The second illustration of the pragmatic principle--the supposed opposition between the One and the Many--may be treated more briefly. James suggests certain definite and practical sets of results in which to define 'oneness', and tries out the conception to see whether this result or that is what oneness means. He finds this method to clarify the difficulty here as well as in the previous case. In summarizing he says: "I have little doubt myself that this old quarrel might be completely smoothed out to the satisfaction of all claimants, if only the maxim of Peirce were methodically followed here. The current monism on the whole still keeps talking in too abstract a way. It says that the world must either be pure disconnectedness, no universe at all, or absolute unity. It insists that there is no stopping-place half-way. Any connection whatever, says this monism, is only possible if there be still more connection, until at last we are driven to admit the absolutely total connection required. But this absolutely total connection either means nothing, is the mere word 'one' spelt long, or else it means the sum of all the partial connections that can possibly be conceived. I believe that when we thus attack the question, and set ourselves to search for these possible connections, and conceive each in a definite and practical way, the dispute is already in a fair way to be settled beyond the chance of misunderstanding, by a compromise in which the Many and the One both get their lawful rights". (p. 685). In concluding, James relates Peirce to the English Empiricists, asserting that it was they "who first introduced the custom of interpreting the meaning of conceptions by asking what differences they make for life.... The great English way of investigating a conception is to ask yourself right off, 'What is it known as? In what facts does it result? What is its _cash-value_ in terms of particular experience? And what special difference would come into the world according as it were true or false?' Thus does Locke treat the conception of personal identity. What you mean by it is just your chain of memories, says he.... So Berkeley with his 'matter'. The cash-value of matter is just our physical sensations.... Hume does the same thing with causation. It is known as habitual antecedence.... Stewart and Brown, James Mill, John Mill, and Bain, have followed more or less consistently the same method; and Shadworth Hodgson has used it almost as explicitly as Mr. Peirce.... The short-comings and negations and the baldnesses of the English philosophers in question come, not from their eye to merely practical results, but solely from their failure to track the practical results completely enough to see how far they extend". (pp. 685-6). * * * * *