94&amp;gt; THE EXPERIMENTAL THEORY 



or Hume s &quot; distinct ideas which are separate 

 existences.&quot; Smells apparently assume an inde 

 pendent, isolated status during this period of in 

 vestigation. &quot; Sensations,&quot; as the laboratory psy 

 chologist and the analytic psychologist generally 

 studies them, are examples of just such detached 

 things. But egregious error results if we forget 

 that this seeming isolation and detachment is the 

 outcome of a deliberate scientific device that it is 

 simply a part of the scientific technique of an in 

 quiry directed upon securing tested conclusions. 

 Just and only because odors (or any group of 

 qualities) are parts of a connected world are 

 they signs of things beyond themselves ; and only 

 because they are signs is it profitable and necessary 

 to study them as if they were complete, self-en 

 closed entities. 



In the reflective determination of things with 

 reference to their specifically meaning other things, 

 experiences of fulfilment, disappointment, and go 

 ing astray inevitably play an important and recur 

 rent role. They also are realistic facts, related in 

 realistic ways to the things that intend to mean 

 other things and to the things intended. When 

 these fulfilments and refusals are reflected upon in 

 the determinate relations in which they stand to 

 their relevant meanings, they obtain a quality which 

 is quite lacking to them in their immediate occur 

 rence as just fulfilments or disappointments; viz., 



