 Royce endeavored to extend and complete critical rationalism in his explanation of the “fourth conception of being.” To say that an idea intends its object means more than that the idea may be validated by a “possible experience.” An idea in this respect embodies a purpose: that its meaning shall be fulfilled in experience. In Royce’s view this requires a world that is more than the abstract or merely hypothetical content posited by the description of a possible experience. What is needed is a definite, actual individual being that exists “in an absolutely final form.” Royce thus agreed with critical rationalism in saying that a true idea is one that may be fulfilled or validated by a possible experience. He argues further, though, that such a possible experience requires the existence of an actual being (e.g., the particular set of keys in my pocket) that is in principle capable of being experienced. It is this being, the actual individual, and not the mere possible experience of it, that is the object of knowledge and “the essential nature of Being” (Royce 1899–1901, [1976, 348]). The “fourth conception of being” detailed in The World and the Individual provides the metaphysical background for the remainder of Royce’s thought. It presents a view of the totality of Being as an actual Infinite Individual that is itself timeless, encompassing as it does all valid past, present, and future possible experience of fact. All finite beings, such as ourselves, are but fragments of this Absolute Mind or eternal truth.