The Universe Ought To Be Presumed Too

If Man Were Immortal He Could Be Perfectly Sure Of Seeing The Day When Everything In Which He Had Trusted Should Betray His Trust.

Law Is Par Excellence The Thing That Wants A Reason. Now The Only Possible Way Of Accounting For The Laws Of Nature, And For Uniformity In General, Is To Suppose Them Results Of Evolution.

Theoretically, I Grant You, There Is No Possibility Of Error In Necessary Reasoning. But To Speak Thus "theoretically," Is To Uselanguage In A Pickwickian Sense. In Practice, And In Fact, Mathematics Is Not Exempt From That Liability To Error That Affects Everything That Man Does.

It Is Important To Understand What I Mean By Semiosis. All Dynamic Action, Or Action Of Brute Force, Physical Or Psychical, Either Takes Place Between Two Subjects, Whether They React Equally Upon Each Other, Or One Is Agent And The Other Patient, Entirely Or Partially, Or At Any Rate Is A Resultant Of Such Actions Between Pairs. But By "semiosis" I Mean, On The Contrary, An Action, Or Influence, Which Is, Or Involves, A Cooperation Of Three Subjects, Such As A Sign, Its Object, And Its Interpretant, This Tri-relative Influence Not Being In Any Way Resolvable Into Actions Between Pairs.

Notwithstanding All That Has Been Discovered Since Newton's Time, His Saying That We Are Little Children Picking Up Pretty Pebbles On The Beach While The Whole Ocean Lies Before Us Unexplored Remains Substantially As True As Ever, And Will Do So Though We Shovel Up The Pebbles By Steam Shovels And Carry Them Off In Carloads.