360 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts , and Letters. 
SENTENCES OR THOEQHT-SYMBOLS. 
Sentences express thoughts versus ideas. 
The single word being normally the expression of a single 
idea, that combination of words which is called a sentence will 
normally express a, plurality of ideas. Hot every such plurality 
is however available for sentential expression. Without discus¬ 
sion it may be merely postulated for the present, that no aggre¬ 
gation of words is a sentence, unless it expresses a thought; 
and that no aggregation of ideas is a thought, unless it contains 
two ideas and a relation of some sort between them. (See pp. 
362 and 367.) For instance, given “Grange exceeds lem¬ 
on’’, if any word be omitted, the remainder is not a sentence; and 
what that remainder expresses is not a thought. 
Sentences express thoughts versus extra-mental facts. 
When I say, for instance, that the sun has passed behind a 
cloud, I doubly violate the presumable physical truth. The 
“passage” is not that of the sun; and what I suggest by the word 
“behind” has no' existence, except, in the mind of an observer 
specially situated. But my expression successfully indicates 
what I have thought; and that :is all that language intends. It 
is true that I strive to harmonize my thoughts with external 
facts. It may then be admitted that these facts are what the 
sentence indirectly aims to present. But. it is more accurate 
and, in close examination of language, quite essential to recognize 
in sentences the immediate symbols, on a, larger scale than words, 
of mental phenomena only.* 
Sentences express thoughts versus other mental facts. 
Among the actual phenomena of mind, must doubtless be 
included desires and emotions. These, and also the sensations 
of the body, are undeniably the frequent burden of speech. But 
they are such only indirectly. I am likely enough, for instance, 
*That these mental phenomena themselves are facts is obvious. They 
are however subjective facts, being readily differentiated from the ob¬ 
jective facts of the extra-mental universe. Also even the thought of 
one instant may become objective or external to the thought of the 
next, as when one makes a thought of his own the theme of further 
mental operation. 
