Referring once more to phenomena
of vision, every one knows that a patch of black on a white ground
looks blacker, and a patch of white on a black ground looks whiter,
than elsewhere. As the blackness and the whiteness must really be
the same, the only assignable cause for this is a difference in
their actions upon us, dependent upon the different states of our
faculties. It is simply a visual antithesis.
iii. Need of Variety.
64. But this extension of the general principle of economy--this
further condition to effective composition, that the sensitiveness
of the faculties must be continuously husbanded--includes much
more than has been yet hinted. It implies not only that certain
arrangements and certain juxtapositions of connected ideas are best;
but that some modes of dividing and presenting a subject will be
more striking than others; and that, too, irrespective of its logical
cohesion. It shows why we must progress from the less interesting
to the more interesting; and why not only the composition as a
whole, but each of its successive portions, should tend towards a
climax.
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