150 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. 
That, however, in “The doctor saw Catherine eating apples,” 
the relations expressed by the “was” of ( b ) and the “affected” 
of ( c ) are usually much less keenly sensed than in the above 
interpretation, is eminently probable. They are rather replaced 
by a vague “All’s well!”—a facile “Vidit quod esset bonum”— 
an assurance that somehow “eating” goes with (i. e. is in rela¬ 
tion with) “Catherine” in the usual way (that is, in relation 
usual with term and adjunct), therefore operating as an adjec¬ 
tive—and a consciousness that “eating” governs “apples” as its 
object (the former and the latter being related as action to its 
own actee), therefore operating as what is called a verb. 
Of the possible judgments (a), (b), and (c), it is plain that 
in the expression “The doctor saw Catherine eating apples,” 
(a) is central; (b), reduced to a mere conception, is lateral to 
(a) and forms with it a centro-lateral total, “Catherine” be¬ 
ing singly thought instead of twice in succession; ( c ), reduced 
to another mere conception, is plus-quam lateral, forming with 
(a) and (b) a further augmented total, “eating” being also 
singly thought, instead of twice in succession. 
Without insisting further on the minor differences in 
thought-perspective—and roughly posing “eating” and what 
precedes as comparatively central, and “eating” and what fol¬ 
lows as comparatively lateral—I note that in central fellowship 
“eating” is an adjective, and in lateral fellowship a verb, and 
thereby entitled to rank as a verbal adjective in distinction 
from an adjectival verb. 
That modes of interpretation thus far followed will now and 
then encounter difficulty, must be admitted. For instance, in 
the sentence “Being ill, my son deferred his departure”—corn- 
subject to future correction, even on my own part, that prepositions, 
presumably all of them originally spatial, in their primary meanings 
name relation to what serves as a landmark, e. g. “On Mont Blanc”; 
that spatial relation to a landmark is a substitute for absolute posi¬ 
tion, enforced by the linguistic unavailability of the latter; that other¬ 
wise position would rank (with horizontally, bulk or contour) on a 
footing with other attributes; that actually preposition and its object 
are a mere expedient for expressing what structurally operates ex¬ 
clusively as an adjective or adverb; that actual mental operation would 
be utterly misrepresented, in “The doctor saw Catherine at home,” by 
supposing a relation between “Catherine” (or “saw”) and “at,” and 
another relation between “at” and “home”. 
