246 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION 



meaning of fearsome as used in the previous illustration. The 

 noise, was, indeed really fearsome, in the sense of actually 

 giving rise to the emotion of fear. But fearsome also means 

 simply dangerous: and it is this meaning of the term which we 

 have in mind, when after investigation we say that the noise is 

 not really fearsome but harmless. For there certainly could 

 never arise any question as to whether the noise was really fear 

 some or really harmless, unless fearsome meant more than 

 actually exciting fear. So the question, what things really are, 

 has meaning only because it refers beyond the particular imme 

 diate experience of the things, not, to be sure, to any reality 

 lying beyond experience, but to other possible experiences of the 

 things. This is true, even if the question be, for example, 

 whether a certain book is really gray. Does the gray I now see 

 belong to the object, or is it merely subjective? The question 

 is not as to the reality of my sensation of grayness, but whether 

 the gray is a part of the nature of the book or not. And the 

 answ r er to this question involves reference beyond the present 

 experience. For it may be that the apparent grayness is the re 

 sult of peculiar conditions of the lighting, and that in a better 

 light the book is blue. The experience of a thing as anything 

 is always an interpretation, an assumption on which we act in 

 our dealings with it; and the question as to the real nature of 

 the thing refers to the verification of the assumption. 



What now is to be said of the practical character of reality 

 and of the claim that knowing changes reality? Is it truism, 

 paradox, or significant truth? For evidently the answer given 

 to this question will vary with the interpretation of the term 

 reality. Let us first consider the matter from the standpoint 

 of a consistent immediatism. If real things are things as ex 

 perienced, and if things as experienced are no other than the 

 experiences themselves, then it would seem the doctrine that 

 knowing changes reality becomes a mere truism, which is better 

 expressed by saying that knowing is a change in reality, or that 

 the process of learning is a real change. 



