CHAPTER XXI.
THE VALUE OF PRAGMATIC TRUTH.

§ 373. The account of truth given in the last chapter may be regarded from two points of view. We may regard it as an account of the psychological processes and habits which underlie the 'making' of truth, or we may regard it as an account of the nature of truth. Herr Simmel has described in his own way many of the psychological characteristics of knowledge. We do seek in objective experience for fixed points round which we group qualities and relations, for in order to acquire knowledge we must attend first to one object and then to another. And, again, we analyse and synthesise; we seek for unity, and within the unity look for multiplicity. Axioms, too, and other habits of mind function in the acquisition of fresh knowledge. We subsume under general ideas and general laws, and we apply principles and criteria almost automatically. We exercise selection in the apperception of new ideas. We assent to fresh truths when they harmonise with the old; and we reject ideas and propositions which fail thus to harmonise with previous knowledge. We are reluctant to admit more than a minimum of modification in what we already know; and when a truth which we accept is called in question we refuse to sacrifice it, because it is implied in what we still hold to be certain. And, lastly, we apply our knowledge to practical purposes; we use it in order to adapt ourselves to our environment and to promote the advance of civilisation. All these are psychological facts. But the question is whether we have here the clue to the essential nature of truth, to its real significance. Are these processes of the very essence of truth, or are they merely its psychological conditions and its practical consequences? When we say that truth is "an idea which in connection with the entire and specific organism, its faculties and needs, leads to useful results," are we describing the nature of truth, or merely its relations and its properties? The question is of vital importance for the theory of knowledge, for if we must answer with the pragmatist that truth is a useful habit and nothing more than a useful habit, knowledge, in the strict sense of that term has ceased to exist, and in its place we have something which is largely subjective and which in no way reveals to us the nature of reality.

§ 374. Herr Simmel rejects the 'mirror' view of truth, and with it Realism. So apparently do pragmatists in general. But when one examines the arguments which have led to this renunciation -- that is, if the pragmatist has renounced Realism and not merely mutilated it and made it obscure and ambiguous -- one finds that for the most part they are reducible to the stock objections already discussed in Chapter XIV. To these, however, Herr Simmel adds one of his own. Animals perceive things differently from what we do; hence they cannot be said to mirror reality in their percepts, but the latter must be regarded as the products of their special psycho-physical organisms the habits of which are gradually formed by the repetition of actions and processes which have led to beneficial results.

This argument hardly disproves the correspondence-notion of truth. In the first place, animals do not appear to make 'judgments,' and so present no 'claims' to truth. Secondly, we know nothing whatsoever of the psychoses which accompany or follow the retinal impressions of eagles, insects, and amphibia; and so cannot tell for certain whether they do or do not correspond with the objects perceived. But if it is legitimate to argue from the retinal impressions themselves, animals, in spite of their optical peculiarities, do seem to ' mirror the real world in a way similar to our own, though sometimes more and sometimes less accurately. The difference between our own visual perception (quâ sensation-complexes) and the visual perceptions of the eagle on the one hand and the proteus anguinis on the other, apart from variations due to objective conditions, would seem to be chiefly one of degree in the distinctness with which details and minutiae are perceived. The proteus anguinis like the owl, cannot perceive things accurately in the light. Still, the dark-adapted eyes of the former do not prevent them from 'mirroring' things with sufficient accuracy, given the requisite conditions. Again, the many-faceted eye of the insect does not represent things falsely, any more than a many-faceted mirror does; though we cannot say what precisely is the function of these peculiarly-constructed visual organs or how the impressions produced by each facet are combined to form a percept. While, lastly, if we wish to decide whether other eyes, shaped differently to our own, are or are not capable of mirroring reality, we must assume that our eyes do mirror reality, and that our 'optics' have a value which is more than merely normative.

§ 375. The facts, brought forward by Herr Simmel, therefore, do not force us to the conclusion that differences in the structure of the organs of sense-perception are incompatible with the perception of things, their qualities and their spatial relations, as they are in rerum natura. All we can infer from them is that the organs of sense which are to be found in different species of animals are peculiarly adapted for the perception (and probably the 'true' perception) of certain kinds of objects under certain circumstances and conditions of life, just as are the various senses to be found in man. While on the other hand, the further fact which Herr Simmel remarks, viz., that 'actions undertaken by reason of these percepts lead to results of such a calculability, purposiveness and certainty, that they could not be greater even with a knowledge of objective relations as they are in themselves,' cannot be accounted for unless we suppose that these percepts correspond approximately with reality, and thus for us give, as they claim to give, real knowledge. In the chapters on Physical Science, I have already endeavoured to show that truth as utility presupposes truth as correspondence. The utility of our ideas is inexplicable, nay more, impossible, unless they have representative value. To summarise briefly the arguments there used: The utility of our ideas depends upon the consequences to which they lead through the mediation of action. Hence there must be either a symbolic parallelism or a real correspondence between the logical connections of ideas and the real connections of objects. But a symbolic parallelism is inadequate to account for these 'useful leadings.' For (1) it is impossible to explain how symbols become attached and remain attached to particular objects, if the symbol is purely arbitrary and if there is no kind of identity between symbol and thing; and (2) our ideas are not merely symbolic but have objective meaning upon which our inferences are based, and it is impossible to explain why these inferences should coincide approximately with empirical facts unless the idea has a real and not merely a symbolic meaning. We conclude, therefore, with M. Poincaré, that "the fact that we see the conclusions of science verified before our eyes would not be possible if it did not reveal to us something of the nature of reality."^{1} It is not merely that our thoughts are 'added' to reality, and that reality 'suffers the addition.'^{2} Our thoughts must be determined by reality itself in and through sense-perception; and thus may we gain real knowledge, which, because it is real knowledge, is capable of leading to useful results.

§ 376. Truth cannot be merely utility, for utility is the consequence of truth; and similarly axioms cannot be merely regulative, for the possibility of their exercising a regulative function in regard to objective experience presupposes their objective validity. Axioms are not 'universal' and 'necessary' because they satisfy our needs; but they satisfy our needs because they are 'universal' and 'necessary.' It is true that postulates may be universal, if we choose to make them so;^{3} but the question is whether we have any right to make them so, and, if so, what right. It is also true that necessary principles are 'a means to human ends,' but the question is whether they could be useful as a means to human ends, if their necessity is psychological and if the 'psychical feeling of having to' is merely 'the emotional accompaniment of the purposive search for means.' It seems to me, in fact, that in treating necessary truth, and indeed all truth, from an exclusively teleological point of view, and again in distinguishing the accompanying emotional feeling from the intellectual apprehension of a principle and identifying the 'necessity' of the principle with the former only, Dr. Schiller has been guilty of an 'abstractionism' quite as vicious as that of a 'pure' intellectualist.

Other arguments by which Dr. Schiller attempts to disprove 'intrinsic' necessity are no more successful. He tells us that "no one needs add two and two as four, unless he needs to add, i.e., wills to add them, because he needs arithmetic."^{4} This is obvious; but the question is why, when we do need to add, we must needs add two and two as four. He maintains also that "the 'truth' of an assertion depends on its application;" and in support of this urges that "the abstract statement, e.g., that 'two and two make four,' is always incomplete." It needs to be applied, and "its application is quite limited." "It would not be true of lions and lambs nor of drops of water, nor of pleasures and pains."^{5} Of course it would not, if the statement were wrongly applied; but it is always true that two lions and two lambs, quâ units or animals, make four units or four animals; that two drops of water plus two other drops make four drops, provided they remain distinct; and that two pleasures and two pains make four hedonic experiences, provided those experiences take place at different times, or belong to different individuals. It is not the principle that is shown to be false, when it is wrongly applied; but merely that particular way of applying it. If the lions in question ate the lambs, or the drops of water intermingled, or the pleasures and pains per impossibile existed in the same individual at the same time, there would neither be two and two nor four.

I have already indicated that there appears to be some divergence of opinion between Professor James and Dr. Schiller in regard to this question of abstract truth.^{6} Professor James conceives abstract truth very much as the intellectualist conceives it. He admits "relations between purely mental ideas," which are absolute, unconditional, eternal, and which are also "perceptually (I should prefer to say intellectually) obvious at a glance." These relations, again, though they may not exist "effectually in rebus," and though "nobody may experience them," have yet their own reality in the ideal order; they exist in posse or virtually. So real are they, in fact, that "they coerce us; we must treat them consistently whether or not we like the results." "Our ideas must agree with realities, be such realities concrete or abstract, be they facts or be they principles, under penalty of endless inconsistency and frustration." The only difficulty is in regard to the application of abstract propositions. The abstract truths themselves are eternal, and in their application they are also true in advance of special verification, if we have subsumed our objects rightly.^{7}

If you can find a concrete thing anywhere that is 'one' or 'white' or 'gray' or an 'effect,' then your principles will everlastingly apply to it. It is but a case of ascertaining the kind, and then applying the law of its kind to the particular object. You are sure to get truth if you can but name the kind rightly, for your mental relations hold good of everything of that kind without exception. If you then, nevertheless, failed to get truth concretely, you would say that you had classed the objects wrongly.^{8}

§ 378. With such a view no sober-minded intellectualist could reasonably find fault; and I am also far from denying that "the viciously privative employment of abstract characters and class names is one of the original sins (better, perhaps, 'tendencies') of the rationalistic mind." To abstract, and then to forget or deny the other attributes of the concrete thing from which abstraction has been made, or to assume that the abstract concept or principle applies in every case, is a fault into which not only rationalists, but also pragmatists, not infrequently fall. But what the intellectualist, on his side, finds fault with, is the statement that "the truth of an assertion depends on its application." As he understands it, to say this is not to say, in other words, that " 'abstract' truths are not fully truths at all." Doubtless they 'crave for incarnation in the concrete;' but they are not useless or unemployed, nor are they meaningless or necessarily ambiguous. Doubtless, again, they may also be used as 'rules for action;' but they are not merely rules for action. Hence, they do not 'mean nothing,' when not employed, nor does their meaning 'depend on their application.'^{12}

It is not, then, against the general pragmatic doctrine in regard to abstract truth that I venture to enter a protest -- except in so far as the pragmatist denies that abstract truth corresponds in the strict sense with reality; but against the exaggerated form in which that doctrine appears in the writings of Dr. Schiller. I am quite ready to grant that abstract truths are less real than concrete truths that, in order for their significance to be fully realised, they must be constantly applied to concrete cases; and that unless they are thus applicable in the concrete, directly or indirectly, they can have very little meaning and still less utility. But what I maintain is that an abstract concept always refers to reality -- to the concrete thing from which it was abstracted, at least implicitly, and potentially to all objects like it; and that, in like manner, an abstract truth, whether it be arrived at by inductive generalisation (for even empirical truths are always more or less abstract) or by the intuitive apprehension of a relation necessarily holding between the entities concerned, always has reference to reality, and therefore is true of reality whether we apply it to individual cases or not. Thus the principle of Contradiction applies to every 'real being,' and the principle of Causality to every 'contingent being.' Similarly, a geometrical proposition about a circle applies to every concrete real thing in so far as its shape approximates to that of a circle, and the arithmetical relations of one number to other numbers apply to all objects that are numerable. Abstract truths, in short, are true objectively, because they express relations between notions that refer to and have been derived from reality; they are true necessarily, and apart from special verification, because the relations they express are implied in the notions themselves, and, as Professor James says, are obvious at a glance; they are true universally and apart from any special application, because to be true 'universally' means simply to be true of every object or every system of objects to which the notions apply and in so far as they apply.

§ 379. Clearly, if we wish to know bow far an abstract truth holds in any concrete case, we must apply it. But to apply a truth and to verify it are not the same thing. In applying the truth, what we wish to discover is whether a particular case can be subsumed under our abstract law, i.e., whether the notions involved in our law are or are not realised in this case. We already know what the 'consequences' of our law are, our present business -- again to quote Professor James -- is to find out whether we can add these consequences in this particular case.^{13} Dr. Schiller does not seem to me to have grasped this, to my mind, very obvious distinction. He confuses application with verification, and hence gives as one of his reasons for denying the universality and necessity of abstract truths, that they will not apply to every case or that in applying them we sometimes make mistakes. But, surely, to verify or prove a mathematical statement and to apply it are two altogether different processes. To verify a statement in pure mathematics is to show that it is deducible from other statements which are either already proved or self-evident (i.e., 'obvious at a glance' when rightly understood). The application of mathematical statement, on the other hand, involves analysis, identification and measurement, all of which may go wrong, and, being quantitative, are never absolutely accurate, so that at best our results will only be approximate.

The case is very different when we are dealing with an empirical law, a scientific hypothesis, or a principle in dynamics. For here we are dealing with entities or with relations of the nature of which we know little a priori. Hence we cannot establish necessary relations, but must proceed either by postulating that an empirically known relation holds under other than the observed conditions, or by postulating that the nature of physical objects is (v.g.) mechanical and then deducing particular conclusions from this hypothesis. Whichever method we adopt the validity of our postulate can be established only by experiment. In other words, while abstract truths are true a priori and independently of their application, empirical truths cannot be established apart from their application.

Dr. Schiller, on the other hand, assuming that all knowledge comes via postulation, hence infers that no proposition is really true until it has been subjected to a process of experimental verification to which no term or limit can be assigned. Such a position is surely untenable. Not only does it fail to take cognisance of the distinction between empirical generalisations and necessary principles, or between truths which require to be verified in experience and truths which are true in advance of such special verification, but, as its logical consequence, it forces us to declare that what appear to be most certain truths are not really more than probabilities, since we cannot be sure that at some future date we may not, in applying them, meet with reverse. This sceptical tendency in Pragmatism we have already met with in a previous chapter;^{14} and that it is the necessary outcome of a wholly 'experimental' theory of knowledge is clear. For in such a theory all truth starts as a claim or a postulate, and

all postulates, whether axiomatic or not, have the same origin. They differ only in the scope of their usefnlness and in the amount and character of their confirmation. Some are held faute de mieux, and even full-blown axioms may be conceived as becoming otiose under changed conditions though practically the possibility of modifying them is one that may be safely neglected, for it would be gratuitous to suppose a revolution in our experience sufficient to upset them.^{15}

§ 380. The next question which demands our attention is the very important one of how truth should be defined. This question the pragmatist claims to have solved in a new way, and its solution is of the very essence of Pragmatism. All other problems, metaphysical or epistemological, which have arisen out of Pragmatism, are secondary and accidental.

Of the multitudinous and extremely varied definitions of truth given by Professor James and other pragmatists, I shall have something to say in the next chapter, when we shall consider them as embodying pragmatic criteria of truth; but here it will be sufficient if we confine our attention to two types of such definitions only. The first is that in which truth is identified with the verification process or with its workings; the second, that in which the essence of this verification-process is said to be that it should lead to consequences practically useful.

Truth, for Professor James, is essentially a process of leading which starts from an image, concept or symbolic term and terminates either in other ideas or in percepts, but ultimately in the latter. It is a relation between an idea, on the one hand, and perceptual experiences (or reality) on the other, and the essence of the relation consists in certain processes or workings (or at any rate 'functional possibilities') which make the idea true, and are capable both of being experienced and described. There is nothing transcendent about the truth-relation in Pragmatism. It is something that lies wholly within experience. Both its terminus a quo and its terminus ad quem, and the intermediary links which constitute the workings of the 'true' idea, are one and all experiences.

There is nothing ambiguous about pragmatic truth so far, and had the pragmatist always made his meaning as clear as Professor James has done in the last few chapters of The Meaning of Truth, much misunderstanding and many futile disputes might have been avoided. But is the pragmatist right? Certainly the pragmatist's view of truth is neither the common-sense nor the traditional view, and Professor James would, I think, be the first to acknowledge this. The ordinary unsophisticated individual does not understand by 'agreement' a process of working in which our ideas lead us, or tend to lead us, to reality in the sense of adapting us to it so that we may handle it better than if we disagreed. That, he would say, is a consequence of truth, not its essential nature. Agreement for common-sense, when applied to truth, means that our ideas copy, resemble, correspond to reality in such a way that the nature of what is known is reproduced in our minds, not really or physically of course, as it exists in the outside world, but ideally, mentally by our thoughts. And the philosopher of common-sense explains this as arising from the fact that in knowledge the content of our thoughts is determined, directly or indirectly, by their objects, to which accordingly they conform. The pragmatist, he would allow, is perfectly correct in saying that 'truth is made by its consequences,' if he mean by this that it is only by the functional workings of truth in many cases that we come to know that our ideas (or, better, our judgments) are true. But the 'consequences or 'workings' of truth are not truth itself, as is evident from the fact that we speak of truth's workings or truth's consequences; thereby implying that truth is one thing and its 'workings' or 'consequences' something else which is not identical with it, but belongs to it, or follows from it, and is therefore predicable of it,

§ 381. We have not yet settled the question, however; for if truth does not consist in correspondence, the pragmatist is fully justified in looking for something else in which it does consist; for it cannot be an incomprehensible or meaningless entity. Nor do I see that prima facie the absolutist has anything to complain of, since he himself identifies truth with 'consistency,' which is itself one of truth's workings. The real question is, then, (1) whether the pragmatist has entirely given up the view that truth consists in correspondence with reality, opprobriously styled the copy-view of truth; and, if so (2) whether he is warranted in substituting in its place his own view that truth consists in its workings.

The first question need not detain us long. There can be no doubt that Dr. Schiller has entirely renounced the 'copy-view' of truth: the only point that remains dubitable is whether Professor James has also accomplished this feat. He certainly clings to the idea that images 'copy' reality, and images in his theory can be true. He also affirms that the truth of 'relations between ideas' is 'perceptually obvious at a glance,' and it is difficult to see how, in such cases, there can be any time or space for 'workings.' Again, he allows that of a given event "only one sort of possible account can ever be true;" yet surely many different 'accounts' may be 'true' of an event if all they have to do is to 'work' with it agreeably and profitably. Nor do I see how "the truth about any such event is already generically predetermined by the events of nature," and thus " virtually pre-exists,"^{16} unless the event itself somehow determines our thoughts about it, and so brings them into conformity with, and causes them to resemble, itself. I am unaware of any kind of determining action which does not tend in some way to reproduce itself, or any kind of passivity which is not receptive of forms, which, at bottom, resemble the activity from which they proceed. Still more difficult is it to conceive how reality can be such that some of our questions "can be answered in only one way," or how "mirrored matter" can give "cognitive lustre" to our ideas,^{17} unless our ideas somehow correspond to reality and are determined by it. Doubtless such expressions can be squared with the pragmatic view; but they seem to me to be relics of a 'copy-view' not entirely given up. And if this is so, the 'workings' of truth are not its essence, but its consequence in which case it would be better to give them some other name, such as 'truth-function,' rather than to offer them as the definition of truth.^{18}

§ 382. Supposing, however, that the 'copy-view' of truth has been given up by all pragmatists, and that truth is, for them, nothing but its 'workings' or 'consequences,' we have next to enquire whether this transformation of the common-sense view is justifiable. One way to show that it is not justifiable would be to re-establish the socalled 'copy-view' of truth, which I have already attempted to do in other chapters. Here, therefore, I shall content myself with endeavouring to trace the consequences which follow from the pragmatic view, consequences which I propose to 'value' pragmatically by their power of satisfying our human needs. Now, 'workings' may mean either practical workings which lead to useful results, or theoretical workings which lead to consistency and harmony amongst our ideas. The pragmatic use of the term will bear both meanings. But as 'theoretical workings,' if they do not lead to a correspondence between our ideas and reality, can hardly be themselves of very great value, except in so far as they satisfy an idle desire to play with symbols and ideas, and as both Dr. Schiller and Herr Simmel subordinate theory to practice, probably, in part at least, for this very reason, it will be as well to kill two birds with one stone by examining at once what is the logical result of identifying truth with its practically useful consequences. There can be no doubt that Herr Simmel actually makes this identification, and little doubt, I think, that for Dr. Schiller also the 'logical-value' of truth is ultimately practical in character. A similar tendency may be noted in Professor James, when, for instance, he interprets 'agreement' as "a process of leading which puts us in working touch with reality, enabling us to manipulate and control it better than we should otherwise have been able to do,"^{19} and in the French pragmatist, M. Sauvage, when he says "La science ne reproduit pas la réalité, elle ne tend qu'à nous représenter les choses d'une façon commode et pratique pour l'usage que nous avons à en faire."^{20} The utility-view of truth is, in fact, the logical outcome of the rejection of the copy-view in a thoroughly genetic and voluntaristic philosophy.

§ 383. One consequence of this is that truth may be regarded as a habit; but as the primary question is not whether true modes of thinking and perceiving tend to survive (a fact which can hardly be disputed), but rather why they tend to survive, this aspect of pragmatic truth may be passed over as of secondary importance. A far more significant consequence of the pragmatic view is the doctrine of the relativity of truth. For Dr. Schiller this means that truth is relative to our faculties and is essentially a human product. For Herr Simmel it means both this and that truth-values are relative inter se; that no idea is true of itself any more than a body is heavy in itself; and hence that the whole of knowledge is no more true than the whole of matter is heavy.

What precisely is the connection between the relativity of true ideas and the utility in which their truth primarily consists, Herr Simmel does not tell us. When he says that the truth-value of ideas is relative, however, he seems to mean that ideas are true or useful only in connection with other ideas.^{21} An idea is for him a means to a practical end -- the progressive adaptation of man to his environment but an idea, taken in isolation, so far from promoting adaptation, tends to check it, and by becoming 'fixed' or abnormally predominant, to destroy it altogether. Hence no idea is useful per se: ideas are only true, i.e., useful, when they operate in conjunction with one another and reciprocally determine one another's function, for thus only can they be of service as means enabling man to control and manipulate his experience. It may be doubted whether Herr Simmel, in denying that ideas are useful per se, has not carried the doctrine of relativity too far, since each idea has its own sphere of objective reference, and in that sphere is useful irrespective of other ideas, though the latter may vastly increase its utility if they function in harmony with it. But if 'relativity' mean merely the need of consistency, harmony and mutual corroboration among our ideas, it is again a point of secondary importance, and to it the realist would readily assent.

Relativity or reciprocity as applied to the normative aspect of leading principles of thought is also a doctrine to which no realist would demur and Herr Simmel is undoubtedly right in saying that certain of our more fundamental conceptions, regarded as regulative principles, can only lead to truth if they be treated as reciprocal and complementary, just as in the physiological order the furtherance of life is conditioned by the dual process of anabolism and katabolism. One of the most striking examples of a pair of complementary principles which may thus be regulatively used is that of Unity and Plurality. Thus the Plurality Norm says Do not imagine that the universe is one, its differences mere seeming. Do not identify everything. Allow their full and proper value to distinctions, differences, individuals, persons, things. Do not delude yourself with the vain and idle fancy that you can reduce all this to mere appearance and force it back into the boundless capacity of an imaginary Ground in which it is absorbed and its own peculiar reality taken away. To this the Unity-Norm replies: On the contrary, what you have most to guard against is the splitting things up into individual existents, isolated, independent, unconnected, unrelated. Unions are as real as disjunctions, unities as real as differences. The universe is one, and if you forget it, your facility in making distinctions will lead you hopelessly astray. Both norms are right; both of inestimable value. Each has its function and its own proper sphere of operation; and only by the conjunction, the alternation, the co-operation of both, is it possible to arrive at truth.

But are the norms merely regulative? Are they merely norms? Have they not real objective value, real significance, real meaning? Could they be norms at all in the sphere of knowledge if they had not? Is it not an abuse of that very principle of reciprocity that they illustrate to say that they have not? That is a question which Herr Simmel does not touch. It is manifest that unity must not be sacrificed to plurality, freedom to necessity, matter to mind, the will to the intellect, the objective to the subjective, nor vice versa; and that it is only by assigning to each principle or concept its proper place and sphere of application that truth can be attained. But neither pluralist nor monist, libertarian nor determinist, materialist nor spiritualist, think that the question at issue between them is as to the best means of manipulating their experience and so furthering life. When the pluralist says that existents are many and distinct, he means that they are really many and really distinct, just as he thinks them to be; and when the monist says the universe is one he means that it is really one, and that his thought about it is in the ideal order what the universe is in the real order. It is primarily a question of the truth of knowledge, not of the utility of action to which knowledge may lead. And as I have already endeavoured to show,^{22} the practical value of knowledge is, even in science, essentially dependent upon its validity. Accordingly, I shall not re-open the question here, but shall content myself with pointing out that, while Herr Simmel is undoubtedly justified in affirming that ultimate principles are complementary and must be taken in conjunction, not in isolation, we may question whether, in emphasising reciprocity to the neglect of positive value, and utility to the neglect of real significance, he has not violated his own principle of reciprocity and relativity; whether, in other words, by ignoring the positive and representative aspect of truth, he has not made it as one-sided a conception as the most exaggerated Monism or the most thorough-going Determinism or Intellectualism. The real significance of the reciprocity of truth seems to me to be that no ideas and no principles which are contradictory can give us true knowledge about the universe when taken in isolation and made to apply universally, but only when reconciled by means of distinction and re-united in what the Hegelian calls a 'higher' synthesis.

§ 384. We now come to the sense in which Dr. Schiller says that truth is 'relative,' viz., in relation to the knowing mind, its faculties, its purposes, its interests, its needs, or, in a word, to its "entire and specific organism." This, again, is a consequence of the doctrine that truth is a process which leads to useful consequences, for the consequences, though in themselves they may be objective, can only be useful as a means to an end which must be more or less subjective, and which will vary, if not with the individual, at least with the specific organism. Hence, although it is a dangerous thing to assert that Pragmatism leads to Subjectivism, yet if Herr Simmel's theory of truth be really pragmatic, Subjectivism seems to be its logical result. And the same may be said of Pragmatism as "worked in a humanistic way" by Dr. Schiller, though I would not go so far as Professor James and say that Humanism "is compatible with Solipsism."^{23} Let me explain, however, what I mean here by Subjectivism. I do not mean Solipsism, nor do I that the pragmatist, alias the humanist, denies the existence of all objective reality 'outside' our human minds. What I mean is that, if we interpret the expressions used by Dr. Schiller, Herr Simmel and other pragmatists, as philosophical expressions should be interpreted, viz., literally, the logical conclusion to which we are forced is that the pragmatic or humanistic theory of truth is equivalent to a denial of the possibility of knowing the nature of objective reality. It is a sceptical Subjectivism, a subjectivism that makes knowledge so human that it ceases to be real knowledge.^{24} I am quite aware that Humanism does not admit its own subjective tendency, and that we have been forewarned by Dr. Schiller that to accuse Humanism of denying that truth is objective is "to put upon it the silliest of possible meanings, and is nothing short of an 'impudent slander.' " Nevertheless, reluctant as I am to slander anyone, and fully conscious that I am again exposing myself to the charge of having misunderstood,^{25} I still maintain that Humanism does tend logically to Subjectivism, and shall forthwith proceed to prove the truth of this statement.

§ 385. First of all, Humanism is, we are told, a revised form of Protagoreanism, which means (1) that 'whatever appears to each, that really is for him,' and (2) that 'reality is, for us, relative to our faculties.'^{26} Now that whatever appears to each is for him psychologically a fact, no one can deny. But when Protagoras asserted that 'man is the measure of all things,' he certainly did not mean merely that appearances were psychological facts. He meant that man's way of looking at things intrinsically modified his perception and his knowledge of them. And this Dr. Schiller realises, for he tells us in another place^{27} that a man's personal "idiosyncrasy must colour and pervade whatever he experiences." Not only his knowledge in general, but even his metaphysics "must have this personal tinge;" so that not only ought not two men with different fortunes, histories, and temperaments, "to arrive at the same metaphysic," but they cannot honestly do so, for a metaphysic " always takes its final form from an idiosyncrasy"!

Such language bears the unmistakable impress of Subjectivism. Metaphysics to be modified to suit our idiosyncrasies! Metaphysics to differ with differences of temperament! Dr. Schiller surely cannot be in earnest. He is only trying, as pragmatists are wont, to shock his enemy, the intellectualist. He cannot be serious when he proposes so drastic a means of avoiding a "monstrous uniformity." No; for he confesses his exaggeration, and saves himself to some extent by admitting that, though "a valid metaphysic need not show itself cogent to all," at least" it must make itself acceptable to reasonable men, willing to give a trial to its general principles,"^{28} and reasonable men are not reasonable in so far as they give way to idiosyncrasies. Yet this admission, consoling as it is. does not entirely get rid of Subjectivism, for a certain amount of personal tinge will still survive, even when most of our eccentricities have been rubbed away by contact with our fellow-men. And if this tinge must affect all our knowledge, if personal idiosyncrasy "must colour and pervade whatever we experience," it will modify, not only our metaphysic, but also our opinion as to how far our metaphysic has been or ought to be acceptable to reasonable men. We shall require, therefore, some rule by which to eliminate in knowledge the effect of our subjective point of view. But such a rule is not as yet forthcoming.

§ 386. The second formulation of the Protagorean principle informs us that knowledge is 'relative to our faculties;' and this, too, as interpreted by the humanist, involves Subjectivism. The meaning of the term 'faculties' is in Pragmatism not quite clear, for the existence of faculties as such is denied. But if we take the principle to mean that knowledge is modified by our human way of looking at things -- taking human here in the generic sense, as Dr. Schiller says -- we shall not, I think, be very far wrong. Now the human way of looking at things is, according to the humanist, dependent upon needs which are common to the race. And needs are subjective. Hence, as the humanist in this matter makes no distinction between the content and intent of thought, all truth is modified by this subjective point of view. It may or it may not reveal to us the nature of reality. We at any rate have no means of finding out how far it does so, and consequently no right to assume that such a revelation de facto takes place. For it is meaningless to enquire into the nature of reality as it is in itself, if human evaluations pervade our whole experience and affect whatever 'fact' and what ever 'knowledge' we consent to recognise.^{29} The subjective element in cognition cannot be got rid of, for "selective attention and purposive manipulation are essential and all-pervasive influences in the construction of the 'real' world, and even the fundamental axioms . . . are now shown to originate in subjective demands."^{30} "Independent facts which we have merely to acknowledge are a figure of speech. The growth of experience is ever transfiguring our facts for us, and it is only by an ex post facto fiction that we declare them to have been all along what they have come to mean for us."^{31} Hence "that the real has a determinate nature which the knowing reveals but does not affect, so that our knowing makes no difference to it, is one of those sheer assumptions which are incapable not only of proof, but even of rational defence." "The actual situation is a case of interaction, a process of cognition in which the 'subject' and the 'object' determine each other, and both 'we' and 'reality' are involved, and, we might add, evolved."^{32}

If, then, "when the mind 'knows' reality, both are affected,"^{33} if there are no independent facts, but all facts are 'transfigured' and distorted^{34} by our apperception of them, if purpose, subjective demand, and idiosyncrasy influence and pervade all our experience so that "the determinate nature of reality does not subsist 'outside' or 'beyond' the process of knowing it,"^{35} but the world, as it now appears, is but "a reflexion of our interest in life,"^{36} truth for us is not objective in the ordinary sense of that term. It does not give us knowledge of reality, but at most of reality as modified by our cognitive functioning, our purposes and needs. It is 'objective' only in that it leads to practically useful results in our dealings with what we call objective experience. Its objectivity comes from the validation process. "True ideas are those which we can assimilate, validate, corroborate, verify."^{37} But 'assimilation' is a purely subjective process; and 'corroboration,' if it means the avoiding of contradiction between ideas and experiences, is also subjective; unless, indeed, the ideas and experiences have themselves objective value, and agree with reality. While 'verification,' if all it does is to "put us in working touch with reality" and to guide us to beneficial interaction with sensible particulars as they occur,^{38} does not give any real objectivity to truth. For 'working contact' and 'beneficial interaction' are possible without any knowledge at all, and are sometimes the better for being without it, otherwise acquired habits would not tend to become unconscious, and the instincts of birds, butterflies, and bees would never have attained a perfection so complex and yet so admirably adapted to their environment. Indeed, we are expressly told that "the 'objective control' of our subjective freedom to predicate is not effected by some uncomprehended pre-existing fact it comes in the consequences of acting out the predication."^{39} And these consequences are to be judged according as they satisfy or thwart a purpose, assist or hinder the building up of a science. Consequences, in short, are 'good' if they forward, 'bad' if they baffle, our interests.

To determine, therefore, whether an answer to any question is 'true' or 'false,' we have merely to note its effect upon the inquiry in which we are interested, and in relation to which it has arisen. And if these effects are favourable, the answer is 'true' and 'good' for our purpose, and 'useful' as a means to the end we pursue.^{40}

Consequences, therefore, though they may be objective in themselves, considered as determinants of truth-values, are subjective and relative, their value as consequences being itself determined by subjective interests and purposes.

§ 387. Again, consequences belong to the 'sensational parts of experience,' which, for Professor James, are reality. And as both these and the 'conceptual parts' are, as parts of experience, subjective, the relation between them, in which truth consists, must also be subjective. Even if by 'sensational parts of experience' Professor James means what in another place he has called 'facts,' the substitution of this term does not make much difference. For 'facts' for the humanist mean either (1) sensations, which are subjective psychological facts; or (2) facts which "do not pre-exist the cognitive functioning," but are "immanently deposited within it," and so are still subjective or (3) facts which "simply are," i.e., experiences which have not yet been analysed into a subject and an object, or classified as appearance or reality, and which, when they are split up by our own reflective act into aspects relatively distinct, still leave us without any really objective reality to which the 'conceptual parts of our experience' can lead.

Similarly, the interpretation which Humanism puts upon the objectivity, independence, absoluteness, invariability, eternity, universality and necessity of truth clearly manifest its subjective tendency. The 'objectivity' of truth means for the humanist that experiences 'demand to be kept with a minimum of change, and that they interfere with one another it has nothing to do with representative value.' The 'independence' of truth is merely a description of that selective valuation by which we discriminate more precious experiences from those which are of inferior value. It depends, therefore, upon subjective needs and conditions. The 'absoluteness' of truth is but our conception of an ideal state in which all our needs shall be satisfied. The 'invariability' and 'eternity' of truth signify that, since truth is our own production, we can keep it invariable if we choose, and can apply it at whatever time we will.^{41} Similarly, truths are universal if we choose to make them so, and their necessity is a psychological feeling of 'having to,' which arises from the practical impossibility of thinking otherwise than we do think in the matter of certain so-called axiomatic principles.^{42} As, however, this impossibility is merely due to force of habit, and as the force of habit is due primarily to the exigencies of our nature which have gradually adapted themselves to their environment, necessity is largely, if not wholly, subjective.

§ 388. In brief, truth, since it is human truth, must always bear 'the mark of human fabrication and the impress of human needs.' It always has a 'personal tinge' and the influence of need-expressive purposes permeates it through and through. All knowledge is relative to our faculties. In the perception of facts, facts themselves get distorted by our human points of view, and since in order to know we must always act, the making of truth implies the making of reality. Hence arises the following dilemma; either we can or we cannot distinguish in the content of our thoughts that which is determined by the object from that which is due to human fabrication, to the personal tinge, to idiosyncrasy, to the influence of our points of view, our manipulation, our purposes, and our needs. If we can make this distinction, then all and every part of our knowledge has not a personal tinge, is not made by us, and is not intrinsically modified and transfigured by our faculties, our purposes and needs; in which case Humanism is false as it stands, and if it is to hold at all, must be considerably toned down. While if we cannot make this distinction, then what we know is not reality, but reality as modified and mutilated and in part made by us. In other words, our knowledge is subjective; of its objective significance and meaning we are ignorant, and so must console ourselves with the belief that at any rate it is useful.

§ 389. Humanists and pragmatists reject with scorn this accusation of Subjectivism, and various attempts have been made to escape it. These attempts may be summarised under four heads. The first asserts that pragmatic truth is not subjective because in the making of it we are controlled to a large extent by our environment; the second appeals to 'normal objectivity;' the third introduces a new version of the doctrine of Immanence and the fourth maintains that we have 'quite as much objective validity as we need.'

In the first place, then, it is urged that in the making of pragmatic truth we are controlled by objective experience. We cannot make it how we please. We cannot elicit any answer we like to our experimental questions; but must take the answer that comes. We 'add' our thoughts to reality; but reality does not always welcome the addition. Sometimes our theories will not work.

In saying, however, that pragmatic truth is subjective, I do not mean to imply that the pragmatist denies all real control over the working of our thoughts. What I mean is that the representative function which it claims to possess is in the humanistic theory impossible. The 'working' of our thoughts may be controlled by real objects, but they can have no strictly cognitive significance if their origin is subjective, their value determined by interest and purpose, and if they do nothing more than enable us to manipulate experience. The objectivity of truth can be proved, not by any kind of control which reality may have over us, but only by a particular control, that by which it determines the content of our thought. We must, moreover, be able to distinguish between cases in which this control is operative, and cases in which it is not, and must attribute truth only where it is clear to our mind that such control has been exercised. But this is not what Pragmatism does. It judges thoughts to be true not when they are determined by the object, but when they satisfy a subjective purpose or need, when they prove themselves useful and worth our while. To assert that the pragmatist and the humanist deny that reality exercises any control over our thoughts would certainly be to misinterpret and misunderstand, for application and verification are nowhere more insisted-on than they are in the pragmatic and humanistic account of truth. It is the interpretation that is put upon application and verification that makes the latter subjective.^{43} It is admitted that reality determines the answers to our questions; but for the humanist this means, not that reality determines the content of thought, but that it produces, or rather helps to produce, in our psycho-physical organism certain experiences which satisfy our needs. It is upon its consequences for us, upon the satisfaction it gives us, that truth depends, not upon its objective determination or its correspondence; so much so that the existence of the latter is usually denied. Since, then, in the effects produced upon our psycho-physical organism by the reaction of objects the subjective factor co-operates and cannot be distinguished or allowed for, and since the final determinant of truth is the satisfaction of subjective purposes and needs, truth in Humanism cannot have real objective significance and meaning in the ordinary sense of those terms.

§ 390. Many pragmatists, especially those of France, appreciating the force of this argument, have sought an escape from Subjectivism in 'normal objectivity.' In place of objectivity in the ordinary sense of 'correspondence with reality' they have substituted an objectivity which is said to arise from common consent. Thus Simmel, Milhaud, Le Roy, Abel Rey, etc. La science, c'est nous, says M. Rey, yet it does not depend upon my taste, my turn of mind, my will, my choice; but rather upon conditions common to all intelligences alike, conditions which are humanly necessary and humanly universal. Anthropomorphism in human knowledge is inevitable; but it must proceed from the race, not from the individual. Science is the measure of our mind, not of the mind of each individual nor even of each society. Individual truths are determined by individual needs, yet they admit of a 'selective valuation' by means of which "individual judgments become recognised universally as valid," and "a truth which cannot win recognition is not a truth at all, for it has failed in its purpose."^{44}

This appeal to 'normal objectivity,' however, cannot save the pragmatist from Subjectivism; for normal objectivity is not real objectivity, but merely a something which by common consent we agree to regard as if it were objective. The 'objectivity' of truth here is not due to the object any more than it was before, but is ultimately determined by the satisfaction of human needs; and needs, whether peculiar to the individual or common to the race, are still subjective. The analogy of economical values, urged by Herr Simmel, is not to the point, for the 'objectivity' which is given to individual evaluation by common consent is recognised as being still subjective, whereas truth-values are held to be objective in quite a different sense.

§ 391. The third appeal is to Immanence as interpreted in the philosophy of Pure Experience. We have no ground for saying that facts lie outside experience; the objects about which we think may be immanent within or continuous with the present experience itself.

The category of transperceptual reality is now one of the foundations of our life, yet we may speculatively imagine a state of pure experience before the hypothesis of permanent objects behind its flux had been framed.^{45} The 'independence' ascribed to certain realities does not really transcend the cognitive process. It only means that in our experience there are certain features which it is convenient to describe as 'independent' facts, powers, persons, etc., by reason of the peculiarity of their behaviour. . . . The whole is an intra-experiential affair.^{46}

§ 392. One last plea is offered in extenuation of the Subjectivism from which the pragmatist can find no effective escape. Truth, it is acknowledged, is relative; yet at any rate it is related to man. It is subjective; yet at any rate it is something he can possess. It is only probable; yet probability is at any rate better than an impossible ideal. It has not 'objective validity' in the realist's sense; yet at least it has quite as much 'objective validity' as we need or it needs, if it is to be progressive.^{50}

Thus, with a cry of 'sour grapes,' the pragmatist makes one last attempt to escape Subjectivism, if it can be called an attempt to escape and not rather an admission that the charge is well-founded. That pragmatic truth is something we can possess, that it is related to us, is probable, and progressive, cannot be questioned; but it is not the truth which we, as rational human beings, yearn for and strive to obtain. What man wants, whether he be philosopher, scientist, or only one in a crowd, is a truth which shall tell him what reality is, truth which shall 'copy' or 'resemble' reality. Professor James admits that this is the way knowledge and truth are conceived by common-sense; and I maintain that nothing short of this can fully satisfy the purposive cravings of our intellect and the rational strivings of our will. Again, Professor James is really on my side. Not only does he describe truth at the common-sense level in terms of his own philosophy as the confluence or identity or fusion of idea and reality; but he affirms that "the maximal conceivable truth of an idea would seem to be that it should lead to an actual merging of ourselves with the object, to an utter mutual confluence and identification."^{51} In short, correspondence, alias identity or confluence, is the ideal of the pragmatist and the philosopher of Pure Experience, just as it is the ideal of the realist! Ideas may 'fit' reality, lead to it, agree with it, work with it, enable us to manipulate it better, and modify it to suit our practical needs, but they will never satisfy us theoretically until they correspond with it in the full and literal sense of that term. This is the aim of science; this the purpose of philosophy; and unless it is in fact an aim which is being progressively realised, it must be confessed that the primary ratio essendi of both science and philosophy is a futile fancy, an illusory will o' the wisp. Pragmatic truth is pragmatically a failure. It may satisfy our practical needs, but it cannot satisfy our need for real knowledge, which is one of the most imperative needs of our nature. Like an exaggerated Intellectualism, it makes man a one-sided monstrosity, demanding to know that which is unknowable, and striving, to attain that which must remain for ever beyond his reach. Pragmatism is but a humanised form of Scepticism, and Humanism is Subjectivism attuned to pragmatic ideas. In the end both are unworkable, because the elements of truth that lie within them are exaggerated beyond all endurance. Hence Pragmatism to the anti-pragmatist seems ridiculous and useless as a theory of the nature of truth. It remains, however, to consider whether it has provided us with anything useful in the way of criteria of truth.

{1} Preface to Science and Hypothesis.

{2} The Meaning of Truth, p.67.

{3} 'Axioms as Postulates,' § 10.

{4} Ibid.

{5} Studies in Humanism, p. 9.

{6} cf. supra, § 372.

{7} Pragmatism, pp. 209-211 The Meaning of Truth, p. 203, and cf. p. 247.

{8} Pragmatism, p. 210.

{9} The Meaning of Truth, p. 246.

{10} Ibid., p. 205.

{11} Ibid., p. 248.

{12} Studies in Humanism, pp. 8, 9.

{13} cf. The Meaning of Truth, p. 248.

{14} chap. xvi.

{15} 'Axioms as Postulates,' § 26.

{16} The Meaning of Truth, p. 289.

{17} Ibid., pp. 69, 93.

{18} cf. ibid., p. 224. 'Truthful'-ness is certainly not an adequate term to describe this function, especially as it already has a definite significance in morals.

{19} Pragmatism, p. 212 and cf. supra, § 370.

{20} Revue Métaph et Morale, 1901, p. 144.

{21} cf. Pragmatism, pp. 59, 60, 169; (quoted above § 291); 210.

{22} Supra, 378, and §§ 339 et seq.

{23} The Meaning of Truth, p. 215.

{24} That this is the ordinary sense of the term 'Subjectivism' is borne out by the definitions given in the new Standard Dictionary, where it is defined as the doctrine (1) that knowledge is merely subjective and relative, (2) that we know directly no external object, (3) that there is no objective measure of truth." And, again, by the definition in Eisler's Philosophisches Wörterbuch The view that all knowledge and thought is subjective, expressing, not the essence (being) of things, but only the subjective manner of reacting to the action (einwirken) of things, or, indeed, just the conditions and modifications of the subject; that there exists only subjective truth." Baldwin's Dictionary defines Subjectivism as "The theory which denies the possibility of objective knowledge" but identifies this with Subjective Idealism (wrongly, I think).

{25} cf. an article of mine in Mind. N.S. 67, entitled "Martineau and the Humanists;" and the discussion which ensued between Dr. Schiller and myself in Mind, N.S. 69, 72 et seq.

{26} Studies in Humanism, p. 38.

{27} Ibid., p. 18.

{28} Ibid., p. 20.

{29} Humanism, p. 10 and pp. 11, 12 (note).

{30} Studies in Humanism, pp. 467, 468. (Italics mine.)

{31} 'Axioms as Postulates,' § 24 (italics mine), and cf. Pragmatism, pp. 248, 249.

{32} Humanism, pp. 11, 12 (note).

{33} Ibid., p. 11.

{34} 'Axioms as Postulates,' loc. cit.

{35} Humanism, p. 11.

{36} Studies in Humanism, p. 200.

{37} Pragmatism, p. 201.

{38} Ibid., pp. 205, 213.

{39} Studies in Humanism, p. 192.

{40} Ibid., p. 154. (Italics mine.)

{41} Studies in Humanism, p. 69, and cf. p. 461.

{42} 'Axioms as Postulates,' § 10.

{43} Studies in Humanism, pp. 192, 154 (cited above, 386).

{44} Abel Rey, La Théorie Physique, p. 381 Le Roy, Revue Métaph. et Morale, 1899, p. 560 Schiller, Humanism, pp. 55-59; Studies in Humanism, p. 70; and Poincaré, La Valeur de la Science, p. 265.

{45} The Meaning of Truth, pp. 64, 63.

{46} Studies en Humanism, p. 461.

{47} The Meaning of Truth, p. 65.

{48} Humanism, note to pp. 11, 12.

{49} Studies in Humanism, p. 200.

{50} Mind, N.S. 69, p. 127.

{51} The Meaning of Truth, p. 156.