Owen — Revision of Pronouns. 51 



not repeated; that is, it is single; that is, its functions or member- 

 ships are simultaneous. 



Such usage is extremely extensive, being, in fact, by no means a sen- 

 tential exception, but rather the rule. For thought, in the elementary 

 form of two ideas and their relation, is comparatively rare. In most 

 thoughts one or more of these elements is modified, that is, attended 

 by an adjunct, the modified element being the simultaneous factor 

 of two thoughts. Thus, in "I have a new book" th'^ elements "I" and 

 ■"book" are plainly in the relation say of owner to property, indicated 

 by "have." But certainly "book" and "new" are also in some rela- 

 tion. For, if not in relation, they are out of relation; and this is but 

 another way of saying that "new" is irrelevant to "book" or has noth- 

 ing to do therewith. Now as "new" has surely nothing to do with "I" 

 or with "have" or with their combination, it has nothing to do with 

 the thought in which it appears. But this conclusion is obviously un- 

 true. It must therefore be conceded that "new" is in some relation 

 to "book." Whether such relation be indicated by the speaker and, 

 if so, how, is for the moment unimportant. It must be in the thought 

 of speaker and hearer, sub-consciously perhaps, but as an indispensa- 

 ble factor of the mental total. "Book" then is a factor both of "I 

 have a book" and of another thought which might be asserted by "The 

 iDOok is new." 



The singleness of the common factor is in this case more evident. 

 So far as introspection may be trusted I feel sure that, in saying "I 

 have a new book", I do not think of the book once as "had" and again 

 as "new." I should also credit you with a most plodding intellectual 

 gait, if I assumed that you were obliged in such fashion to follow 

 my linguistic lead. I do not doubt that you can in fact perform more 

 difficult feats. If I ask you to "bring me a fresh, long-stemmed, red, 

 Japanese rose," I assume that your mind is able to associate the "rose" 

 with "bring," with "fresh," with "long-stemmed," with "red,"' and 

 with "Japanese," — and all this without separately conceiving the rose 

 in each association. In fact I should almost as soon expect you to 

 iDring me five roses. 



Were the common factor in such cases doubly thought, the purpose 

 of adjunctive usage would often be imperiled. Thus, in "Ripe apples 

 are wholesome," the purpose of the adjunctive "Ripe" is to restrict 

 your attention to a particular class of apples, alone conceived as whole- 

 some. That is, I do not want you to think, in this connection, of ap- 

 ples that are decayed or immature. Now, my only safety lies in your 

 using my idea in its restricted scope at once. If you let it lapse in 

 the least from your attention, I do not know in what shape it will re- 

 appear. That it may come on to the mental stage the second time 

 in greatly modified shape, has been shown in examining the fidelity 

 of reinstatives. To illustrate again, "The carefully selected apples of 



