as continuity."[1] This insistence on the generality of intelligible form is perfectly consistent with due emphases on the reality of the individual, which to a Scotist realist connotes an element of will or will-resistence, but in logical procedure means that the test of the truth or falsity of any proposition refers us to particular perceptions.[10] But as no multitude of individuals can exhaust the meaning of a continuum, which includes also organizing relations of order, the full meaning of a concept cannot be in any individual reaction, but is rather to be sought in the manner in which all such reactions contribute to the development of the concrete reasonableness of the whole evolutionary process. In scientific procedure this means that integrity of belief in general is more important than, because it is the condition of, particular true beliefs.
II
This insistence on the continuity so effectually used as a heuristic principle in natural and mathematical science, distinguishes the pragmatism of Peirce from that of his follower James. Prof. Dewey has developed this point authoritatively in the supplementary essay; but in view of the general ignorance as to the sources of pragmatism which prevails in this incurious age, some remarks on the actual historical origin of pragmatism may be in order.
There can be little doubt that Peirce was led to the formulation of the principle of pragmatism through the influence
- ↑ Ib.
