There is, however, no reason for denying that greater rigor and accuracy of exposition can really help us to discern new truth. Modern mathematics since Gauss and Weierstrass has actually been led to greater fruitfulness by increased rigor which makes such procedure as the old proofs of Taylor’s theorem no longer possible. The substitution of rigorous analytic procedures for the old Euclidean proofs based on intuition, has opened up vast fields of geometry. Nor has this been without any effect on philosophy. Where formerly concepts like infinity and continuity were objects of gaping awe or the recurrent occasions for intellectual violence,[18] we are now beginning to use them, thanks to Peirce and Royce, in accurate and definable senses. Consider, for instance, the amount of a priori nonsense which Peirce eliminates by pointing out that the application of the concept of continuity to a span of consciousness removes the necessity for assuming a first or last moment; so likewise the range of vision on a large unobstructed ground has no line between the visible and the invisible. These considerations will be found utterly destructive of the force of the old arguments (fundamental to Kant and others) as to the necessary infinity of time and space. Similar enlightenment is soon likely to result from the more careful use of terms like relative and absolute, which are bones of contention in philosophy but Ariadne threads of exploration in theoretical physics, because of the definite symbolism of mathematics. Other important truths made clear by symbolic logic is the hypothetical character of universal propositions and the consequent insight that no particulars can be deduced from universals alone, since no number of hypotheses can without given data establish an existing fact. There is, however, an even more positive direction in which symbolic logic serves the interest of philosophy, and that is in throwing light on the nature of symbols and on the relation of meaning. Philosophers have light-heartedly dismissed questions as to the nature of significant signs as ‘merely’ (most fatal word!) a matter of language. But Peirce in the paper on Man’s Glassy [Shakespearian for Mirror-Like] Essence, endeavors to exhibit man’s whole nature as symbolic.[19] This is closely connected with his logical doctrine which regards signs or symbols as one of the fundamental categories or aspects of the universe (Thoughts and things are the other two). Independently of Peirce but in line with his thought another great and neglected thinker, Santayana, has shown that the whole life of man that is bound up with the institutions of civilization, is concerned with symbols.