John Stuart Mill: A Criticism with Personal Recollections

A DOUBLE SUBJECT. jgi
stating the causes, he would have done well to have presented
them numerically, and in parallel sentence forms. A much
more natural arrangement could be given, thus :
Geographical
limits, race, language, religion, history or political antecedents
(strongest of all). Then comes the qualification no one is
indispensable in itself. His train of examples instead of
being appended to the causes themselves is appended to this
qualifying statement; an arrangement of very doubtful pro
priety.
A still more testing situation is given in the following attempt
to expound a contrasting couple Central and Local Authority.
The contrast is run upon a two-fold predicate that is, the com
parative merits of the two forms, are put under two heads.
The complication thus arising can be readily foreshadowed ; a
contrasting couple of subjects, with two predicates to each,
under affirmation and denial, keeps no less than eight pro
positions running through the paragraph. They cannot be
given in strict linear order, because they have to be compared
and contrasted throughout. If we could write in several
parallel columns, and if the human mind could attend to three
or four trains at one moment, all this would be much easier.
But conditioned as we are, the difficulties are very great. By
no ingenuity can the comprehension of the theme be made
easy ; but there are ways and means of alleviating the compli
cations, the account of which is the higher art of Exposition.
I quote the paragraph that I have in view :
" To decide this question, it is essential to consider what is
the comparative position of the central and the local authori
ties, as to capacity for the work, and security against negligence
and abuse. In the first place, the local representative bodies
and their officers are almost certain to be of a much lower
grade of intelligence and knowledge, than Parliament and the
national executive. Secondly, besides being themselves of
inferior qualifications, they are watched by and accountable to,
an inferior public opinion. The public under whose eyes they