Influenced by the work of Charles Sanders Peirce, William James created a theory of pragmatism, which held that the meaning of any idea can be found only in experience. James melded Nietzschean perspectivalism with the American thought of Emerson. James's project was a philosophical "Protestant reformation," with the individual rebelling against the authority of accepted truths and absolutes. The world is not fixed, James argued, but is constantly remade by us. Therefore, independent analysis of the world from a priori assumptions is impossible.