To recur to the Memorial
Hall example lately used, it is only when our
idea of the Hall has actually terminated in the
percept that we know 'for certain' that from
the beginning it was truly cognitive of _that_.
Until established by the end of the process, its
quality of knowing that, or indeed of knowing
anything, could still be doubted; and yet the
knowing really was there, as the result now
shows. We were _virtual_ knowers of the Hall
long before we were certified to have been its
actual knowers, by the percept's retroactive
validating power. Just so we are 'mortal' all
the time, by reason of the virtuality of the
inevitable event which will make us so when
it shall have come.
Now the immensely greater part of all our
knowing never gets beyond this virtual stage.
It never is completed or nailed down. I speak
not merely of our ideas of imperceptibles like
ether-waves or dissociated 'ions,' or of 'ejects'
like the contents of our neighbors' minds; I
speak also of ideas which we might verify if we
would take the trouble, but which we hold for
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true although unterminated perceptually, because
nothing says 'no' to us, and there is no
contradicting truth in sight.
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