Others are felt to increase or to
enlarge their meaning, to carry out their purpose,
or to bring us nearer to their goal. They
63
'represent' them, and may fulfil their function
better than they fulfilled it themselves. But to
'fulfil a function' in a world of pure experience
can be conceived and defined in only one possible
way. IN such a world transitions and
arrivals (or terminations) are the only events
that happen, though they happen by so many
sorts of path. The only experience that one experience
can perform is to lead into another
experience; and the only fulfilment we can
speak of is the reaching of a certain experienced
end. When one experience leads to (or
can lead to) the same end as another, they
agree in function. But the whole system of
experiences as they are immediately given
presents itself as a quasi-chaos through which
one can pass out of an initial term in many
directions and yet end in the same terminus,
moving from next to next by a great many
possible paths.
Either one of these paths might be a functional
substitute for another, and to follow one
rather than another might on occasion be
an advantageous thing to do. As a matter of
64
fact, and in a general way, the paths that
run through conceptual experiences, that is,
through 'thoughts' or 'ideas' that 'know' the
things in which they terminate, are highly advantageous
paths to follow.
Pages:
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66