THE MEANING AND FUNCTION OF THOUGHT- 
CONNECTIVES. 
The present investigation would naturally cover all species of 
that grammatical genus known as conjunctions. For the pres¬ 
ent, however, the writer is prepared to treat those words only 
which smooth the passage from one statement to its successor. 
Even this limited effort, further confined to the English lan¬ 
guage, seems to require a quasi-apology. 
Thought-connectives are presented in some detail by grammar. 
They form a considerable part of the arsenal of rhetoric. They 
are in logic the back-bone of syllogistic reasoning. Psychology 
notes them as the expression of perhaps the highest states of 
consciousness. There will surely rise the question: “Why thrash 
old straw?” 
It may be answered in general that this straw has indeed been 
forked over and pitched about a great deal, but has been put 
to very little genuine thrashing. Some grain has been knocked 
out and a great deal of chaff; but the most and the best of the 
kernels remain. 
It is claimed in particular that the thought-sciences have, so far 
as might be, ignored language, neglecting the vast repertory 
of thought-methods, true and false, of which language is the 
register. On the other hand the most successful later effort of 
linguistic science has confined itself to verbal form. The bril¬ 
liant achievements in this field have blinded the workers and 
their watchers to the existence of other fields. It is charged 
indeed, with more or less plainness, that language-study has 
well-nigh forgotten that language is after all but the expression 
of thought. 
To a limited extent it is rational to insist on the analogy be¬ 
tween the special language of mathematics and the general 
