This affords an opportunity to speak again of the logical problem to which reference and promise of return were made earlier in this paper. Facts may be regarded as existing qualitatively and in certain spatial and temporal relations; when there is knowledge another relation is added, that of one thing meaning or signifying another. Water exists, for example, as water, in a certain place, in a certain temporal sequence. But it may signify the quenching of thirst; and this signification-relation constitutes knowledge.[57] This statement may be taken in a way congruous with the account developed in this paper. But it may also be taken in another sense, consideration of which will serve to enforce the point regarding the tentative nature of the characterization of the given, as distinct from the intended and absent. Water means quenching thirst; it is drunk, and death follows. It was not water, but a poison which "looked like" water. Or it is drunk, and is water, but does not quench thirst, for the drinker is in an abnormal condition and drinking water only intensifies the thirst. Or it is drunk and quenches thirst; but it also brings on typhoid fever, being not merely water, but water plus germs. Now all these events demonstrate that error may appertain quite as much to the characterization of existing things, suggesting or suggested, as to the suggestion _qua_ suggestion. There is no ground for giving the "things" any superior reality. In these cases, indeed, it may fairly be said that the mistake is made because qualitative thing and suggested or meaning-relation were _not_ discriminated. The "signifying" force was regarded as a part of the direct quality of the given fact, quite as much as its color, liquidity, etc.; it is only in another situation that it is discriminated as a relation instead of being regarded as an element.