occasionally their suppression where they appeared cumbrous; the insertion of objects, genitive, dative, or accusative, after verbs used absolutely; the insertion of conjunctions in sentences which had none, but occasionally their excision where their force was not perceived and the form of the sentence or context seemed to commend abruptness; free interchange of conjunctions; free interchange of the formulæ introductory to spoken words; free interchange of participle and finite verb with two finite verbs connected by a conjunction; substitution of compound verbs for simple as a rule, but conversely where the compound verb of the true text was difficult or unusual; and substitution of aorists for imperfects as a rule, but with a few examples of the converse, in which either a misunderstanding of the context or an outbreak of untimely vigour has introduced the imperfect. A bolder form of correction is the insertion of a negative particle, as in Matt. xxi 32 (οὐ being favoured, it is true, by the preceding τοῦ), Luke xi 48, and Rom. iv 19; or its omission, as in Rom. ν 14; Gal. ii 5; ν 8.
175. Another impulse of scribes abundantly exemplified in Western readings is the fondness for assimilation. In its most obvious form it is merely local, abolishing diversities of diction where the same subject matter recurs as part of two or more neighbouring clauses or verses, or correcting apparent defects of symmetry. But its most dangerous work is 'harmonistic' corruption, that is, the partial or total obliteration of differences in passages otherwise more or less resembling each other. Sometimes the assimilation is between single sentences that happen to have some matter in common; more usually however between parallel passages of greater length, such especially as have in some sense a common
