these specific sorts of likenesses and differences which we come to observe. In the concrete, then, we must say, our intelligent experience involves at every step an interest in regarding facts as like or as different. This interest wins its way; and herein consists one aspect of the expression of purpose in fact which is characteristic of our own view of Being.
Most clearly this correlation of fact and purpose appears in all our Classifications. To classify is to regard certain facts as different (just because we find that to us certain differences are important), and certain objects as in a specific sense alike (because our interest in their likeness predominates over our interest in making certain possible sunderings). What classes your acknowledged world of fact contains, your own interest in classification obviously cooperates in determining. Hence the possibility of the well-known and endless disputes over whether our classifications in science stand for the truth of things, over whether our general ideas represent “external realities,” and over the other historically significant problems of the theory of Universals. From our own point of view, these controversies get a very simple solution. Of course all classification is relative to the point of view, varies with that point of view, and has value only as fulfilling the purpose of whoever classifies. And, nevertheless, the question, How ought I to classify? has an objective meaning in precisely the sense in which any question about the facts of the world has meaning. Just now, when I classify mankind into two groups, you who hear me, and the rest of humanity, the classification fulfils a purpose of mine. It involves emphasizing certain
