140 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
be they words or sentences. It invites however confrontation 
with the kindred one-word active sentence “Pluit.” 
Realizing that my full interpretations of these one-word sen¬ 
tences have been extreme, if not extravagant, and little doubt¬ 
ing that, in usual linguistic thought, analysis would be content 
if “Pluit” were interpreted as “Raining happens”—“Pluitur” 
as “Raining is effected (made to happen)”—I admit these 
meanings into an improvement of the tabulation offered on p. 
62. Accordingly: 
(l) 
“ Pluit”; 
“Raining puts on reality’ 
“Raining happens’’. 
(3) | “Reality clothes raining’ 
l. 
- “ Reality is put on by raining’’; (4) < 
[ ..;. 
“ Pluitur’’; 
“ Raining is clothed by reality’’; 
“Raining is effected’’. 
This admitting is however incomplete—and that conspicu¬ 
ously. In (2) I do not put a final passive sentence, for the 
reason that I can’t. In (3) I do not put a final active sentence 
—again because I can’t. In (2) and (3) I have exhibited no 
one-word sentences, because I do not know of any. Hor do I 
blame myself for these omissions; for I don’t believe they can 
be filled, my reason being this: (2) and (3) begin with an idea 
which is far too abstract. In its thinking, mind is taxed enough 
in passing from the concrete to the simplest abstract, as in 
“Yonder cloud is white,” without augmenting difficulty by re¬ 
versing its procedure. “Whiteness characterizes yonder cloud” 
has never been a favorite. In struggling to a vastly higher 
species of abstraction, the severity of effort is still greater. To 
increase it by beginning with abstraction is intolerable. “Ilium 
fuit” gives no promise of “Existence characterized,” and less 
of “ceased to characterize Troy,” although the latter para¬ 
phrases the translation “Troy is no more.” “Reality clothes” 
or “is put on by raining” doubtless in linguistic practice never 
will be thought—much less expressed. 
I conclude accordingly that “Pluit” has no corresponding 
passive—“Pluitur,” no corresponding active. 
