THE AIM AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 41 



with the same Objective elements. Thus my concept of the 

 Hazing fire in the next room enables me to maintain practical 

 .and theoretical relations with it at times when none of its 

 qualities are contents of a percept of mine. There is, then, in 

 ^every concept a reference to Objective elements, though it is 

 only in perception that these elements present themselves with 

 a guarantee of their Objective character. To employ Mr. 

 Bradfey's well-known idiom, in perception reality is qualified 

 by an ideal content, while in conception the ideal content is a 

 " floating adjective " of reality floating, however, as a captive 

 balloon floats, with a subtle line still holding, it fast to the 

 ground from which it arose. In acts of imagination when I 

 picture a giant whose favourite food is bread and butter 

 sprinkled with light brown horses,* or when with circumstantial 

 detail I present the life of , Colonel Newcome; in play when 

 the make-believe messenger arrives fiery red with haste astride 

 of the nursery chair ;f in authentic narrative of the past ; in 

 expressions of command ; in plans or resolutions for future 

 behaviour ; in all these we have a synthesis of conceptual 

 elements which, though it follows perceptual models, appears to 

 owe its particular form to the initiative of the thinker. And 

 by this ideal content reality is in each case qualified just so 

 far as the primary facts of the moment will permit the 

 qualification. 



If this doctrine is true, then there is no such definite gulf 

 between concepts and percepts as is frequently supposed. 

 There is always a reference of the ideal content to the 

 Objective world. In perception the Objectivity of the concept 

 is self-announced and self -guaranteed : in mere conception 

 there is no such guarantee of the Objectivity of the ideal 

 content, but simply absence of rejection by the presented 

 Objective of the proffered addition ; while in negation there 



* An achievement (I believe) of the late Professor Clifford, 

 t Stevenson, Child's Play (in Virgimlus Puerisque). 



