Owen—Interrogative Thought—Means of Its Expression. 401 
Its distinctive. 
Comparing “You eat that apple/ 7 interpreted as 
(1) “I believe the truth of your eating that apple/ 7 and 
“Elat that apple ! 77 , interpreted as 
(2) “I believe the truth of my desire for your eating that 
apple/ 7 
I note that, in the imperative judgment (2), an idea of my 
desire is thrust in between the belief in truth and the apple¬ 
eating of (1)—or say intercalated. The imperative sentence 
then is merely the assertion of a thought increased a trifle in comr 
plexity. In other words, to use a, compact grammatical phrase, 
the imperative is a pregnant assertion. 
Regarding rather thought expressed than its expression, I 
would have it that the imperative judgment is distinguished 
from an ordinary judgment by the presence of an idea of per¬ 
sonal desire injected between belief in truth and the conception 
which, in ordinary judgment, is itself believed to be true. 
d. the interrogative judgment (expressed by a question). 
Limitation of field considered. 
The scope of interrogative operations is far too great to permit 
their exhaustive investigation. Like the statement, the ques¬ 
tion may be embarrassed by negative elements. It may bewilder 
idating, persuasive. But all such I regard as strictly extra-linguistic. 
So far as I can see, the immediate aim of imperative speech is confined 
to letting you know what I desire, and that I desire it. 
In making belief the foundation of the imperative thought, truth 
(or untruth) the basement of the mental edifice, desire the first and 
your coming the second story, I do not mean that, in the mind of 
speaker or hearer, the lower courses of thought-masonry are histor¬ 
ically older. I imagine that the early thought-constructor was con¬ 
tented with the upper stories—'that the lower ones are of more recent 
date, put in at great expense of effort, to meet a modern demand for 
thought-completeness and stability. Nor do I conceive them as men¬ 
tally dominant. They are indeed more or less underground, below the 
level of completest consciousness. The superstructure is most in view, 
most in esteem. It realizes the preeminent purpose; all else is dis¬ 
tinctly subordinate. On the other band, not only in the architecture 
of stones, but also in that of ideas, the foundations cannot be neg¬ 
lected, if the building is to stand securely. 
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