132 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION 



term reality. That is to say, the term denotes either a belief, 

 qualified as knowledge, or the things and relations which make 

 up the object of the belief. In Mr. James s Pragmatism, these 

 figure as distinct kinds of realities, with which a new idea must 

 agree if it is to be accepted as true. Now it appears to us 

 perfectly clear, that the belief and its object are not kinds of 

 realities (as if reality were a generic term comprehending them 

 both), but realities in different senses of the term. In a later 

 volume the author of Pragmatism assumes that &quot;the only realities 

 we can talk about&quot; are objects-believed-in. 1 This we take to be 

 obviously the better statement, and we propose to hold to it in 

 tyis place. 



J Reality, then, may be said to have two aspects corresponding 

 to the two factors in truth itself. In the first place, it is that with 

 which our ideas must agree if they are to be true. In the second 

 place, it is that to which our conduct must conform if it is to be 

 satisfactory. More briefly, it is on the one hand the object of 

 knowledge, and on the other hand the condition of success and 

 failure. It is a principal object of the pragmatists to exhibit 

 the essential unity of these two aspects, and they do not consider 

 them separately. We think, however, that for the purposes of 

 the present exposition a brief separate treatment may be helpful. 

 Reality, as the object of knowledge, is conceived to be relative 

 or absolute, according as the knowledge itself is accepted as 

 relative or absolute. Primarily, reality means the realities of 

 actual experience and expectation. Though, upon sufficient re 

 flection we may admit that these realities have not been definitely 

 ascertained, nevertheless, in so far as we naively accept them, 

 we accept them as if they were absolute that is to say, as 

 perfect standards to which our other beliefs (as well as the beliefs 

 of other men) must, if they are to be true, exactly conform. 

 They are believed in as if their existence were independent of 

 the present belief itself; as if a change of belief would be a change 

 from true to false, leaving the reality itself unchanged. The 



1 The Meaning of Truth, p. 236. The whole passage is a silent, perhaps uncon 

 scious, correction of the looser exposition given in Lecture VI of Pragmatism. 



