Whenever A Man Acts Purposively, He Acts

A Sign, Or Representamen, Is Something Which Stands To Somebody For Something In Some Respect Or Capacity. It Addresses Somebody,that Is, Creates In The Mind Of That Person An Equivalent Sign, Or Perhaps A More Developed Sign. That Sign Which It Creates I Call The Interpretant Of The First Sign. The Sign Stands For Something, Its Object. It Stands For That Object, Not In All Respects, But In Reference To A Sort Of Idea, Which I Have Sometimes Called The Ground Of The Representamen.

To Suppose Universal Laws Of Nature Capable Of Being Apprehended By The Mind And Yet Having No Reason For Their Special Forms, But Standing Inexplicable And Irrational, Is Hardly A Justifiable Position. Uniformities Are Precisely The Sort Of Facts That Need To Be Accounted For. Law Is Par Excellence The Thing That Wants A Reason. Now The Only Possible Way Of Accounting For The Laws Of Nature, And For Uniformity In General, Is To Suppose Them Results Of Evolution.

Upon This First, And In One Sense This Sole, Rule Of Reason, That In Order To Learn You Must Desire To Learn, And In So Desiring Not Be Satisfied With What You Already Incline To Think, There Follows One Corollary Which Itself Deserves To Be Inscribed Upon Every Wall Of The City Of Philosophy: Do Not Block The Way Of Inquiry.

Consider What Effects That Might Conceivably Have Practical Bearings You Conceive The Objects Of Your Conception To Have. Then, Your Conception Of Those Effects Is The Whole Of Your Conception Of The Object.

Mathematics Is Distinguished From All Other Sciences Except Only Ethics, In Standing In No Need Of Ethics.