PEIRCE HAS A CLEAR ANIMUS AGAINST THE STATE OF UNENLIGHTENMENT

CP 1.584. "We will, therefore, next consider whether provision for satisfying future instinctive desires is the only ultimate good, and if not, whether it is, in itself, a good at all. It will here be pertinent to remark that although the state of things last imagined would not be good for a man, yet it does not seem to differ much from the conditions under which my dog, and mare, and poultry seem to be enviably happy. Still, perhaps there may be a delusion here. The dog, I can perceive, considers that there is a heavy weight of responsibility upon him, and so do the mature poultry. Even the mare is not without this feeling; and perhaps she is not so entirely happy as the others. If there were an idiot about the place, could we regard it as an ultimate good that he should thus have all his instincts gratified? I think not. If it would produce a state of content in the poor fellow's mind, and if for any reason that were a good, then, for the sake of that effect, it is undeniable that the state of things supposed would be good: but that would not make it an ultimate good; on the contrary, it would furnish a reason for the sake of which it would be good. These considerations are extremely pertinent to the case we are now to consider, which is that of a person engaged busily in providing for his next day's wants, with just enough uncertainty as to his probable success to keep industrious. If, for any reason, or without an ulterior reason, it is desirable that he should be happy, and if his mental development is so low that those conditions would make him happy, as possibly they might make some creatures zoölogically human, then of course that would furnish an end as a means to which the state supposed would be good. But how is it with you, my Consciousness? Would you think it was reason enough for the creation of heaven and earth that it put you, or any other individual, into this condition of working for your living?"

This passage is an invitation to inferences. I shall infer that Peirce is familiar with and practices the art of inner conversation, recognizing that reality is universal and that consciousness, while individual, is also communal and ultimately universal. Peirce would have said that consciousness is independent of physicality as we understand it.

But this passage is also a sign of the doltish realities we are emerging from. We are not the crown of creation when we fail to see that a life of drudgery is not something which we should regard as a happy lot. Anything that burdens is a negative, whether regarded as a challenge to be surmounted, or as an inevitable condition which proves how onerous life is.

Peirce combines irony and good will in his familiar address to "my consciousness" and clues us into his somewhat peremptory attitude to the contrast between the world of now and the agapaic environment which he believes is possible.

Peirce is ultimately positive and his pragmaticism is a reasoned argument for seeing things through the lens of divinity as both a present sense and a realized state.