INVEICSION, in rhetoric and philolo gy, the transposition of words out of their natural order. Every language has a customary arrangement of its own to reg ulate the order of succession in which words forming part of the same sentence, member, or proposition follow each other. On the other hand, there is undoubtedly a natural or philosophical order of words following each other in the same analyt ical succession in which ideas present themselves to the mini, varied occasion ally by that produced by the succession of sentiments or emotions ; and as in eve ry language many customary phrases, if not the general arrangement of the words, are contrary to this primitive order, evo ry language has customary inversions of its own. Deviations from the cue!ontary order of words are more commonly called transpositions ; but each word has, of course, a relative and somewhat arbitra ry signification. As an instance of ordi nary inversion, it may he observed that, according to the metaphysical or analyt ical order, the subject of a proposition precedes the predicate, being the first idea which presents itself to the mind. Thus, in the construction of a sentence contain ing a proposition, "Solon is wise," or "Alexander reigns," we habitually fol low the order of nature. But when a sub stantive and adjective in connection form part of a sentence, i. e., a subject or pred icate, or a part of either, the substantive is that which seems naturally to present itself first to the mind; whereas in most modern languages it follows the adjective, while in the G reek and Latin its ordinary although not its necessary place was be fore it : " Who is a wise inan " Vir bonus est gads?" "The end of a long silence." " Finis silentii diuturni." It
is in general to be observed, that modern languages admit far less readily than an cient of transposition ; but there are con siderable differences in this respect be tween modern languages themselves. German admits much latitude, French very little. In our own language we are frequently able to vary the analytical or der by following what may be termed the order of emotion, where a French writer could not do so: thus in the proposition, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians," it would be impossible, in French, to give the force which is added to the expression by the transposition of the predicate to the beginning without violating the ha bitual rules of construction. A similar instance of inversion is to be found in the Swedish and seine kindred languages, in which the article follows instead of pre ceding the noun.—Inversion, in tousle, the change of place between two notes of an interval ; that is, placing the lower note an octave higher, or the higher note en octave lower.