THE EXPERIMENTAL THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 301 the same way, through an operation which the smell stands sponsor for. The situation is inherently an uneasy one one in which everything hangs upon the performance of the operation indicated ; the adequacy of movement as a connecting link, or real adjustment of the thing meaning and the thing meant. Generalising from the instance, we get the following definition : An experience is a knowledge, if in its quale there is an experienced distinction and con- nexion of two elements of the following sort : one means or intends the presence of the other in the same fashion in which itself is already present, while the other is that which, while not present in the same fashion, must become so present if the meaning or intention of its companion or yoke-fellow is to be fulfilled through an operation it sets up. II. We shall now return briefly to the question of knowledge as acquaintance, and at greater length to that of knowledge as assurance, or as fulfilment which confirms and validates. With the recurrence of the odour as meaning something beyond itself, there is apprehension, knowledge that. One may now say I know what a rose smells like ; or I know what this smell is like ; I am acquainted with the rose's agreeable odour. In short, on the basis of a present quality, the odour anticipates and forestalls some further trait. We have also the conditions of knowledge of the confirma- tion and refutation type. In the working out of the situation just described, in the transformation, self-indicated and self- demanded, of the tensional into a harmonious or satisfactory situation, fulfilment or disappointment results. The odour either does or does not fulfil itself in the rose. The smell as intention is borne out by the facts, or is nullified. As has been already pointed out, the subsequent experience of the fulfilment type is not primarily a confirmation or refuta- tion. Its import is too vital, too urgent to be reduced in itself just to the value of testing an intention or meaning. 1 But it gets in reflexion just such verificatory significance. If 1 Dr. Moore, in an essay in Contributions to Logical Theory has brought out clearly, on the basis of a criticism of the theory of meaning and fulfilment advanced in Eoyce's World and Individual, the full conse- quences of this distinction. I quote one sentence (p. 350) : " Surely there is a pretty discernible difference between experience as a purposive idea, and the experience which fulfils this purpose. To call them both 'ideas' is at least confusing." The text above simply adds that there is also a discernible and important difference between experiences which, de facto, are purposing and fulfilling (that is, are seen to be such ab extra and those which are meant to be such, and are found to be what was meant.
