Owen — Be vision of Pronouns. 17 



ended, the actors remained behind the flies, awaiting a possible 

 encore. 



Using a homelier figure, conceive the hearer's mind as a slate. 

 Upon it the speaker writes a mental equation, that is, a thought. 

 This thought another thought shall follow. But the slate is 

 small. Its room is fully occupied. To meet this difficulty, the 

 sponge is run over the surface, giving room to write anew — not 

 however the wet sponge ; merely the dry. The old waiting does 

 not entirely disappear. It is only blurred. The new writing- 

 appears with great distinctness ; yet the old continues legible. 

 Another use of the sponge may be followed by the writing of a 

 third equation. The slate may then contain such third equation 

 fully distinct, a legible second equation, a first equation whose 

 terms may still be deciphered. How many erasures a given 

 idea may thus survive, it is needless to inquire. In actual men- 

 tal practice the nature of the idea (abstract, concrete, etc.), its 

 rank in thought-structure, the retentive power of the individual 

 mind, contribute each a modifying influence. 



The receiving mind is then a sort of palimpsest, ever fading, 

 ever reinscribed. Each writing (except the first) is entered on 

 a surface already covered by another but a faint and vanishing 

 inscription. The new is much brighter than the old; but the 

 old may yet be read, if the effort be not too long delayed. 



II. THEIR DIRECTION TROM THE PRINCIPAL. 



Examination thus far indicates that, in usual mental sequence, 

 a vivid presentation of each idea is followed by a somewhat pro- 

 tracted fading, the idea becoming comparatively dim, before the 

 expression of a new thought is begun. Conversely, just as sun- 

 set and succeeding twilight are inversely paralleled by daw^n and 

 sunrise, so also it is possible for the more vivid appearance of an 

 idea to be heralded by an obscure prefigurement : vicarious words 

 may faintly suggest an idea before its full revelation. Such 

 symbols have already been distinguished as anticipative or pro- 

 spective. They are illustrated by the sentence ^Though he is 

 very busy. Brown is going to Europe", ^^he" being a sort of lin- 

 guistic X until its latent value is developed under the influence of 



''Brown". 

 2 



