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The speech above closes with its point, the application of the whole. The appeal to the brotherhood of man (line 10) or to the innate impulse to approach God (line 13) would make an ending obviously inferior because those parts are subsidiary. The law of emphasis, then, coincides with the law of unity in keeping uppermost in mind the conclusion.

9. Next to the end the most emphatic place is the beginning. Introduction being often unnecessary in brief essays, a direct statement of the theme, such as that which results from the revision for unity, may often be made in the very first sentence. In any case, wherever the essay begins, with or without introduction, the theme should usually be stated there. Thus many good essays begin and end with the theme.

10. Prominence of position, however, is not more important than prominence of space. In a short essay especially, nothing of indirect bearing should receive more than a few lines. In the speech above, the illustration drawn from the altar has only twenty words; the allusion to the poets, only fifteen. Elaboration of either would have detracted from a clear grasp of what they teach; and here appears a due proportion of space. Proportion, in fact, sums up in a word this aspect of the law of emphasis.

b. The Composition considered as a Series of Paragraphs

11. So soon as an essay is developed beyond a certain length, it falls naturally into paragraphs corresponding more or less to some division of the subject into parts. A paragraph1 is a part which, during the process of

1 The term paragraph is commonly applied also to what are sometimes called "isolated" or "unrelated" paragraphs. Thus a

composition, has defined itself as one distinct stage in the progress of the essay. It is a unit, but a component unit. As a unit it is marked for the eye by indentation,1 and is governed by the principles of unity, coherence, and emphasis. As a component, being like a link in a chain or a step in a stair, it contains in its first sentence some reference to the preceding paragraph.

12. By expressing the gist of each paragraph in a single sentence, one may reduce an essay to its lowest terms without affecting its coherence. By conceiving, on the other hand, each paragraph .mplified into a chapter, one has a graphic idea of what is meant by the development of a theme. St. Paul might easily have presented the extremely concise Mars Hill speech in more ample form. The ends of the undeveloped paragraphs may be seen by the aid of the summary (§ 6).

13. When a part intended for a paragraph is found to occupy only two or three sentences in the first draught, it should probably be incorporated in another paragraph by subordination (compare § 22). If it cannot be subordinated, it should probably be developed more fully or else omitted altogether. In other words, it should be worked in, or worked up, or worked out. For though theoretically a paragraph may be of almost any length, from one sentence up, yet practically paragraphs of only two or three sentences are almost always fragments.

brief editorial is often called a paragraph. In this book the term is used only in the sense defined above.

1 Since indentation is the accepted indication of a new paragraph, the student is warned never to indent except for that purpose.

2 No reference is to be understood here to the actual process of composition.

Their bearing is so indefinite that they are hardly paragraphs at all. They indicate imperfect composition.

14. Again, when the transition from part to part occupies more than one sentence, it is spaced by some authors as a separate paragraph; but the general custom includes it, even if it extend to several sentences, in the following paragraph. The opening of the paragraph is thus regarded as the natural place, not only for announcing the new point, but also for referring to the last point (compare § 11). Occasionally in long essays a transition may seem quite too long to be incorporated, and so may an example or an illustration. As in the preceding section, the distinction by length, though mechanical, is useful; for except in very extended discussions, a transition, an example, an illustration, must be out of proportion unless it can be incorporated.

II. THE PARAGRAPH

a. The Paragraph considered as an Undivided Whole

15. The paragraph is the logical basis of literary form. Since it has been already defined in its main relation, there remains only the application to it of those fundamental principles that govern the whole composition. A paragraph has unity when it can be summed up readily in a single sentence. The subject of a paragraph is a sentence, not a topic. In many paragraphs such a sentence appears at the beginning, or at the end, or in both places; but unity requires only that the reader should be able to sum up, not necessarily that the writer should sum up for him. Note which paragraphs, quoted in the following pages, state their themes, and which merely imply them.

16. The development of a proposition within the limits of paragraph unity defines the idea or enforces it; defines it, as by specification, comparison, contrast, example, illustration; enforces it, as by iteration, proof, summary, or application. By any of these means, or by all, the idea is carried out so far as is demanded by the purpose of the whole essay. The following pages and the appendix have various examples of paragraph development.

17. Coherence in a paragraph demands, first, a logical sequence of sentences. The thought must go steadily) forward, not round and round, not back and forth, not by leaping of gaps. Moreover, coherence usually demands, in the second place, the indication of this sequence by words of explicit reference. In the following paragraph the words of explicit reference are printed in italics.

First, the people of the colonies are descendants of Englishmen. England, Sir, is a nation which still I hope respects, and formerly adored, her freedom. The colonists emigrated from you when this part of your character was most predominant; and they took this bias and direc- 5 tion the moment they parted from your hands. They are therefore not only devoted to liberty, but to liberty according to English ideas, and on English principles. Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found. Liberty inheres in some sensible object; and every nation, 10 has formed to itself some favourite point, which by way of eminence becomes the criterion of their happiness. It happened, you know, Sir, that the great contests for freedom in this country were from the earliest times chiefly upon the question of taxing. Most of the contests in the 15 ancient commonwealths turned primarily on the right of

election of magistrates, or on the balance among the several orders of the State. The question of money was not with them so immediate. But in England it was otherwise. On this point of taxes the ablest pens and 20 most eloquent tongues have been exercised; the greatest spirits have acted and suffered. In order to give the fullest satisfaction concerning the importance of this point, it was not only necessary for those who in argument defended the excellence of the English Constitution to insist 25 on this privilege of granting money as a dry point of fact, and to prove that the right had been acknowledged in ancient parchments and blind usages to reside in a certain body called a House of Commons. They went much further; they attempted to prove, and they suc- 30 ceeded, that in theory it ought to be so, from the particular nature of a House of Commons as an immediate representative of the people, whether the old records had delivered this oracle or not. They took infinite pains to inculcate, as a fundamental principle, that in all mon- 35 archies the people must in effect themselves, mediately or immediately, possess the power of granting their own money, or no shadow of liberty could subsist. The colonies draw from you, as with their life-blood, these ideas and principles. Their love of liberty, as with you, fixed 4 and attached on this specific point of taxing. Liberty might be safe, or might be endangered, in twenty other particulars, without their being much pleased or alarmed. Here they felt its pulse; and as they found that beat, they thought themselves sick or sound. I do not say whether 45 they were right or wrong in applying your general arguments to their own case. It is not easy, indeed, to make a monopoly of theorems and corollaries. The fact is that they did thus apply those general arguments; and your mode of governing them, whether through lenity or indolence, 5o through wisdom or mistake, confirmed them in the imag