THE EXPERIMENTAL THEORY 101 



cessfully and unsuccessfully maintained and exe 

 cuted the meanings of other things was erected into 

 a wholesale difference of status in the intrinsic 

 characters of the things involved in the two types 

 of cases. 



With the beginnings of modern thought, the 

 region of the &quot; unreal,&quot; the source of opinion and 

 error, was located exclusively in the individual. 

 The object was all real and all satisfactory, but 

 the &quot; subject &quot; could approach the object only 

 through his own subjective states, his &quot; sensa 

 tions &quot; and &quot; ideas.&quot; The Greek conception of 

 two orders of existence was retained, but instead 

 of the two orders characterizing the &quot; universe &quot; 

 itself, one was the universe, the other was the 

 individual mind trying to know that universe. 

 This scheme would obviously easily account for 

 error and hallucination ; but how could knowledge, 

 truth, ever come about such a basis? The Greek 

 problem of the possibility of error became 

 the modern problem of the possibility of knowl 

 edge. 



Putting the matter in terms that are inde 

 pendent of history, experiences of failure, disap 

 pointment, non-fulfilment of the function of mean 

 ing and contention may lead the individual to the 

 path of science to more careful and extensive 

 investigation of the things themselves, with a view 

 to detecting specific sources of error, and guard- 



