.96 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters. ' 
'The very multiplicity of action details thus facilitates lin¬ 
guistic dealing with them. To sense them accurately is im¬ 
possible. Bewildered by their crowding, mind renounces hard 
and fast determination of their several implications. Rigidity 
of mental total yields to flexibility. So conceiving them, I 
can for instance think of self and shot-gun as approximately 
partners, either one of whom may at a given moment rank 
.according to convenience as a senior or a junior partner—even 
:as a silent partner—even lending nothing to the enterprise be¬ 
yond his name. I am ready then to think of self not only as 
co-active with the weapon in the shooting, but as also far less 
genuinely active—or as, say, sub-active —in a shooting pictured 
as effected by the weapon. In general, the actor may be posed 
;as coadjutor. 
Coming now to what in speaking of the changes in the mean¬ 
ing of a word I called momentum, I observe that, speaking of 
the Boston-Portland boat, if I should say “She runs by the 
shore,” the preposition would suggest that course of boat, and 
trend of shore, are virtually parallel. If now I say “She runs 
by schedule,” this equivalence of physical direction is advanced 
to harmony, agreement, almost to community of purpose—which 
may be expressed exactly by “in accordance with.” Still 
further, in “The clerk computed interest by bankers’ tables,” 
‘“by” not only has this meaning, but gives also hint of further 
meaning easier to discover in “She runs by sails—or paddle- 
wheels”—in which the prepositional suggestion has once more 
advanced, from the idea of harmony to that of help; for “by’’ 
means doubtless “with the aid of”—not however “by the un¬ 
assisted act of,” wheels or canvas being plainly impotent with¬ 
out co-operation—that of energy or whatsoever we may think 
of as providing energy. It seems to me indeed, not only that 
we apprehend the situation thus, but also that in actual prac¬ 
tice We construct our mental picture of the situation quite ac¬ 
cordantly. “By” then contemplates in this case a contribu¬ 
tory, partial agency. If now the meaning of the preposition 
is still further to advance, it seems to me we could if necessary 
guess approximately the direction and amount of the progres- 
