Owen—Interrogative Thought—Means of Its Expression. 373 
the one the converse of the other, I call them for convenience pro- 
verse and reverse. 
In a sense I have the power to choose between them. For though 
a mental transit from A to B will compel me to experience the relation 
of superiority, still I am free to choose the reverse transit, which would 
compel the reverse relation. Being then free to choose the direction 
of thought-transit, I am virtually free to choose the aspect of my rela¬ 
tion. 
This conclusion I have reached from an assumption contradictory to 
the claim of some psychologists, who would have it, not only that in 
forming a judgment I must associate substance and attribute, but also 
that I must associate attribute with substance—never substance with 
attribute. For instance, such would have it that, in mentally coupling 
John and honesty, I must think as indicated by “John is honest,” and 
not begin with honesty. 
Now such a claim, it seems to me, is far from being respected in 
actual practice. Personally I feel quite free to begin with honesty and 
end with John. I do not, however, expect to reach the same relation 
that I reached when I began with John. It is true that in dealing with 
John and my father I may reach the relation of identity, whichever be 
the direction in which I think from one to the other. But that is be¬ 
cause the relation is not one of difference. On the other hand the rela¬ 
tion between John and honesty is one of very obvious difference, being 
that of substance to its own attribute. Accordingly, when I reverse the 
direction of thought-transit, I expect to reverse the aspect of the rela¬ 
tion experienced. Thinking then from honesty to John I am by no 
means surprised to encounter the relation of attribute to its own sub¬ 
stance, which is precisely what I express, and most distinctly, by “Hon¬ 
esty characterizes John.” 
Moreover, active and passive voices being specially intended for the 
differentiated expression of proverse and reverse relations, if a second 
time I turn my proposition end for end, resuming the original direction 
of thought-transit, I obtain “John is characterized by honesty”—a sen¬ 
tence which I take to be the exact expression of what I mean by “John 
is honest.” 
(c) Freedom in choice of relation-phase—static or dynamic. 
As so much stress will be put on the relation, and as it will be rec¬ 
ognized in several disguises, a further suggestion may be of value. 
Thus, in such expressions as “Roses are red,” the relation (of object to 
its own quality) is conceived as established and, so far as considered, 
permanent. In “The rose became red,” the same relation is viewed as 
developing, as formative, as passing from non-existence to existence.. 
In the former case, in lack of a better name, the relation may be known 
as static; in the latter, as dynamic. So also “to have” expresses a rela- 
