psych::principal - explanation for the order and naming of rotated (principal) components

Question

Let x be a sample dataframe.

set.seed(0)
x <- replicate(4, rnorm(10))

A PCA using the principal function from

Answer 1

Here's a partial answer. I looked through the code behind the principal function, and can see clearly where the reordering happens:

 if (nfactors > 1) {
    ev.rotated <- diag(t(loadings) %*% loadings)
    ev.order <- order(ev.rotated, decreasing = TRUE)
    loadings <- loadings[, ev.order]
  }

So the code above is the reason the order changes, but it's less clear what purpose that serves. I don't have enough experience in rotations to be able to discern the package author's intent.