""> 
 tov o-eo/taros ctTraAAay^, which Cicero translates after the manner of 
 Aristotle, Discessus animi a corpore. Rhetoric is, according to 
 Plato, ttoXltikyjs fiopiov eiSmXov (Gorgias, p. 463 D.), which is ex- 
 actly rendered by Quintilian, II, 15, 25, with the words Civilitatis 
 particulae simulacrum (A semblance of a division of the political 
 art) . It is impossible to imitate in French [or indeed in any ana- 
 lytical language] the rapidity of the Greek. We must say, "la 
 rhetorique est la simulacre d'une partie de la politique." Pro- 
 nounce " le simulacre d'une partie de la politique" as rapidly as 
 you may wish, yet there will be pauses of voice between the words 
 which are neither in the Greek nor the Latin. The reason of this 
 difference is found in the succession of words'. The ladder of gram- 
 matical dependence is peculiar in this that one ascends it rapidly 
 and descends it at his leisure. 
 
 What is the most perfect construction? 
 
 Briefly expressed, the chief characteristic of the ascending conj- 
 struction is to make prominent the unity of the thought, that of the 
 descending construction is to show clearly all its parts. Both sysA 
 terns have their conspicuous advantages, but they have also theirl 
 drawbacks. If carried to extremes the first would become obscure, 
 involved, and would require an effort to follow the details of the 
 thought ; the second would break up the unity of the thought and 
 consequently destroy the energy and beauty of expression. 
 
 The French language has adopted the system of descending 
 construction, but it has preserved a prudent mean in the appli- 
 cation of the system. It is for this reason that it has become the 
 language of conversation par excellence, for it is in conversation 
 that it is specially important to make one's self understood with 
 the greatest rapidity and ease. 17 But without modifications and 
 restrictions upon this system, the thought would escape in the very 
 
68 THE ORDER OF "WORDS. 
 
 process of development. Suppose we have phrases of considerable 
 length in which all the words should be ranked in their appropri- 
 ate order in the syntactic hierarchy ; they will be found to be dif- 
 fuse and languishing. Translate, for example, while scrupulously 
 observing this principle, the following phrase of moderate length : 
 'ETrt^v/A^cravTOS rem 8rjfj.ov irapa toxis vo/jlovs ivvea. crTpaTTjyov; faux. i/";<j(><j> 
 a-KOKTavai 7ravras (Xen. Mem. I, 1), " Le peuple desirant mettre 
 a mort tous les neuf generaux par un seul vote malgre' les lois." 
 (The people desiring to put to death all the nine generals by a 
 single vote contrary to the laws.) The unity disappears, the sen- 
 tence is dissolved. It is necessary to forcibly break loose from 
 the system and to put first some of the complements of the verb. 
 " Le peuple voulant, malgre' les lois, mettre a mort par un seul 
 vote les neuf g6n6raux a la fois." And still the sentence is some- 
 what languishing. Let us compare the two passages which fol- 
 low — one from Rousseau, the other from Voltaire: " Que chacun 
 d'eux ddcouvre a son tour son coeur au pied de ton trdne avec la 
 meme sincerity." (Let each one of them reveal in his turn his heart 
 at the foot of thy throne with the same sincerity.) " Ceux qui 
 vont en guenilles, d'un bout du royaume a l'autre, arracher des 
 passants, par des cris lamentables, de quoi aller au cabaret." 
 (Those who go in tatters from one end of the kingdom to the 
 other to extort from the passers-bj', through their pitiable cries, 
 the wherewithal to go to the pot-house.) To me the sentence of 
 Voltaire seems finer, rounder and more finished. It is not how- 
 ever shorter, not less complex than that of Eousseau. But in the 
 former the principle of the order of the objectives is too scrupu- 
 lously observed, which produces a construction without unity. 
 In the latter the auxiliary to go has been used for the purpose 
 of placing some complements before the verb. It seems to me the 
 sentence would gain in point of construction if it were changed in 
 an analogous manner, for example : " Que chacun vienne a son 
 tour au pied de ton trfine d^couvrir son coeur avec la meme sin- 
 cerity." Often the remedy is still more simple, for usage allows 
 us to begin a sentence with a circumstantial complement and to 
 place it in a measure outside of the syntactic framework. Gen- 
 erally speaking, complicated sentences, in which there are many 
 
THE ORDER OF WORDS. 69 
 
 members dependent upon one another are not good if arranged 
 exclusively according to the descending construction. The French 
 accordingly rejects them, or rather while allowing them, it refuses 
 to descend quietly the rounds of grammatical dependence and binds 
 the sentence by methods like those of the ancient and the Ger- 
 manic languages. 
 
 The German, on the other hand, the construction of which is 
 essentially ascending, often rejects this principle from an opposite 
 motive. It does this in order to relax the bonds of the sentence, 
 to bring out prominently a particular point. In such cases the 
 German allows the inversion of descending construction. Wer 
 wird hier leben wollen oline Freiheitf in place of Wer wird hier 
 ohne Freiheit leben wollen ? (Who will be willing to live here 
 without liberty?) A complement is placed after the governing 
 term which according to the rule ought to terminate the sentence. 
 
 It appears then that the perfection of a language consists not 
 in following invariably an exclusive system of construction, or in 
 adhering with immutable logic to the ultimate consequences of an 
 adopted principle ; but, on the contrary, it consists in a judicious 
 improvement upon a too prominent and uniform characteristic, by 
 the admission of an opposite system and by balancing the short- 
 comings of one method over against the excellences of another. 
 It is by so doing that the French and German have avoided 
 extremes. The Turkish adheres tenaciously to the ascending con- 
 struction, even to the extent of placing prepositions after nouns. 
 It applies the same system to groups of words, to propositions and 
 to periods, and may therefore be regarded as the most consistent 
 of languages in point of construction. But has this consistency 
 been an advantage to the Turkish language? has it made it better 
 adapted to the faithful interpretation of thought? This is of course 
 a matter for competent judges to decide, but we may well doubt 
 it. And this, not because the system of ascending construction 
 is in itself to be condemned, for it is neither more nor less so than 
 the contrary system, but to put speech in bondage to an exclusive 
 83-stem, be it what it maj', I regard as a defect and an imperfec- 
 tion in a language. If we adopt this view of the case, we are 
 necessarily led to place in the front rank those languages which 
 
70 THE ORDER OF WORDS. 
 
 place the fewest shackles on construction, and to regard the Greek 
 and the Latin as the most perfect languages in this respect because 
 they are the most free. 
 
 Constructions in the free languages. 
 
 Now that we have again returned to the classic languages, let 
 us try, as it is necessary to the completeness of this study, to 
 bring even their irregularities or liberties under some sort of a 
 classification. Every time that several words concur to express 
 an idea we can distinguish, by examining carefully the syntax, 
 four or even five different ways in which words can be arranged 
 in the classic languages. The complement follows the word or 
 term on which it depends (avidus glorias) ; this is what we have 
 named the descending construction. The complement precedes the 
 word on which it depends (vini plenum) ; this is the ascending 
 construction. When the complement is followed by the word qual- 
 ified and preceded by a word which is indissolubly bound to it we 
 shall call it the order of enclavement or inlocked construction. When 
 the complement is separated from the word next to which the rules 
 of syntax require it to be placed, by another word or by several 
 words which constitute part of another syntactic group, we have 
 what we majr call the dispersed construction : let us however 
 retain for it the name which it has always borne, namely, hyper- 
 baton. We may add as a fifth form the cases where the words 
 which are used to express an idea are joined into a single word. 
 It is true that a compound is not properly speaking a fact of syn- 
 tax ; and yet it is not wholly foreign to our subject, because the 
 same ideas which in one language are expressed by compound 
 words are sometimes rendered in another by groups of words. 18 
 Arranging then these five constructions according to the connec- 
 tion more or less close, of partial ideas which are their elements, 
 we shall have in the first place the compound word which indicates 
 the closest union ; second, the enclavement or inlocking ; third, 
 the ascending construction ; fourth, the descending construction ; 
 fifth, the hyperbaton, which places the widest space between ideas 
 as between words. The Greek on account of its admirable flexi- 
 bility can employ the same terms in all the five forms. As it is 
 
THE ORDER OF WORDS. 71 
 
 very difficult to find an entirely suitable example in their writers 
 we shall take the risk of proposing one of our own. The poet- 
 musician who instructed a Greek chorus for their imposing festi- 
 vals was called xopo8i8ao-KaAos. The idea is expressed in the most 
 perfect unity by a compound and continuous word. If we wished 
 to distinguish the two ideas which are fused in the compound 
 word, preserving at the same time the unity of the conception, we 
 should use the form of the enclave. "It is not necessary that we 
 should put in the same rank him who bears the expense of the rep- 
 resentation- and him who teaches the chorus." In Greek we should 
 express this about as follows : ToV eh rt)V yppriyiav oWcuwra ovk 
 eis ttjv avrrjv rafiv Set riOevai tco rov xppov StSao-KaAw. The comple- 
 ment rov xopoS is inclosed between the substantive StSao-KaXw and 
 its article. The ideas connected with choragus and chorodidas- 
 calus are somewhat developed to make prominent the import of 
 the two functions, nevertheless the elements of these ideas are 
 bound into a fascicle. The following is an example of the third 
 form. " We can predict the success of a chorus, if we know the 
 musical talent of him who instructs it." IIpoA.eyois av rnos dyu>n«- 
 tol 6 X°P°s> £ ' T0 " X°P ^ T0V Si8a.(7KaXov yvoir/s /xoiktik^s O7r<os e%ei • 
 
 If we wished to make very prominent one of two ideas and to 
 pass lightly over the other we should only have to separate more 
 the elements of the group by making use of the fifth construction, 
 namely the hyperbaton : el tov StSacncaA.oi' yvotys rov \opov othos sfx €t 
 •n-epi /XOV0-1107S. Finally, to give an example of the descending or 
 analytical construction, one might reply to the question : What is 
 the chorodidascalus ? by 'AAAa, (pavepbv on eh) av 6 StSao-KoXos rov 
 )(opov, is avrb to ovofia Sr/Xol. 
 
 What distinguishes these five forms of expression from each 
 other, I make haste to add, is not simply the more or less close 
 connection between ideas placed in relation to each other ; there 
 are slight shades of another kind to which we will return in the 
 third chapter. But we have not yet exhausted all the construc- 
 tions so remarkably varied which are at the disposal of the Greek 
 language. The ingenious use which this language makes of the 
 article gives it a sixth form, that of the explanatory appositive, 
 which, considered in relation to the connection of ideas, can be 
 
72 THE ORDER OF WORDS. 
 
 placed between numbers two and three. In this form the article 
 is repeated as o StSao-xaXos 6 tov xppov. 
 
 Let us add some observations on each of these constructions, 
 omitting however the ascending and descending, of which we have 
 already spoken. Regarding compound words it may be said that 
 they exhibit a twofold union of elements : one in which the deter- 
 minative part precedes the part that is determined or limited, 
 (^uypa^os, ignivomus, beau-frere, Blumenkrone) and the other in 
 which these relations are reversed (ptyacnris, creve-cceur, Tauge- 
 nichts) . "We have here again the difference between the ascend- 
 ing and .descending constructions. But if the former of these con- 
 structions binds the elements much more closely than the second, 
 and if the compound word is the closest possible union between 
 two ideas, we may wonder how there can be words which follow 
 the second of these processes. In reality a very large majority of 
 Greek compounds belongs to the former class. In German there 
 are not many of the second class and these were evidently so far 
 as we can judge at first short phrases like the French va-nu-pieds. 
 In Latin they scarcely exist (verticordia, perhaps versipellis) , 19 at 
 least there is no reason to reckon among compound words res pub- 
 lico,, jus jurandum and similar expressions. The French language, 
 on the contrary, in nearly all its compounds places the determining 
 word after the determined or limited word. But this anomaly 
 which grows out of the analytical character of the language is in 
 perfect accordance with general considerations. French com- 
 pounds form in reality a unity which is much less complete than 
 Greek, German, or Latin compounds : they are not strictly speak- 
 ing real compounds. Even their orthography is evidence of this 
 since it requires their elements to be separated by a hyphen. 
 
 The enclosed or inlocked construction is much used in the ancient 
 languages, particularly the Greek. When the language affords 
 neither a simple nor a compound word for the expression of an 
 idea it becomes necessary to decompose this idea and express it 
 by several words. In order to obliterate as far as possible this 
 decomposition, to bring together as closely as possible the two 
 elements the ancients used the enclosed M construction. There 
 are in Greek no terms corresponding to the Latin patruus and 
 
THE ORDER OF WORDS. 73 
 
 avunculus: Mos means uncle, in general. In order to designate 
 specifically the maternal uncle Xenophon says (Cyrop. I, 3, 12), 
 rov Trainrov rj rbv rijs /Ai;rp6s d8eA.$dv. He says also, to designate a 
 prince, the son of a king (II, 1, 13) viro /3acnAefc>s re ■jratSos /cat vtto 
 a-Tparrj-yov. In the two phrases simple terms are co-ordinated with 
 complex ones : this was one reason more for giving to these last 
 the most compact form. The same thing may be seen in Latin. 
 We read in the oration pro lege Manilla (chap. 3), Uno nuntio atque 
 una litterarum significatione ; and (chap. 9), In ipso illo malo gravis- 
 simaque belli offensione. The enclave has preserved the symmetry 
 of the expression. The use of the article puts the advantage still 
 more on the side of the Greek. Compare, for example, these two 
 sentences of Plato (Soph. 254, A) , to. rijs tSv ttoXX&v </fux? s o/ji^ara 
 
 Kaprepeiv irpos to Oeiov- a<j>opS)VTa dSvvara (The eyes of most men 
 
 can not endure sight of divinity), and (Symp. p. 182, D), Sta tt?v 
 tSsv Qipivmr r>)s i/fu^s apyiav (Owing to the sluggishness of soul of 
 those proposing the law) . There are in these two examples three 
 partial ideas which concur in the formation of one single idea, but 
 the relations of these two ideas are different iu the two cases. 
 This gives us the reason why the articles are differently placed. 
 In the first example the intermediary idea of i/nixy is joined equally 
 to the idea which it governs and to that upon which it depends ; in 
 the second it is joined to that upon which it depends. The first 
 may be translated, the organ of ordinary intelligence ; the second, 
 the intellectual inertness of legislators. 
 
 Such is then the force of the enclave that it can take the 
 place of inflection. It is well known that in Greek, adverbs and 
 adverbial phrases placed between the substantive and its article 
 may be construed as adverbs, ol vvv avOpcoiroi. IIpos rov kclkio-tov 
 kok K.a.Kti>v 'OoWo-ea>s (Soph. Phil. 384) (By the basest of the base, 
 Ulysses). Heri semper lenitas is a hellenism hazarded by Terence. 
 But we can very well say, Caesaris in Hispania res secundae, in 
 Latin. 
 
 "We can very properly limit ourselves here to a single group in 
 regard to the construction which disperses the component parts of 
 a syntactic group. Animorum nulla in terris origo inveniri potest 
 (Cic. Tusc. I, 27) (For the souls of men no origin can be found 
 
74 THE ORDER OE WORDS. 
 
 in the earth). It is evident that the two ideas animorum and 
 origo, though connected by their syntax, are separated in thought 
 as they are in the order of words. Animorum is the point of 
 departure while origo forms part of what we have called the goal 
 of the sentence. On the other hand the adverbial expression in 
 terris, which is enclosed within nulla and origo is joined to these 
 words and almost forms with- them one and the same idea, even if 
 it have not the grammatical form of an adjective. It is almost as 
 if one should say in French, Pour les ames, ou ne peut en decou- 
 vrir aucune origine terrestre. "We shall return to this construction 
 in the third chapter. 
 
 The period. 
 
 Thus far we have only considered the simple proposition. 
 When the framework of the thought is enlarged, when its parts 
 are represented by partial propositions, the whole will form a 
 compound proposition or period. The period which differs from 
 the simple proposition in the extent and development of its con- 
 stituent elements does not differ from it in its essence : in it are 
 found the same shades of construction that we have just pointed 
 out. Nevertheless the process which is followed in our modern 
 languages for the arrangement of simple propositions is not entirely 
 adhered to for that of the period. In this respect there is a free- 
 dom akin to that allowed in the ancient languages. So true is this 
 in French that if we wish to escape the tyranny of the analytic 
 order we detach a word from the proposition and give to this word 
 the form of a member of the sentence. " C'est & vous que je 
 veux parler" (It is to you that I wish to speak). " Ce dfeastre, 
 je l'ai predit depuis longtemps " (As to this disaster, I have pre- 
 dicted it for a long time) . A form analogous to this last allows 
 us to put the incident which occupies the place of the direct object 
 at the beginning of the sentence. " Que vous soyez mon ami, je 
 veux le croire ; mais je ne puis admettre que "... (That you are 
 my friend, I am willing to believe ; but I cannot admit that . . .). 
 "When one part of an entire thought is raised to the rank of a sub- 
 ordinate proposition our languages release it, so to speak, from 
 the rules of construction and do not rigorously fix its place. "We 
 
THE ORDER OE WORDS. 75 
 
 may well congratulate ourselves on this freedom without which the 
 oratorical art would not have attained that perfection which is 
 both our pleasure and our admiration. 
 
 Nothing is easier than to exhibit the ascending, the descending, 
 and the inlocked construction, as also the hyperbaton, in the dis- 
 posal of the parts of the period. One needs only to open the 
 funeral discourses of Bossuet to find abundant examples ; and the 
 various characteristics aimed at in these constructions can even be 
 distinguished. We give some periods the principal parts of which 
 are arranged in the descending order of syntax. " Mon esprit, 
 rebutd de tant d'indignes traitements qu'on a faits a la majestd et 
 a la vertu, ne se rdsoudrait jamais a se jeter parmi tants d'horreurs 
 si la Constance admirable avec laquelle cette princesse a soutenu 
 ses calamity ne surpassait de bien loin les crimes qui les ont 
 causdes." (My spirit, repelled by so many indignities done to 
 majesty and virtue, would never have had the courage to cast itself 
 among so many horrors, if the wonderful constancy with which 
 this princess bore her misfortunes did not surpass by far the 
 crimes which caused them.) " C'6tait un degout secret de tout 
 ce qui a de l'autorite' et une d6mangeaison d'innover sans fin 
 apres qu'on en a vu le premier exemple." (It was a secret dis- 
 taste for everything connected with authority and an inordinate 
 desire for innovation without end after they saw the first example 
 of it.) In the following period we perceive a much more closely 
 connected whole, a more finished unity, more perfection in fine ; 
 and the construction is ascending. " Soit qu'il eleve les trdnes, 
 soit qu'il les abaisse, soit qu'il communique sa puissance aux 
 princes, soit qu'il la retire a lui-meme et ne leur laisse que leur 
 propre faiblesse, il leur apprend leur devoir d'une maniere souve- 
 raine et digne de lui." (Whether he exalted thrones, whether he 
 humbled them, whether he imparted his power to princes, whether 
 he withdrew it to himself and left them to their own weakness; he 
 taught them their duty in the manner of a sovereign and one that 
 was worthy of him.) 21 
 
 The ancient rhetoricians had carefully noted this difference. 
 Hermogenes designates with the name irXayiacr/*os that which we 
 have called the ascending construction. One experiences, says 
 
76 THE ORDER OF WORDS. 
 
 he, a kind of uneasiness from the commencement of periods of 
 this kind (rapa^ yap rts el6v<> eyyiWou) ; the frame of the thought 
 being very large, the expression will not be really clear because 
 the sense is so long suspended. 22 The following is an example of 
 7rA.ayia<r/Aos taken from an ancient orator (Cio. pro lege Manil. 22) : 
 Deinde etiamsi qui sunt pudore ac temperantia moderatiores tamen 
 eos esse tales propter multitudinem cupidorum hominum nemo arbi- 
 tratur. (Then, albeit there are those who are more held in restraint, 
 by shame and self-control yet no one thinks they are such, etc.) 
 
 This is the ascending construction. The following is a freer 
 kind of descending construction (Ibid. 3) : Verumtamen illis impe- 
 ratoribus laus est tribuenda, quod egerunt; venia danda, quod reli- 
 querunt propterea quod ab eo bello Sullam in Italiam res publico,, 
 Murenam Sulla revocavit. (But indeed to those generals praise 
 is to be given for what they did, pardon is to be granted for what 
 they left undone, because, etc.) 
 
 Let us return to French eloquence and let us borrow from it an 
 example of the enclosed (enclavde) construction. " Elle vit avec 
 6ton,nement que Dieu qui avait rendu inutiles tant d'entreprises et 
 tant d'efforts, parce qu'il attendait l'heure qu'il avait marquee, 
 quand elle fut arrived alia prendre comme par la main le roi, son 
 fils, pour le conduire a son tr6ne." (She saw with astonishment that 
 God, who had made vain so many undertakings and so many efforts, 
 because he was waiting for the hour he had appointed, when it 
 was come, went to take as by the hand the king her son to lead 
 him to the throne.) It is this construction that Cicero introduces in 
 the expression of a thought of Gracchus. The orator of the sec- 
 ond century before our era had said : Abesse non potest quin ejus- 
 dem hominis sit probos improbare, qui improbos probet; that of 
 the first corrects thus : Abesse non potest quin ejusdem hominis sit, 
 qui improbos probet, probos improbare. He calls this correction, 
 in quadrum redigere, efficere aptum quod fuerat antea diffluens ac 
 solutum (Cic. Orat. 70). 
 
 Let us add, finally, a very happy use of the hyperbaton, if it be 
 allowed to designate by this term the disarrangement, not of the 
 words which enter into a syntactic group, but of the partial propo- 
 sitions that enter into a period. " Malgre' les mauvais succes de 
 
THE ORDER OF WORDS. 77 
 
 ses armes infortun6es, si on a pu le vaincre, on n'a pu le forcer." 
 (Notwithstanding the ill success of his unlucky arms, if they were 
 able to vanquish him, they could not compel him.) 
 
 Whatever individuality there is in the construction of Greek and 
 Latin periods appertains largely to certain oratorical forms with 
 which we need not occupy ourselves here. But the character of 
 the two classic languages is in a great measure determined by 
 the vast proportions the period may assume in them. Owing to 
 their synthetic character each of the elements of the period, each 
 piece that enters into this beautiful architecture, is more complex 
 and more important than in our modern languages. Thus the sen- 
 tences which contain an accusative as the subject of an infinitive 
 become in our translations compound sentences ; but it is a mis- 
 take to consider them such in Greek and Latin. They may be 
 taken as amplified sentences, but they do not cease to be essen- 
 tially simple. Plurimum dicit oratori conferre Theophrastus lecti- 
 onem poetarum (Quint. X, I, 27). In translating this sentence 
 either into English or French we are compelled to make the object 
 of dicit a relative clause : — Th. says (that) the reading of the poets, 
 etc. The arrangement of the words shows the sentence to be as 
 simple as in, "I have seen two regiments depart." The ancients 
 go one step farther. They often interweave the words of a rela- 
 tive clause with those of the principal proposition in such a way 
 as to give unity to a sentence that is in reality compound. "What 
 is known as attraction, and is so often met with in Greek, mingles 
 3 - et more completely the two propositions and fuses as it were the 
 one with the other. Quod quoniam, in quo sit, magna dissensio est 
 (Cic. de Fin. V, 6). (Eegarding which, since there is great diver- 
 sity of opinion in what it (the highest good) consists.) 23 Tore p,ev 
 
 8t] tovtov tov rpoirov eT^e to. Trpa.yp.aT eKei'vois, xpo[JLevoi<s ois eiirov Trpocr- 
 Tarats. 'AAA' ootjs airavres Spar' Ip^jiuas hrei\wp,p,evoi . . . aTrecrreprnxeoa 
 p\v x«yas otKetas (Dem. Olynth. Ill, 27) (oh citi-ov whom I men- 
 tioned, for ovs eiTrov) . (This then is the state in which they found 
 their affairs in those times when they used those I have named as 
 leaders. But ye all see with what solitude we are encompassed 
 ... we are deprived of our own territory.) 
 
 The Romans before studying Greek models had already found 
 
78 THE ORDER OE WORDS. 
 
 a period which was peculiarly their own, one that was wholly 
 ascending, and which though comprehensive and stately, was 
 heavy and involved. It is found in the most ancient decrees of 
 the Senate and people of Rome, and we will cite here a few exam- 
 ples which may likewise serve to illustrate what we have said above 
 in regard to the construction of the Tartar languages. In fact 
 nothing can more nearly resemble the general cast of the Turkish 
 period than these sentences taken from an agrarian law of the year 
 643 a.u.c. Quei (qui) ager publicus populi Bomanei (-i) in 
 terra Italia P. Mucio L. Calpurnio consulibus, fuit de eo agro loco 
 quern agrum locum populus ex publico in privatum commutavit, quo 
 pro agro loco ex privato in publicum tantum modum agri locei (-i) 
 commutavit, is ager locus domneis (-inis) privatus ita, uti quoi 
 (cui) optima lege privatus sit, esto. Qui ager locus in Africa est 
 quei Romae publice venieit (-iit) venieritve, quod ejus agri loci, 
 quei populeis libereis (nom. plur.) in Africa sunt, quei eorum in 
 ameicitiam populi Bomanei bello Paenicio proxsumo manserunt, 
 queive . . ., quisque eorum habuerunt, . . . pro eo agro loco II vir 
 . . . facito . . . detur assignetur. Each partial sentence is subor- 
 dinated to the sentence which follows it and in a measure becomes 
 part of it so that the general idea stated at the beginning is more 
 and more restricted ; in like manner each one of these little sen- 
 tences ends with its verb, and the complete period is closed and 
 sealed with the principal verb. These old constructions so thor- 
 oughly Latin are again found, shorter and less heavy, among the 
 classic authors. Cicero writes, "Si hoc statueris, quarum laudum 
 gloriam adamaris, quibus artibus eae laudes comparantur, in Us 
 esse elaborandum " (Ad Fam. II, 4) . Here in iis takes up quibus 
 artibus just before, and eae laudes repeats in another form quarum 
 laudum of the preceding line. 
 
 Nam philosophandi scientiam concedens midtis, quod est oratoris 
 propriam, apte, distincte, ornate dicere, quoniam in eo studio aeta- 
 tem consumpsi, si id mihi assumo, videor id meo jure quodammodo 
 vindicare (De Offic. I, 1, 4). (While I may have less skill than 
 others in philosophizing I may with justice claim to be a firstrate 
 orator, because I have devoted myself to that branch particu- 
 larly.) Many similar examples may be readily found. In the 
 
THE ORDER OF WORDS. 
 
 79 
 
 following example from Cic. de lege agraria the relation of the 
 conditional sentences to each other is exactly the same as that of 
 the relative sentences cited above. Neque si qui agros populo 
 romano pollicentur, si (ea pollicentes) aliud quiddam obscure moli- 
 untur, aliud spe ac specie simulationis ostentant, populares existi- 
 mandi sunt (De lege agr. II, 4) . Here Cicero expresses himself 
 just like the most ancient Latin monuments. The XII tables have 
 Si nox furtum factum sit, si im (qui id furtam fecerit) occisit jure 
 caesus esto. See Macrobius, Saturn, I, i, 19. 
 
 1 Professor Charles Short has dis- 
 . cussed quite fully the Order of Words 
 
 in Attic Prose in Yonge's English- 
 Greek Lexicon, published by Harper 
 & Bros. The inquiry is, however, of 
 little interest because of the impossi- 
 bility of formulating results. In Greek 
 perhaps more than in any other lan- 
 guage it is the thoughts which deter- 
 mine the order of words, and as the 
 thoughts of scarcely two writers are 
 the same their arrangement of words 
 will also be different. Emphasis too 
 varies greatly and the language im- 
 poses but little restraint on the order 
 of words. 
 
 2 The attributive part of the verb is 
 sometimes a past participle, sometimes 
 an infinitive. The past participle was 
 originally an adjective, and our French 
 poets still say arehaistically, "La pre- 
 miere epee dont s'est arme Rodrigue, 
 a sa trame coupee " (hat seinen lebens- 
 faden durchschnitten) . We read in 
 Joinville, chap. 87, "Pour ce que je 
 ne weil que nulz face jamez bien pour 
 le guerredon de paradis avoir, ne pour 
 la poour d'enf er ; mez proprement pour 
 l'amour de Dieu avoir, qui tant vaut 
 et qui tout le bien nous peut faire." 
 [Here we find three clauses ending 
 with three infina., viz., avoir, avoir and 
 
 faire. In modern French this construc- 
 tion is no longer admissible. We 
 should probably have, pour avoir la 
 recompense de Paradis, and, peut nous 
 faire tout le bien.] We may trans- 
 late these lines into German without 
 changing the place of a single word : 
 they are all arranged according to the 
 rules of German construction. Gen- 
 erally speaking the two languages 
 seem to have had more points of sim- 
 ilarity during the Middle Ages than 
 they have at present. In German 
 when a part of the attribute is placed 
 at the beginning of the sentence the 
 verb should precede the subject; the 
 same rule holds good when this part 
 of the attribute assumes the form of 
 an initial phrase. The rule is less 
 rigid in old French, but it is generally 
 observed. " En ce point nous envoia 
 le soudanc son conseil pour parler a 
 nous." (In diesem Augenblich schichte 
 
 uns der Sultan ) Joinville, chap. 66, 
 
 " Apres ce que le vieil home s'en f u 
 alle, qui nous ot reconfortez, revint le 
 conseil le soudane a nous." (Nachdern 
 . . . Teamen die Raethe. . . .) Modern 
 French has preserved some traces of 
 these constructions, which in truth 
 are entirely natural and found in very 
 many languages. " Ainsi parla le roi " 
 
80 
 
 THE ORDER OF WORDS. 
 
 (Thus spoke the king). "Dej& pre- 
 nait son essor . . . cet aigle. . . ." It 
 is on the same principle that "il dit" 
 becomes " dit-il " (sagte er, said he), 
 and " le voisin repondit " becomes " re- 
 pondit le voisin " (antwortete der Nach- 
 bar, replied the neighbor) . This takes 
 place when these brief phrases are 
 preceded by some of the quoted words, 
 in other words, by a, part of their 
 complement. W. 
 
 8 See Abel Remusat, Mements de la 
 grammaire chinoise, Paris 1822, §§ 78, 
 79, 80, 95, 158, 159, 177. What we 
 have said regarding the Chinese re- 
 fers to the ancient style. W. 
 
 4 See A. Remusat, Recherches sur les 
 langues tartares, Paris 1820, Vol. I, pp. 
 118 and 279. Davids, A Grammar of 
 the Turkish Language. Londres 1832. 
 The examples given are from these 
 two works. W. An excellent .brief 
 manual is The Turkish Vade-Mecum 
 of the Ottoman Colloquial Language. 
 London 1882. 
 
 * Quintilian IX, IV, 26. "Verba 
 sensum cludere mulio, si compositio pati- 
 atur, optimum est. In verbis enim ser- 
 monis vis." Dichotomy is a section or 
 division into two parts. 
 
 6 In this matter I follow the hints 
 given by Herling, Sgntaxe de la langue 
 allemande I, §§ 36, 44. 
 
 7 In French the noun-subject pre- 
 cedes the interrogative verb (" Le vice 
 est-il un mal ? "), but the pronoun 
 indicates the place of the subject. 
 The noun-subject in this case makes 
 sense by itself almost like the first 
 words of a sentence beginning with a 
 pathetic passage like the following, 
 "Le vice, detestez-le toujours." W. 
 
 8 Davids, p. XL VII. Sir W. Jones, 
 Asiatic Researches, II, p. 360. 
 
 9 We ought perhaps to crave the 
 indulgence of the reader for employ- 
 ing a terminology which does not 
 
 properly apply to the Chinese. But 
 we are speaking less of this language 
 than of a system of construction 
 which might as well be found in any 
 other language. W. 
 
 10 See the Lettre a M. Abel Remu- 
 sat, par M. G. de Humboldt, 1827, p. 
 41. 
 
 11 We find in Greek epic poetry a 
 usage that confirms this statement. 
 If there exist any literary works in 
 which picturesque adjectives abound 
 it is unquestionably the poems of 
 Homer and Hesiod. Men had be- 
 come so accustomed to observe cer- 
 tain substantives always accompanied 
 by the same adjectives or epithets that 
 they finally used the epithet without 
 the noun. Thus, fi y\avicri designates 
 the sea, i\ <j>epeoMos the snail. The 
 two ideas were so commingled as 
 ultimately to be regarded as one. 
 In this the poets simply renewed a 
 procedure that is plainly evident in 
 the beginnings of language. Things 
 received their names from some qual- 
 ity or action peculiar to them and 
 which for this reason impressed the 
 human mind most forcibly (substan- 
 tives are derived from verbs and from 
 adjectives). The serpent has its name 
 from its tortuous gait. But when 
 subsequently that which was signifi- 
 cant in a name became obscured and 
 names themselves became more and 
 more signs with a purely conventional 
 value, having ceased to reflect an im- 
 age of a human thought, the poets 
 reanimated their language by adding 
 to the conventional sign an expressive 
 and living epithet sometimes even 
 going so far as to substitute the epi- 
 thet for the sign. W. 
 
 The origin of all names is to be 
 sought in the same direction. It may 
 be said further that the use of de- 
 scriptive adjectives as nouns is by no 
 
THE ORDER OF "WORDS. 
 
 81 
 
 means confined to the Greek. The 
 English furnishes many examples 
 though in most cases the original 
 meaning is not patent. The theory- 
 held by philologists generally in re- 
 gard to the origin of language is 
 that its simplest elements are the sig- 
 nificant roots spoken of above which 
 roots are the expression of a general 
 concept. Eor example, the root ipir, 
 serp, and sarp has the meaning ' creep 
 or crawl' in Greek, Latin, and San- 
 skrit. Our word ' foot ' has cognates in 
 many Aryan languages. Its simplest 
 form is the Zend and Sanskrit pad 
 meaning ' go ' or 'go to.' The same 
 is true of the English word ' wit,' the 
 cognates of which are even more nu- 
 merous. Its primitive signification is 
 ' see.' 
 
 12 " Un brave homme " (a good kind 
 man), "un galant homme" (an hon- 
 est man), are old phrases that may be 
 regarded as single words almost as 
 much as " prud'homme " (expert) and 
 " gentilhomme " (gentleman, in the 
 British sense). If the adjective has 
 a more definite and modern meaning 
 we say " un homme brave " (a brave 
 man), "un homme galant" (a lady- 
 killer). For the same reason we say 
 " de fines gens " and " des gens bien 
 fins." When closely connected with 
 the substantive that it precedes, the 
 adjective retains the gender of the 
 Latin gentes which is feminine, but 
 placed after the noun it conforms to 
 the modern usage. The original sense 
 having been lost sight of it has come 
 to be regarded as masculine. "W. 
 There are in all languages certain 
 words that are regarded as simple 
 but which in an earlier stage of the 
 language were compounds. In Eng- 
 lish there are a good many words as 
 to which we are in doubt whether to 
 write them with or without a hyphen. 
 
 The peculiarity of this word the gen- 
 der of which is determined by the 
 position of the adjective that accom- 
 panies it may have arisen from the 
 struggle between the gender of the 
 Latin original and the natural gender 
 of the idea which it expresses, namely, 
 men, individuals. This struggle ended 
 in a sort of compromise, or we might 
 say it was a drawn battle. In the end 
 usage established the rule as above 
 given. In the other Romance lan- 
 guages the descendants of gens re- 
 tained the original gender. 
 
 13 Compare the English 'a black- 
 bird ' with ' a black bird,' gentle man 
 or noble man, with gentleman and no- 
 bleman. 
 
 14 Demetrius de Elocutione, "Vol. IX, 
 p. 13 of the edition of Walz. 
 
 15 Cf . note 13 on p. 50. 
 
 16 The two final words show that 
 the author refers to a definition given 
 in some former part of the work, but 
 this is not found in any extant text. 
 
 it "The German accommodates it- 
 self much less easily to the precision 
 and rapidity of conversation (than 
 the French) . By the very nature of 
 its grammatical construction the sense 
 is usually suppressed till the end of 
 the sentence." Mme. de Stael, Ger- 
 many. Part I, chap. 12. "W. 
 
 The heaviness of German prose 
 style is a matter of frequent remark. 
 But it is much less owing to the lan- 
 guage than to German modes of 
 thought. Few Germans write as they 
 speak; and there is no reason to be- 
 lieve that one who uses French and 
 German with equal fluency will have 
 any more difficulty in expressing his 
 thoughts in the one language than in 
 the other. It is sometimes claimed 
 too that the tendency of modern times 
 is in the direction of the analytic lan- 
 guages like French and English, and 
 
82 
 
 THE ORDER OE "WORDS. 
 
 away from the synthetic such as Ger- 
 man and Russian. It may be said 
 with truth that Modern Greek is more 
 analytic than Ancient, and the de- 
 scendants of the ancient Latin more 
 so than the parent language. On 
 the other hand, as education becomes 
 general, Greek where it is, spoken 
 tends to return to the synthetic type, 
 while next to the English, the German 
 and Russian languages are probably 
 spreading most rapidly. People will 
 always learn those languages that 
 contain information which it is im- 
 portant for them to have. The Ger- 
 mans modelled their written prose 
 after the classic Latin. This led to 
 the extensive use of the periodic con- 
 struction. In poetic composition it was 
 otherwise, and it is a well-known fact 
 that beginners in German find poetry 
 easier to comprehend than prose. 
 German scholars until recently pre- 
 ferred to use the Latin as the medium 
 for making their thoughts and inves- 
 tigations public to the neglect of their 
 mother tongue. But the classic writ- 
 ers of modern times beginning with 
 Wieland have written prose that is 
 neither heavy nor involved in its con- 
 struction. Of living writers there is 
 a large proportion who write in a style' 
 as clear and straightforward as could 
 be wished. German writers as a class 
 have however been less concerned 
 about the way in which a thought 
 could be most forcibly expressed than 
 about the thought itself. Those who 
 are interested in this matter may find 
 an instructive essay on German style in 
 Professor Hosmer's Short History of 
 German Literature. Professor Hart's 
 German Universities, p. 94 ff ., contains 
 some judicious remarks on the same 
 subject. Yet there is a wonderful dif- 
 ference between sentences like those 
 given in the works above named and 
 
 German of the people as found in 
 books like Grimm's Marchen. The 
 chief reason why classical Latin 
 seems always difficult lies in the fact 
 that hardly any has come down to us 
 as the people spoke. Its remains are 
 always more or less artistic. I can- 
 not help thinking that a language 
 which readily admits the formation 
 of compounds has an important ad- 
 vantage over one which does not, 
 when both are spoken by a people 
 equally civilized. 
 
 18 M. Ad. Regnier, Traits de la 
 formation des mots dans la langue 
 grecque, p. 13, gives to the formation 
 of words the name of ' interior syntax.' 
 This is an entirely legitimate exten- 
 sion of the meaning of the word syn- 
 tax. 
 
 19 The statement that the Latin 
 scarcely allows the formation of com- 
 pound words is perhaps too strong. 
 We find however as we approach the 
 Augustan age both writers and speak- 
 ers becoming more and more chary in 
 this respect. Nevertheless a large num- 
 ber of compound words had before this 
 time become thoroughly naturalized 
 and an integral part of the Latin vo- 
 cabulary. Plautus seems never to 
 have hesitated to form a compound 
 when it suited his purpose, and his 
 writings abound with them. Pacu- 
 vius has repandirostrus, incurvicervicus ; 
 Plautus, turpilucricupidus. Others are 
 coeli-cola, au-spex, mani-pulus, lani-ger, 
 fructi-fer, homi-cida. The Romance lan- 
 guages like the later Latin do not 
 readily lend themselves to the forma- 
 tion of compounds. The English is 
 much less pliant than its ancestor the 
 Anglo-Saxon. The capacity of the 
 Greek and the German in this respect 
 is almost unlimited. See the 3d vol. 
 of Bopp's Comparative Grammar. 
 Also Tobler, Ztsft. fur Volkerpsycho- 
 
THE OEDEB OE WORDS. 
 
 83 
 
 logie, Bd. V and VI, 1868 and 1869, 
 and Schroeder, Die formelle Unter- 
 scheidung der Redetheile. 
 
 20 It is somewhat difficult to find 
 examples in English to correspond to 
 those here given from the Latin and 
 Greek. We may say " the then king," 
 but we are generally speaking prohib- 
 ited from putting other words than 
 adjectives between the article and the 
 noun. Somewhat of this nature is the 
 following from Cary's Dante, though 
 it properly is an example of periodic 
 construction, 
 
 " me, ray wife 
 Of savage temper, more than aught- beside 
 Hath to this evil brought." 
 
 Similarly we find in Acts, " Him, be- 
 ing delivered by the determinate coun- 
 sel and foreknowledge of God, ye have 
 taken," etc. In German there is hardly 
 any limit t"> the number of words that 
 may be placed between the article and 
 noun. I have just met the following 
 sentence in a leading Review: "Ar- 
 beit eines hochst verdienten und nicht 
 minder thatigen, der Wissenschaft lei- 
 der im riistigsten Mannesalter und in 
 voller Kraft entrissenen Eorschers," 
 etc. Here eines in the first line be- 
 longs to Forschers in the last. 
 
 21 A number of similar passages 
 occur in Charles Phillips' speech on 
 Napoleon. I give one : " It mattered 
 little whether in the field or in the 
 drawing-room ; with the mob or the 
 levee ; wearing the jacobin bonnet or 
 the iron crown; banishing a Bra- 
 ganza, or espousing a Hapsburg; 
 dictating peace on a raft to the Czar 
 of Russia, or contemplating defeat at 
 the gallows of Leipzig; he was still 
 the same military despot." 
 
 22 Hermogenes, de Formis orationis 
 I, 3. (Walz, Rhetores Graeci, Vol. 
 Ill, p. 205.) He gives as an example 
 of ir\ayui<riibs the beginning of He- 
 
 rodotus purposely changed: KpoiVou 
 &vtos AvSou fiev yevos, iratSbs 5e 'AXvdr- 
 Teeo, etc. (Chap. 6 begins thus : Kpo7<ros 
 ^v Avdbs fiev y4vos, irais Se 'AAi/ctTTefo), 
 and as an example of op06rris, the op- 
 posite figure 'E7& yap, <5 "Avtipes 'ASjj- 
 vatot, Trpoo-etcpov&a avBpdncp Truv7]p^ Kal 
 tpi\air€x8iiiiovi (Men of Athens, I came 
 in contact with a base and quarrel- 
 some man). That he might leave us 
 in no doubt as to the meaning of x\a- 
 yia<T/j.hs the anonymous author of The 
 Eight Divisions of Rhetoric (Walz, 
 Vol. Ill, p. 588) says that it is pre- 
 sented in those cases where sentences 
 begin either with a genitive absolute, 
 or a conjunction such as 4irel. The 
 reader may further compare a trea- 
 tise in which are found arranged in al- 
 phabetical order the figures cited in the 
 Rhetoric of Hermogenes (Walz, Vol. 
 Ill, p. 708) and Demetrius, de Elocu- 
 tione (Walz, Vol. IX, p. 564). W. 
 
 23 A detailed examination of Cice- 
 ronian periods may be found in Nae- 
 gelsbach, Lateinische Stylistik § 113. 
 Also in Landgraf's ed. of the Oration 
 pro Sex. Ros. Amer. The periodic 
 construction of sentences seems to be 
 getting more and more uncommon in 
 English. Milton, Hooker, and the 
 older English writers generally used 
 much longer sentences than are now 
 current. The following example is 
 from Milton: "As in a body, when 
 the blood is fresh, the spirits pure 
 and vigorous not only to vital but to 
 rational faculties and those in the 
 acutest and pertest operations of wit 
 and subtilty, it argues in what good 
 plight and constitution the body is, so 
 when the cheerfulness of the people 
 is so sprightly up, as that it has not 
 only wherewith to guard well its own 
 freedom, and safety but to spare, and 
 to bestow upon the solidest and sub- 
 limest points of controversy and new 
 
84 
 
 THE ORDER OF WORDS. 
 
 inventions, it betokens us not degen- 
 erated, nor drooping to fatal decay, 
 but casting off the old and wrinkled 
 skin of corruption to outlive those 
 pangs and wax young again, entering 
 the glorious ways of truth and pros- 
 perous virtue destined to become great 
 and honorable in these latter ages." 
 Here we have two thoughts placed 
 parallel with each other. As . . . when 
 ... it argues — so when ... it be- 
 tokens us ... to outlive. Somewhat 
 similar, but less complex is the fol- 
 lowing sentence from Beecher : " We 
 did not in the darkest hour believe 
 that God had brought our fathers to 
 this good land to lay the foundation 
 of religious liberty, and wrought such 
 wonders in their preservation, and 
 raised their descendants to such 
 heights of civil and religious liberty, 
 only to reverse the analogy of his 
 providence, and abandon his work." 
 The period is in many cases Only an 
 amplification of what our author calls, 
 when speaking of the phrase, the in- 
 locked construction. " But in France, 
 which is destined to refute every ob- 
 ject and arrogant doctrine that would 
 limit the human powers, the ardor of 
 a youthful literature has been infused 
 into a nation tending to decline" 
 (Mackintosh). " All this, and the 
 consideration that the daily repeated 
 tone in which a paper publishes or 
 discusses the many occurrences of 
 the day produce a sure effect upon 
 the general tone of the community, 
 
 ought to warn an editor that if," etc. 
 (Lieber). A writer in No. 23 of the 
 Am. Jour, of Philology points out the 
 fact that in French from the time of 
 Montaigne downward there is a man- 
 ifest tendency toward shorter sen- 
 tences. In this autnor he finds the 
 mean sentence to contain 6.02 verbs, 
 in Fe'nelon 4.48, in Voltaire 3.89, Dau- 
 det 3.38. The same article also dwells 
 on the fact that some French writers 
 for the sake of euphony, emphasis, or 
 piquancy are fond of putting the ad- 
 jective before the noun instead of in 
 its regular place after it. The ten- 
 dency toward shorter sentences every- 
 where so manifest is doubtless owing 
 to the desire on the part of writers to 
 bring their thoughts within the com- 
 prehension of as large a number of 
 readers as possible. Even specialists 
 address others besides those who labor 
 in their own department. Compre- 
 hension is made easier and knowledge 
 popularized. Men no longer write 
 for the learned or for certain classes, 
 but also for those who are compara- 
 tively uneducated. Even those who 
 have large ideas are in a certain sense 
 constrained to cut them up into a num- 
 ber of smaller ones if they would gain 
 a hearing before the public. A most 
 masterly discussion of the styles of 
 three leading modern English prose 
 writers may be found in Minto's Man- 
 ual of English Prose Literature, re- 
 published by Ginn & Co. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE RELATION BETWEEN THE OKDEK OP "WORDS AND 
 RHETORICAL EMPHASIS. 
 
 We have seen that the order of words is determined by the ori- 
 gin and natural connection of ideas and that the grammatical 
 dependence of the parts of the proposition exercises great influ- 
 ence on this order ; yet from this point of view we shall not suc- 
 ceed in adequately explaining all the phenomena which manifest 
 themselves in languages, and particularly in the classical languages. 
 There is another determining cause that is among the most weighty, 
 and one with which we have not as yet concerned ourselves. In 
 order to find this cause the written language is not sufficient : we 
 must have recourse to the spoken and living language. Doubtless, 
 some will say that the ancient languages, which are the principal 
 subject of this thesis, speak to us only through the dead letter or 
 their monuments. Besides, when we try to infuse its pristine life 
 into this dead letter the French pronounce differently from the- 
 English ; these in turn differently from the Germans and Italians r . 
 while all probably would be but imperfectly understood by an 
 ancient Roman. "We shall therefore leave out of the discussion 
 all that pertains to the pronunciation of consonants and vowels,, 
 to long and short quantity. 
 
 It behooves us to listen to the ancients who alone are compe- 
 tent judges in this matter, and we shall not be able to add any- 
 thing to what Cicero, Dionysius of Halicarnassus and the Greek 
 rhetoricians have said upon it. We shall confine ourselves to that 
 part of the pronunciation which pertains mostly to the spirit and 
 the understanding and which for that reason is not subject to so 
 many changes : I mean the rhetorical or oratorical emphasis. 
 
 As there is in every word one syllable on which the voice bears 
 more heavily and others over which it glides more lightly, so there 
 
86 THE ORDER OF WORDS. 
 
 is likewise in every proposition a word and in every period a par- 
 tial proposition, on which the soul and voice bear down with the 
 most energy. This accent is the life-giving principle of speech : 
 the other details of pronunciation are, so to speak, nothing more 
 than its material part. It needs this personal impress, this breath 
 of life, or however we may name it, to give a soul to the vibrations 
 of air which strike our ears. In fact you may read the most admi- 
 rable writing, utter the freshest and most original thoughts, if you 
 do not indicate by the voice the shades of accentuation, you will 
 not be listened to ; your ideas will be regarded as borrowed, hack- 
 neyed, though they may have been drawn from the depths of your 
 soul. On the other hand, set off by means of these delicate shad- 
 ings what may have been said thousands and thousands of times, 
 it will be thought new and found interesting, because your empha- 
 sis proves that your words do not proceed merely from your lips 
 but from your soul, from yourself. 
 
 The question here mainly is to find out what the influence is 
 that is exercised on the disposition of the parts of the sentence 
 by this vital principle of speech, that is to say, by the emphasis. 
 Albeit, we do not profess to treat in this place of that infinity of 
 shades which the human voice exhibits when expressing anger, 
 love, hate, and all the feelings of the soul. These shades are 
 more easily felt than analyzed : they are to accentuation what 
 colors are to pictures. But there are other differences of empha- 
 sis which correspond to light and shade in uncolored designs. It 
 is only the latter that we purpose to consider here, for these alone 
 are determined by the understanding, and may in a given case be 
 demonstrated by the reason, precisely as the effects of light in 
 designs is susceptible of logical explanation from the position of 
 the sun, whereas colors are a matter of taste and sentiment. 
 
 The object of this study being thus defined, let us begin with 
 the living languages for which the experience of every day is a 
 sure guide : thence we shall pass to the dead languages which it 
 will be necessary for us to revivify artificially in order to study 
 them in detail. 1 
 
THE ORDEK OF WORDS. 87 
 
 Ascending accentuation. 
 
 The most superficial observer will notice that in French the 
 voice leans by preference and in most cases on the last syllable 
 of words having a masculine termination 2 and on the penultimate 
 of those ending with an e mute. In like manner when a proposi- 
 tion is formed of several words the voice ordinarily rises as we 
 advance, so that the last part of the sentence has the strongest 
 and most pronounced emphasis. We see thus that the ascending 
 accentuation prevails in French. This in most cases conforms 
 strictly to the progressive development of the proposition which 
 in French is the descending order of grammatical dependence. 
 For those ideas which syntax subordinates to others, that is, those 
 which serve to restrict a larger idea, having both a more individual 
 character, and being often tacitly placed over against other ideas 
 which they exclude, should in many cases be accented in a more 
 animated and energetic manner. ' A man of courage ' (un homme 
 courageux) , ' to go in a carriage ' (aller en voiture) , ' to pursue 
 studies ' (faire des Etudes) , are phrases in which the sense requires 
 that the dependent ideas, ' courage,' ' carriage,' ' studies,' should 
 be made more prominent by the voice than the ideas upon which 
 they depend, i.e., 'man,' 'to go,' 'to pursue.' It is, in truth, 
 these words which, according to the rules of French grammar, are 
 uttered after those. Ascending accentuation is accordingly often 
 found to be in accord with descending construction. 
 
 It must however be admitted that this accentuation or emphasis 
 has come to prevail so entirely in French speech that it is used 
 even in those cases where it seems repugnant to the sense. "It is 
 not the young Horace whose lot we deplore ; our pity is aroused 
 by the misfortunes of the old Horace" (Ce n'est pas le jeune 
 Horace dont nous d6plorons le sort, notre piti6 est excited par 
 les malheurs du vieil Horace) . The contrast between these two 
 persons which we wish to make prominent requires the stress of 
 voice to be on the distinguishing adjectives young and old; but 
 in reality the voice rises twice on the name of Horace which is 
 given equally to the two persons that are to be particularly distin- 
 guished from each other. An attentive listener will find plenty of 
 
88 THE ORDER OF WORDS. 
 
 examples illustrating this stability of the law of accentuation which 
 is closely connected with the regularity of French construction in 
 order to make a more marked contrast with other languages, par- 
 ticularly with the Greek which uses the greatest liberty in the 
 accentuation of the parts of the proposition as well as in their 
 consecution and arrangement. It is difficult to make any positive 
 statements about emphasis in a dead language ; there are however 
 certain indications from which we may safely draw conclusions. 
 Nothing is more common in Attic speech than turns like the fol- 
 lowing: fit av apiOfjaS T6 iyyevrp-ai, irepiTTOS tartu ; (Plato, Phaedo, 
 
 105, C.) (If what enters into any number, will it be unequal?) 
 Here we have the interrogative pronoun placed near the middle of 
 the sentence. The sentence from Plato, C H tlo-l ri awoSiSovcra 6<f>a- 
 
 Xo/xevov KO.L irotrqKov rkyyr], larpiKrj KaXeirai; (Republic 332, C.) (The 
 
 art which gives to whom that which is due and appropriate is called 
 medicine, is it not?) This passage cannot be rendered in French 
 nor in most other languages except by two or three propositions, 
 because it contains two interrogations, one asking about persons, 
 the other about a thing. And further, because the interrogative 
 accent cannot affect one part of the proposition without at the 
 same time taking hold of the others also. We have only interrog- 
 ative propositions and none that may be interrogative in one part 
 and not in the other or others : we have none that may be doubly 
 or thrice interrogative for the reason that the rigor of our laws of 
 accentuation requires that the impulse of voice which characterizes 
 an interrogation should be communicated only to the beginning of 
 the sentence and never to the middle. The Greeks introduced this 
 impulse where they needed it ; they repeated it several times in 
 one and the same sentence, and allowed themselves a freedom in 
 this regard even less restricted than the Romans, who in their turn 
 were more free than the moderns. 
 
 There is another phenomenon of the Greek language which 
 seemsfo have a close connection with this accumulation of inter- 
 rogatives. I refer now to the accumulated negatives that do not 
 however mutually destroy each other. This might seem very illog- 
 ical ; but it may perhaps be likewise explained as a sort of fresh 
 start which the voice takes at the middle of the proposition. This 
 
THE ORDER OE WORDS. 89 
 
 impulse of the voice may in some sense be said to take the place 
 of a second proposition which another language would make use 
 of. In fact the two phenomena go abreast and mutually explain 
 each other in many instances. Thus the two questions, " Who 
 killed?" and "Who was killed?" can be combined in a single 
 Greek proposition, Tt's two. icfrovevcrev ; the answer may be given 
 in an equally compact phrase, c O ' Kpurrayarmv rbv "l-rnrapxov, and if 
 the reply were negative one might answer after the same analogy, 
 OiSels ov8eva i<p6vev<rtv. We should answer with two separate neg- 
 ative sentences, " Nobody killed, and nobody was killed." 
 
 The law of accentuation so fondly cherished by the French lan- 
 guage determines very carefully the order which the different com- 
 plements of the same word shall keep with respect to each other. 
 On this point Beauzee formulated the following rule : " Of several 
 complements belonging to the same word we should put the short- 
 est first and next to the word it qualifies, then the shortest of those 
 which remain, and so on, in order, to the longest which ought to be 
 placed last. By this means those which occupy the last place are 
 as short a distance as possible from the modified term." 
 
 The fact is certain, but objection may, I think, be made to the 
 way in which Beauzee explains it. In effect, it seems unworthy 
 of a language so philosophical as the French to be limited by that 
 which is purely external in the signs of thought, that is, by the 
 length of words and by the number of syllables. It is putting the 
 case too strong when he says that grammatical relations lack clear- 
 ness when an object is separated from its governing verb by twelve 
 letters, but that all is clear when the separation is only by eight 
 letters. Another and more valid objection may be made against 
 this way of stating the case. What would be said if the relation 
 of the different complements were not such as this explanation 
 appears to suppose ? Let us take the example cited in the Gram- 
 mar of Beauzde, " To decorate vice with the externals of virtue" 
 (Parer le vice des dehors de la vertu). The two complements 
 should be placed in this order and not in the reverse order, so that 
 the second may be removed as short a distance as possible from 
 the word decorate (parer) upon which the emphasis belongs. 
 
 But is it not more natural to regard the second complement as 
 
90 THE ORDER OF WORDS. 
 
 relating not merely to the word decorate (parer), but to all that 
 precedes? This word is modified first by its object, vice (le vice) ; 
 and these two terms form therefore one and the same idea, and 
 are qualified in turn by the third terra, with the externals of virtue 
 (des dehors de la vertu) . If we wished to add a fourth, for exam- 
 ple, with the hypocrisy which we cannot too severely stigmatize (avec 
 cette hypocrisie qu'on ne saurait trop fletrir) , this modifying clause 
 would relate not only to decorate (parer), but to all that pre- 
 cedes. 
 
 When you have linked together two ideas a fusion of them takes 
 place in your mind, — will you proceed to destroy what you have 
 just made, will you again break up this union of ideas in order to 
 attach a third to the first only and then detach this third when there 
 arises the necessity of adding a fourth ? This would be perform- 
 ing the labors of Penelope. And what is worse, by all these use- 
 less efforts you are trying to break up the unity of the sentence, 
 which can be strongly and satisfactorily established only by com- 
 bining the ideas that enter into it, as above indicated. Now if the 
 second complement modifies, not the first term, but the two which 
 precede it and which form, apart from the third, an idea that is 
 one and indissoluble, it is evident that there can arise no question 
 of a greater or less distance between words and phrases and their 
 modifiers, because they follow each other without break or interval. 
 An explanation of the order of grammatical complements must then 
 be sought elsewhere, and we believe that we are not mistaken when 
 we claim to have found it in the accentuation. The greater the 
 number of men or resources under your control, the greater is your 
 power. In like manner the accent of a syllable is strong in pro- 
 portion to the number of less accented syllables that surround it, — 
 for it cannot be said of any syllable of a word that it has no accent. 
 In pronouncing successively the two terms vice and the externals of 
 virtue the voice will of its own accord rise more on the word ' vir- 
 tue ' than on the word ' vice ' for the reason that there are fewer 
 subordinate words and syllables that serve to bring out the accent 
 in the one case than in the other. The deeper the shadow, the 
 more need there is of light. Owing to the ascending accentuation 
 of the French language we should place the longest modifier next 
 
THE ORDER OF "WORDS. 91 
 
 after the shortest and say, '.'To decorate vice with the externals of 
 virtue " (Parer le vice des dehors de la vertu) . But if you should 
 wish to pronounce with the ascending accentuation, " To decorate 
 with the externals of virtue, vice " (Parer des dehors de la vertu, le 
 vice) , it would require an effort to place the stress of voice on the 
 second modifier, which is comparatively short, after the first, which 
 is much longer. It is this which affects the hearer unpleasantly. 
 
 This disagreeable impression is the result of a sort of violence 
 done to the usual pronunciation, yet it can in certain cases be em- 
 ployed with great effect when our object is to impress vividly our 
 auditor ; to bring into marked prominence an idea with more than 
 ordinary force. Upon such a supposition the sentence we have 
 just condemned may even be defended. It might be allowable to 
 say, " Great God, you dare to decorate with the externals of vir- 
 tue, vice " (Grand Dieu ! vous osez parer des dehors de la vertu, 
 le vice) , if the speaker's intention was to give vent to a violent 
 burst of indignation. Thus we read in Bossuet : ' ' She was con- 
 strained to appear in society and to parade, so to speak, in the 
 Louvre, where she was born with so much glory, all the magnitude 
 of her misery " (Elle fut contrainte de paraitre au monde et d'etaler, 
 pour ainsi dire, au Louvre, ou elle 6tait nee avec tant de gloire, 
 toute l'6tendue de sa misere) . ' ' God kept twelve years without 
 respite, without any consolation from men, our unhappy queen (let 
 us proudly give her this title) , of which she has made a matter of 
 thanksgiving " (Dieu a tenu douze ans sans relache, sans aucune 
 consolation de la part des homines, notre malhereuse reine (don- 
 nons-lui hautement ce titre) , dont elle a fait un sujet d'actions de 
 graces). 
 
 In this case the intensity of the accent is more remarked because 
 it is less supported by subordinate syllables : we are the more 
 vividly impressed because the effect seems out of proportion to its 
 cause. 
 
 After attempting another explanation of the rule which deter- 
 mines the order of complements let us return to this one whose 
 formula, it is true, does not appear quite sufficient in all respects. 
 If there are several modifiers of the same word let us arrange them 
 by reason of their length beginning with the shortest and ending 
 
92 THE ORDER OF WORDS. 
 
 with the longest. So says the rule. It has been deduced from an 
 incontestable fact, it is confirmed by good authors. It has bee& 
 deduced by analysis and decomposition, as all good rules of gram- 
 mar should be, after the true method in physics. It has been found 
 by investigation and comparison that such was the usage, I might 
 almost say, instinctively, of good authors and persons who speak 
 the language well. Grammar came afterward and said: Since 
 men speak thus habitually one should speak so because it is gram- 
 matical ; and henceforth this will be law. But a rule discovered 
 by decomposition ought to be reversed, if one wants to make it a 
 rule of composition. The method of establishing the law ought to 
 have no influence on the mode of expressing it. Without that it 
 would be formulated inversely. I will explain my meaning by an 
 example. 
 
 Beauz6e finds fault with this sentence of La Bruyere : "Who 
 has not sometimes in his hands a libertine to subdue, and lead back 
 by gentle and insinuating conversations to docility " (Qui n'a pas 
 quelquefois sous sa main un libertine a require, et a ramener par 
 de douces et insinuantes conversations a la docilitd) . The author 
 of the Characters ought to have said, according to the grammarian, 
 " to docility by gentle and insinuating conversations." But this 
 modifier which expresses the means of conversion is secondary in 
 the thought of the author. He has only added it en passant; and 
 for this reason while preferring a less harmonious but more correct 
 order he has not assigned to it the last place. If we wished to 
 correct this sentence in order to make it more elegant it would 
 be proper not to displace the ideas, but to give greater extent to 
 the complement, which wounds the ear by its brevity. We might 
 say, for example, " To lead back by gentle and insinuating con- 
 versations to the docility of reasonable minds which is far removed 
 from the indolence of feeble minds." 
 
 This example shows that the rule of the grammarians ought to 
 be reversed. Instead of saying, " Of several complements belonging 
 to the same word we should put the shortest first and next to the 
 word to which it belongs, then the shortest of those that remain, 
 and so on, in order, to the longest which ought to be placed last," 
 we should rather say, "Of several complements relating to the 
 
THE ORDER OF "WORDS. 93 
 
 same word give the most concise form to that which immediately 
 follows the modified word, and, as you go on, give to the modify- 
 ing terms a fuller and more extended form." Speech is the ser- 
 vant of thought, and not thought the servant of speech. For this 
 reason a rule which recasts a sentence to make it conform to the 
 accentuation required by the thought, seems more worthy of the 
 French language than one which, by changing the order and impor- 
 tance of ideas to suit the syllables, makes the thought conform to 
 the fortuitous length of words. A long word does not necessarily 
 embody a great thought. In this sentence of Bossuet, ' ' Henrietta 
 was destined, first by her illustrious birth and next by her unfor- 
 tunate captivity, to error and heresy" (Henriette 6tait destinee, 
 premierement par sa glorieuse naissance, et ensuite par sa mal- 
 heureuse captivity, a l'erreur et a I'h6r6sie), the modifier at the end 
 of the sentence is made up of two almost synonymous terms. 
 Why? Because it is placed after two others of considerable 
 length, and of greater importance to the sense. 
 
 According to the rule of the grammarians the great orator ought 
 to have constructed his sentence so as to read, " Henrietta was des- 
 tined to heresy, first, by her illustrious birth," etc. ; but with this 
 displacement of words he would likewise have displaced the climax 
 of his thought. For the same reason he says, " How many poor 
 subsisted during the whole course of her life by the boundless 
 profusion of her alms " (Que de pauvres ont subsists pendant tout 
 le cours de sa vie par l'immense profusion de ses aum6nes) , and 
 not "by her alms during the whole course of her life." It is, 
 further, for the same reason that he says, "You have exposed, in 
 the midst of the greatest dangers of war, a life so precious and so 
 indispensable as yours" (Vous avez expos6 au milieu des plus 
 grands hazards de la guerre une vie aussi pr^cieuse et aussi n6ces- 
 saire que le v6tre), and not "a life so precious in the midst of 
 the," etc. 
 
 Descending accentuation. 
 
 The law of ascending accentuation exists more or less in other 
 languages besides the French, and appears to be founded on this 
 sentiment natural to man, which makes him take pleasure in prog- 
 
94 THE ORDER OF WORDS. 
 
 ress, in growth ; and because he has an inborn distaste for de- 
 crease, for retrograde movement. In truth, a pronunciation which 
 should continue to grow feebler from the first word of the propo- 
 sition to the last, would end by going to sleep ; but we are aroused 
 by an accentuation which keeps rising and becoming stronger. 
 Men have sometimes amused themselves by making verses in which 
 the first word is a monosyllable, the second a dissyllable, and so on 
 with an ascending progression. These verses are in the form of a 
 club and are hence called versus rhopalici; Bern tibi concessi, doc- 
 tissime, dulcisonoram. After what we have just said on the rela- 
 tion existing between the length of terms and the force of the 
 accent or emphasis, there is in such verses not only progression in 
 the number of syllables, but also in the stress with which the words 
 are pronounced. For this reason they have an agreeable sound. 
 But construct them so that the number of syllables will decrease 
 from word to word and they will be insupportable. 
 
 And yet this descending accentuation which is in so high a degree 
 unpleasant when dominant in discourse, becomes not only bearable 
 but even agreeable when, by intermingling it with the ascending, 
 its disagreeable monotony is relieved. From this point of view I 
 believe the following classification can be established. The French 
 language is almost entirely under the domination of the ascending 
 accentuation while the classic languages are fond of interrupting 
 the advancing movement which it represents and of spreading 
 over the picture of discourse a great variety of lights and shad- 
 ows. 3 
 
 In the first place the harshness of the ascending accentuation in 
 the Greek and Latin languages is often mitigated, especially at the 
 end of periods of considerable length which serve to conclude the 
 development of a thought and to crown, so to speak, an oratorical 
 morceau. We may often notice that after the most significant 
 words, those upon which the voice leans most heavily, there follow 
 yet two or three words which though completing the grammatical 
 construction, of which they form as it were the pivotal points, they 
 add but little to the sense and contain no ideas essential thereto. 
 It is by these words which furnish no material for thought or im- 
 agination, but which are necessary to fill out the grammatical 
 
THE ORDER OF WORDS. 95 
 
 scheme, that the voice descends to its proper level. These words 
 form what has been felicitously called the cadence of the sentence. 
 Examples are abundant. It is in this way that Cicero closes the 
 oration pro lege Manilla. Sed ego me hoc honore praeditum, tan- 
 tis vestris benejiciis affectum, statui, Quirites, vestram voluntatem 
 et rei publicae dignitatem et salutem provinciarum atque sociorum 
 meis omnibus commodis atque ralionibus praeferre oportere (But 
 it has seemed to me that I, invested with my present honors and 
 graced with so many kind offices on your part, ought to prefer 
 your wishes and the dignity of the republic and the safety of our 
 provinces and allies, to all considerations of my own private in- 
 terest) . 
 
 In like manner we have at the beginning of Chap. XVI : Potestis 
 igitur jam constituere, Quirites, hanc auctoritatem, multis postea 
 rebus gestis magnisque vestris judiciis amplificatam, quantum apud 
 exteras nationes valitubam esse existimetis (You are able accord- 
 ingly now, O Romans, to estimate accurately how much weight 
 this authority of his — especially since it has been further increased 
 by many subsequent exploits and by many commendatory resolu- 
 tions of your own — will have with those kings and among foreign 
 nations) . 
 
 At the end of Chap. XIV occurs this passage : Et quisquam 
 dubitavit, quin liuic tantum bellum transmittendum sit, qui ad 
 omnia nostrae memoriae bella conficienda divino quodam consilio 
 natus esse videatur. The words printed in small capitals are the 
 last whose meaning will bear a strong emphasis. Oportere, esse 
 existimetis, finally esse videatur, two words that often serve as a 
 close in Cicero's periods, are necessary to the complete grammati- 
 cal construction, but they do not, strictly speaking, add anything 
 to the thought. It is while uttering them that the voice descends 
 harmoniously from its elevation. They are, as it were, the last 
 tinklings of a bell that are borne to our ears, which we love to hear 
 after the hour has struck. It is well known with what art the 
 ancient orators placed and measured their closes, and that they 
 studied them all the more conscientiously because they felt that 
 these vocal utterances being destitute of ideas, they must need 
 attach greater importance to their corporal and sensible parts than 
 
96 THE ORDER OF WORDS. 
 
 was the case with significant terms. The minute directions of 
 Aristotle, Theophrastus, Cicero and others as to the rhythm and 
 feet with which periods should close are evidence of this fact. 
 
 Let us hasten to put by the side of these periods some examples 
 in which the emphasis continues to rise to the end. "We shall take 
 them from Chap. V of the same oration. Legati quod erant appel- 
 lati superbius, Oorinthum patres vestri, totius Graeciae lumen, ex- 
 tinctum esse voluerunt; vos eum regem inultum esse patiemini, qui 
 legatum populi romani consularem vinculis ac verberibus atque omni 
 supplicio excrwaiatum necavit? Mi libertatem civium romanorum 
 imminutam non tulerunt ; vos vitam ereptam esse negligetis ? Jus 
 legationis verba violatum illi persecuti sunt; vos legatum, omni sup- 
 plicio interfectum, relinquetis (Because their embassadors had been 
 haughtily spoken to, your ancestors determined that Corinth the 
 light of all Greece should be blotted out. "Will you allow that king 
 to remain unpunished who has murdered a lieutenant of the Roman 
 people of consular rank after torturing him with chains and scourg- 
 ing and every sort of punishment? They would not endure the 
 freedom of the Eoman people to be diminished ; will you be indif- 
 ferent when their lives are taken ? They avenged the privileges of 
 our embassy when violated by a word ; will you abandon an embas- 
 sador who has been put to death with every cruelty?). One needs 
 only to read these sentences to feel that which is characteristic 
 of them and which is perfectly expressed in the emphasis that is 
 not weakened by a cadence but keeps on getting more intense to 
 the last word. 4 In these vigorous phrases you see the orator in 
 the attack, you see him constraining the will of his hearers : they 
 axe, to use the figure of Quintilian, like arrows, and their sharp 
 points bury themselves in the soul of the hearer. If we examine 
 them more closely we shall find that each of the three periods is 
 composed of two parts, but it is only the second which terminates 
 in this violent manner. The first, which occupies its place only to 
 make a contrast with the second and to heighten its energy, has a 
 more regular and tranquil march and terminates with a harmonious 
 subsidence of the oratorical emphasis. Let us add some examples 
 from the Greek. Demosthenes in one of his admirable compari- 
 sons uses this well rounded and harmonious form of expression : 
 
THE ORDER OF WORDS. 97 
 
 OoTrep yap oi/aas, ot/xai, /cai irXoiov /cat rail' aAAa>]/ tSv to, Ka,T(j>$ev l&xy- 
 porar etvat 8ei, ouru> Kai Tail/ 7rpa£ea)v ras ap^as Kal Tas VTro^eTeis, aXtj- 
 
 #as «at StKatas tivai xpoo-ijKti (Just as, I think, the lowest parts of a 
 house and a ship and other like things need to be the strongest, so 
 likewise the foundations and first principles of actions ought to be 
 true and just) . It may be remarked that the cadence elrai -n-po- 
 ot;k€i like esse videatur does not sink directly but rises a little 
 toward the end, thus making it finer and more stately. But when 
 the orator castigates the apathy of the Athenians his period ends 
 with a barsh emphasis : Ov Sr] Oavfuavrov icrnv ei orpaTeuop.evos Kal 
 ttovuiv Ikilvo's avros Kal TrapuV i<f> airacri Kal p.r/8iva Kaipbv p.r]S 3>pav 
 irapaXtiTTiov ij/Aaiv fieWovrwv Kal \^y]t^it,op.iviav Kal irvv6avop.ivu>v irepiyt.y- 
 
 vertu (Verily, it is not surprising if that man, by leading his army in 
 person, by enduring hardship with them, by being everywhere pres- 
 ent himself and neglecting no occasion nor season, gets the better 
 of us wbo are everlastingly getting ready and voting decrees and 
 making inquiries) . 
 
 I would designate these two kinds of periods as periods with 
 masculine terminations and periods with feminine terminations, 
 because they produce an effect analogous to that of masculine and 
 feminine rhymes. In fact this terminology owes its existence 
 to the circumstance that most of the adjectives are accented on 
 the final syllable in the masculine and on the penult in the femi- 
 nine gender. In the sixteenth century the e when silent was called 
 the feminine e. Besides one perceives just as in these periods that 
 there is something virile and vigorous in masculine rhymes, and 
 something gentle and tender in feminine rhymes. 5 Might one not 
 be justified in claiming to find a symbolic expression of these shades 
 of character in the very formation of the genders of the adjective ? 
 Might not the weakening of the final a of the Latin, the apocope 
 of the final syllable us, so common in the French language, have 
 been caused by a sort of impalpable feeling of these shades of 
 difference? Bonus bon bonne, divinus divin divine, generosus 
 ginireux ginireuse. One cannot hear these words pronounced, 
 though one may not know their meaning, without feeling an inde- 
 finable something virile in their sound that suddenly darts forth 
 and then stops abruptly. That cadence, on the contrary, which 
 
98 THE ORDER OF WORDS. 
 
 gradually retards the movement, has a more gentle, one might 
 almost say effeminate, character. The poetry of antiquity also 
 affords some analogies in the various caesuras that are designated 
 as masculine and feminine. 
 
 We have thus had an example of the descending accentua- 
 tion ; but there is another, more important and more extensive in 
 its application. When the imagination is vividly impressed by an 
 idea, or even when a sentiment that is stronger than the man who 
 entertains it, escapes him almost in spite of himself, the most 
 expressive term and fullest of that which occupies his soul, ordi- 
 narily the goal of the discourse (see Chap. I) , is put at the begin- 
 ning of the sentence, and on this the greatest stress of voice. 
 Scaevola when disclosing to Pyrrhus who the strange man is that 
 dares defy the king even in his own tent, says to him, Romanus 
 civis sum (Livy II, 12). The whole force of the disclosure lies in 
 the first word. Without premeditation, without preamble, this word 
 Roman suddenly illumines this unknown person and this incom- 
 prehensible action. The other two words are added merely to 
 complete the construction. Besides, the ancient languages fre- 
 quently use this vivid and pathetic emphasis where the circum- 
 stances are not so startling. In the Apology, Socrates represents 
 himself as addressed with this remark, " This man does not believe 
 in the divinity of the sun, because he claims that it is a stone." 
 'Ava£ay6pov otei Karriyopeiv, replies he, Do you think you are accusing 
 Anaxagoras? By the sole name of Anaxagoras, which is placed 
 first, Socrates shows the entire insincerity of his accusers. Let us 
 add another example of the emphasis which naturally attaches to 
 the first word of a sentence and raises it above others. Lysias in 
 his judicial harangues often addresses himself to the witnesses, 
 requesting them to corroborate what he says. The following form 
 of expression is very frequent : ko.1 ko.\u /j,oi tovs papTvpas, koI fwi 
 di/a/3i;Te rovrojv fiapTvpe;. The main idea p.dpTvpK is thrown to the 
 end of the sentence — the accentuation is ascending. In a single 
 instance (Contra Agor. § 66) the orator uses this form, '12s 8' akijOrj 
 \£yu>, fidprvpai koXcl, but a little farther along he returns to the 
 usual order. What is the motive of this exception, which is the 
 less to be attributed to chance as the formula has the sanction of 
 
THE ORDER OF WORDS. .99 
 
 veiy frequent usage ? Lysias is accusing Agoratus. He lays to 
 his charge all imaginable crimes against the state ; he caps the 
 climax by accusing him of crimes against persons. He reproaches 
 him with being an adulterer, rapidly but with intense exaspera- 
 tion. For this reason he omits the articles and pronouns which 
 he usually employs in this formula. For the same reason too the 
 principal word, witnesses, comes first to his mind and is uttered 
 forthwith. " Call" is therefore a word of only secondary impor- 
 tance. One step further, a little more impetuosity and the orator 
 would have cut off this word altogether and concentrated his whole 
 thought in the one energetic exclamation (Laprvpas. 
 
 The examples of a purely descending accentuation or emphasis 
 that we have given fall within a circle of two or three words ; nor 
 do we believe it would be easy to find any of greater extent. A 
 descending accentuation which should extend over a longer sen- 
 tence would be disagreeable. It is natural to require that the 
 voice should recover itself : and this is exactly what we see taking 
 place in the ancients. They furnish us with many sentences, and 
 among them some of their finest, of which the emphasis is divided 
 between the first and last word. 6 
 
 These two accents have not however the same value : that of' 
 the beginning is, so to speak, the spontaneous accent, that of th& 
 end the reflective accent. These differences, nevertheless, are no- 
 reason for saying that the orators failed to recognize their effect, 
 and likewise to calculate the place of the one as well as the other. 
 Nature has sometimes the effect of art. We hasten to add hera 
 some examples. Demosthenes, recalling the days of consternation 
 which preceded the battle of Chaeronea, those clays in which a 
 man was eagerly sought who should give counsels worthy of his 
 native land, Demosthenes cries out, E(pdvrjv tolvw oStos iv Ikuvyj t7j 
 fipepa iyu> (Now there appeared the needed man on that day, and 
 it was I) . What I should like to call the illumination of the em- 
 phasis spreads itself over the words "Etj>dvr)v and iyu>, which are 
 placed in relief at the beginning and end of the sentence ; the rest 
 is placed in the shadow. The former has, as it were, escaped in 
 the eagerness that hurries the orator along, and this verb does in 
 reality bear in its termination the secret of the sentence, the iym 
 
100 THE ORDER OF WORDS. 
 
 which the speaker sees from the beginning but which he kept back, 
 kept waiting in order to hurl it with greater iclat into the midst of 
 his auditors. 
 
 There is a similar arrangement in another place in the same 
 chapter. IIoAAaiag Se tov KrjpvKos cpa>T(JvTos, avurrar oiSets (Though 
 the crier often repeated the invitation (to speak), no one rose). 
 All the energy of the accentuation is concentrated in the words 
 ■jroWaKts and oiSei's. 7 It is not necessary to lean on the two verbs 
 because they are ahead}' in the sentence just preceding and are 
 no longer of much importance. In order to get examples from the 
 Latin we need only recall these well-known passages from Cicero : 
 Patere tua consilia non sentis ? constrictam jam horum omnium 
 conscientia teneri conjurationem tuam non vides ? Ad mortem te, 
 Catilina, dud jussu consults jampridem oportebat. Ltjget senatus, 
 moeret equester ordo, tota civitas confecta senio est; squaxent 
 municipia, afflictantur coloniae, agri denique ipsi tarn beneficum, 
 tarn salutarem, tarn mansuetam civem desiderant. This last 
 example shows that a purely descending accent is suited only to 
 very short sentences. Twice do incidental sentences fall into the 
 descending movement, but the more extended ones are plainly 
 animated by the contrary movement. This disposition of words 
 recalls the precept given by the masters of the oratorical art, and 
 among others by Quintilian. He advises the placing of the most 
 weighty arguments at the beginning and end of the sentence and 
 the weaker ones in the middle. We have then the same principle 
 applied to the composition of a discourse and the arrangement of 
 a sentence. The most important places are the beginning and the 
 end ; they are, so to speak, the places of honor both in the order 
 of arguments and in the order of words. 
 
 The repose of emphasis. 
 
 When sentences are of somewhat greater extent it is evident 
 that the positions at the beginning and end of the sentence are 
 not sufficient to contain the emphasized words ; the ebb and flow 
 of the voice needs also to be felt at the middle of the sentence 
 either by secondary or primary emphasis. It is true that the same 
 sentence may convey different meanings, according as the empha- 
 
THE ORDER OF WORDS. 101 
 
 sis is placed on certain words or on others ; the sense must decide, 
 and the arrangement of the words is not an unerring guide. The 
 ancients however liked to dispose their words in such a way that 
 the emphasis required by the sense to be on certain words should 
 also be in harmony with the disposition of the words and should 
 grow out of that disposition, so to speak, spontaneously. A change 
 of accent or emphasis usually carried along with it a change in the 
 order of words, the order of words in turn often indicating to us 
 the emphasis which the author had in mind. There is a mutual 
 correspondence between these two facts. The great perfection of 
 the ancient orators consists partly in the art with which they dis- 
 posed their verbal material so as to make emphasis and correct 
 expression stand out prominently of their own accord. Yet while 
 the orators have given to this art the highest development, it is 
 found more or less .in all authors and in all languages : it is in the 
 genius of the ancients, or as some would .rather say, in the genius of 
 their languages. In fact, if there is an art in which they excelled 
 it is assuredly that of giving a soul to verbal expression. But we 
 must pass from these general considerations to the details of our 
 subject. 
 
 We have seen that the places at the beginning and end of sen- 
 tences, that is, after or before a repose of voice, are the most 
 appropriate for emphasized words. "We have seen also that the 
 accent of a word or syllable is strong in direct ratio to the number 
 of words or syllables over which its influence extends. The ancients 
 did no more than apply these principles in the artificial arrange- 
 ment of their words into sentences. If it is necessary ^tojstrongly 
 emphasize a word, place near it another on which the sense does 
 not require you to put any emphasis. Thus the emphatic word, 
 even when placed neither at the beginning nor at the end of the 
 sentence, will have an advantageous position, for the emphasis is 
 enhanced by the repose of emphasis that accompanies it. There 
 are words which do not express ideas but only the relation of 
 ideas : they are, to use a term of Chinese grammar, the empty 
 icords of discourse. By bringing these into relation with full 
 words, that is, words expressing ideas, you will have placed near 
 the latter not only a repose of emphasis, but a repose of idea, 
 
102 THE ORDER OF WORDS. 
 
 thereb}' adding to the energy of its emphasis. Plato, in the Apol- 
 ogy of Socrates (19 E), passes in review the principal sophists 
 who in his time made a display of their wisdom for pay. He 
 names Gorgias, Prodicus, and Hippias, but he wants to attach an 
 ironical importance to the name of the latter. In order to do so 
 he makes use of a device which could not be imitated in most other 
 languages with the same nicety : he simply adds a little particle to 
 the name of Hippias. This is the passage : "Clo-irup Topyias re 6 
 Aeoi/rtros Kal IIpoSiKOS 6 Keios Kal 'l7T7rtas Se 6 'HXeios. The force of 
 this particle needs to be carefully pointed out. Its principal office 
 is to produce a repose of thought and of emphasis, and thus to 
 enhance the value of the emphasis of the preceding- word. "And 
 Hippias too." The words ' chiefly,' ' especially,' and others of 
 like signification, have a too cleariy defined meaning to render the 
 shade of thought expressed by Se. 8 The delicacy of this shade is 
 chiefly owing to the fact that the Greek particle acts less through 
 the idea that it calls up than through the repose of idea which it 
 causes. We find in the Meno (87 E) a similar example where 
 the author has used the stronger form St;. He says, Tyuta, <pap,lv, 
 Kal urxvi Kal xaAAos (cat ttXovtos Si;. Many more examples are given 
 in the Grammar of Professor Kiihner. In the following passage 
 the particle Se is placed with great force in the very middle of a 
 term that is almost indivisible : Kal o" re SXXoi Trpo6vp.u>s t<3 Tekevna 
 vTrriperovv . . . Kal f) twv Ghrj/3atun> Se iroXts (Hell. V, 2, 37). (The 
 others were zealously serving Teleutias, and the city of the Thebans 
 particularly.) The particle ye is often used in the same way. Let 
 us cite but a single passage in which it serves to exhibit the deli- 
 cate irony of Plato : AAAa, p-ivroi, ty S eyi6, 'Xi/j.oviSrrj ye ov paSiov 
 ama-Tilv ("Whatever one may think of other people, he can't well 
 help believing Simonides). The same enclitic is repeated with 
 great emphasis by Polynices in Sophocles when he addresses this 
 touching prayer to his sisters (Oed. Col. 1405) : 
 
 'O tovS' ofi.aip.oi 7raiSes, aXX ij/j.eis, eVe! 
 Ta o-K\rjpa TraTpbi leXvere rovS' apu>p.ivov, 
 Mijtoi fie srpos #eGi/ or<p<o y, iav y ai toCS' clpal 
 TTarpos TeXfivrat, . , . p,t] p. anp-do-r] re' ye . . . 
 
THE ORDER OF WORDS. 103 
 
 (Oh sisters sprung from the same blood with me, but ye, since 
 ye hear our father imprecating these awful curses, do not ye at 
 least, by the gods, if the curses of this my father be accomplished, 
 do not treat me with dishonor) . It is well known that the parti- 
 cle av is placed by preference after the word to which the writer 
 wishes to call particular attention by emphasis ; sometimes it seems 
 to be even unnecessarily repeated, but it serves to draw special 
 attention to several words of the sentence. Oedipus incensed by 
 the obstinate refusal of Teiresias, cries (Oed. Tyr. 339, 340), TV's 
 yap Toiavr av ovk av opyUjour hrt) k\vu>v ; ( Who would not be angered 
 upon hearing such words ?) The repose of idea or thought afforded 
 by yap and the repetition of av give a certain energy to the three 
 ideas, rls, rotaura and ou. Another verse of Sophocles which con- 
 tains three av among nine words is the following, IIws av ovk av b/ 
 hiKy Oavoip.' av ; (How should I not justly die?) In the following 
 passage the particle Kal is repeated three times, and its force is 
 exerted, not on the word that follows, but on that which precedes : 
 
 Iva Kal 1817s ocra koI £1817 fya 17 xaKia. a ye 8r) /cat oi£ia Ocas (In order 
 
 that you may also see how many forms vice has, so far at least as 
 they are worth seeing) . At least this is the explanation I would 
 give of the apparent transposition of this particle. Sometimes we 
 find it placed before a word with which it does not seem directly 
 connected ; in such cases its sole use is to bring this word into 
 prominence. For example, Kal tovto p.h> tjttov ko.1 Qavp.ao-r6v in 
 place of Kal rJTTGv Oavfiaa-Tov (Plato, Symp. 177 B). Tavra yap 
 fiaWov Kal iiairarav Svvarai toiis evavTiaus (Xen. Cyrop. I, 6, 38). 
 
 It will thus be seen that these little words enhance the terms 
 near which they are placed, not by any meaning that is peculiar 
 to them, but solely by the repose of emphasis which they cause. 
 All particles whatever be their function elsewhere, be it restrictive 
 like ye, or conditional like av, or causative like yap, produce the 
 same effect. The indeterminate adjective n the signification of 
 which certainly does not contain a shadow of gradation or opposi- 
 tion, is employed exactly like 8e and 8J7 in the passages from Plato 
 cited below. We have before us a case of enumeration : Et p.ev tk 
 
 (ppovputv ti irpovSuiKev t) vavv i) (TTpaToireSov tl. Of what use IS the 
 
 repeated ti, if not to give greater emphasis to o-rpaToireSoi'? But 
 
104 THE ORDER OF WORDS. 
 
 let us allow the orator (Lysias, Accus. Philo. 26) to go on with 
 his sentence, iv u> /tepos n irvyxavev tS>v ttoXitZv ov. The word 
 //.epos is separated by two words from the genitive on which it 
 depends, and they are words which have no important nor orator- 
 ical emphasis. Why ? A portion of the citizens is opposed by the 
 whole city, //.epos tS>v ttoXltw and oX-q -fy ttoXl's ; the arrangement 
 of the words takes the place of //.oW. Let us go on : rats eo-xarais 
 av ^lats ifyfuovTo. Here we have again the particle av placed, 
 not next to the verb to which it relates, but near the pathetic 
 adjective. The whole passage reads, a£iov 8k ko.1 roSe IvOvpvrjOrjvai, 
 
 OTL il fUv TIS <f>pOVpLOV Tl TTpOvSuiKCV ?J VaVV r) OTpaToVeSoV Tl, eV <J< //.epOS 
 
 TU£Tvyx av£ T ™ v ttoXutSiv ov, reus eo-xaTotts av i&jiuovTO, ovtos 8e irpoSovs 
 SXrjv rrjv 7toA.iv ov\ cm-cos Ti\i.taprfir\o-ZTai irapao-K.eo6.tf.Tai (It is well to 
 remember that if any one had betrayed a ship or an army however 
 small, he would have suffered the death penalty, but this fellow 
 after betraying a whole city, etc.) . 
 
 The harangue from which the last extract has been made fur- 
 nishes, some lines further on, an example of a particle whose 
 emphasis is enhanced by two other particles surrounding it. Tis 
 yap av ttotc fyqTtup ivtdvfjLyjOrj . . . (What orator would ever have 
 imagined) . Here Lysias in order to point out the impossibility of 
 such a supposition, leans on the conditional particle which corre- 
 sponds very nearly to the expression would have been able (aurait 
 pu) of the English, and in order to detach this particle from every 
 term of greater importance which might weaken it, he places it 
 between two other particles pronounced without support. This 
 artificial arrangement which produces a pleasing effect for the full 
 words (signs of ideas) appears to be necessary to attract the empha- 
 sis upon particles that are habitually pronounced lightly. 
 
 This interruption which gives more energy to the adjoining words 
 is often produced with even greater effect by certain words and 
 phrases that form a brief parenthesis in the middle of the sentence. 
 Of this kind are oi/iai, e//,otye So/ceiv, u> aVSpes 'AO-qvaloi, i<f>r], and many 
 other short phrases interjected between words, breaking their con- 
 tinuity but bringing into prominence their emphasis, E« 8e ye, ot/xai, 
 rots aAAas TrepuWres 7rdA.ets . . . eis rvpawiSas ZXkovcti Tas ■jroA.iTetas. 
 Tragic poets, says Plato (Rep. 568 C), shall be excluded from our 
 
THE ORDER OF WORDS. 105 
 
 commonwealth : let them go and mislead other cities. The author 
 wishing to bring the word other into prominence has placed before 
 it, not counting the article and the preposition, two particles and 
 one of the short parenthetic words named above, while close after 
 it he has put a participle which separates it from its substantive. 
 UoOev ovv, 2<£t7, u> ^aj/Cjoares, tS>v tolovtoiv ayadbv iiraSbv Xrjij/ofieOa, 
 oraSfy a-6, ecf>rj, rjfuas c«roA.et7reis ; (Plat. Phaedo, 78 A) (And where 
 shall we find a good charmer, Sokrates, he asked, now that you 
 are leaving us ?) It was of no use to repeat ecj>i} unless it was 
 intended to give a more intense emphasis to the pronoun o-v. 
 Parya inquis, res est. A philosophis, inquis, ista sumis. Tkium- 
 phabat, quid quaeris, Hortensius (Cic. Paradox, chap. II ; Ad 
 Attic. I, 16) . 
 
 The particles being the lightest elements of the sentence one 
 need be little surprised that the ancients transposed and even 
 repeated them at their pleasure in order to produce certain effects 
 of accent and emphasis. The same thing may be said of the 
 parenthetic words and phrases of which we have just spoken. 
 But the ancients went even farther in this direction. They trans- 
 posed all the parts of the sentence ; they arranged the verbs, sub- 
 stantives and all the constituent elements of speech solely to pro- 
 duce these effects. In all that we say there are certain words that 
 embody thoughts, and there are others of a parasitic nature that 
 we add because we are compelled to do so by the nature of spoken 
 language ; for in order to be clear we must conform to a certain 
 scheme or framework established by usage. These latter words 
 are what I think may be properly designated as the fillings of the 
 sentence. The energy of the thought is enfeebled ; but such is 
 the necessity imposed by the essential difference between thought 
 and speech that even the most concise writers are constrained by 
 it. They could not ignore it if they would. The secondary terms 
 obscure the principal ones, yet one dares not ignore them. This 
 is an obstacle which seems insurmountable, and yet the ancients 
 have shown that they know how to overcome it or even turn it into 
 an advantage. They had the skill to use what must almost of 
 necessity attenuate the thought, in such a way as to reinforce its 
 energy. They achieved these admirable results by the tact they 
 
106 THE ORDER OF WORDS. 
 
 displayed in disposing all the elements of the sentence. It is thus 
 that they have shown themselves the true artists of speech. 
 
 Some one, for example, is relating a general's feats of arms. 
 Clearness requires that the same proper name should be often 
 repeated, but elegance requires its suppression : place it therefore 
 under the shadow, so to speak, of other words more strongly em- 
 phasized. This is what Xenophon has done, first for Thimbron, 
 then for Dercyllides, in the third book of his Hellenics. Kal crvv 
 p.kv TavTTj rrj crrpaTia, opuiv ®ip.fipwv to Itttvlkov, es to ttcSlov ov Kare/3aivcv 
 (chap. 5). "We glide over the proper name because we are look- 
 ing for the object of the participle bpSiv. T Hv 8e as (7ro'Aets) do-tferas 
 ovcras Kal Kara. Kparos o ®ip./3pu>v iXd/iftavov (chap. 7). 'Hi/ 8k /cat 
 irpoo-9ev 6 AepKtXXt'Sas 71-oAc/aios t(3 $apvaj3a£a> (chap. 9). 'Os 8k Tavra 
 iyevero, iX9o)v 6 Aep/aAAi'Sas es Tqv BidvwSa ®paKrjv Iku Sie^ti/m^ey. 
 Kai to. p,kv SXXa 6 Aep/aAAiSas ao-(f>aXu>s <p£pu>v Kal aytov tyjv BidwtSa 
 
 StcT&Vei. (Bk. Ill, 2, 2) . It would hardly be possible in a modern 
 language to find a place for these nouns where their repetition in a 
 sentence would be so little unpleasant to the ear as in Greek. 
 
 There are words that signify but little and manifest a dis- 
 position to retire within the recesses of the sentence. Of this 
 number is the participle exwv which by losing its verbal value often 
 becomes little more than a preposition. It sometimes precedes its 
 object just like the prepositions ; but sometimes — and it would 
 seem that this disposition of it is the most elegant — it is so inlocked 
 among other more important words that it is hardly noticed in 
 the pronunciation. Tous 8k dro S/wycas tj}s Trap' 'EAA^cnroi/Toi/ o-u/x- 
 fiaXeiv <f>ao-l Taficaov t\ovTa ets Kai5orpou ir&iov (Xen. Cyr. II, 1,5). 
 (But the dwellers in Phrygia on the Hellespont, they saj- that G. 
 
 will collect into, etc.) Sw/iara p,kv c^ovtcs a.v8pu>v r]K€Te ov pLefiTrrd 
 
 (ib. 11). (The bodies of these men are irreproachable, but their 
 arms and equipments may need attention.) 'ETTTaKoaiovs lx mv o-Xi- 
 
 Tcts, vaBs e)(iav kffiopvqKOVTa, ktA. 
 
 Words on the contrary have an intensity of signification which 
 is expressed by emphasis and by the choice of a suitable place in 
 the sentence for this emphasis. 'Opart yap . . . o! TrpocXrjXvOev do-e- 
 Ayet'as avOpanros (You see to what a height of insolence this man 
 has advanced). 
 
THE ORDER OF WORDS. 107 
 
 Here the pronoun ot expresses the idea of an extraordinary 
 degree : for this reason it is detached from the genitive which 
 defines it and followed by a verb of comparatively little impor- 
 tance, by which arrangement the emphasis on the pronoun is 
 increased. Nw 8' eis roW rjKei ra Trpdyfiara aicr^w^s (But now our 
 affairs are come to such a condition of disgrace). 
 
 Here toW . . . aiaxyvrj^ have the same relation to each other and 
 the same arrangement with ot . . . do-eAyeias above. Ad Hanc te 
 amentiam natura peperit (Cic. Cat. I, 10). Quas ego pugnas et 
 quantas stmges edidi (Cic. Ad Attic. I, 16). 
 
 Generally speaking, feeble words — by which we mean such words 
 as would render the delivery of a sentence languid — if they occupy 
 a prominent place in the sentence, are concealed by their position 
 near a striking word which they serve in turn to make still more 
 conspicuous. Quod indicat non ingratam negligentiam de ke liomi- 
 nis magis quam de verbis laborantis (Cic. Orat. 23) . Here Jiomi- 
 nis laborantis would naturally be put next to negligentiam which 
 they limit, and magis be placed with the participle. Et sibi et aliis 
 persuaserat jojllis ilium judicibus effugere posse (Cic. Ad Attic. 
 I, 16). He (Hortensius) had persuaded both himself and others 
 
 that he (ilium, Clodium) could, etc. 'Ocru) av -n-Xaovwv idcru> p,ev 
 Ikuvov yeviv&ai Kvpiov, to(tovtu> xaAETrwrepw (cat Ifryfyporipia xpricr6p.£0a. 
 ix0p$ (Dem. de Chersoneso, p. 102) . Here the emphatic positions 
 
 are Occupied by Kvpiov and f-)(6pw. HiUKppoveo-Ttpov yap ZcrTLv varepov 
 
 7r3o"t rS>v Ipyasv ras xdpiras d.7ro8i8drai (Lysias, Ace. Philonis, § 24). 
 Here «rriv is of comparatively little importance and irSo-i could 
 easily be omitted altogether ; it is here only to make vo-repov 
 more conspicuous. We notice a tendency in these passages to 
 make the words that receive the oratorical emphasis alternate with 
 feebler words and thus produce a sort of rhythmic movement. This 
 rhythm appertains not to the syllables but to the words themselves 
 that may be considered as forming in their totality either strong 
 or weak tenses. By this rhythm I would explain the frequent 
 hyperbatons in Plato. 'Yftpio-Trjs ei, e<pV> SuK/jares, 6 'AydOwv (Symp. 
 
 175 E). 'AXttOicTTOLTa, €<f>ri, Aeyas, 6 Kefiris, fit 2<o*paTes (Phaedo, 
 
 83 E) . This arrangement though it may appear altogether arti- 
 ficial was doubtless entirely natural to the Athenians, otherwise 
 
108 THE ORDER OF WORDS. 
 
 Plato would not have used it in the familiar conversations of his 
 dialogues. 
 
 In the examples drawn from Lysias two of these strong tenses — 
 if I may use this term in a slightly modified sense — are brought 
 closer together than the remaining strong tenses of the sentence. 
 The sense requires the substantives epywv and x<*p«"as above to be 
 pronounced with energy : they are therefore separated by the arti- 
 cle only. In § 21 of the same oration we find 'Avnc^ara Se ovSev 
 
 Trpoa-qKOVva TrurTevJ-aaa. e$u>Kev eis rtjv iavrrjs Ta<pr]V Tpus /was apyvpiav. 
 
 The two participles in the sentence are of equal importance, need 
 to be equally emphasized and are placed close together so that 
 they may, in a certain sense, collide. The author has still further 
 enhanced the contrast by using words with assonant terminations. 
 Some editors disagreeably affected by this cacophony propose to 
 read irpoa-^KovTi ; but I believe that what in every other case would 
 be a blemish adds a beauty to this passage. The contrast made 
 evident by the juxtaposition of the two words is made more effec- 
 tive by the similaritj- of their form. In order to make prominent 
 the essential difference of two objects it must be disengaged from 
 all accidental diversities by making the objects equal under all 
 other relations. In fact no principle is better known among the 
 ancients. Let us cite a single very striking example from Soph- 
 ocles (Oed. Col. 230) : 'Airdra 8 d.Trd.Tai'S kripai^ iripa TrapaySaAAo- 
 
 p.eva trovov, oi x^P lv > o-vtiSiSuhtw %x uv (But one kind of deceits 
 matched against other deceits, requites the feeling of pain, not 
 pleasure) . 
 
 A word on oratorical rhythm? 
 
 We must conclude then that there is an oratorical (or rhetorical) 
 rhythm, but that it is not what the ancient critics believed it to be — 
 it inheres in words and not in syllables. They seem to have thought 
 of rhythm as necessarily, belonging only to poetry. When their 
 ears were agreeably impressed they attributed the fact to a certain 
 disposition of long and short syllables, not supposing there could 
 be any other cause. But Cicero himself who was a profound stu- 
 dent of this subject admits that what is called a rhythmic style in 
 prose is not always the result of rhythm or metre properly so 
 
THE ORDER OF WORDS. 109 
 
 called. His remark is found in Orat. chap. 59. Idque quod 
 numerosum in oratione dicitur non semper numero fit. He is 
 unquestionably right; for how on any other supposition, can we 
 account for the harmony of Greek and Latin prose even now so 
 sensible to us who hardly take any note of the quantity of the 
 syllables? Hazardous as it may seem, I venture to propose some 
 modifications of the ancient doctrine of oratorical rhythm. It 
 seems to me that it impresses us not only by the detail of longs 
 and shorts, but also by the arrangement of words sometimes more, 
 sometimes less emphasized. 10 Nevertheless I do not dispute any- 
 thing the ancients have said ; the quantity of syllables counts for 
 a great deal in oratorical rhythm. We have seen that it is not 
 only the sense, but also the body of the word which exerts an 
 influence on its emphasis. The longer a word is the more its 
 emphasis will gain in force, other things being equal. This is 
 true not only of French, but of modern languages generally, and 
 it is therefore the more reasonable to suppose the same to be true 
 of the ancient languages. But aside from quantity and metrical 
 feet properly so called there is another element of which account 
 must be taken in order to explain this harmony which is common 
 to all languages, which every one feels and which is called by a 
 name borrowed from the ancients — oratorical rhythm. 
 
 False emphasis. 
 
 According to our explanation, then, the order of words in ancient 
 writers is in great part the cause of the music of their declamation. 
 This or that passage in Greek or Latin may be said to be well 
 written when the author has recited it well mentally ; badly writ- 
 ten on the contrary because the author has followed a false system 
 of accentuation. In fact, to read certain passages from Hegesias 
 and his school, cited by the ancient critics as examples of a false 
 and affected style, we seem to be listening to a man who would be 
 likely to emphasize at random. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, in 
 Chap. 4 of his book de Compositione verborum, uses a passage 
 from Herodotus to point out even in the simplest sentence the 
 importance of the order of words, and the influence of this order 
 
110 THE ORDEE OF WORDS. 
 
 upon the sense. Without changing the terms, but simply by trans- 
 posing them, in various ways, he has known how to mark the dif- 
 ferences of style which characterize Thucydides and Hegesias. 
 Imitating the style of the latter he writes, 'AXwttou p.kv vlos rjv 
 Kpoieros, yeVos Se AuSos, tG>v ivrbs "AXuos Traro.ix.dv Tvpawos iOvtov. 
 The name of Alyattes which is placed first in the sentence and 
 followed by the particle piv is pronounced with a strong emphasis 
 which does not belong to it. If the writer wished to call attention 
 to the paternity of a son of Caesar or of Alexander this introduc- 
 tion of a sentence would be well enough. When Portia wishes to 
 show to her husband that she is worthy of him, she addresses him 
 with Eyw, fipovre, Karon/os oucra Ovydrrjp eis rbv crbv i866r]v oikov (Plut. 
 Brut. chap. 13). Even if Alyattes had been a very illustrious 
 father, the writer is not here making a panegyric but recording a 
 genealogy. If the name of Alyattes is too prominent that of 
 Croesus is too delitescent, and it would merit this place only if 
 it had been named before and were repeated here merely for the 
 sake of clearness. The word rvpawos is also badly placed in the 
 middle of a complex term : iw eWds "AXuos irorapov i$vu>v. These 
 three brief phrases answer the question about Croesus : who is his 
 father ? what is his native country ? what empire did he govern ? 
 vl6%, yeVos and rvpawos are the three points of departure, the three 
 outlines to fill up. It is a singular affectation and at the same 
 time a sin against lucidity to place the third point of departure in 
 the midst of the other words. 11 Finally the word Z9v£iv, detached 
 from its group, preceded by a pause and placed at the end of the 
 sentence, attracts to itself a stress of voice out of proportion to 
 its importance. Contrast with this vicious arrangement the natu- 
 ral one that Herodotus presents to us : Kjooio-os rjv AuSds tiev yeVos, 
 7rcus Se 'AAuaTTEft), Tvpavvos Se lOveuiv tZv evtos "AXuos ■Jrora/xoi). The 
 difference in taste between Herodotus and Thucydides is not con- 
 siderable. Kpoto-os r)v vlbs p.kv 'AXvarrov, yevos 8e AuSos, Tupawos Se 
 tS)v Jvtos "AXuos TTora/jbov iOv&v. May we not suppose that the later 
 writer purposely presented the facts given by his predecessor in a 
 slightly different order so as not to incur the charge of having 
 copied them ? The forward movement of the sentence is a little 
 more regular in the latter arrangement since the points of depart- 
 
THE ORDER OE "WORDS. 
 
 Ill 
 
 ure in the subordinate clauses stand first. The movement of 
 Herodotus is a little more deliberate, more natural, perhaps. 
 Not until he has said, Kpoio-os rjv AuSo's does he proceed care- 
 fully to arrange the divers attributes of Croesus from three points 
 of view. Finally, to speak of all the divergences of expression, 
 tS>v evros AA.UOS irora/AoC i0vS>v is more round, more one; the 
 arrangement idvutv tG>v Ivtos "AXvos TroTa.fi.ov is looser and more 
 free and easy. Dionysius has proposed similar changes in the 
 rest of this sentence, but we dare not protract an analysis that 
 has no longer the excuse of necessity. 
 
 M 
 
 V P. 
 
 'My friend Benloew (De V accentu- 
 ation dans les langues indo-europe~ennes, 
 p. 216 fi.) does not admit the existence 
 of the emphasis here spoken of, in the 
 ancient languages. He believes that 
 the Greeks and Romans supplied the 
 place of the oratorical emphasis by 
 oratorical numbers or rhythm. In 
 the thesis above named he certainly 
 maintains this view with great learn- 
 ing and ability. But has he proved 
 his point ? I confess that his argu- 
 ments have not convinced me and 
 that I am still of the contrary opin- 
 ion. The very pages of Cicero and 
 Demosthenes tell us, it seems to me, 
 how they want to be declaimed. Every 
 one of their sentences attests as I be- 
 lieve the presence, the energy of the 
 oratorical accent. Try to read a Greek 
 or Latin selection : if you do not indi- 
 cate by your delivery the relation of 
 correlative terms, though they may be 
 at great distances from one another, 
 you will hardly be understood. But 
 have not the ancients spoken of ora- 
 torical emphasis ? In several chapters 
 of his first Book Quintilian indicates 
 the method to be pursued in order to 
 teach children to read and write Latin 
 correctly (emendate loquendi scribendi- 
 
 que partes). Therein he mentions 
 among other things certain difficul- 
 ties, though not many, which the to- 
 nic accent may produce in proper- 
 names, Greek words, etc. (I, v. 22~ 
 31). Then he continues in chap. 8, 
 Superest lectio : in qua puer ut sciat, ubi 
 suspendere spiritum debeat, quo loco ver- 
 sum distinguere, ubi claudatur sensus, un~ 
 de incipiat, quando attollenda vel summit- 
 tenda sit vox, quo quidque jlexu quid 
 lentius, celerius, concitatius, lenius dicen- 
 dum demonstrari nisi in opere ipso non 
 potest. (Reading still remains. That 
 a boy may know in this where to hold 
 his breath ; in what place to divide a 
 verse ; where the sense is complete ; 
 when to raise or lower his voice ; what 
 should be read with a modulation of 
 the voice ; and what slower or faster, 
 more excitedly or more calmly, can 
 only be pointed out by actual prac- 
 tice. ) 
 
 The words quando . . . vox seem to 
 designate the oratorical accent. M. 
 Benloew understands it to mean the 
 tonic accent. Is this explanation ad- 
 missible 1 Q. has discussed this accent 
 in a former section. The accent of 
 which he speaks here relates evidently,, 
 not to isolated words, but to the ensem. 
 
112 
 
 THE ORDER OF WORDS. 
 
 ble of the discourse. It is necessary, 
 says he, to note the pauses of voice, 
 to indicate the end of a phrase and 
 the beginning of a new one (ubi sus- 
 pendere . . . incipiai) ; it is necessary to 
 mark the pathetic accent (quo quidque 
 Jlexu . . . dicendum). These are the 
 first and third points that he illus- 
 trates. The second properly relates 
 to the same order of things : it con- 
 cerns the oratorical accent, and not 
 the tonic accent. Is there need to 
 call attention to the words demonstrari 
 nisi in opere ipso non potest ? Q. would 
 not express himself thus in relation to 
 the tonic accent, the rules and difficul- 
 ties of which he has just pointed out. 
 
 2 Syllables ending in an e mute are 
 fem., even though the word itself be 
 masc. ; all others are masculine, though 
 the word itself be feminine. Accord- 
 ingly fem. rhymes are made with words 
 whose ending is an e mute, and masc. 
 rhymes with those ending in consonants 
 or accented vowels. In neither case 
 have these designations anything to do 
 with the gender of nouns. See also 
 note 6 below. 
 
 It is a familiar fact that a great 
 majority of French words, perhaps 
 more than five-sixths, is derived from 
 the Latin. Whenever there is little 
 or no written literature, and particu- 
 larly when there is no systematic in- 
 struction in language, it tends to be- 
 come more and more corrupt; or, to 
 express the same fact in other words, 
 it is subject to comparatively rapid 
 changes. The influence of the vari- 
 ous local dialects spoken through- 
 out Oaul had a disintegrating effect 
 upon the Latin. When a word is 
 learned solely by ear it requires close 
 and repeated attention to get it right. 
 The accented syllable as the most con- 
 spicuous attracts most attention ; next 
 the syllables that precede this one. 
 
 Applying these facts to the transition 
 of Latin words into French, all that 
 followed the accented syllable was 
 either not pronounced at all or neg- 
 lected in the course of time so that 
 the French word was accented on the 
 final syllable. Thus it happened that 
 the Latin word while undergoing the 
 transformation into a French word in 
 some cases lost all the syllables ex- 
 cept that preserved by the accent. 
 In hardly any case is that part of a 
 word preserved which followed the 
 accented syllable. For this reason 
 French words have the accent on the 
 ultimate. For example Lat. 'anima' 
 became Fr. dme, 'villa' ville, ' secu- 
 rus ' sur, ' ille ' il, ' debitum ' dette, 
 'deeima' dime, 'bonitatem' bonte", 
 'comitatus' comte", ' vitium ' vice. 
 
 3 To illustrate how largely the prin- 
 ciples governing the order of words 
 in French apply also to English it 
 may not be out of place to insert 
 here a few sentences from plain nar- 
 rative. Scholars of course need not 
 be told that the influence .of French 
 literature, or rather of French speech, 
 became in time so great over the An- 
 glo-Saxon with which it came into con- 
 tact and conflict that the new language 
 which arose out of the struggle and 
 ultimate reconciliation resembled the 
 French in the order of its words much 
 more than it did the Anglo-Saxon. 
 Almost every point that our author 
 would illustrate by the French may 
 be about as well served by the Eng- 
 lish. The following examples taken 
 almost at random from Napoleon's 
 Ce~sar show that historical French 
 may in many cases be turned into 
 fair English by translating word for 
 word and now and then transposing 
 the positions of the adjective and 
 noun. "Places sur des hauteurs 
 Placed on heights 
 
THE ORDER OF WORDS. 
 
 113 
 
 presque inaccessibles, ces vastes ap- 
 almoBt inaccessible these vast ap- 
 
 pidums gaulois, qui renfermaient une 
 pidums Gaulish, which enclosed a 
 
 grande partie de la population d'une 
 great part of the population of a 
 
 province, ne pouvaient etre reduits 
 province not could be reduced 
 
 que par la famine." 
 but by the famine 
 
 " Quelle joie ne dut pas eprouver 
 What joy must not experience 
 
 Ce"sar en retrouvant sur les bords de 
 Caesar in finding on the banks of 
 l'Yonne son lieutenant, alors encore 
 the Yonne his lieutenant then still 
 
 fidele? car cette jonction doublait ses 
 faithful for this junction doubled his 
 forces et retablissait en sa faveur les 
 forces and re-established in his favor the 
 
 chances de la lutte." Similar exam- 
 chances of the struggle 
 
 pies might be got almost ad infinitum. 
 We have seen in the examples from 
 Joinville that in style the Old French 
 was more like the Latin than the Mod- 
 ern French. The same is true of the 
 English, and we need not go back so 
 far as in the case of the French. There 
 is a stronger resemblance between the 
 style of Voltaire and Macaulay than 
 between that of the latter and Milton 
 or Hooker. There is in the later, par- 
 ticularly the ecclesiastical, Latin a ten- 
 dency in the direction of what we may 
 properly call a modern style of writ- 
 ing. Authors, whether they wrote in 
 Latin or one of the modern languages, 
 may in the matter of style be roughly 
 divided into two classes : those who 
 found their literary models in the past 
 and those who yielded themselves more 
 or less unreservedly to the analytical 
 tendencies of their age. 
 
 4 The following familiar sentences 
 from Chatham may be placed along- 
 side these of Cicero. " A long train 
 of these practices has at length un- 
 willingly convinced me that there is 
 
 something behind the Throne greater 
 than the Throne itself." "If I were 
 an American, as I am an Englishman, 
 while a. foreign troop was landed in 
 my country, I never would lay down 
 my arms, never, never, NEVER." 
 In the speech of Somers on the trial 
 of the bishops as reported by Macau- 
 lay we have a good example of the 
 effect of putting the most important 
 word of a sentence first. "The offence 
 imputed was a false, a malicious, a 
 seditious libel. False this paper was 
 not ; for every fact which it set forth, 
 etc. Malicious the paper was not ; for 
 the defendants had not sought, etc. 
 Seditious the paper was not; for it 
 had not been scattered by the writers, 
 etc." But the system of tonic accen- 
 tuation that prevails in English, is the 
 opposite of the French. The accent 
 tends more and more toward the be- 
 ginning of words. 
 
 5 Feminine rhymes are made by 
 words ending in e mute. All others 
 are masculine. The so-called e mute 
 is often pronounced in French poetry, 
 but not in prose. Many words ending 
 in this way are derived from Latin 
 feminines ending in a, whence prob- 
 ably the name. This final e makes a 
 syllable, and should not be confounded 
 with the final e silent in English. See 
 also note 2 above. 
 
 6 Quintilian, Inst. Orat. IX, 4, 29, 
 Initia clausulaeque plurimum momenti 
 habent, quoties incipit sensus aut desinit. 
 
 7 Compare the beginning of Xeno- 
 phon's Memorabilia and the last part 
 of note * above. 
 
 8 It is for a similar reason, if I mis- 
 take not, that both in writing and 
 speaking persons employ a species 
 of tautology to keep an idea, to which 
 especial attention is invited, for some 
 time before the reader or listener. "I, 
 for my part, will not do it," does not 
 
114 
 
 THE ORDER OF WORDS. 
 
 differ from " I will not do it." For a 
 similar reason we say, "He himself 
 did it." " Birds of the air," " beasts 
 of the field," are simply birds and 
 beasts. " Where in the world ? " " How 
 under the sun ? " simply mean "where" 
 and " how." 
 
 9 The expression which I have trans- 
 lated ' oratorical rhythm ' would be 
 more literally rendered by ' oratorical 
 numbers.' The English writers of the 
 last century especially, often apply 
 the epithet " numerous," in the exact 
 sense of the Latin numerosus, to both 
 prose and verse. " Numbers " of course 
 means poetic composition, but "nu- 
 merous prose " is used of writings in 
 which regard is had in the choice and 
 arrangement of words to their rhythm 
 and melody as well as their sense. 
 
 10 I have the more confidence in this 
 explanation of oratorical number now 
 that I find that it had already been 
 made by Reisig (Vorlesungen fiber 
 latein. Sprachwissenschaft) who dis- 
 tinguishes in oratorical number a 
 "rhythm of thought and a rhythm 
 of word." The two parts of the prop- 
 osition which this scholar calls the 
 " logical object and the predicate " 
 seem to me to coincide with what I 
 have named the initial notion and the 
 goal of the discourse. W. 
 
 11 Dr. Campbell in his Philosophy of 
 Rhetoric gives some good examples to 
 illustrate this point. The Greek fieyd\ri 
 rj "Aprefus 'E<pecrtaiv has been translated 
 into Latin and several modern lan- 
 
 guages in the same order as the origi- 
 nal without loss of vigor. But in the 
 three French versions quoted a dif- 
 ferent arrangement is adopted with a 
 great loss of vigor in each case. This 
 goes far to show that there is a natu- 
 ral order of ideas to which words no 
 matter in what language must con- 
 form. The quotation from Acts iii, 3, 
 " Silver and gold have I none," etc., 
 follows the same order in Greek, Lat- 
 in, German, English, and in other 
 languages. The Beatitudes put the 
 same thought first in all the lan- 
 guages that I have been able to ex- 
 amine ; yet the ideas could be ex- 
 pressed with grammatical correctness 
 in various ways. Only native ability 
 enables a writer or speaker to recog- 
 nize that part of a complex thought 
 which is entitled to precedence ; edu- 
 cation, to express it in the most fitting 
 words. An expression may be made 
 most effective by putting the most 
 important word last. "In their dis- 
 tress my friends shall hear of me 
 always; in their prosperity, never." 
 Pascal says, "The disposition of the. 
 materials is something new. In play- 
 ing tennis both use the same ball, but 
 one places it better than the other. 
 It might as well be objected that I 
 use current words; as if the same 
 thoughts did not form a different 
 body of discourse by a different ar- 
 rangement, just as the same words 
 differently disposed form different 
 thoughts." 
 
Presswork by 
 
 GINN & COMPANY, 
 
 Boston. 
 
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 Amherst College. 12mo. Cloth. 300 pages. Mailing Price, SL55; 
 Introduction, $1.40. . 
 
 O ELECTIONS are given from Catullus, Lucretius, Tibullus, 
 Fropertius, Ovid, and Lucan, with a sketch of the life and 
 ritings of each. 
 
 John K. lord, Prof, of Latin, | ment, and the notes are well adapted 
 Dartmouth College : The selections to their proposed end. 
 indicate good taste and good judg- | 
 
LATIN TEXT-BOOKS. 
 
 61 
 
 A Brief History of Roman Literature. 
 
 For Schools and Colleges. Translated and edited from the German 
 edition of Bender by Professors E. P. Crowell and H. B. Richardson, 
 of Amherst College. Square 16mo. 152 pages. Mailing Price, $1.10; 
 Introduction, $1.00. 
 
 A N especial excellence of the work consists in its terse, sugges- 
 "^ tive, and admirable characterizations of the Roman writers 
 and of their times. It contains just what the student ought to 
 know, and suggests much for the teacher to enlarge upon. 
 
 W. A. Packard, Prof, of Latin, 
 Princeton College : An excellent 
 compendium, in translating and edit- 
 ing which the editors have done a 
 good service. 
 
 A. G. Hopkins, Prof, of Latin, 
 Hamilton College : It is the only sat- 
 isfactory manual of the kind for the 
 use of school and college with which 
 I am acquainted. 
 
 Questions on Ccesar and Xenophon. 
 
 By E. C. Ferguson, Ph.D., Professor of Greek, McKendree College, 
 Lebanon, 111. 12mo. Cloth. iv + 283 pages. Mailing Price, $1.25; for 
 introduction, $1.12. 
 
 /GRAMMATICAL questions on the.first book ofr Caesar and the 
 first of Xenophon with references to the grammars, for the 
 answers. (Allen & Greenough, and Harkness for the Latin ; Good- 
 win, Hadley, and Hadley-Allen for the Greek.) 
 
 D. B. King, Prof, of Latin, Lafay- 
 ette, Coll. : I am much pleased with 
 the general character of the ques- 
 
 tions, and have no doubt that the 
 book will prove very suggestive to 
 many teachers and to students as well. 
 
 Auxilia Vergiliana; or, First Steps in Latin 
 
 Prosody. 
 
 By J. M. Whiton, PhD. 12mo. Paper cover. Mailing Price, 20 cents ; 
 Introduction, 15 cents. 
 
 TNTENDED to 'facilitate the mastery of metre and rhythm at 
 the very outset of the study of Latin Poetry. 
 
 A. H. Abbott, Prin. of Little Blue 
 School, Farmington, Me.. I have 
 never seen elsewhere Latin prosody 
 
 made so plain. We shall at once 
 adopt it. 
 
62 LATIN TEXT-BOOKS. 
 
 Ginn & Company's Classical Atlas. ■ 
 
 By A. Keith Johnston, LL.D., F.B.G.S., aided by the Rt. Honorable 
 W. E. Gladstone, Prime Minister of England. Revised in 1885 with 
 the co-operation of leading British and American scholars. Mailing 
 Price, $2.30 ; for introduction, $2.00. See full description under the 
 head of Geography. 
 
 Classical Wall Maps. 
 
 Engraved by W. & A. K. Johnston, Edinburgh. See the list and the 
 prices, under the head of Geography. 
 
 King's Latin Pronunciation. 
 
 A brief outline of the Roman, Continental, and English methods, by 
 D. B. Ktng, formerly Professor of Latin in Lafayette College. 12mo. 
 Cloth. 24 pages. Introduction Price, 25 cents. 
 
 The Latin Verb. 
 
 Blustrated by the Sanskrit. By C. H. Pakkhubst, formerly of Willis- 
 ton Seminary; now pastor of the Madison Square Church, New York. 
 12mo. Cloth. 55 pages. Mailing Price, 40 cents; Introduction, 35 cents. 
 
 T^VESIGNED to familiarize the student with the earlier and the 
 later forms, to show how the latter were corrupted from the 
 former, and to introduce the student to comparative grammar. 
 
 Maduig's Latin Grammar. 
 
 Carefully revised by Thomas A. Thacheb, Professor of Latin, Yale 
 College. 12mo. Half morocco. 515 pages. Mailing Price, $2.50; In- 
 troduction, $2.25. 
 
 TTTHATEVER may be the preferences for one or another manual 
 of Latin grammar, the scholars of the country agree in regard- 
 ing this as of the highest authority. 
 
 H. A. Frieze, Prof, of Latin, Uni- 
 versity of Michigan : As a grammar 
 for reference, and for the cultivation 
 
 of thorough scholarship in Latin, I 
 think it unequalled. 
 
 The Adelphoe of Terence. 
 
 Carl Dziatzko's Text. Edited with stage directions by Henry Preble, 
 Instructor in Latin, Harvard College. Paper. 56 pages.* Mailing Price, 
 30 cents; for introduction, 25 cents. 
 
LATIN TEXT-BOOKS. 
 
 63 
 
 White's Junior Student's Latin-English Lexicon. 
 
 By the Rev. J. T. "White, D.D. (Oxford), Rector of St. Martin's, Ludgate, 
 London. Revised edition. Square 12mo. 662 pages. Morocco back- 
 Mailing Price, $1.90; Introduction, $1.75. 
 
 White's Junior Student's Latin-English and Eng- 
 
 lish-Latin Lexicon. 
 
 Revised edition. Square 12mo. 1053 pages. Sheep. Mailing Price, 
 $3.30; Introduction, $3.00. 
 
 White's Junior Student's English-Latin Lexicon. 
 
 Revised edition. Square 12mo. Morocco. 392 pages. Mailing Price, 
 $1.65; Introduction, $1.50. 
 
 /"CONVENIENT and accurate lexicons, sufficiently comprehensive 
 for the use of junior students, and sold at low prices. 
 
 The Athenseum, London: The 
 accurate scholarship and careful 
 execution by which the work is dis- 
 tinguished are highly creditable to 
 the editor. 
 
 The Nation : The etymologies are 
 trustworthy, so far as we have been 
 able to examine. There is nothing: 
 so good elsewhere. 
 
 An Etymology of Latin and Greek. 
 
 With a Preliminary Statement of the New System of Indo-European 
 Phonetics, and Suggestions in regard to the study of Etymology. By 
 Charles S. Halset, A.M., Principal of the Union Classical Institute, 
 Schenectady, N.Y. 12mo. Cloth. 272 pages. Mailing Price, $1.25; 
 Introduction, $1.12. 
 
 rpHIS work presents the subject in a systematic form, on a new 
 and simple plan, giving great prominence to the derivation of 
 English words, and serviceable as a class-book and for reference. 
 This is the first schoolbook to set forth in English the new system 
 of Indo-European Phonetics. 
 
 J. H. Heinr . Schmidt, in the ' ' Ber- 
 liner Philologische Wochenschrift" : 
 This work is characterized by a very 
 convenient and practical arrange- 
 ment. It holds throughout the sys- 
 
 tem of etymology founded upon the 
 latest phonetic views. It would be 
 very desirable to have in the German 
 language such a book, presenting for 
 beginners a clear view of the subject. 
 
GREEK TEXT-BOOKS. 
 Goodwin's Greek Grammar. 
 
 By William W. Goodwin, Ph.D., Eliot Professor of Greek Literature 
 in Harvard College. Revised and Enlarged Edition. Published in 
 December, 1879. 12mo. Half morocco. 425 pages. Mailing Price, 
 $1.65; Introduction, $1.50; Allowance for old book, 50 cents. 
 
 rpHE object of this Grammar is to state general principles clearly 
 and distinctly, with special regard to those who are preparing 
 for college. 
 
 In the new edition many important changes have been made. 
 The part relating to the inflection of the Verb has been entirely 
 rewritten, and increased from fifty to one hundred pages. Part 
 III., on the Formation of Words, has been added in this edition. 
 Part V., on Versification, is almost entirely new, and follows to a 
 great extent the principles of J. H. H. Schmidt's Rhythmic and 
 Metric. The other parts, especially the Syntax, have been thor- 
 oughly revised, and numerous additions have been made. The 
 Catalogue of Verbs has been greatly enlarged, and each verb is 
 now referred to its proper class in the classification of G. Curtius, 
 which is adopted in the Grammar itself. The sections on the Syntax 
 of the Verb are generally condensed from the author's larger work 
 on the Greek Moods and Tenses, to which advanced students, and 
 especially teachers, are referred for a fuller exposition of many 
 matters which are merely hinted at in the Elementary Grammar. 
 
 The complete and continued success of Goodwin's Greek Gram- 
 mar has been very remarkable. The following figures may be of 
 interest : — 
 
 According to the best information of the publishers (Jan. 1, 
 1886), Goodwin's Grammar was used in 1721 colleges and schools, 
 while its nearest competitor was found in only 502. 
 
 This new edition has been published also by Macmillan & Co. in 
 London, and is commended by British authorities as "the best 
 Greek Grammar of its size in the English language." 
 
66 
 
 GREEK TEXT-BOOKS. 
 
 First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis. 
 
 With an illustrated Vocabulary. Edited by Professors W. W. Goodwin 
 and John Williams White, of Harvard University. 12mo. Half 
 morocco. 355 pages. Mailing Price, $ 1.65; Introduction, $1.50 ; Allow- 
 ance, 25 cents. 
 
 Without Vocabulary. Mailing Price, $1.10 ; Introduction, $1.00 ; 
 Allowance, 25 cents. 
 
 fPHE Notes are copious, and much grammatical aid is given, 
 chiefly in the form of references to the Grammar. 
 
 A colored map is added, giving the route of the Ten Thousand. 
 
 Until Professor White's Illustrated Vocabulary is ready, Profes- 
 sor Crosby's complete Lexicon will be bound with this edition. 
 
 Goodwin's Greek Reader. 
 
 Edited by Professor W. W. Goodwin, of Harvard University. 12mo. 
 Half morocco. 384 pages. Mailing Price, $1.65 ; Introduction, $1.50 ; 
 Allowance, 25 cents. 
 
 /CONSISTING of Selections from Xenophon, Plato, Herodotus, 
 and Thucydides; being the full amount of Greek Prose 
 required for admission to Harvard University. With colored 
 maps, notes, and references to the revised and enlarged edition of 
 Goodwin's Greek Grammar. 
 
 B. L. Cilley, Professor of Greek, 
 Phillips Exeter Academy : The selec- 
 tions are good, the notes are well 
 
 written, and, what I think much of, 
 the type is clear and the book looks 
 attractive. 
 
 Cebes' Tablet. 
 
 Edited with Introduction, Notes, Vocabulary, and Grammatical Ques- 
 tions, by Eichard Parsons, Professor of Greek, Ohio Wesleyan Uni- 
 versity. 12mo. Cloth. 94 pages. Mailing Price, 85 cents ; for intro- 
 duction, 75 cents. 
 
 rpHIS little volume has arisen from a belief that Cebes' Tablet 
 deserves a higher recognition than it has received. In con- 
 firmation of this claim, editions based upon more modern data 
 and research have recently appeared in Germany and England. 
 
 In its preparation the works of Schweighaiiser, Simpson, Drosihn, 
 Biichling, and Jerram have been consulted, besides some minor 
 
GREEK TEXT-BOOKS. 67 
 
 editions prepared for school and gymnasium use. The monographs 
 of Drosihn (Die Zeit des Pinax) and of Dr. Carl Miiller on the 
 manuscript authorities (De arte critica ad Cebetis Tabulam adhi- 
 benda) have been of service. 
 
 Besides being an entertaining and instructive allegory, Cebes' 
 Tablet is moderately easy to construe, and not above the compre- 
 hension of a boy of fourteen. Books adapted to the first years of 
 Greek are much fewer in number than Latin preparatory works. 
 
 This work is also a bright and lively dialogue, and better on 
 that account than history, which breeds habits of monotonous 
 reading in the young translator. 
 
 It should be put into the hands of beginners in their second or 
 third term's work as an alternative book to the Anabasis, which 
 is in parts a little too military and tedious. It will prove a relief 
 for the latter part of a term's work, and will bear a rather rapid 
 reading. 
 
 As a drill-book on forms and constructions, especially on inter- 
 rogatives and conditional sentences, the work should come into 
 use, to say nothing of its own intrinsic excellence. 
 
 Particular attention is invited to the feature of questions. Be- 
 ginners are so apt after the first few terms to drift away from the 
 grammar, that a work holding them steadily to first principles 
 seems to be needed. 
 
 Selections from Xenophon and Herodotus. 
 
 With Notes adapted to the revised edition of Goodwin's Greek Grammar, 
 and copperplate maps. Edited by W. W. Goodwin, Ph.D., LL.D., Eliot 
 Professor of Greek Literature, and John Williams White, Ph.D., 
 Assistant Professor of Greek in Harvard College. 12mo. Half morocco, 
 vii + 397 pages. Mailing Price, $1.65 ; for introduction, $1.50. 
 
 Greek Inflection. 
 
 By B. F. Harding, Teacher of Greek in St. Paul's School, Concord, N.H. 
 12mo. Cloth. 54 pages. Mailing Price, 55 cents; for introduction, 50 cents. 
 
 T^ESIGNED to economize time for the teacher by furnishing a 
 large number of words for ready use, as paradigms, in the 
 class-room, and at the same time to suggest a systematic and sci- 
 entific treatment of the noun and verb. 
 
68 
 
 GREEK TEXT-BOOKS. 
 
 Goodwin's Greek Mdods and Tenses. 
 
 By William W. Goodwin, Ph.D., Eliot Professor of Greek Literature 
 in Harvard University. Seventh Edition. Revised and Enlarged. 12mo. 
 Cloth. 279 pages. Mailing Price, $1.65; Introduction, $1.50. 
 
 rpHE object of the work is to give a plain statement of the prin- 
 ciples which govern constructions in this, the most important 
 and the most difficult part of Greek Syntax. 
 
 Since 1874 Goodwin's Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb has 
 been included in the list of works recommended by the Board of 
 Classical Studies of the University of Cambridge (England) to 
 candidates for honors in the Classical Tripos. In 1875 it was re- 
 published by Macmillan & Co. in London and Oxford. 
 
 Arthur Sidgwick, Lecturer at 
 Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and 
 Fellow of Trinity College, Cam- 
 
 bridge : The best book on the subject 
 that has been published, either in 
 Europe or America. 
 
 Medea of Euripides. 
 
 Edited, with Notes and an Introduction, by Frederick D. Allen, 
 Ph.D., Professor of Classical Philology in Harvard University. 12mo. 
 Cloth. 141 pages. Mailing Price, $1.10; Introduction, $1.00. 
 
 rPHE Introduction contains a full discussion of all the principal 
 questions arising in a study of this play. 
 
 M. L. D'Ooge, Prof, of Greek, Uni- 
 versity of Michigan : It fully meets 
 my expectations. The notes are 
 
 models of conciseness, clearness, and 
 directness. I am using it with great 
 satisfaction. 
 
 (Edipus Tyrannus of Sophocles. 
 
 Edited, with an Introduction, Notes, and full Explanation of the Metres, 
 by John Williams White, Ph.D., Professor of Greek in Harvard Uni- 
 versity. 12mo. Cloth. 219 pages. Mailing Price, $1.25; Introduction, 
 $1.12. 
 
 rpHIS edition of the (Edipus Tyrannus has been made for the 
 class-room, and is especially designed for those who begin 
 their study of the Greek drama with this tragedy. 
 
 Wm. S. Tyler, Prof, of Greek, I guide in the study of this masterpiece 
 Amherst College : I know of no better | of the old Greek drama. 
 
GKEEK TEXT-BOOKS. 69 
 
 Selected Odes of Pindar. 
 
 With Notes and an Introduction by Thomas D. Seymour, Professor of 
 the Greek Language and Literature in Yale College. The Text is that 
 of Bergk's Fourth Edition, and the Metrical Schemes are according to 
 Schmidt's Euntsformen der Griechischen Poesie. 12mo. Cloth. 300 
 pages. Mailing Price, $1.55; Introduction, $1.40. 
 
 rpHE book contains the First, Second, Sixth, Seventh, Eleventh, 
 Twelfth, and Fourteenth Olympian Odes ; the First, Second, 
 and Fourth Pythian; the First and Second Nemean; the First, 
 Fifth, and Eighth Isthmian; and Select Fragments. 
 
 The full Introduction and Appendix discuss all related topics. 
 
 Orations of Lysias. 
 
 With Biographical Introduction, Notes, and Table of Various Readings. 
 Edited by James Morris Whiton, Ph.D. 12mo. • Mailing Price, $1.10; 
 Introduction, $1.00. 
 
 /COMPRISING the Defence of Mantitheus, the Oration against 
 Eratosthenes, the Reply to "The Overthrow of the Democ- 
 racy,'' and the Areopagitic Oration concerning the sacred Olive- 
 Trunk. 
 
 Selections from the Greek Lyric Poets. 
 
 With an Historical Introduction, giving a brief survey of the develop- 
 ment of Greek Poetry until the time of Pindar, and also Notes for the 
 student's use. By Henky M. Tyler, Professor of Greek and Latin in 
 Smith College. 12mo. Cloth. 184 pages. Mailing Price, $1.10; In- 
 troduction, $1.00. 
 
 Elegiac Poets : Callinus, Tyrtseus, Mimnermus, Solon, Xenophanes, 
 and Theognis. 
 
 Iambic Poets : Archilochus and Simonides of Amorgos. 
 
 Melic Poets : Sappho, Alcasus, Anacreon, Anacreontea, and Simon- 
 ides of Ceos. 
 
 Stein's Summary of the Dialect of Herodotus. 
 
 Translated by Professor John Williams White, Ph.D., from the Ger- 
 man of the fourth edition of Herodotus, by Heinrich Stein. Paper, 
 15 pages. Mailing and Introduction Price, 10 cents. 
 
70 
 
 GREEK TEXT-BOOKS. 
 
 Hellenic Orations of Demosthenes. 
 
 Symmories, Megalopolitans and Rhodians. With revised Text and Com- 
 mentary by Isaac Flagg, Ph.D., Professor of Greek in Cornell Uni- 
 versity. 12mo. 103 pages. Mailing Price, $1.10; Introduction Price, 
 $1.00. 
 
 T7ACH is a masterpiece of its kind, and of unique interest. The 
 Notes are adapted to the wants of advanced students. 
 
 Lewis E. Packard, Late Prof, of 
 Greek, Yale College : It seems to 
 show thorough study of, and sympa- 
 thy with, the author, with a great 
 
 deal of freshness and energy. The 
 blank analyses seem to me an excel- 
 lent device. 
 
 The Seven against Thebes of /Eschylus. 
 
 Edited, with Notes and an Introduction, by Isaac Flagg, Ph.D., Pro- 
 fessor of Greek in Cornell University, xii + 129 pages, with a sketch- 
 map of Thebes. Cloth. Mailing Price, $1.10; Introduction, $1.00. 
 
 A MPLE help is given for those who are just entering upon the 
 study of Greek tragedy, though the requirements of more 
 advanced students have not been overlooked. 
 
 American Journal of Philology: 
 
 Professor Flagg's edition of the Seven 
 against Thebes is marked by his 
 characteristic neatness and reserve. 
 
 Especial attention seems to have been 
 paid to position, and the grammati- 
 cal element is not overdone, as is too 
 often the case in American books. 
 
 Anacreontics. 
 
 Selected and arranged, with Notes, by Isaac Flagg, Ph.D., Professor of 
 Greek, Cornell University. Square 16mo. 41 pages. Mailing Price, 40 
 cents : Introduction, 35 cents. 
 
 rpHE Anacreontics, extremely simple in form and idea, afford 
 excellent material for memorizing and oral practice. 
 
 Philippics of Demosthenes. 
 
 By Frank B. Tarbell, Yale College. 12mo. Cloth. 138 pages. Mail- 
 ing Price, $1.10; Introduction Price, $1.00. 
 
 /CONTAINS the First, Second, and Third Philippics, with an 
 Introduction and Explanatory Notes, and references to Good- 
 win's and Hadley's Greek Grammars. 
 
GREEK TEXT-BOOKS. 
 
 71 
 
 Lidde/l and Scott'u Greek-English Lexicon. 
 
 The seventh and last Oxford Edition, unabridged. 4to. Sheep. 1782 
 pages. Mailing Price, $10.00; Introduction, $9.40. 
 
 Liddell and Scott's Greek-English Lexicon. 
 
 Abridged. Seventeenth Edition. With Appendix of Proper and Geo- 
 graphical Names, by J. M. Whiton. Square 12mo. 835 pages. Morocco 
 back. Mailing Price, $2.10; Introduction, $1.90. 
 
 rpHIS Abridgment is intended chiefly for use in schools, and will 
 be found sufficiently comprehensive for any ordinary course. 
 
 Schmidt's Rhythmic and Metric of the Classical 
 
 Languages. 
 
 Edited from the German by John Williams White, Ph.D., Professor 
 of Greek in Harvard University. Designed as a Manual for Classes in 
 the Greek and Latin Poets. 8vo. Cloth. 204 pages. Mailing Price, 
 $2.65; Introduction, $2.50. 
 
 Wm. S. Tyler, Prof, of Greek, 
 
 Amherst College: It is a treatise 
 
 of rare learning, originality, and 
 thoroughness. 
 
 0. M. Fernald, Professor of 
 Greek, Williams College : It is a 
 book of great value to every classi- 
 cal scholar. 
 
 Essential Uses of the Moods in Greek and Latin. 
 
 Prepared by R. P. Keep, Ph.D., Principal of the Free Academy, Norwich, 
 Conn. Square 16mo. Mailing Price, 30 cents; Introduction, 25 cents. 
 
 rpHE aim of the Editor has been to describe, clearly and ac- 
 curately, in language not too technical, the actual uses of the 
 moods in Latin and Greek. 
 
 Sidgwick's Greek Prose Composition. 
 
 By Arthub. Sidgwick, Lecturer at Corpus Christi College, OxforU ; and 
 Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. 12mo. Cloth. 280 pages. Mail- 
 ing Price, $1.65; Introduction, $1.50. 
 
 "TiESIGNED for college classes, and giving notes on construc- 
 tions, notes on idioms, lists of words with meanings and 
 usages, exercises, vocabulary, etc. 
 
72 
 
 GEEEK TEXT-BOOKS. 
 
 T 
 
 J ebb's Homer. 
 
 An Introduction to the Iliad and Odyssey. By B. C. Jebb, Professor of 
 Greek in the University of Glasgow. 12mo. Cloth, xii + 202 pages. 
 Mailing Price, $1.25 ; to Teachers, 81.12. 
 
 HE purpose of this book is to furnish in a compact form a 
 general introduction to the study of Homer. 
 
 The four chapters deal respectively with four aspects of the 
 subject. 
 
 First, the general character of the Homeric poems and their 
 place in the history of literature ; second, their historical value as 
 illustrating an early period of Hellenic life ; third, their influence 
 in the ancient world and the criticisms bestowed upon them in 
 antiquity ; fourth, the modern inquiry into their origin. 
 
 The Appendix treats of some critical questions, particularly the 
 differences between Homeric and later classical Greek, the differ- 
 ences of language between the Iliad and the Odyssey, Homeric 
 versification, etc., and gives a list of books on Homer. 
 
 The Classical Beview, London: 
 Conciseness, with all its drawbacks, 
 being granted as an absolute neces- 
 sity for learners, Professor Jebb's 
 handbook is as good as it well could 
 be. Within the limits, and with the 
 aim, to which he rigorously confines 
 himself, we do not of course look for 
 
 any very novel views or surprising 
 theories; we expect, and we find, a 
 clear and lucid statement of the most 
 approved results of criticism, in- 
 formed and illustrated by their pas- 
 sage through a mind of singular tact 
 and delicacy of judgment. 
 (March, 1887.) 
 
 Questions on Ccesar and Xenophon. 
 
 By E. C. Ferguson, Ph.D., Professor of Greek in McKendree College. 
 Mailing Price, $1.25; for introduction, $1.12. 
 
 Classical Atlas and Wall Maps. 
 
 Se»full description under the head of Geography. 
 
 Greek at Sight. 
 
 Extracts from twelve authors. Selected and arranged by John B. Ken- 
 deick. Paper. 12mo. 26 pages. Mailing and Introduction Price, 15 
 cents. 
 
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