THE PRACTICAL CHARACTER OF REALITY 239 



the occurrence to describe the change as being merely in our 

 attitude and thus subjective. The real thing, that is, the thing 

 as actually experienced, has changed. It is all one, indeed, 

 whether we say that the thing experienced has changed, or that 

 experience has changed . Things are no other than our experience 

 of them; and experience is no other than the things experienced. 



But not only do we discover the real nature of such things as 

 particular noises, horses, and chairs, by asking what they are ex 

 perienced as; but we must apply the same method in our inquiry 

 into the nature of all manner of metaphysical quiddities. As 

 Professor Dewey says: &quot;If you wish to find out what subjec 

 tive, objective, physical, mental, cosmic, psychic, cause, sub 

 stance, purpose, activity, evil, quantity, any philosophic term, 

 in short, means, go to experience and see what it is experi 

 enced as.&quot; 



Suppose, now, we attempt to apply this method to the very 

 subject under discussion, the nature of reality itself. Has Pro 

 fessor Dewey, we may well ask, followed the method of imme 

 diate empiricism in his account of reality? Has he asked what 

 reality itself is experienced as? Or has he, since reality is only 

 another name for the different reals of experience, asked what a 

 real thing is experienced as? For surely, although real thing 

 may perhaps be conceived as identical with thing experienced, 

 it is not immediately experienced as such. If a really fearsome 

 noise is not experienced as something over and above a fear 

 some noise, the real is not experienced at all. As well might 

 the fearsome noise be described as harmless, since investigation 

 shows it to be such. For is it not perfectly manifest, that it is 

 only for subsequent reflection that the fearsome noise can be 

 come a really fearsome noise, just as it is only for subsequent 

 reflection that it could have become a not really fearsome but 

 really harmless noise ? The experience A B is surely not 

 identical with the experience really A B ; and it would seem 

 that the inquiry to which the immediatist is committed is : What 

 is the nature of this experienced difference? 



