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This insistence on the continuity so effectually used as a heuristic principle in natural and mathematical science, distinguishes the pragmatism of Peirce from that of his follower James. Prof. Dewey has developed this point authoritatively in the supplementary essay; but in view of the general ignorance as to the sources of pragmatism which prevails in this incurious age, some remarks on the actual historical origin of pragmatism may be in order.

There can be little doubt that Peirce was led to the formulation of the principle of pragmatism through the influence of Chauncey Wright.^[11] Wright who had first hand acquaintance with creative scientific work in mathematics, physics, and botany was led by the study of Mill and Bain to reflect on the characteristics of scientific method. This reflection led him to draw a distinction between the use of popular scientific material, by men like Spencer, to construct a myth or picture of the world, and the scientific use of laws by men like Newton as means for extending our knowledge of phenomena. Gravitation as a general fact had interested metaphysicians long before Newton. What made Newton’s contribution scientific was the formulation of a mathematical law which has enabled us to deduce all the then known facts of the solar system and to anticipate or predict many more facts the existence of which would not otherwise be even suspected, e.g., the existence of the planet Neptune. Wright insists, therefore, that the principles of modern mathematical and physical science are the means through which nature is discovered, that scientific laws are the finders rather than merely the summaries of factual truths. This conception of the experimental scientist as translating general propositions into prescriptions for attaining new experimental truths, is the starting point of Peirce’s pragmatism. The latter is embodied in the principle that the meaning of a concept is to be found in “all the conceivable experimental phenomena which the affirmation or denial of the concept could imply.”^[12]