90 Wisconsi7i Academy of Scieiices, Arts, and Letters. 



belief/ I am doing all that the linguistic mechanism was in- 

 tended to perform. Accordingly an informational clause may 

 be recognized as having primarily the necessary value, if only it 

 expresses what the speaker believes to be true. 



This value is secondarily dependent on the hearer's previous 

 ignorance of what the informational clause expresses. As a 

 reasonable person, I shall not waste my breath in telling you 

 what you already know. And passing from my personal view- 

 point to that of my hearer, I must perceive that he will not wel- 

 come speech which merely reviews for him the items of his knowl- 

 ed^re, but only such as augments it. If, knowing you to be aware 

 of Brown's illness, (and also who is meant by Brown), I never- 

 theless declare that "I have met Brown, who is ill/^ I am guilty 

 of a linguistic impertinence second only to falsehood. Indeed 

 it may be questioned whether a stale truth be not on occasion 

 more offensive than untruth. It must indeed be admitted that I 

 may err in supposing you to be unacquainted with what I tell 

 you ; but such an accident may be overlooked. So long as the 

 speaker thinks that he is going to augment the hearer's knowl- 

 edge the requisite condition is fulfilled.^ 



Overlooking, as unnecessary, the aesthetic, utilitarian and 

 ethical aspects of value, I resume as follows : the warrant of the 

 informational clause is the supposed reality and novelty of its 

 import. 



As the relative clause of the informational type is active, like 

 the principal, solely in its own interest, it may be said to be ego- 

 istic. Its purpose, like that of the principal, and like that of 

 an isolated sentence, is to give information of its own. 



In tactics the informational and principal clauses offer further 



1 Disbelief, bein;? merely belief in the unreality of what is mentioned, may be 

 fncluded in this stipulation, thus extending its application to negativi sentences 

 proper. 



2 The tentative review of facts in argument is merely a form of exposition 

 adopted, in protracted reasoning, for the sake of greater ease and clearness. 

 Thus, assuming you to know that a=& and that 6=c, but not to have perceived 

 the relation of a and c, I say to you "a=b. l}=c. Therefore fl.=c." Of these 

 announcements the first two may be interpreted as inviting objection to prem- 

 ises, being equivalent to '■a=b? J)=c?" Or the whole may be regarded as merely 

 a paraphrase of "Because of a's equality to 6 and b's equality to c, a is equal 

 to c." Again, while aware that you know the equality of a and 6, as well as 

 that of b and c, I may think it likely that you have forgotten these facts or at 

 least are not thinking of them at this moment, that is, that you are in a state 

 of momentary ignorance, in which case the use of informational expressions is 

 justified by their momentary novelty. 



