above, p. 134; and below, p.202.]
198
and with some interval, that can be definitely
named. But, if the talker be a humanist, he
must also see this distance-interval concretely
and pragmatically, and confess it to consist
of other intervening experiences -- of possible
ones, at all events, if not of actual. To call my
present idea of my dog, for example, cognitive
of the real dog means that, as the actual tissue
of experience is constituted, the idea is capable
of leading into a chain of other experiences
on my part that go from next to next and
terminate at last in vivid sense-perceptions
of a jumping, barking, hairy body. Those _are_
the real dog, the dog's full presence, for my
common sense. If the supposed talker is a
profound philosopher, although they may not
_be_ the real dog for him, they _mean_ the real dog,
are practical substitutes for the real dog, as
the representation was a practical substitute
for them, that real dog being a lot of atoms,
say, or of mind-stuff, that lie _where_ the sense-
perceptions lie in his experience as well as in
my own.
199
III
The philosopher here stands for the stage of
thought that goes beyond the stage of common
sense; and the difference is simply that he
'interpolates' and 'extrapolates,' where common
sense does not.
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