THE POSTULATE OF EMPIRICISM 231 



The content of the latter experience cognitively re 

 garded is doubtless truer than the content of the 

 earlier ; but it is in no sense more real. To call it 

 truer, moreover, must, from the empirical stand 

 point, mean a concrete difference in actual things 

 experienced. 1 Again, in many cases, only in retro 

 spect is the prior experience cognitionally regarded 

 at all. In such cases, it is only in regard to con 

 trasted content m a subsequent experience that 

 the determination &quot; truer &quot; has force. 



Perhaps some reader may now object that as 

 matter of fact the entire experience is cognitive, 

 but that the earlier parts of it are only imperfectly 

 so, resulting in a phenomenon that is not real; 

 while the latter part, being a more complete cog 

 nition, results in what is relatively, at least, more 

 real. 2 In short, a critic may say that, when I was 



1 It would lead us aside from the point to try to tell 

 just what is the nature of the experienced difference we call 

 truth. Professor James s recen^ articles may well be con 

 sulted. The point to bear in mind here is just what sort 

 of a thing the empiricist must mean by true, or truer (the 

 noun Truth is, of course, a generic name for all cases of 

 &quot;Trues&quot;). The adequacy of any particular account is not 

 a matter to be settled by general reasoning, but by finding 

 out what sort of an experience the truth-experience actually 

 is. 



2 I say &quot; relatively,&quot; because the transcendentalist still 

 holds that finally the cognition is imperfect, giving us only 

 some symbol or phenomenon of Reality (which is only in 

 the Absolute or in some Thing-in-Itself) otherwise the 



