Suppose, however, that we could give any one such information. We should then be telling him about things _as they are_, it is true, but his knowledge of things would not be different in _kind_ from what it was before. The only difference between such a knowledge of things and a knowledge of things not known to be ultimate would be that, in the former case, it would be recognized that no further extension of knowledge was possible. The distinction between appearance and reality would remain just what it was in the experience of the plain man. 22. THE BUGBEAR OF THE "UNKNOWABLE."--It is very important to recognize that we must not go on talking about appearance and reality, as if our words really meant something, when we have quite turned our backs upon our experience of appearances and the realities which they represent. That appearances and realities are connected we know very well, for we perceive them to be connected. What we see, we can touch. And we not only know that appearances and realities are connected, but we know with much detail what appearances are to be taken as signs of what realities. The visual experience which I call the house as seen from a distance I never think of taking for a representative of the hat which I hold in my hand. This visual experience I refer to its own appropriate touch thing, and not to another. If what _looks like_ a beefsteak could _really be_ a fork or a mountain or a kitten indifferently,--but I must not even finish the sentence, for the words "look like" and "could really be" lose all significance when we loosen the bond between appearances and the realities to which they are properly referred. Each appearance, then, must be referred to some particular real thing and not to any other. This is true of the appearances which we recognize as such in common life, and it is equally true of the appearances recognized as such in science. The pen which I feel between my fingers I may regard as appearance and refer to a swarm of moving atoms. But it would be silly for me to refer it to atoms "in general." The reality to which I refer the appearance in question is a particular group of atoms existing at a particular point in space. The chemist never supposes that the atoms within the walls of his test-tube are identical with those in the vial on the shelf. Neither in common life nor in science would the distinction between appearances and real things be of the smallest service were it not possible to distinguish between this appearance and that, and this reality and that, and to refer each appearance to its appropriate reality. Indeed, it is inconceivable that, under such circumstances, the distinction should have been drawn at all.