202 EXPERIENCE AND IDEALISM 



cries of the origin and validation of scientific 

 knowledge. The empiricist is he who feels that 

 the chief obstacle which prevents scientific method 

 from making way is the belief in pure thoughts, 

 not derived from particular observations and hence 

 not responsible to the course of experience. His 

 objection to the &quot;high a priori road&quot; is that it 

 introduces in irresponsible fashion a mode of pre 

 sumed knowledge which may be used at any turn 

 to stand sponsor for mere tradition and prejudice, 

 and thus to nullify the results of science resting 

 upon and verified by observable facts. Experi 

 ence thus comes to mean, to use the words of 

 Peirce, &quot; that which is forced upon a man s recog 

 nition will-he, nill-he, and shapes his thoughts to 

 something quite different from what they natur 

 ally would have taken.&quot; 1 The same definition is 

 found in James, in his chapter on Necessary 

 Truths : &quot; Experience means experience of some 

 thing foreign supposed to impress us whether 

 spontaneously or in consequence of our own ex 

 ertions and acts.&quot; 2 As Peirce points out, this 

 notion of experience as the foreign element that 

 forces the hand of thought and controls its 

 efficacy, goes back to Locke. Experience is &quot; ob 

 servation employed either about external sensible 

 objects, or about the internal operations of our 



1 C. S. Peirce, Monist, Vol. XVI., p. 150. 

 * Psychology, Vol. II., p. 618. 



