On the other hand, if I can lead you to the
56
hall, and tell you of its history and present
uses; if in its presence I feel my idea, however
imperfect it may have been, to have led hither
and to be now _terminated_; if the associates of
the image and of the felt hall run parallel, so
that each term of the one context corresponds
serially, as I walk, with an answering term of
the others; why then my soul was prophetic,
and my idea must be, and by common consent
would be, called cognizant of reality. That percept
was what I _meant_, for into it my idea has
passed by conjunctive experiences of sameness
and fulfilled intention. Nowhere is there jar,
but every later moment continues and corroborates
an earlier one.
In this continuing and corroborating, taken
in no transcendental sense, but denoting definitely
felt transitions, _lies_all_that_the_knowing_
_of_a_percept_by_an_idea_can_possibly_contain_or_
_signify_. Wherever such transitions are felt, the
first experience _knows_ that last one. Where they
do not, or where even as possibles they can not,
intervene, there can be no pretence of knowing.
In this latter case the extremes will be connected,
57
if connected at all, by inferior relations
-- bare likeness or succession, or by 'withness'
alone.
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