th
a single fixed method of attack, knowledge means that selection may be
made from a much wider range of habits.

Two aspects of this more general and freer availability of former
experiences for subsequent ones may be distinguished. (See ante, p. 77.)
(i) One, the more tangible, is increased power of control. What cannot
be managed directly may be handled indirectly; or we can interpose
barriers between us and undesirable consequences; or we may evade them
if we cannot overcome them. Genuine knowledge has all the practical
value attaching to efficient habits in any case. (ii) But it also
increases the meaning, the experienced significance, attaching to an
experience. A situation to which we respond capriciously or by routine
has only a minimum of conscious significance; we get nothing mentally
from it. But wherever knowledge comes into play in determining a new
experience there is mental reward; even if we fail practically in
getting the needed control we have the satisfaction of experiencing a
meaning instead of merely reacting physically.

While the content of knowledge is what has happened, what is taken
as finished and hence settled and sure, the reference of knowledge
is future or prospective. For knowledge furnishes the means of
understanding or giving meaning to what is still going on and what is
to be done. The knowledge of a physician is what he has found out by
personal acquaintance and by study of what others have ascertained and
recorded. But it is knowledge to him because it supplies the resources
by which he interprets the unknown things which confront him, fills out
the partial obvious facts with connected suggested phenomena, foresees
their probable future, and makes plans accordingly. When knowledge is
cut off from use in giving meaning to what is blind and baffling,
it drops out of consciousness entirely or else becomes an object of
aesthetic contemplation. There is much emotional satisfaction to be had
from a survey of the symmetry and order of possessed knowledge, and the
satisfaction is a legitimate one. But this contemplative attitude is
aesthetic, not intellectual. It is the same sort of joy that comes from
viewing a finished picture or a well composed landscape. It would make
no difference if the subject matter were totally different, provided
it had the same harmonious organization. Indeed, it would make no
difference if it were wholly invented, a play of fancy. Applicability to
the world me