By failing to understand the differences between descriptive and ecstatic forms of naturalism, earlier commentators (notably Buchler and Goudge) were sometimes driven to see two Peirces, i.e., the naturalistic and the transcendental.  This confusion makes sense if one does not understand the role of the infinitesimals and the greater nothingness in the mature Peirce.  The so-called “transcendental” Peirce is actually the ecstatic naturalist who probed into the ontological difference (not named as such by Peirce) so that he could understand something deeper than purpose and developmental teleology.  It is understandable that he retained his belief in panpsychism because he had not yet fathomed the inner momentum of his own categorial structure (p. 216).        The ecstasy of nature is not some kind of quasi-human emotion, but lives in the ejective and sign generating power of nature in its naturing.  Nature becomes self-transfigured, not through an agapastic movement toward an ideal consummation in the summum bonum, but in the opposite directionality, in which infinitesimals make all orders possible.  The potencies of nature naturing (the greater nothingness) make it possible for the possibilities of the lesser nothingness to obtain and goad actualities into existence.  Nature is always more that the ‘sum’ of thirds, seconds, and firsts.  It is always more than the three universes of firstness, secondness, and thirdness.  And it is always more than the God that struggles within the heart of the ontological difference to bring some harmony to the recalcitrant domain of secondness.  Peirce grasped the edges of the ontological difference and cleared the way for a radicalization of naturalism.  In this radicalization, his own pragmaticism can be reconfigured to better correspond to the abyss within nature, an abyss that comes to meet thought in an ecstatic naturalism that lets go of the panrationalism that blocks the path of piety (p. 217).
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