It is in a desire to elevate metaphysics to somewhere near this level that Peirce proposes his new theory of clearness, believing that much of the useless disputation of philosophy, as he sees it, will end when we know exactly what we are talking about according to this test. On the question of truth he might indeed have referred to another of his early articles, where the same idea of the independence of truth from individual opinion is brought out. The much-quoted paper on "How To Make Our Ideas Clear" was, as we have noted, the second of a series called "Illustrations of the Logic of Science". In order to get his doctrine of truth more adequately before us, we may turn for a moment to the first article of the series, the paper called "The Fixation of Belief". Here Peirce begins by pointing out four methods for fixing belief. In the first, or 'method of tenacity', one simply picks out the belief which for some reason he _desires_, and holds to it by closing his eyes to all evidence pointing the other way. The second, or the 'method of authority', is the same except that the individual is replaced by the state. The third, or 'a priori method', makes a thing true when it is 'agreeable to reason'. But this sort of truth varies between persons, for what is agreeable to reason is more or less a matter of taste. In contrast with these, and especially with the _a priori_ method, a method must be discovered which will determine truth entirely apart from individual opinion. This is the method of science. That is, "To satisfy our doubt ... it is necessary that a method should be found by which our beliefs may be caused by nothing human, but by some external permanency--by something upon which our thinking has no effect.... It must be something which affects, or might affect, every man. And, though these affections are necessarily as various as are individual conditions, yet the method must be such that the ultimate conclusion of every man shall be the same. Such is the method of science. Its fundamental hypothesis, restated in more familiar language, is this: There are real things whose characters are entirely independent of our opinions about them; those realities affect our senses according to regular laws, and, though our sensations are as different as our relations to the objects, yet, by taking advantage of the laws of perception, we can ascertain by reasoning how things really are, and any man, if he have sufficient experience, and reason enough about it, will be led to one true conclusion. The new conception here involved is that of reality. It may be asked how I know that there are any realities. If this hypothesis is the sole support of my method of inquiry, my method of inquiry must not be used to support my hypothesis. The reply is this: 1. If investigation cannot be regarded as proving that there are real things, it at least does not lead to a contrary conclusion; but the method and conception on which it is