222 EXPERIENCE AND IDEALISM 



function of developing and perfecting value, in 

 stead of the function of knowing an unalterable 

 object, as the standard by which to estimate and 

 measure intelligence. 



The one constant trait of experience from its 

 crudest to its most mature forms is that its jcon- 

 tents undergo change of meaning, and of meaning 

 in the sense of excellence, value. Every experi 

 ence is in-course, 1 in course of becoming worse or 

 better as to its contents, or in course of conscious 

 endeavor to sustain some satisfactory level of 

 value against encroachment or lapse. In this ef 

 fort, both precedent, the reduction of the present 

 idealization, the anticipation of the possible, 

 though doubtful, future, emerge. Without ideal 

 ization, that is, without conception of the favor 

 able issue that the present, defined in terms of 

 precedents, may portend in its transition, the 

 recollection of precedents, arid the formulation of 

 tentative rules is nonsense. But without the identi 

 fication of the present in terms of elements sug 

 gested by the past, without recognition, the ideal, 



1 Compare James, &quot; Continuous transition is one sort of 

 conjunctive relation; and to be a radical empiricist means to 

 hold fast to this conjunctive relation of all others, for this 

 is the strategic point, the position through which, if a hole 

 be made, all the corruptions of dialectics and all the meta 

 physical fictions pour into our philosophy.&quot; Journal of 

 Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, Vol. I., p. 

 536. 



