Owen — Revision of Pronouns. 85 



The substance of (d) and (e) may be resumed by saying that 

 when one thoue*ht is linked to another, to draw it into the se- 

 quence of exposition, a single point of attachment is elected; 

 each car of the mental train is dra^^Ti by one coupler. For this fact 

 a psychological reason may be suggested as follows: While I 

 may think two thoughts at the same time, I must, in oral com- 

 munication and in its thus far current written or printed substi- 

 tutes, express them in succession. This of course implies their 

 successive appearance in the mind of my hearer. Also my o^vn 

 thinking, under the in^^uence of the successive expressional pro- 

 cess, will adopt the successive method. In other words I shall, 

 while speaking, think my thought in the shape in which I mean 

 to tell it ; for to tell it in one shape, Avhile thinking it in another, 

 is a feat unduly difficult, if not indeed impossible. 



Successive thinking being then adopted, the use of a simul- 

 taneous factor implies the holding in my mind of a factor of 

 one thought, during its service as factor of another. This alone 

 is not difficult ; but thought-building further implies the appre- 

 hension of the factor's structural position in each of two 

 thoughts ; and this apprehension of the factor's position implies 

 again some perception of its field or, in other words, the two 

 thoughts of which it is a part. That the mental effort involved 

 is somewhat difficult is indicated by the notorious frequency of 

 error in the use of relative words.-^ This difficulty may be com- 

 pared to that of looking at the same time after the doings of an 

 Alice and those also of an ^^Alice in the looking-glass." When 

 now the speaker undertakes the management of two simultaneous 

 factors, direct or indirect, his difficulty may be compared to that 

 of looking at the same time after the doings of two actual and 

 two reflected Alices. Happily such a task is never prescribed. 

 Instead of making each of two common factors simultaneous, in- 

 stead that is of continuing two factors of one thought into an- 

 other, the speaker may always drop one or even each of them 

 and pick it up again at his convenience. Thus, declining the 

 effort involved in "A stone struck Brown whom which hurt," 

 I am allowed the less perplexing forms, "A stone struck Brown 

 whom it hurt" or ^^which hurt him ;" and if further indisposed 



^Conf. "The enemy tchom he thought would injure him." "The enemy who 

 they were sure they had defeated." 



