Owen—Interrogative Thought—Means of Its Expression . 459 
To establish this opinion, I might begin with the sentence, striv¬ 
ing to develop the meanings of its members to snch an extent, 
that the total of their meanings would tally with that of the 
diagram. It will be however simpler, and presumably more sat¬ 
isfactory, to proceed in the inverse direction. I assume then 
that, in using the question “Is Brown honest I mean what was 
meant by the diagram. Next I endeavour to show how the 
meaning of the diagram can be expressed by the words of the 
question. 
In the first place, the diagram, contains by far too many words. 
The practical need of greater brevity may be accepted as the 
final cause, or the “raison d’etre,” of the conventional interroga¬ 
tive sentence. For the latter, I will first prepare the way, by a 
series of reductions in the diagram. 
In order to have the believing-or-disbelieving in convenient 
shape to be the object of “I wish you to tell,” I contrived to intro¬ 
duce it into the diagram, in substantive form. But obviously 
the “believing” will still be there, and still be conceivable as the 
object of “tell,” even if I incorporate it with “experience” in the 
total meaning expressed by “I believe;” and the like is true, if I 
substitute “I disbelieve” for “I experience disbelieving.” Ac¬ 
cordingly I change my diagram into 
I (for you) 
I wish you to tell me believe-or-disbelieve 
the truth of 
Brown 
to be 
honest 
To reduce this diagram further still, I utilize the brevity of 
the imperative, obtaining 
I (for you) 
Tell me believe-or disbelieve 
the truth of 
Brown 
to be 
honest 
To effect a further reduction, I need a single word which can 
express the meanings of two or more of the words thus far em- 
