ABSTRACT

As we know them, they are remarkable for their terseness. 'More haste, less speed', for example, could not possibly be said in fewer words. If a modern man of science wished to express this idea he would say (at least if he were a behaviourist): 'In locomotion the rate of diminution of the distance from a given point is inversely proportional to the average velocity,' which is cumbrous, unintelligible and untrue. If an eighteenth-century literary man (say, Dr Johnson) had wished to express what the proverb conveys in four monosyllables he would have said something like this: 'Cogitative endeavours to promote celerity of ambulation not infrequently produce retardation of the desired propinquity to the goal.'