EXPERIENCE AND IDEALISM 



universals, to constitute knowledge in its eulogistic 

 sense. But two contrary errors do not make a 

 truth, although they suggest and determine the 

 nature of some relevant truth. This truth is the 

 empirical origin, in a determinate type of situa 

 tion, of the contrast of observation and concep 

 tion; the empirical relevancy and the empirical 

 worth of this contrast in controlling the character 

 of subsequent experiences. To suppose that per 

 ception as it concretely exists, either in the early 

 experiences of the animal, the race, or the in 

 dividual, or in its later refined and expanded ex 

 periences, is identical with the sharply analyzed, 

 objectively discriminated and internally disinte 

 grated elements of scientific observation, is a per 

 version of experience; a perversion for which, in 

 deed, professed empiricists set the example, but 

 which idealism must perpetuate if it is not to find 

 its end in an improved, functional empiricism. 1 



IV 



We come now to the consideration of the third 

 element in our problem; ideality, important and 



1 Plato, especially in his &quot; Theaetetus,&quot; seems to have 

 begun the procedure of blasting the good name of per 

 ceptive experience by identifying a late and instrumental 

 distinction, having to do with logical control, with all ex 

 perience whatsoever. 



