[12] In other words, the situation as described is not to be confused with the case of hunting on purpose to test an idea regarding the dog.
[13] Dr. Moore, in an essay in “Contributions to Logical Theory” has brought out clearly, on the basis of a criticism of the theory of meaning and fulfilment advanced in Royce’s “World and Individual,” the full consequences of this distinction. I quote one sentence (p. 350): “Surely there is a pretty discernible difference between experience as a purposive idea, and the experience which fulfils this purpose. To call them both ‘ideas’ is at least confusing.” The text above simply adds that there is also a discernible and important difference between experiences which, de facto, are purposing and fulfilling (that is, are seen to be such ab extra), and those which meant to be such, and are found to be what they meant.
[14] The association of science and philosophy with leisure, with a certain economic surplus, is not accidental. It is practically worth while to postpone practice; to substitute theorizing, to develop a new and fascinating mode of practice. But it is the excess achievement of practice which makes this postponement and substitution possible.
[15] It is the failure to grasp the coupling of truth of meaning with a specific promise, undertaking, or intention expressed by a thing which underlies, so far as I can see, the criticisms passed upon the experimental or pragmatic view of the truth. It is the same failure which is responsible for the wholly at large view of truth which characterizes the absolutists.
[16] The belief in the metaphysical transcendence of the object of knowledge seems to have its real origin in an empirical transcendence of a very specific and describable sort. The thing meaning is one thing; the thing meant is another thing, and is (as already pointed out) a thing presented as not given in the same way as is the thing which means. It is something to be so given. No amount of careful and thorough inspection of the indicating and signifying things can remove or annihilate this gap. The probability of correct meaning may be increased in varying degrees—and this is what we mean by control. But final certitude can never be reached except experimentally—except by performing the operations indicated and discovering whether or no the intended meaning is fulfilled in propria persona. In this experimental sense, truth or the object of any given meaning is always beyond or outside of the cognitional thing that means it. Error as well as truth is a necessary function of knowing. But the non-empirical account of this transcendent (or beyond) relationship puts all the error in one place (our knowledge), and all the truth in another (absolute consciousness or else a thing-in-itself).
[17] Compare his essay, “Does Consciousness Exist?” in the Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, Vol. I., p. 480.
[18] Compare the essay on the “Problem of Consciousness,” by Professor Woodbridge, in the Garman Memorial Volume, entitled “Studies in Philosophy and Psychology.”
[19] Reprinted, with many changes, from an article in Mind, Vol. XVI., N.S., July 1907. Although the changes have been made to render the article less technical, it still remains, I fear, too technical to be intelligible to those not familiar with recent discussions of logical theory.
[20] I follow chiefly Chapter XV. of “Appearance and Reality”—the chapter on “Thought and Reality.”
[21] The crux of the argument is contained in Chapters XIII. and XIV., on the “General Nature of Reality.”