Page:Chance, love, and logic - philosophical essays (IA chancelovelogicp00peir 0).pdf/347

 the metaphysics of synechism. It will be well now to recur explicitly to Peirce's earlier doctrine which he seems to qualify—although, as he notes, he upheld the doctrine of the reality of generals even at the earlier period. Peirce sets out, in his article on the "Fixation of Belief," with the empirical difference of doubt and belief expressed in the facts that belief determines a habit while doubt does not, and that belief is calm and satisfactory while doubt is an uneasy and dissatisfied state from which we struggle to emerge; to attain, that is, a state of belief, a struggle which may be called inquiry. The sole object of inquiry is the fixation of belief. The scientific method of fixation has, however, certain rivals: one is that of "tenacity"—constant reiteration, dwelling upon everything conducive to the belief, avoidance of everything which might unsettle it—the will to believe. The method breaks down in practice because of man's social nature; we have to take account of contrary beliefs in others, so that the real problem is to fix the belief of the community; for otherwise our own belief is precariously exposed to attack and doubt. Hence the resort to the method of authority. This method breaks down in time by the fact that authority can not fix all beliefs in all their details, and because of the conflict which arises between organized traditions. There may then be recourse to what is "agreeable to reason"—a method potent in formation of taste and in esthetic productions and in the history of philosophy,—but a method which again fails to secure permanent agreements in society, and so leaves individual belief at the mercy of attack. Hence, finally, recourse to science, whose fundamental hypothesis is this: "There are real things, whose characters are entirely independent of our opinions about them; those realities affect our senses according to regular laws, and by taking advantage of the laws of perception, we can ascertain by reasoning how things really are, and any man if he have sufficient experience and reason enough about it, will be led to the one true conclusion."

It will be noted that the quotation employs the terms "reality" and "truth," while it makes them a part of the state-*