Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/530

 514 E. H. DONKIN : Whether the particular form represented is within itself beautiful is a separate question ; the point I here emphasise is the mere truth to reality, shown in a medium adverse to the reality. Why do we so value this? What is the psychological analysis of the " antagonism " in the teeth of which we thus love to see a quality holding its own ? Have we here a case of the mere pleasure of recognition as referred to by Aris- totle in the Poetics ? Or are we to say that the inadequacy of the second item sets the imagination at work to fill up the defects, thereby making room for a particular mental activity ? Or is there any merit in the following suggestion : when the same quality holds its own from one set of par- ticulars to another, is the amount and degree and complexity of oneness subsisting between the two sets of particulars the measure of the complexity and depth of the felt oneness of Ego as yielded by the two conscious states ; and is there in some sense a deeper oneness when the oneness is enhanced by something that acts as a foil to it ? Is Ego's realisation of its own unity a sort of activity which like other activities needs something to overcome ? Let us pass to other examples, in the hope of gaining further light. An interesting one is the principle of the catalectic in metre. One of Swinburne's sea poems is written in stanzas of eight lines each. The lines proceed in pairs : in each line there is a triple ictus three emphasised syllables. In each stanza this continues uniformly until the eighth line, which, instead of the threefold ictus or the nine syllables we expect, suddenly presents us with only a double ictus or five syllables. Here is a stanza : The delight that he takes but in living Is more than of all things that live ; For the world that has all things for giving Has nothing so goodly to give : But more than delight his desire is, For the goal where his pinions would be Is immortal as air or as fire is, Immense as the sea. Now it appears to me that the ear distinctly accepts the shorter line as an equivalent for the longer line it had ex- pected ; and that, further, it finds the shorter line a welcome though insufficient equivalent. It may be objected that the shorter line is not felt as an equivalent for a longer one, but as a welcome variety. This is, for me, an understatement. My ear seems to exult in the very fact that the less fills the