Owen—Interrogative Thought—Means of Its Expression. 377 
To illustrate, suppose that I have made a mental transit be¬ 
tween the ideas expressed by A and B, and that I have further 
experienced a mind-sensation expressible by the word “excess.” 
These three elements of consciousness together form a. unit; and 
to this unit each element is indispensable. Regarded thus only, 
all elements rank as equal in importance. That they may, from 
other points of view, appear unequal in importance, has been 
conceded. (See the preceding note.) In the interest of sim¬ 
plicity, I elect to consider only the obviously possible case of 
parity. 
Suppose me further to feel that the mental status just de¬ 
scribed is matched in the outer world by two objects and their 
bulk-relation. In other words. I regard my whole thought as 
true. If now I wish to add to my thought this idea of truth, 
forming thereby a thought of greater complexity, I may say that 
“A truly exceeds Bl” 
Row most grammarians will tell me, I suppose, that “truly” 
is an adverb.—that is, that the idea of truth is treated as an 
part in physical reality, or, in other words, is true; so also are the ideas 
expressed by ‘'killed” and “Garfield.” It is even true that Booth killed; 
and a killing of Garfield actually happened. But from all these truths 
of detail I derive but scanty satisfaction; indeed I heed them little in 
the presence of the total “Booth killed Garfield.” Truth, in short, as 
an idea-adjunct, is commonly neglected, to the point at least of failing 
to be a part of what I mean to say. 
A peculiar modification of truth is, however, very commonly associ¬ 
ated with the individual thought-member or idea. To illustrate, if you 
ask me what is the relation between A and B, I answer, emphasizing 
the relation, “A exceecis B;” and to this idea of excess I specially attach 
an idea, roughly speaking, of truth. I mean, however, this time some¬ 
thing more than that the idea of excess is matched, outside of my 
thought, by what is real. What this something is, I can seek to better 
advantage in a more objective illustration. Let it then be conceded 
that fire and gunpow'der, being assembled, produce, by means entirely 
unknown to me, an explosion. Reasoning along the well-known psy¬ 
chological highway, I conceive a faculty of explosion-causing, or say the 
quality of explosiveness. Strictly speaking, I ought to predicate this 
explosiveness of the combination fire and gunpowder. But in actual 
practice I use the expression “Powder is explosive.” This explosive¬ 
ness is not, however, on a par with other qualities of powder, for in¬ 
stance its blackness. It is black unaidedly. It is explosive only with 
the aid of fire. It is not productive of explosion peculiar to itself. It 
is co-productive, with fire, of an explosion peculiar to powder and fire 
