402 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters. 
itself with alternatives. It may be overwhelmed by adjunctive 
clauses, adjective or adverbial, restrictive or informational. 
That too wbicb prompts a question, and that which is merely 
surprising, are mentally so near of kin, that often it is far from 
easy to differentiate the question from the exclamation. That 
again which I do not know but wish to know, and what I neither 
know nor care to know, are enough alike to permit the symbol of 
one to replace the symbol of the other—to allow the two to act 
as interchangeable indefinites. Moreover the interrogative has 
all the degrees of vagueness that belong to the ordinary indefi¬ 
nite ; and this vagueness may be that of kind, of number, of par¬ 
ticular individual. [To illustrate, compare the questions 
“What killed Lincoln ?”—“How manyV’—“What actor?”, 
“Which Booth ?” and, in obsolete phraseology, “Whether of the 
two Booths?”] The question moreover may be doubled, as 
in “Who killed Lincoln whenT’ Question and simple command 
may coalesce, as in the French interrogative-imperative 
“Venez?” The question, as used by examiners and cross-ex¬ 
aminers, becomes inquisitorial, aiming to test the knowledge or 
voracity of their victims', while the ordinary question is rather 
inquisitive or zetetic. The question may seek to mislead by 
false dilemma, to confuse by distorted perspective; or on the 
other hand it may take on the hermeneutic quality, being aimed 
to aid the hearer’s cerebration. As indicated on p>. 354, the ques¬ 
tion may appear as a questioned question—and also' as a ques¬ 
tioned factor of a question. Indeed it is obvious that, however 
difficult it be for the mind to form a given judgment of any sort, 
by reason of its extent and intricacy, and however awkward be 
the linguistic means of expressing that judgment, nevertheless 
any element thereof may be precisely that at which a question is 
aimed. In short there does not promise to be any difficulty of 
thought or speech, in which some form of question may not be 
involved. The question however offers ample difficulty of its 
own. Tbi this accordingly I shall, so far as may be, confine 
attention, examining interrogation only as it appears in the 
simpler and more easily expressible forms of thought. 
Indications offered by tradition. 
These are few and disappointing. That “interrogative sen¬ 
tences are such as ask a question,” and that “interrogative words 
