146 THE INTELLECTUALIST CRITERION 



a machine actually in existence, it is no more truth 

 nor criterion of truth than is a crack in the wall 

 or a cobble-stone on the street. 



The intervening term that mediates and com 

 pletes the confusion of truth with ideas on one 

 hand and &quot; reality &quot; on the other, is, I think, the 

 fact that ideas after they have been tested in action 

 are employed in the development and grounding of 

 further beliefs. There are cases in which an idea 

 ceases to exist as idea as soon as it is made true; 

 this is so as matter of fact and it is impossible to 

 conceive any reason why it should not be so in point 

 of theory. Such is the case, I take it, with a large 

 part possibly the major portion of the ideas 

 that mediate the smaller and transient crises of 

 daily practice. I cannot imagine the situation in 

 which the truth to which I have referred above 

 the verification of a certain idea about a certain 

 noise would ever function again as truth save 

 as I have given it a function in this paper by using 

 it as a corroboration of a certain theory. Such 

 ideas mostly cease, giving way to a matter-of- 

 fact status : say, the perception of the noisy street 

 car. One at the time may say &quot; My idea re 

 garding that noise was a true idea &quot; ; or one may 

 not even go so far as that, he may just stop with 

 the eventual perception. But the tested idea need 

 not ever recur as a factor of proof in any other 

 problem, Such, however, is conspicuously not 



