his definite rejection of the appeal to the Will to Believe—under the form of what he calls the method of tenacity. Closely associated with this is the fact that Peirce has a more explicit dependence upon the social factor than has James. The appeal in Peirce is essentially to the consensus of those who have investigated, using methods which are capable of employment by all. It is the need for social agreement, and the fact that in its absence "the method of tenacity" will be exposed to disintegration from without, which finally forces upon mankind the wider and wider utilization of the scientific method.
Finally, both Peirce and James are realists. The reasonings of both depend upon the assumption of real things which really have effects or consequences. Of the two, Peirce makes clearer the fact that in philosophy at least we are dealing with the conception of reality, with reality as a term having rational purport, and hence with something whose meaning is itself to be determined in terms of consequences. That "reality" means the object of those beliefs which have, after prolonged and coöperative inquiry, becomes stable, and "truth" the quality of these beliefs is a logical consequence of this position. Thus while "we may define the real as that whose characters are independent of what anybody may think them to be . . . it would be a great mistake to suppose that this definition makes the idea of reality perfectly clear."[11] For it is only the outcome of persistent and conjoint inquiry which enables us to give intelligible meaning in the concrete to the expression "characters independent of what anybody may think them to be." (This is the pragmatic way out of the egocentric predicament.) And while my purpose is wholly expository I can not close without inquiring whether recourse to Peirce would not have a most beneficial influence in contemporary discussion. Do not a large part of our epistemological difficulties arise from an attempt to define the "real" as something given prior to reflective inquiry instead of as that which reflective inquiry is forced to reach and to which when it is reached belief can stably cling?
