or individuality to the fact that each of them
embodies a specific set of cues or anticipations, with reference to
further experiences. The difference between a quality like "sharpness"
and a quality like "red" lies in the fact that the former is a
translation of a relatively simple possibility, viz., "will cut,"
whereas the latter embodies a greater variety of anticipations. The
perception of red, being the outcome of many comparisons and
associations, presupposes a complex physical response which contains
multitudinous tendencies to reinstate former responses; and the combined
effect of these suppressed tendencies is the perception of a color which
offers possibilities of control over behavior in such directions as
reminiscences, idle associations, or perhaps scrutiny and investigation.
A similar explanation evidently applies to abstract ideas, which neither
admit of reduction to "revived sensations" nor compel the adoption of a
peculiarly "spiritual" or "psychic" existence in the form of
unanalyzable meanings. Here again a complex mode of response must be
assumed, having as its correlate an experience describable only in
terms of its functioning, which is such as to enable the organism to act
intelligently, i.e., with reference to future results, which are
sufficiently embodied in the experience to secure appropriate behavior.
Again, this point of view offers a satisfactory solution for the
time-worn puzzle of relativity. If perception is just the translation of
future possible stimulations into present fact, there is assuredly no
justification for the notion that perception distorts the facts or that
discrepancies among different perceptions prove their "subjectivity."
There remains but one test by which the correctness or validity of
perception may be judged, viz., whether the perceived object proves to
be the kind of stimulus which is reported or anticipated in the present
experience.

So far our discussion has emphasized the anticipatory character of the
conscious stimulus. Future consequences come into the present as
_conditions_ for further behavior. These anticipations are based,
indeed, upon previous happenings, but they enter into the present
situation as conditions that must be taken into account. But to take
them into account means that the conscious situation is essentially
incomplete and in process of transformation or reconstruction. This
peculiar incompleteness or contingency stands out prominently whe