THE POSTULATE OF EMPIRICISM 233 



is something not concretely experienced (whose na 

 ture accordingly is the critic s business) ; and this 

 is to depart from the empiricist s point of view, 

 to attribute to him a postulate he expressly 

 repudiates. 



The material point may come out more clearly 

 if I say that we must make a distinction between 

 a thing as cognitive, and one as cognized. 1 I 

 should define a cognitive experience as one that 

 has certain bearings or implications which induce, 

 and fulfil themselves in, a subsequent experience 

 in which the relevant thing is experienced as cog 

 nized, as a known object, and is thereby trans 

 formed, or reorganized. The fright-at-the-noise 

 in the case cited is obviously cognitive, in this sense. 

 By description, it induces an investigation or in 

 quiry in which both noise and fright are objectively 

 stated or presented the noise as a shade-wind 

 fact, the fright as an organic reaction to a sudden 

 acoustic stimulus, a reaction that under the given 

 circumstances was useless or even detrimental, a 

 maladaptation. Now, pretty much all of experi 

 ence is of this sort (the &quot; is &quot; meaning, of course, 

 is experienced as), and the empiricist is false to his 

 principle if he does not duly note this fact. 2 But 



* In general, I think the distinction between -4ve and -ed 

 one of the most fundamental of philosophic distinctions, and 

 one of the most neglected. The same holds of -tion and -ing. 



2 What is criticised, now as &quot; geneticism &quot; (if I may coin 



