Owen—Interrogative Thought—Means of Its Expression. 417 
Postponing the effort to determine how the definition, or 
description, operates to realize its purpose, I take up next the 
Assertion of description. 
The indications that description is asserted, so far as I can 
find them;, are derived from introspection. To illustrate, sup¬ 
pose that one of several persons standing behind me strikes me 
on the back. Turning toward them, I ask “Who dared do 
that V’ While I shall argue that every question affirms my de¬ 
sire to be' informed, I am sure that in this question I also mean 
no less to announce miy conviction that he who struck me was 
very daring. Indeed, my emphasis, so far as it may be trusted, 
which the question aims to obtain. To illustrate, suppose that, as we 
enter the clubroom, you notice on the rack a very striking hat, and ask 
“Who owns that hat?” I answer “He has remarkable taste!” 
By this “He” it seems to me I plainly mean the person distinguished 
from others by owning that hat; and though, after thinking of such per¬ 
son, I have wandered off to matters altogether foreign to your purpose, 
still, in using your “owns that hat,” as definition of the person to be 
thought of, it seems to me I have done precisely what you wished. 
Now had the remainder of my answer been exactly what you wanted; 
had I, for instance, said “He is the mayor”, or “He who owns that hat 
is the mayor”, it seems to me my use of your “owns that hat” would 
still have been precisely the same—-and, surely, the very use that you 
intended. 
With a little change this illustration will throw further light on the 
“Extent of Vicarious Usage”, examined on pp. 32, etc., of the “Revision 
of the Pronouns.” Suppose accordingly that, on the occasion just 
imagined, you ask, “Whose hat is that?” and that I answer as before 
“He has remarkable taste.” 
Roughly speaking, “Whose” and “He”, as I take it, contemplate one 
person. Moreover “He” can have no sufficiently definite meaning, ex¬ 
cept so far as it presents to mind a second time ideas first presented by 
other words. Accordingly the idea-presenting power of “He” is what 
may be known as vicarious, and in this case reinstative, as distinguished 
from anticipative. The reinstative act how r ever is, in the present case, 
of a most peculiar type. 
While the awkward expression “Whose hat is that?” no doubt intends 
me to distinguish a person from others by his owning the hat, the form 
in which the expression is put is that adopted to distinguish the hat as 
owned by a person, just as in the expressions “his hat”, “John's hat”, 
“the hat of John” or “the hat owned by John.” That is, the impression 
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