It will be at once observed that James, as well as Peirce, is at this point saying nothing about a new doctrine of truth, but is concerning himself only with a new doctrine of clearness. Meaning and clearness of meanings are his only topics in this paper. Thus he states, "The only _meaning_ of the conception of God lies in the differences which must be made in experience _if_ the conception be true. God's famous inventory of perfection ... either _means_ nothing, says our principle, or it implies certain definite things that we can feel and do at certain definite moments in our lives". And again in speaking of the pluralism-monism controversy, "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...." But as we all know, James did afterward embrace the new pragmatic theory of truth. While he did not in 1898 use the word pragmatism to designate anything except a new method for securing clearness, yet it can be shown that he had been developing another line of thought, since a much earlier date, which did lead quite directly toward the pragmatic theory of truth. It may be well at this point then to go back and trace the growth of this idea of truth through such writing as he had done before this time. It will be found, I think, that James' whole philosophic tendency to move away from the transcendental and unitary toward the particular was influencing him towards this new conception. DEVELOPMENT OF THE DOCTRINE THROUGH THE EARLIER WRITINGS OF JAMES. The first article which James wrote on truth, as he later states,[3] was entitled "The Function of Cognition", and was published in _Mind_ in 1885. Commenting on this article in 1909 he asserts that many of the essential theses of the book "Pragmatism", published twenty-two years later, were already to be found here, and that the difference is mainly one of emphasis.[4] [3] "The Meaning of Truth", Preface, p. viii. [4] Same, p. 137.