THE EXPERIMENTAL THEORY 93 



which means the object, and this difference is de 

 tectable, once attention, through failure, has been 

 called to the need of its discovery. At the very 

 least, it makes this difference : the smell is infected 

 with an element of uncertainty of meaning and 

 this as a part of the thing experienced, not for 

 an observer. This additional awareness at least 

 brings about an additional wariness. Meaning is 

 more critical, and operation more cautious. 



But we need not stop here. Attention may be 

 fully directed to the subject of smells. Smells may 

 become the object of knowledge. They may take, 

 pro tempore, 1 the place which the rose formerly 

 occupied. One may, that is, observe the cases in 

 which odors mean other things than just roses, may 

 voluntarily produce new cases for the sake of 

 further inspection, and thus account for the 

 cases where meanings had been falsified in the 

 issue; discriminate more carefully the peculiari 

 ties of those meanings which the event verified, and 

 thus safeguard and bulwark to some extent the 

 employing of similar meanings in the future. Su 

 perficially, it may then seem as if odors were 

 treated after the fashion of Locke s simple ideas, 



1 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 prac 

 tice. But it is the excess achievement of practice which 

 makes this postponement and substitution possible. 



