splitting of it into consciousness and what the
consciousness is 'of.'  Its subjectivity and objectivity
are functional attributes solely, , realized
only when the experience is 'take,' i.e.,
talked-of, twice, considered along with its two
differing contexts respectively, by a new retrospective
experience, of which that whole past
complication now forms the fresh content.

     The instant field of the present is at all times
what I call the 'pure' experience.  It is only
virtually or potentially either object or subject
as yet.  For the time being, it is plain, unqualified
actuality, or existence, a simple _that_.  In this

24
_naif_ immediacy it is of course _valid_; it is _there_,
we _act_ upon it; and the doubling of it in retrospection
into a state of mind and a reality intended
thereby, is just one of the acts.  The
'state of mind,' first treated explicitly as such
in retrospection, will stand corrected or confirmed,
and the retrospective experience in its
turn will get a similar treatment; but the immediate
experience in its passing is always
'truth,'(1) practical truth, _something_to_act_on_, at
its own movement.  If the world were then and
there to go out like a candle, it would remain
truth absolute and objective, for it would be
'the last word,' would have no critic, and no
one would ever oppose the thought in it to the
reality intended.(2)

     I think I may now claim to have made my

---

   1 Note the ambiguity of this term, which is taken sometimes
objectively and sometimes subjectively.

   2 In the _Psychological_Review_ for July [1904], Dr. R.B.Perry has
published a view of Consciousness which comes nearer to mine than any
other with which I am acquainted.  At present, Dr. Perry thinks, every
field of experience is so much 'fact.'  It becomes 'opinion' or
'thought' only in retrospection, when a fresh experience, thinking the
same object, alters and corrects it.  But the corrective experience
becomes itself in turn corrected, and thus the experience as a whole is
a process in which what is objective originally forever turns
subjective, turns into our apprehension of the object.  I strongly
recommend Dr. Perry's admirable article to my readers.
---

25
thesis clear.  Consciousness connotes a kind of
external relation, and does not denote a special
stuff or way of being.  _The_peculiarity_of_our_experiences,_
_that_they_not_only_are,_but_are_known,_
_which_their_'conscious'_quality_is_invoked_to_
_explain,_is_better_explained_by_their_relations_--
_these_relations_themselves_being_experiences_--_to_
_one_another_.

                              IV

     Were I now to go on to treat of the knowing
of perceptual by conceptual experiences, it
would again prove to be an affair of external
relations.  One experience would be the knower,
the other the reality known; and I could
perfectly well define, without the notion of
'consciousness,' what the knowing actually
and practically amounts to -- leading-towards,
namely, and terminating-in percepts, through
a series of transitional experiences which the
world supplies.  But I will not treat of this,
space being insufficient.(1)  I will rather consider

---

   1 I have given a partial account of the matter in _Mind_, vol. X, p.
27, 1885, and in the _Psychological_Review_, vol. II, p. 105, 1895.  See
also C.A. Strong's article in the
_Journal_of_Philosophy,_Psychology_and_Scientific_Methods_, vol I, p.
253, May 12, 1904.  I hope myself very soon to recur to the matter.
---

26
a few objections that are sure to be urged
against the entire theory as it stands.

                              V

     First of all, this will be asked:  "If experience
has not 'conscious' existence, if it be not
partly made of 'consciousness,' of what then
is it made?  Matter we know, and thought we
know, and conscious content we know, but
neutral and simple 'pure experience' is something
we know not at all.  Say _what_ it consists
of -- for it must consist of something -- or be