Whenever he finds that the feeling he is studying contemplates what
he himself regards as a reality, he must of course admit the feeling
itself to be truly cognitive. We are ourselves the critics here; and
we shall find our burden much lightened by being allowed to take
reality in this relative and provisional way. Every science must
make some assumptions. Erkenntnisstheoretiker are but fallible
mortals. When they study the function of cognition, they do it by
means of the same function in themselves. And knowing that the
fountain cannot go higher than its source, we should promptly
confess that our results in this field are affected by our own
liability to err. THE MOST WE CAN CLAIM IS, THAT WHAT WE SAY ABOUT
COGNITION MAY BE COUNTED AS TRUE AS WHAT WE SAY ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE.
If our hearers agree with us about what are to be held 'realities,'
they will perhaps also agree to the reality of our doctrine of the
way in which they are known. We cannot ask for more.

Our terminology shall follow the spirit of these remarks. We will
deny the function of knowledge to any feeling whose quality or
content we do not ourselves believe to exist outside of that feeling
as well as in it. We may call such a feeling a dream if we like; we
shall have to see later whether we can call it a fiction or an
error.

To revert now to our thesis. Some persons will immediately cry out,
'How CAN a reality resemble a feeling?' Here we find how wise we
were to name the quality of the feeling by an algebraic letter Q. We
flank the whole difficulty of resemblance between an inner state
and an outward reality, by leaving it free to any one to postulate
as the reality whatever sort of thing he thinks CAN resemble a
feeling,--if not an outward thing, then another feeling like