“We have a priori reasons for believing that in every sentence there is some one order of words more effective than any other”

—  Herbert Spencer

Pt. I, sec. 3, "The Principle of Economy Applied to Sentences"
The Philosophy of Style (1852)
Context: We have a priori reasons for believing that in every sentence there is some one order of words more effective than any other; and that this order is the one which presents the elements of the proposition in the succession in which they may be most readily put together.

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Herbert Spencer 81
English philosopher, biologist, sociologist, and prominent … 1820–1903

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