Sensory qualities experienced through vision have their cognitive status and office, not (as sensational empiricism holds) in and of themselves in isolation, or as merely forced upon attention, but because they are the consequences of definite and intentionally performed operations. Only in connection with the intent, or idea, of these operations do they amount to anything, either as disclosing any fact or giving test and proof of any theory. The rationalist school was right in as far as it insisted that sensory qualities are significant for knowledge only when connected by means of ideas. But they were wrong in locating the connecting ideas in intellect apart from experi- ence. Connection is instituted through operations which define ideas, and operations are as much matters of experience as are sensory qualities.