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Peirce’s pragmatism has, therefore, a decidedly intellectual cast. The meaning of an idea or proposition is found not by an intuition of it but by working out its implications. It admits that thought does not constitute reality. Categories can have no concrete being without action or immediate feeling. But thought is none the less an essential ingredient of reality; thought is “the melody running through the succession of our sensations.” Pragmatism, according to Peirce, seeks to define the rational purport, not the sensuous quality. It is interested not in the effect of our practical occupations or desires on our ideas, but in the function of ideas as guides of action. Whether a man is to pay damages in a certain lawsuit may depend, in fact, on a term in the Aristotelian logic such as proximate cause.

It is of interest to observe that though Peirce is an ardent admirer of Darwin’s method, his scientific caution makes him refuse to apply the analogy of biologic natural selection to the realm of ideas, in the wholesale and uncritical manner that has lately become fashionable. Natural selection may well favor the triumph of views which directly influence biologic survival. But the pleasure of entertaining congenial illusions may overbalance the inconvenience resulting from their deceptive character. Thus rhetorical appeals may long prevail over scientific evidence.