THE EXPERIMENTAL THEORY 107 



the meaning grows similarly in quality. But we 

 cannot set up a rose, an object of fullest, complete, 

 and exhaustive content as that which is really 

 meant by any and every odor of a rose, whether 

 it consciously meant to mean it or not. The test 

 of the cognitional rectitude of the odor lies in the 

 specific object which it sets out to secure. This 

 is the meaning of the statement that the import of 

 each term is found in its relationship to the other. 

 It applies to object meant as well as to the mean 

 ing. Fulfilment, completion are always relative 

 terms. Hence the criterion of the truth or falsity 

 of the meaning, of the adequacy, of the cognitional 

 thing lies within the relationships of the situation 

 and not without. The thing that means another 

 by means of an intervening operation either suc 

 ceeds or fails in accomplishing the operation in 

 dicated, while this operation either gives or fails 

 to give the object meant. Hence the truth or 

 falsity of the original cognitional object. 



IV 



From this excursion, I return in conclusion to a 

 brief general characterization of those situations 

 in which we are aware that things mean other 

 things and are so critically aware of it that, in 

 order to increase the probability of fulfilment and 

 to decrease the chance of frustration, all possible 



