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For example, in our classification I have a concept, 'gopher-genus
Geomys.' Another naturalist has another idea of the limits of the
genus. Our concepts may be equally true but this truth consists in
both cases in the recognition of a Ideological bond. He perhaps
includes more of the segment of evolution or career of the 'gopher
movement ' in nature than I do. The difference is nominal, the agree-
ment is conceptual. We may not say in either case that Geomys is a
real thing but it does in both these cases represent a true concept.
Let the generic limits of Geomys once be set and agreed to, I then
place in the genus an animal proving to belong to another line of
descent, the reference is false. It is a question of relation.
It is wrong to say that a concept is only a name. It does exist in
nature as the subjective expression of the truest thing we know and
the most important. It is a 'genetic 'verity. It is a career a doing,
in relation with all doing. It is a teleological verity.
But, it may be said, we are only holding a mirror up to nature and
see the trajectory of a flying bird, for example, momentarily depicted
thereon, or we are but exposing a sensitive plate in a telescope and
get only a bright trace thereon. But these illustrations do not go far
enough. In order that the plate may receive the star trace correctly,
the mechanism of the telescope must follow the path of the star.
There must be coordination. So our concept is a conceiving or fol-
lowing of the trajectory of nature. The proof of correctness is exactly
the interaction. Our conceptualism has, therefore, a link to realism
in that only upon the assumption that we are part of the organism
from which the stimulus comes could these correspondences become
intelligible. When we no longer find the trace on our photographic
plate we adjust the movement. The feeling of reality and the con-
viction of truth have their justification in the monistic construction of
organism. C. L. HERRICK.
SOCORRO, NEW MEXICO.
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