A frequently recurring topic in discussion of Peirce is his view that the object of a sign relates to it as cause of it, which he sometimes expresses in saying that the object "determines" the sign (or is a "determinant" of it). Among other things, this raises the question of how that can be in the case where the object of the sign does not exist prior to the occurrence of the sign. (This is, of course, a stock objection to the use of the conception of final causation in particular.) Peirce addresses that in the passage below, which is from an unpublished manuscript of 1909. I cannot say that I fully understand it and am curious as to what others think of it.