. Owen—Interrogative Thought—Means of Its Expression. 379 
ever, I dismiss, because, so far as I know myself, I do not at 
present ba,ve it in mind. I am not just now thinking that, in 
the production of true thought, “exceeds” is. a right addition to 
A—B, any more than I am thinking that A is a right addition 
to “exceeds B,” or B is a right addition to “A exceeds.” That 
is, I am not dealing with “A exceeds B,” “A exceeds B” or “A 
exceeds BE I am dealing with the unemphasized “A exceeds 
B.”* In this last expression I am merely thinking that what 
I express is true, regarded a,s a whole; and to this truth of total 
thought I wish to confine attention, because it has the advantage 
of maximum simplicity. 
That I do thus actually think of truth as bearing on total 
thought, is, in some cases, apparently beyond a doubt. Suppose, 
for instance', that, you say “The air is very cold,” and that to 
this I answer “That is. true.” My “That” revives before our 
minds the total thought (consisting of the. air, the extreme cold¬ 
ness and the qualitative relation between them) which you ex¬ 
pressed, but without a recognition of any particular member. 
It is accordingly in this case impossible that what we think of 
as true be any single member of thought. It must be then that 
what we think of as true is a total thought. 
The mental feat which we perform in this case I seem to 
myself to perform again, when I say that “A truly exceeds B,” 
or when I incorporate the idea of truth in the meaning of “ex¬ 
ceeds” and confine myself to saying “A exceeds Bl.” I confess, 
however, that thus far I see' no means' of proving such to be my 
mental act, and therefore must appeal, in support of my opinion, 
to the self-introspection of others. 
* I am aware that in actual practice a wholly unemphasized sentence 
is rare, the tendency being to put a vocal stress upon the final word, 
even when there is no thought-dominance of the corresponding idea. 
I suspect that this tendency is initiated by the habit of giving the final 
position to the word for the dominant idea. Conversely the final word 
is commonly a dominant and properly emphatic word. By the unre¬ 
flecting, what is common is made universal. At the same time the cus¬ 
tomary fall (in pitch) of the voice at the sentence end, is rather advan¬ 
tageously offset by an increased loudness, the danger of a failure to be 
heard being thus avoided. Be the reason what it may, as a matter of 
fact the final word is often emphasized, even to the complete neglect of 
the rational emphasis. E. G.: “I am no longer a young man” “If 
thy father and thy mother forsake thee, the Lord will take thee up' 9 
(a Sunday-school reminiscence). 
