6 Wisconsin Academy of ScienceSj Arts, and Letters, 



The final act in the farce is the recognition of the remaining, the 

 substantive proxies, as a new part of speech. To diagram this result, 

 the capitalized words of the diagram should be entered among the prin- 

 cipals, say under the word ''addition," abreast of the new title "pro- 

 nouns." In other words, of the primary classes one is coordinated 

 with the sub-classes of the other. Thus is completed a system already 

 accused in a general way of capricious selection, careless omission, ar- 

 bitrary rejection, inadequate sub-division — a system now specifically 

 charged with repeated acd bare-faced violation of its prime criterion — 

 a system which may in a sense be known as Grammar's second Babel 

 or "confusion of tongues." 



In view of what has thus far been brought to lighl, it is hardly too 

 much to assume that to an orderly mind the grammatical conception 

 of the pronouns is untenable. But an effort to mend this conception 

 can hardly be cheered by the hope that its results, even if good, will 

 generally be preferred. He who likes the European oyster is rarely 

 brought to like the American. It is not to be expected that the votaries 

 of Grammar will welcome any substitute for what it offers. 



It must be admitted, too, that in the very nature of the case, the lin- 

 guistic method of one mind can hardly be proven to be that of others; 

 for as one door gives exit both to the great and the little cat, so also, 

 and notoriously, a given set of v»'ords may be used by different minds 

 to open passage for thoughts conspicuously different. Thus to me the 

 phrase "if you please" is synonymous with "if you like (or prefer)," 

 "you" being my subject, and "please" having a meaning very different 

 from what appears in "This pleases me." This opinion I defend by 

 the sister phrases "If I please, he pleases, we please, etc." But to a 

 grammarian oblivious of these, saturated with syntax genealogy, in- 

 tensely conscious for instance of "si tibi placet," I doubt not that, as is 

 often claimed, my illustration has the meaning, "if to you be pleasing." 

 Speaking for himself alone, no doubt the grammarian is right. Speak- 

 ing only for myself, I believe that I also am right. Without attempt- 

 ing to determine which interpretation is better or more common, I 

 merely emphasize the fact that what is linguistically true of one mind 

 may be quite untrue of another. Believing thus, I must, in much of 

 what follows, be understood as offering a merely personal contingent 

 to the little total of our present observation; as describing the thought- 

 forms of my own mind, without claiming that those of other minds 

 must always be the same; as appreciating that the views to be ad- 

 vanced can acquire authority only so far as shared by many and able 

 thinkers. 



The presentation of these views is further attended by this practical 

 difficulty, that the same linguistic means are employed, even by the 

 same persons, now for one and now for another linguistic end. Thus 

 "who" is used on one occasion as a relative, on another as an inter- 



