MILL S THEORY OF OBJECTIVITY 185 



cism the means of an effective synthesis of realism and subjec 

 tive idealism, in which the claims and the limitations of both 

 are duly recognized. 



What has all this to do with pragmatism? In the first place, 

 it is to be observed that the pragmatist theory of the relation of 

 thought to conduct casts a wholly new light upon Mill s analysis 

 of objectivity. Permanence, uniformity, accessibility the fac 

 tors may seem at first blush to have nothing in common and to 

 form a merely accidental combination. But for the intelligent 

 guidance of conduct what can be more necessary than an en 

 vironment thus characterized? It is the condition, not simply 

 of success, but of reasonable endeavor. In so far as the world 

 is not of this character, our struggles are vain. 



In the second place, Mill s theory offers an alternative to the 

 immediatism^ with w r hich pragmatism has hitherto been bound 

 up. It is to be noted that pragmatism, as presented by its 

 chief advocates, is subject to a limitation which the evidences 

 drawn from functional psychology seem hardly to warrant 

 namely, its inapplicability to perception. According to these 

 writers, the percept is neither true nor false: it is a fact. It 

 represents nothing beyond itself, with which it might stand in 

 agreement or disagreement. Ideas, on the contrary, are repre 

 sentatives. The idea of a sensible thing may, for example, be a 

 copy of the thing. But the percept (i. e., the thing as perceived) 

 is the thing. In this identity, there is no scope for representation, 

 whether true or false. A thing cannot agree with itself. 



This view is included in the theory of immediatism, the general 

 discussion of which we cannot undertake here. At the same 

 time it stands in a very close relation to the loosely-styled sub 

 jective idealism of David Hume. Hume, it will be remembered, 

 found that the belief in the continued existence of our impressions 

 of s nsation was instinctive and ineradicable, and was an indis 

 pensable postulate of science; while at the same time he con- 



J Cf. Appendix I, pp. 231 ff. and Appendix II. 



