Agreement thus turns out to be essentially an affair of leading--
leading that is useful because it is into quarters that contain
objects that are important. True ideas lead us into useful verbal
and conceptual quarters as well as directly up to useful sensible
termini. They lead to consistency, stability and flowing human
intercourse. They lead away from excentricity and isolation, from
foiled and barren thinking. The untrammeled flowing of the leading-
process, its general freedom from clash and contradiction, passes
for its indirect verification; but all roads lead to Rome, and in
the end and eventually, all true processes must lead to the face of
directly verifying sensible experiences SOMEWHERE, which somebody's
ideas have copied.
Such is the large loose way in which the pragmatist interprets the
word agreement. He treats it altogether practically. He lets it
cover any process of conduction from a present idea to a future
terminus, provided only it run prosperously. It is only thus that
'scientific' ideas, flying as they do beyond common sense, can be
said to agree with their realities. It is, as I have already said,
as if reality were made of ether, atoms or electrons, but we mustn't
think so literally.
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