180 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. 
ing news that “the doctors are surprised by the invalid 44 
showing so much vitality”, I doubt not the cause of surprise 
was mentally recognized by the writer as the showing (or 
exhibition) rather than the invalid. But this recognition found 
no expression in actually employed words. Correspondingly, 
in ‘“I have seen an express train strike a freight,” while prop¬ 
erly only “strike” is recognizable as object in the actually em¬ 
ployed expression, doubtless more or less subconsciously or 
intermittently it is also recognized that what is seen is a total 
phenomenon. 
Subconscious recognition of this sort, foreign to thought as 
a matter of fact expressed, seems to be the cause of the usual 
interpretation. All of us presumably set out, in the given illus¬ 
tration, with the intention to express the seeing of a whole 
phenomenon. As the difficulty of linguistic presentation thick¬ 
ens, we content ourselves with expressing the seeing of a single 
nucleary element of the phenomenon, this element being joined 
by its fellows in quite a secondary presentation. The substi¬ 
tuted thought-construction meets, however, every important 
need. We are conscious of no failure. The unimportant change 
of our intention is forgotten. We fancy we have done precisely 
what we set out to do. We imagine that we have employed 
as ; object of “have seen,” the whole of the following phrase . 45 
In fact we have so employed the nucleary “strike” alone. 
Viewing now more broadly the procedure followed more es¬ 
pecially with lateral thought, I note that the physical act of 
speech is attended by three distinguishable cerebrative acts. 
First, the pre-linguistic. This is usually far from complete 
in detail, comparing with thinking in preparation for linguis¬ 
tic expression, somewhat as the roughest sketch compares with 
the finished picture. It is quickly displaced by thought 
especially adapted to expression. Although available as an 
believe this construction (?) is not yet attempted with the pro¬ 
nouns—e. g. in this case “him”. 
45 in “Mrs. Robinson is spending a few days in the gubernatorial 
mansion. He is at present taking the Alaskan trip”, no doubt the re¬ 
porter thought he had provided a Mr. Robinson, or perhaps a governor 
(suggestible by “gubernatorial”) as antecedent for the “He”; but 
neither strictly enters into thought expressed; for Mrs. R. may be a 
widow; and the governor may be dead, and no successor installed. 
