THE INTELLECTUALIST CRITERION 135 



sists in acting upon it to see if it will do what 

 it pretends it can do, namely, guide activities to 

 the required result. The assumption about reality 

 is not something in addition to the idea, which an 

 idea already in existence makes ; some assumption 

 about the possibility of a change in the state of 

 things as experienced is the idea and its test or 

 criterion is whether this possible change can be 

 effected when the idea is acted upon in good 

 faith. 



In any case, how much simpler the case becomes 

 when we stick by the empirical facts. According 

 to them there is no wholesale discrepancy of ex 

 istence and meaning ; there is simply a &quot; loosen 

 ing &quot; of the two when objects do not fulfil our 

 plans and meet our desires; or when we project 

 inventions and cannot find immediately the means 

 for their realization. The &quot; collisions &quot; are neither 

 physical, metaphysical, nor logical ; they are moral 

 and practical. They exist between an aim and 

 the means of its execution. Consequently the 

 object of thinking is not to effect some wholesale 

 and &quot; Absolute &quot; reconciliation of meaning and 

 existence, but to make a specific adjustment of 

 things to our purposes and of our purposes to 

 things at just the crucial point of the crisis. Mak 

 ing the utmost concessions to Mr. Bradley s ac 

 count of the discrepancy of meaning and existence 

 in our experience, to his statement of the relation 



