The countryman in the crowded street,
the landlubber at sea, the ignoramus in sport at a contest between
experts in a complicated game, are further instances. Put an
inexperienced man in a factory, and at first the work seems to him a
meaningless medley. All strangers of another race proverbially look
alike to the visiting stranger. Only gross differences of size or
color are perceived by an outsider in a flock of sheep, each of which
is perfectly individualized to the shepherd. A diffusive blur and an
indiscriminately shifting suction characterize what we do not
understand. The problem of the acquisition of meaning by things, or
(stated in another way) of forming habits of simple apprehension, is
thus the problem of introducing (1) _definiteness_ and _distinction_
and (2) _consistency_ or _stability_ of meaning into what is
otherwise vague and wavering."
But the kind of definiteness and consistency introduced depends upon
who introduces them. In a later passage [Footnote: _op. cit._, p.
133.] Dewey gives an example of how differently an experienced layman
and a chemist might define the word metal. "Smoothness, hardness,
glossiness, and brilliancy, heavy weight for its size ... the
serviceable properties of capacity for being hammered and pulled
without breaking, of being softened by heat and hardened by cold, of
retaining the shape and form given, of resistance to pressure and
decay, would probably be included" in the layman's definition.
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