THE PRACTICAL CHARACTER OF REALITY 249 



the earlier experience which is not preserved in the knowledge- 

 experience as characteristic of the object known, regarded as 

 unreal? To say, then, that the object known is essentially the 

 same thing as the earlier experience becomes unintelligible. For 

 the earlier experience is not a thing in the same sense as is the ob 

 ject known. It is both more and less than a thing; more, by 

 virtue of those subjective factors the discarding of which is neces 

 sary in order to make it a thing; and less, because it lacks that 

 supplementation from related experiences through which the 

 thing acquires external and internal consistency. The paradox 

 of immediatism thus becomes acute. For that aspect of the 

 earlier experience which has been determined as real is just that 

 which is regarded as having remained unchanged throughout the 

 process. 



There is one sense, however, in which, as it appears to me, 

 reality may well be characterized as practical ; but it is a sense 

 almost directly opposed to that in which Professor Dewey has 

 employed the phrase. Whereas reality has been called practical 

 because it is conceived to change with every change of our sub 

 jective attitude toward it, may not its practical character be more 

 truly urged on the ground of its stability throughout the changes 

 of our attitudes? Let it be granted that things have been dis 

 criminated and are denned in reference to the practical needs of 

 human life. Yet it is equally true, that if a thing bore but a 

 single relation to our needs, it could never be discriminated 

 as a thing. It is just because a thing does stand in such a 

 diversity of relations to us, and because at the same time it main 

 tains a certain experienced identity of character amidst this di 

 versity of relationship, that it becomes a thing at all. Its 

 recognition as a thing marks the distinguishing of this continuity 

 of character from the changes of relationship it undergoes. Thus 

 the definition of the real nature of a thing as what it is apart from 

 our practical attitudes toward it, is not a piece of intellectualism; 

 it is a vital necessity for conduct as well as thought. 



