Tim, that's right. I meant "inertia" as defined by physics: "the tendency of a body to preserve its state of rest or uniform motion ..."
Oliver, I would say that it is not simply a matter of every line being sufficiently weighty with meaning, but that every line is playing its part in bearing and carrying forward the load of a substantial argument.
Having something of "substance" to say gives the saying a certain "mass", "gravity", "inertia", or "weight" (as Tim says) - which pushes its way through the substitutions in a strong, natural way.
Not having a sufficiently "weighty argument" (which could in fact be quite "light" in its nature) allows second thoughts to make self-conscious choices of substitution. In other words, when there is no necessity of saying to pull the argument through the substitutions, other factors begin to make the choices, which are never as effective as the "inertia" of argument or image.
A nautical analogy might be: if your ship (the argument) has enough displacement and engine power (rhetorical inertia) you can cut a fairly smooth, direct passage through a choppy sea. An underpowered, light craft (weak or inchoate argument) means you will be going up and down all over the place.
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Mark Allinson
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