At this point James quotes, in substantiation, the following passage from Peirce's article of 1878: "There is no distinction in meaning so fine as to consist in anything but a possible difference in practice.... It appears, then, that the rule for attaining the highest grade of clearness of apprehension is as follows: Consider what effects, which might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object." In this early paper of James' are to be found foreshadowings of pragmatism both as a method and as a theory of truth. Pragmatism as a method is shown in the whole discussion of the primacy of sensations and of the necessity for reducing conceptions to perceptions. This is exactly in line with the pragmatism proposed by Peirce in 1878 and here quoted from by James. Pragmatism as a theory of truth is anticipated by the proposal that the idea knows, and knows truly, the reality which it is able to make changes in. The idea _proves_ its reference to a given reality by making these specified changes. It is antecedently true only if it can bring about these changes. The next step is to say that its truth _consists_ in its ability to forecast and bring to pass these changes. Then we have pragmatism as a theory of truth. James did not take this step, as we shall see, until after 1904. There is also a suggestion of the 'subjectivity' of James' later theory of truth, which would differentiate him even at this time from Peirce on the question of truth. He has said that a true idea must indeed resemble reality, but who, he asks, is to determine what is real? He answers that an idea is true when it resembles something which I, as critic, _think_ to be reality. "When [the enquirer] finds that the feeling that he is studying contemplates what he himself regards as a reality he must of course admit the feeling itself to be truly cognitive". Peirce would say that the idea is not true unless it points to a reality that would be found by _all_ investigators, quite irrespective of what the _one_ person acting as critic may think. James and Pierce would therefore, begin to diverge even at this early date on the truth question. As to what constitutes clearness, they are in agreement.