conceptual sign. Contemned though they be by some thinkers, these
sensations are the mother-earth, the anchorage, the stable rock,
the first and last limits, the terminus a quo and the terminus ad
quem of the mind. to find such sensational termini should be our aim
with all our higher thought. They end discussion; they destroy the
false conceit of knowledge; and without them we are all at sea with
each other's meaning. If two men act alike on a percept, they
believe themselves to feel alike about it; if not, they may suspect
they know it in differing ways. We can never be sure we understand
each other till we are able to bring the matter to this test.
[Footnote: 'There is no distinction of meaning so fine as to
consist in anything but a possible difference of practice.... It
appears, then, that the rule for attaining the [highest] grade
of clearness of apprehension is as follows: Consider what
effects, which might conceivably have practical bearings, we
conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our
conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the
object.' Charles S. Peirce: 'How to make our Ideas clear,' in
Popular Science Monthly, New York, January, 1878, p. 293.] This is
why metaphysical discussions are so much like fighting with the air;
they have no practical issue of a sensational kind. 'Scientific'
theories, on the other hand, always terminate in definite
percepts. You can deduce a possible sensation from your theory and,
taking me into your laboratory, prove that your theory is true of my
world by giving me the sensation then and there. Beautiful is the
flight of conceptual reason through the upper air of truth.
No wonder philosophers are dazzled by it still, and no wonder they
look with some disdain at the low earth of feeling from which the
goddess launched herself aloft. But woe to her if she return not
home to its acquaintance; Nirgends haften dann die unsicheren