Owen—Interrogative Thought—Means of Its Expression . 451 
of a prior conception, than I am to believing its untruth (or 
vice-versa). It might accordingly be expected, that I should 
present my thought: in the dress—or say the; aspect of truth or 
of untruth—in which it more attracts my belief. This, however, 
is precisely what, I usually do not do. In the expression “Brown 
is honest, isn’t he?” I am so near to believing the truth of 
Brown’s being honest, that I even risk a tentative assertion. 
Following this with a more seriously intended question, I ask 
you to express yourself upon the: untruth of Brown’s being 
honest. In “Brown isn’t, honest, is he ?” assertion and question 
are equally antagonistic. It appears then that, if I more in¬ 
cline to the truth of my thought, I put in question its untruth, 
and vice versa. 
Why I do this, I do not claim to know, though several motives 
are conceivable. For instance, it is obvious that, in putting 
my thought before you in one only of its possible aspects (as 
true or as untrue), I expose it to a virtual contradiction by your 
answer. Such being the case, I may rather naturally prefer to 
imperil that aspect of my thought, whose contradiction will the 
less distress or mortify me. 
Again, that aspect, of my thought which I myself find less 
alluring, has presumably the lesser chance of satisfying you— 
the greater chance of rousing your antagonism; and in the latter 
lies perhaps my gain. I suppose that, a statement such as “Two* 
and two* are five” is more* likely to evoke an expression of yo-ur 
opinion, than the more acceptable “Two and two are four.” 
The exhibition of the 1 less attractive aspect of a thought, ac¬ 
cordingly, might, be defended, as an interrogative expedient, on 
the ground of its major effectivity as provoker of an answer. 
Such explanations regard the speaker’s action as a choice. 
Some ground, however, may be* found for ranking what, occurs 
as quite involuntary. As there forms in mind a thought con¬ 
sisting of the elements expressible by “Brown,” “honest” and 
“to be,” before belief arrives upon the scene, at least in all its 
fullness, one* of the alternatives (truth or untruth) develops in 
me some propension toward itself. By just so much, however, 
as I lean toward one* alternative, I lean away from the other. 
If belief develops,, it finds the one in the very focus of the 
mental eye 1 —the other in the margin of the visual field. Per¬ 
haps belief is nothing more than the focalization of one alter¬ 
native, and the final disappearance of the other from the mental 
