THE POSTULATE OF EMPIRICISM 237 



thing as experienced, not because of something de 

 fined in terms of externality to this particular ex 

 perience. If the illusoriness can be detected, it is 

 because the thing experienced is real, having within 

 its experienced reality elements whose own mutual 

 tension effects its reconstruction. Taken con 

 cretely, the experience of convergent lines con 

 tains within itself the elements of the transforma 

 tion of its own content. It is this thing, and not 

 some separate truth, that clamors for its own 

 reform. There is, then, from the empiricist s point 

 of view, no need to search for some aboriginal that 

 to which all successive experiences are attached, 

 and which is somehow thereby undergoing continu 

 ous change. Experience is always of thats; and 

 the most comprehensive and inclusive experience 

 of the universe that the philosopher himself can 

 obtain is the experience of a characteristic that, 

 From the empiricist s point of view, this is as true 

 of the exhaustive and complete insight of a hypo 

 thetical all-knower as of the vague, blind experi 

 ence of the awakened sleeper. As reals, they stand 

 on the same level. As trues, the latter has by 

 \definition the better of it; but if this insight is in 

 any way the truth of the blind awakening, it is 

 because the latter has, in its own determinate quale, 

 elements of real continuity with the former; it is, 

 ex hypothesi t transformable through a series of 

 experienced reals without break of continuity, into 



