400 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
That my lack of appetite, is used, in this expression, to explain 
or account for “Elat that apple!”, may be assumed as granted by 
every one. So much indeed is clearly indicated by the “For.” 
Plainly also the accounting is for something other than your 
eating of the apple. For to put. my lack of appetite as explana¬ 
tion of your eating is hardly rational. If however “Eat that 
apple!” be taken to mean “I desire you to eat that apple,” or 
“That you eat that, apple is my desire,” the situation is allevi¬ 
ated. My lack of appetite at least relieves my wish (that you 
exhaust the visible food supply) of any opposition which might 
offer, in case I were hungry myself. That is, what is explained 
(at least, negatively) by “I am not hungry” is my desire that 
you eat the apple.* 
The imperative expression being thus interpreted, the struct 
ture of thought expressed is. easily perceived. The desire (that 
you eat the apple) is conceived as true; for otherwise the inter¬ 
pretation would be “I not desire, (or don’t desire), etc.” This 
truth, moreover, is believed; for otherwise the interpretation 
would be “me to desire, etc.” How neither of these last imag¬ 
ined interpretations, would, as I suppose, be satisfactory to any 
one. I feel accordingly that what is meant in full by “Eat that 
apple!” is essentially expressed by “I believe in the truth of my 
desire (that you eat that apple, or) for your eating that 
apple). ”t 
^Whether ideas express by “I”, “desire” and “you” be regarded as 
part of what is expressed by “eat”, or as inferred by the hearer, does 
not seem to me important enough to warrant argument. 
fl also perceive that when I use an imperative, for instance “Come!”, 
I have in mind not merely a desire for your coming, but rather a de¬ 
sire that you put forth the energy required to bring about your com¬ 
ing. But so far as that I do not think it necessary to extend investi¬ 
gation. 
Or again, as Sigwart will have it (Trans. Dendy—’95, Vol. I, p. 17), 
the imperative aim is iiot to express a wish, but to bring about the 
realization of a wish—an opinion quite incontrovertible, so long as 
“aim” is understood to be ultimate purpose. For when I say to you 
“Come!”, no doubc the mere informing you of my desire is of too small 
importance to account for the evolution of a special form for impera¬ 
tive expression. No doubt moreover I have some expectation, or at 
least some hope, that you will be caused to come. But such causation 
is not, so far as I can see, a part of what I actually express. It (the 
causation) may be effected by influences of my own, coercive, intim- 
