In the whole field of symbolic thought we are universally held both to intend, to speak of, and to reach conclusions about—­to know in short—­particular realities, without having in our subjective consciousness any mind-stuff that resembles them even in a remote degree.  We are instructed about them by language which awakens no consciousness beyond its sound; and we know which realities they are by the faintest and most fragmentary glimpse of some remote context they may have and by no direct imagination of themselves.  As minds may differ here, let me speak in the first person.  I am sure that my own current thinking has words for its almost exclusive subjective material, words which are made intelligible by being referred to some reality that lies beyond the horizon of direct consciousness, and of which I am only aware as of a terminal more existing in a certain direction, to which the words might lead but do not lead yet.  The subject, or topic, of the words is usually something towards which I mentally seem to pitch them in a backward way, almost as I might jerk my thumb over my shoulder to point at something, without looking round, if I were only entirely sure that it was there.  The upshot, or conclusion, of the words is something towards which I seem to incline my head forwards, as if giving assent to its existence, tho all my mind’s eye catches sight of may be some tatter of an image connected with it, which tatter, however, if only endued with the feeling of familiarity and reality, makes me feel that the whole to which it belongs is rational and real, and fit to be let pass.

Here then is cognitive consciousness on a large scale, and yet what it knows, it hardly resembles in the least degree.  The formula last laid down for our thesis must therefore be made more complete.  We may now express it thus:  A percept knows whatever reality it directly or indirectly operates on and resembles; ACONCEPTUAL feeling, or thought knows A reality, whenever it actually or potentially terminates in A percept that operates on, or resembles that reality, or is otherwise connected with it or with its context.  The latter percept may be either sensation or sensorial idea; and when I say the thought must terminate in such a percept, I mean that it must ultimately be capable of leading up thereto,—­by the way of practical

Is an incomplete ‘thought about’ that reality, that reality is its ‘topic,’ etc. experience, if the terminal feeling be a sensation; by the way of logical or habitual suggestion, if it be only an image in the mind.