PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE: AN ESSAY. BY HERBERT SPENCER, AUTHOR OF 66 'FIRST PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY, "SOCIAL STATICS," WITH NOTES BY THE EDITOR. NEW YORK: D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 1875. KD23462 HARVARD ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. PREFACE. If we read the signs of the times aright, we must acknowledge that this is a period of deep research and profound meditation, when men seek to give expression to the laws according to which nature, society, and thought live, move, and have their being. . It is a period of transition from the superficial philosophy of a gross materialism to one higher, deeper, better, because more spiritual, and founded on fact and sound principles. The age makes grand and not altogether fruitless efforts to unroll the secrets of the human mind; it constructs the philosophy of history; it contributes some precious fragments toward the philosophy of mathematics; and in the present pamphlet-for we identify the author with the age-it expresses clearly and well a law from which naturally flow the rules of rhetoric and good composition. We have here the first chapter of the philosophy of rhetoric. The enthusiasm with which it was welcomed by men grown gray in literary pursuits, on its first appearance in an English periodical, shows both its merit and its timeliness. The writer is acquainted with nothing in any language better calculated to subdue the mania for "wild and whirling words" than the present essay, and therefore recommends it to the advanced students of our colleges and universities. Indeed, it can be read with profit as well as with pleasure by "children of a larger growth." B. A. |