Part 30

It is now high time to ask why the internal meaning seeks this external meaning. Why does it seek an object? Why does it want to cross the chasm? In other words, what is the significance of the demand for the particular judgment? In the introduction we have been told, as a matter of description, that the internal meanings do seek the external meaning, but why do they? We have also been told that universal judgments "develop and enrich the realm of internal meaning." Why, then, should there be a demand for the external meaning, for a further object? The answer is:

We have our internal meanings. We develop them in inner experience. There they get presented as something of universal value, _but always in fragments_. They, therefore, so far dissatisfy. We conceive of the Other wherein these meanings shall get some sort of final fulfilment.[189]

It is, then, the incomplete and fragmentary character of the internal meaning that demands the particular judgment. The particular judgment is to further complete and determine the incomplete and indeterminate internal meaning. And yet no sooner is this particular judgment made than we are told that "it is a form at once positive, and very unsatisfactorily indeterminate." Again:[190]

The judgments of experience, the particular judgments, express a positive but still imperfect determination of internal meaning through external experience. The limit or goal of this process would be an individual judgment wherein the will expressed its own final determination.[191]

Apparently, then, the particular judgment to which the internal meaning appeals for completion and determination only succeeds in increasing the fragmentary and indeterminate character.

This brings us to another "previous question." Just what are we to understand by this "fragmentary" and "indeterminate" character of the internal meaning? In what sense, with reference to what, is it incomplete and fragmentary? Later we shall be told that it is with reference to "its own final and completely individual expression." This is to be reached in the individual judgment. And if we ask what is meant by this final, complete, and individual expression--which, by the way, no human being can experience--we read, wondering all the while how it can be known, that it is simply "the expression that seeks no other," that "is satisfied," that "is conclusive of the search for perfection."[192] Waiving for the present questions concerning the basis of this satisfaction and perfection, all this leaves unanswered our query concerning the other end of the matter, viz., the meaning and criterion of the fragmentary and indeterminate character of these internal meanings.

If we here return to the first definition of internal meaning of the idea as a purpose in the sense of "a plan of action," such as "singing in tune," or getting the properties of a geometrical figure, it does not seem difficult to find a basis and meaning for this fragmentary and indeterminate character. First we may note in a general way that it is of the very essence of a plan or purpose to lead on to a fulfilling experience such as singing in tune, or reaching a mathematical equation. But here this fulfilling experience to which the plan points is not a mere working out of detail inside the plan itself, although, indeed, this does take place. If this were all the fulfilling experience meant, it is difficult to see how we should escape subjective idealism.[193] We start with a relatively indeterminate idea and end with a more determinate _idea_, though, indeed, there is yet no criterion for this increased determination. To be sure, the idea as a plan of action, as has already been stated, does undergo change and does become, if you please, more definite and complete as a plan; but this does not constitute its fulfilment. Its fulfilment surely is to be found in the immediate experiences of singing, etc., to which the idea points and leads.

The fragmentary and incomplete character of the internal meaning as a plan of action does not, then, after all, so much describe the plan itself as it does the general condition of experience out of which the idea arises. Experience takes on the form of a plan, of an idea, precisely because it has fallen apart, has become "fragmentary." It is just the business of the internal meaning, as Mr. Royce so well shows, to form a plan, an ideal, an hypothetical synthesis that shall stimulate an activity, which shall satisfactorily heal the breach. "Fragmentary" is a quality, then, that belongs, not to the idea in itself considered, but to the general condition of experience, of which the idea as a plan is an expression.

If, now, the fragmentary character of the internal meaning is determined simply with relation to the fulfilling experiences, such as singing in tune, adjustments of geometrical figures, etc., to which it points and leads, it seems as if the completion of the internal meaning must be defined in the same terms. And this would appear to open a pretty straight path to the redefinition of truth and error.

III. THE CRITERION OF TRUTH AND ERROR

At the outset, truth was defined as the "correspondence" or "agreement" of an idea with its object. But we have seen that correspondence or agreement with an object means the completion and determination of the idea itself, and since the idea is here a specific "plan of action," it would seem that the "true" idea would be the one that can complete itself by stimulating a satisfying activity. The false idea would be one that cannot complete itself in a satisfying activity, such as singing in tune, constructing a mathematical equation, etc., and just this solution is very clearly expounded by our author. In the case of mathematical inquiry,

In just so far as we _pause satisfied_ we observe that there "is no other" mathematical fact to be sought _in the direction of the particular inquiry in hand_. Satisfaction of purpose by means of _presented fact_ and such determinate satisfaction as sends us to no other experience for further light and fulfillment, precisely this outcome is itself the Other that is sought when we begin our inquiry.[194]

So "when other facts of experience are sought," if I watch for stars or for a chemical precipitate, or for a turn in the stock market, or in the sickness of a friend, my ideas are true when they are satisfied with "the presented facts." Again,

It follows that the finally determinate form of the object of any finite idea is that form which the idea itself would assume whenever it became individuated, or in other words, became a completely determined idea, an idea or will fulfilled by a wholly adequate empirical content, for which no other content need be substituted or from the point of view of the satisfied idea, could be substituted.[195]

In such passages as these it seems clear that the test of the truth of an idea is its power to bring us to the point where we "pause satisfied," where "no other content need be substituted," etc. Nor in such passages does there seem to be any doubt of reaching satisfaction in particular cases. Here, it appears, we _may_ sing in tune, we _may_ get the desired precipitate, and possibly even interpret the stock market correctly. Of course, the discord, the hunger, the loss, will come again; but so will new ideas, new truths. "Man thinks in order to get control of his world and thereby of himself."[196] Then the control actually gained must measure the value, the truth of his thought. Do you wish to sing in tune, "then your musical ideas are false if they lead you to strike what are then called false notes."[197]

It should also be noticed that here this desired determination does not consist in a further determination of the mere idea as such. It is found in "the presented fact," in the immediate activity of singing, of getting precipitates, etc. As has already been pointed out, it is only by using the term "idea" for both the purpose and the fulfilling act of singing that this "pause of satisfaction" can be ascribed to the further determination of the idea. As such, as also before remarked, the sort of determination that the idea here gets means its termination, its disappearance in the immediate experiences of singing, etc., to which it leads. The "indefinite restlessness" of hunger and cold would scarcely be satisfied by getting more determinate and specific _ideas_ only of food and shelter. The satisfaction comes when the ideas are "realized," when the "plans" are swallowed up in fulfilment.

But in all this nothing has been said about "the certain absolute system of ideas," nor does there appear to be here any demand for it. To be sure, in the passages just considered, experience has been found to become "fragmentary," but it has also been found capable of healing, of wholing itself, not of course into any "final whole," but into the unity of "satisfaction" as regards "the particular inquiry in hand." There is of course failure as well, but this also is not final. It means simply that we must look farther for the "pause of satisfaction," that we must construct another idea, another "plan of action."

But, after having shown that the idea as a plan of action may lead to satisfaction in the particular case, and that its success or failure so to do is one measure of its truth or falsity, we are now suddenly aroused to the fact that after all thought does not lead us to the completed "absolute system of ideas," to a final stage of eternal unbroken satisfaction.

But never in our human process of experience do we reach that determination. It is for us the object of love and of hope, of desire and of will, of faith and of work, but never of present finding.[198]

If at this point one asks: Whence this absolute system of ideas? Why have we to reckon with it at all? there appears to be little that is satisfying. Indeed, it seems difficult to get rid of the impression that this "certain absolute system of ideas" is on our hands as a philosophical heirloom from the time of Plato, so hallowed by time and so established by centuries of acceptance that we have ceased to ask for its credentials. To ground it in the "essentially fragmentary character of human experience" appears to be a _petitio_, for experience does not appear "essentially fragmentary" in this sense until after the absolute system has been posited.

And this brings to notice that at this point both the fragmentary and unitary characters of experience take on new meaning. So far this fragmentary character has been defined with reference to "the particular inquiry in hand." Now, since the distinction between absolute and human experience has emerged, the fragmentary character becomes an absolute quality of the latter in contrast with the former. So, _mutatis mutandis_, of unity. Up to this point unity, wholeness, has been possible within human experience in the case of particular problems, such as singing in tune, etc. But with the appearance of the absolute system of ideas, wholeness is now the exclusive quality of the latter, as incompleteness is of human experience, though of course the _working_ unity, the unity resulting in "pauses of satisfaction," must still remain in the latter.

The problem now is to somehow work the absolute system of ideas into connection with the conception of the idea as a purpose, as a concrete plan of action. Here is where the third conception of the relation between idea and purpose, described at the beginning, comes into play--the conception in which the idea, instead of being the purpose, or the fulfilment of a purpose, _has_ the purpose to correspond with, or represent "its own final and completely individual expression," contained in the absolute system. From the previous standpoint the idea's "own final and completely individual expression" has been found in the fulfilling experiences of singing in tune, getting mathematical equations, chemical precipitates, etc. Here this complete individual experience can never be found in finite, human experience, but must be sought in the absolute system--and this can be only "the object of love and hope, of desire and will, never of present finding."

Notwithstanding the many previous protestations that the purposive function of the idea is its "primary" and "most essential" character, we are here forced to fall back upon correspondence--representation as the primary, the essential, and indeed, it appears at times, as the sole function. For in the attempt to bring these two functions together the purposive function is swallowed up in the representative. The idea still is, or has a purpose, a "plan of action," but this purpose, this plan, is now nothing but to represent and correspond with its own final and completed form in the absolute system. By this simple _coup_ is the purposive function of the idea reduced at once to the representative. Nor is it pertinent to urge at this point that every purpose involves representation, that the plan must be some sort of an image or scheme which symbolizes and stimulates the thing to be done. This no one would question, but now the sole "thing to be done" apparently is to perfect this representation of the complete and individual form in the absolute system.[199]

Once more, an array of passages could be marshaled from almost every page refuting any such interpretation as this, but they would be passages expounding the part played by the idea in such concrete experiences as singing, measuring, etc., not in representing an absolute system of ideas. Even as regards the latter one might urge that, by insisting on the active character of the idea, we could after all regard this absolute system as a life of will after the fashion of our own, were it not at once described as "the complete embodiment," "the final fulfilment," of finite ideas. A life consisting of mere fulfilment seems a baffling paradox. And its timeless character only adds to the difficulty. Moreover, if we regard the system as constituted by such concrete activities as measuring and singing, etc., while we have saved will, we shall now have to fallback upon our first conception of truth as found in the idea which unifies the fragmentary condition of experience as related to specific problems, not fragmentary as related to an absolute system.

This brings us to the final and crucial point of the discussion, the part which purpose plays in the determination of _truth_ and _error_ from the standpoint of "the absolute system of ideas." When is this purpose of the idea to correspond with its absolute, final, and completed form fulfilled, or partially fulfilled? And here at the very outset is a difficulty. We have read repeatedly that the idea is itself "the partial fulfilment of a purpose." It is now to seek an object which shall increase this degree of fulfilment, but still this fulfilment shall be incomplete. And when we come to consider error, it too will be found to consist in a partial fulfilment. So it appears that there are three stages of "partial fulfilment" to be discriminated, one belonging to the idea itself, another to finite truth, and still another to error.

Returning to the problem, from this point on we find the two standpoints, that of the specific situation and that of the absolute system, so closely interwoven and entangled that they are followed with great difficulty. We have already seen that the idea seeks correspondence with its object, because it is "fragmentary," "incomplete," "indetermined." And there we found that this indeterminate and fragmentary character belonged to the idea as a purpose, a plan of seeking relief from some sort of "restlessness" and "dissatisfaction," such as singing out of tune, etc. Here it is the incompleteness of an imperfect representation of its object in the absolute system that is the _motif_, and how it is to effect an improvement in its imperfect condition is now the problem. Here again the appeal is to purpose. Whatever may constitute the absolute system, one thing is assured: nothing in it can be an object except as the finite idea "intends it," purposes it, to be its object. Again must we ask: On what basis is this object in the absolute system selected at all? In general the answer is: On the basis of a need of "further determination;" but when we further analyze this, we find it means on the basis of a specific want or need, such as food, shelter, measuring, singing, etc. The basis of the selection, then, is entirely on the side of the concrete, finite situation.

Here, too, we might ask: Whence the confidence that there will be found something in the absolute system that will fulfil the purpose generated on the side of the finite? Must we not here fall back on something like a pre-established harmony? To this our author would say: "Yea, verily. The fact that the absolute system responds to the finite needs does precisely show that the finite and the absolute cannot be sundered." But when we try to state _how_ the purpose generated on the side of the finite can be met by the absolute system, the account again seems to run so much in terms of the finite experience that to call it a system of "final," "completed," and "fulfilled" ideas does not seem accurate. We must note here, too, the shifting in the sense of "purpose." The idea selects its object on the basis of the material needed to relieve the unrest and dissatisfaction of singing out of tune, etc. But now it is to be satisfied by increasing the extent of its representation of its object in the absolute system.

And now, finally, what shall mark the attainment of this purpose of the idea to correspond and represent "its own completed form"? When is the correspondence and representation true? Simply at the point where "we pause satisfied," where "no other content need be substituted, or from the point of view of the satisfied idea could be substituted." That is all; there is no other answer. There are other statements, but they all come to the same thing. For instance:

It is true--this instant's idea--if, in its own measure, and on its own plan, it corresponds, even in its vagueness, to its own final and completely individual expression.[200]

But the moment we ask what this "final and individual expression" is, and what is meant by "in its own measure," and "on its own plan," we are thrown back at once upon the preceding statement. The next sentence following the passage just quoted does indeed define this "individual expression." "Its expression would be the very life of fulfilment of purpose which this present idea already fragmentarily begins, as it were, to express." But how can we know that the expression is "fragmentary" unless we have some experience of wholeness?

And here perhaps is the place to say, what has been implied all along, that this absolutely "fragmentary" character of human experience is an abstraction of the relatively disintegrated condition into which experience temporarily falls, which abstraction is then reinstated as a fixed quality, overlooking the fact that experience becomes fragmentary only that it may again become whole. The absolute system, the final fulfilment, is in the same case. It too is but the hypostatized abstraction of the function of becoming whole, of wholing and fulfilling, which manifests itself in the "pauses of satisfaction."

"But," Mr. Royce would say, "the wholeness of the particular instance is after all not a true and perfect wholeness, because we can always think of the fulfilling experience as possibly different, as having a possibly different embodiment." But this implies also a different purpose. Moreover, it abstracts the purpose from the specific conditions under which the purpose develops. Thus in singing in tune one doubtless could easily imagine himself singing another tune, on another occasion, in another key, in a clear tenor instead of a cracked bass, etc. But if on _this_ occasion, in _this_ song, and with _this_ cracked bass voice one, accepting all these conditions, does, with malice aforethought, purpose to strike the tune, and happily succeeds, why, for that purpose formed under the known and accepted conditions, is not the accomplishment final and absolute? Nor is the case any different, so far as I can see, in mathematical experience. To quote again:

You think of numbers, and accordingly count one, two, three. Your idea of these numbers is abstract, a mere generality. Why? Because there could be other cases of counting, and other numbers counted than the present counting process shows you, and why so? Because your purpose in counting is not wholly fulfilled by the numbers now counted.[201]

I confess I cannot see here in what respect the purpose is not fulfilled. Doubtless there could be "other cases of counting," and "other numbers," but these may not be included in my present purpose, which is simply to count here and now. In this passage the purpose is not very fully defined. One's counting is usually for something, if for nothing more than merely to illustrate the process. In this latter case one's purpose would be completely fulfilled by just the numbers used when he should "pause satisfied" with the illustration. Or, if I wish to show the properties of numbers, then the discovery that there can always be more of them fulfils my purpose, since this endless progression is one of the properties. Or yet again, if one should suddenly become enamored of the process of counting, and forthwith should purpose to devote the rest of his days to it, it would still be fortunate that there were always other numbers to be counted. In other words, the idea as a purpose is formed with reference to, and out of, specific conditions. In the last analysis the problem always is: What is to be done here and now with the actual material at hand, under the present conditions? As the purpose is determined by these specific conditions, so is the fulfilment. To say that the fulfilment might be different is virtually to say that the purpose might have been different, or indeed that the universe might have been different.

This necessity of falling back upon the character of the idea as a purpose in the sense of the specific "plan of action" comes into still bolder relief in the consideration of error from the standpoint of "the absolute system of ideas." As already mentioned, the initial and persistent problem here is to distinguish at all between truth and error in our experience from this standpoint. All our efforts at representing the absolute system must fall short. What can we mean, then, by calling some of our ideas true and others false? The definition of error is as follows:

An error is an error about a specific object, only in case the purpose, imperfectly defined by the vague idea at the instant when the error is made, is better defined, is in fact, better fulfilled by an object whose determinate character in some wise, although never absolutely, opposes the fragmentary efforts first made to define them.[202]

But in relation to the absolute system the later part of this statement holds of all our ideas. There always is the absolute object which would "better define" and "better fulfil" our purposes. Hence it is only in reference to the "specific" instances of singing, measuring, etc., that a basis for the distinction can be found. Here our plan is not true so long as its mission of relieving the specific unrest and dissatisfaction, the specific discord or hunger, is unfulfilled.