Owen — Revision of Pronouns. 49 



second occasion than on the first. That is, it is a successive- 

 factor. 



The same is true if I substitute a reinstative for ^^hook" in its- 

 second usage. ''T have a book. It will please you" differs from 

 my last expression merely in a minor incident of symboliza- 

 tion. ^ Thought is the same. Generalizing on this example, I 

 venture the proposition, that the special office of reinstatives is 

 the formal restoration of thought-coherence, when that coher- 

 ence is formally broken by the interruption of expression. 



X. THE SIMULTANEOUS OR ONCE THOUGHT COMMON FACTOE. 



The sentence "I have a book will please you" plainly contains 

 tw^o thoughts, expressible by ^'I have a book" and "Book will 

 please you." It also is plain that the idea named by '^book" is 

 a member of each of these thoughts. It seems to me olso plain 

 that this idea, although a factor of tvv-o thoughts, is conceived 

 by the mind but once. I claim, that is (what many minds may 

 rank as self-evident) that a single idea is in two simultaneous 

 thought-memberships. 



That such a claim is not inherently absurd is shown by its validity 

 even in the most trying application, namely to objects in space. Thus, 

 the northeast corner-stone of my house is at the same time a member 

 of the north wall and of the east wall. The validity of such a claim in 

 the structure of thought may be tested as follows: If the idea named 

 by "book" in my example be twice (or more) conceived, it is plain that 

 its double conception may occur either with "I have" or with "will 

 please you"; or it may oe once conceived with "I have" and again with 

 "will please you."^ 



Suppose then first that I doubly conceive the book in connection 

 with "I have," expressing myself by the words "I have the book (1) book 



^It may be noted that "It" even more certainly indicates the particular book 

 of the preceding sentence than a repetition of "book" itself. 



^In examining these cases let it be understood at the outset that the question 

 is one of facts and not of possibilities. That the simultaneous factor or indeed 

 any other idea can be thought of twice or even more, if the mind be so disposed, 

 must be admitted. Such repetition I will, for the sake of illustration, perpe- 

 trate, announcing frankly each appearance of the idea, by a separate use of its 

 word. Accordingly "I I I I I have a book." Such sentences, however, I do not 

 in actual practice employ. Just as at a dinner I do not offer you course after 

 course of soup or oysters, so the mental banquet to which speech invites you is 

 not likely to be of the type illustrated, nor of the type "I have have have have 

 a book" nor of the type "I have the book book book." 



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