63. Thus we see that the phenomena of Climax, Antithesis, and
Anticlimax, alike result from this general principle. Improbable
as these momentary variations in susceptibility may seem, we cannot
doubt their occurrence when we contemplate the analogous variations
in the susceptibility of the senses. 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. At the same time, it forbids long continuity of the same
kind of thought, or repeated production of like effects. It warns
us against the error committed both by Pope in his poems and by Bacon