-6 THE AIM AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 



suggestion that has probably occurred to many. If to be 

 Objective means to have a relevance to purpose and action, 

 how is it that we recognise material things and thoughts 

 as having that relevance before the course of events has 

 revealed it? Why do I ascribe Objectivity to the hundred 

 thalers on the table, and deny it to the content of my thought 

 of a hundred thalers before I have attempted to spend or even 

 to touch them ? The reply that it is because the former are 

 like in all respects to thalers which have been things " to 

 reckon with" or upon, while the latter are not, is plausible 

 in this special case, but does not seem sufficient to meet the 

 general case of the recognition of Objective existents before 

 experience of their relevance to action. Surely, we may retort, 

 the perception of this similarity which is the signal of 

 subsequent relevance to action is the direct and simple 

 perception of the presence of Objectivity as such a property 

 which as a matter of fact is accompanied by the property of 

 relevance to action. 



In a somewhat similar way we may meet the contention 

 that the Objective is that which is " the same for all." Upon 

 this view the " finite centres " in which all experience occurs, 

 find it at once possible, and necessary for the development of 

 intercourse with other centres, to " pool " a large part of their 

 experience, and this common matter becomes the objective 

 world, exterior to all and the same for all. Some writers 

 (e.g., M. Poincare') attribute a very great importance in this 

 connection to language, which they seem to regard as actually 

 the means by which a " same for all " comes to- exist, and not 

 merely the means of our becoming aware that it does exist. 

 Here we may repeat our objection that the Objective is known 

 directly as such prior to the discovery that it is the same 

 for all. We may add in this case the further objection that 

 in the inventory of the Objective we include net only unique 

 experiences in the world of physical existents such as 

 astronomical observations incapable of repetition but also the 



