Page:Chance, love, and logic - philosophical essays (IA chancelovelogicp00peir 0).pdf/348

 ment of the hypothesis entertained in scientific procedure. Upon such a basis, what meanings attach to the terms "reality" and "truth"? Since they are general terms, their meanings must be determined on the basis of the effects, having practical bearings, which the object of our conception has. Now the effect which real things have is to cause beliefs; beliefs are then the consequences which give the general term reality a "rational purport." And on the assumption of the scientific method, the distinguishing character of the real object must be that it tends to produce a single universally accepted belief. "All the followers of science are fully persuaded that the processes of investigation, if only pushed far enough, will give one certain solution to every question to which they can be applied." "This activity of thought by which we are carried, not where we wish, but to a foreordained goal, is like the operation of destiny This great law is embodied in the conception of truth and reality. The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate, is what we mean by the truth, and the object represented in this opinion is the real." In a subsequent essay (on the "Probability of Induction") Peirce expressly draws the conclusion which follows from this statement; viz., that this conception of truth and reality makes everything depend upon the character of the methods of inquiry and inference by which conclusions are reached. "In the case of synthetic inferences we know only the degree of trustworthiness of our proceeding. As all knowledge comes from synthetic inference, we must also infer that all human certainty consists merely in our knowing that the processes by which our knowledge has been derived are such as must generally have led to true conclusions" —true conclusions, once more, being those which command the agreement of competent inquiries.

Summing up, we may say that Peirce's pragmaticism is a doctrine concerning the meaning, conception, or rational purport of objects, namely, that these consist in the "effects, which might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the ob-*