126 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION 



development of ideas; and the latter phase, like the former, is a 

 differentiation of the parts of a complex from a relatively simple 

 datum. Furthermore, the development of ideas is essentially 

 the development of interests. Amid the primitive formlessness 

 of the infant s world a formlessness which yet pervades all but 

 a little of our own only that is distinguished which catches its 

 instinctive attention; and if we adults see more, that is because 

 we have felt more. The function of consciousness in the biologi 

 cal organism being the control of conduct, it is only in and through 

 the performance of that function that its development is possible. 

 If we examine into the use and context of a newly developed 

 idea, we find that we must recognize: (i) its relation to the 

 relatively simple idea from which it has sprung, as well as to the 

 contrasted idea from which it has been distinguished (and, per 

 haps, soon also to the more complex ideas to which it in turn 

 gives rise) ; and (2) its relation to the conduct to which it prompts 

 briefly and crudely its genetic and functional relations. Both 

 of these are somewhat indiscriminately included under the term 

 meaning . The terms content and import seem to mark the 

 distinction fairly well, and we shall find occasion to employ them 

 later. As the process of habituation proceeds and conduct ap 

 proaches the automatic stage, both aspects of the meaning of the 

 controlling ideas suffer gradual decay. 



It is the latter (functional) aspect that pragmatists have gener 

 ally seized upon as constituting the meaning of ideas. Such 

 usage is, of course, in itself perfectly legitimate. The question, 

 whether the genetif^a^pecjtJias not been unduly neglected, never 

 theless remains. And as the pragmatist theory of truth is essen 

 tially an evolutionary one, such neglect, if it has occurred, might 

 well have serious consequences. 



The following passage, in which Professor James (writing in 

 1906) summarizes the contentions of Mr. Charles Peirce (as ex 

 pressed in 1878), exhibits very clearly the conception of meaning 

 generally held by pragmatists. &quot;... Mr. Peirce, after pointing 



