{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_47658/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_47658","id":"gutenberg_47658","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/47658","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Knowledge, Theory of","Truth"],"text":"THE\n\n  PROBLEM OF TRUTH\n\n\n  BY H. WILDON CARR\n\n  HONORARY D.LITT., DURHAM\n\n\n\n  LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK\n  67 LONG ACRE, W.C., AND EDINBURGH\n  NEW YORK: DODGE PUBLISHING CO.\n\n\n\n\n{v}\n\nPREFACE\n\nA problem of philosophy is completely different from a problem of\nscience.  In science we accept our subject-matter as it is presented in\nunanalysed experience; in philosophy we examine the first principles\nand ultimate questions that concern conscious experience itself.  The\nproblem of truth is a problem of philosophy.  It is not a problem of\nmerely historical interest, but a present problem--a living\ncontroversy, the issue of which is undecided.  Its present interest may\nbe said to centre round the doctrine of pragmatism, which some fifteen\nyears ago began to challenge the generally accepted principles of\nphilosophy.  In expounding this problem of truth, my main purpose has\nbeen to make clear to the reader the nature of a problem of philosophy\nand to disclose the secret of its interest.  My book presumes no\nprevious study of philosophy nor special knowledge of its problems.\nThe theories that I have shown in conflict on this question are, each\nof them, held by some of the leaders of philosophy.  In presenting\nthem, therefore, I have tried to let the full dialectical force of the\nargument appear.  I have indicated my own view, that the direction in\nwhich the solution lies is in the new conception of life and the theory\nof knowledge given to us in the philosophy of Bergson.  If I am right,\nthe solution is not, like pragmatism, a doctrine of the nature of\ntruth, but a theory of knowledge in which {vi} the dilemma in regard to\ntruth does not arise.  But, as always in philosophy, the solution of\none problem is the emergence of another.  There is no finality.\n\nMy grateful acknowledgment is due to my friend Professor S. Alexander,\nwho kindly read my manuscript and assisted me with most valuable\nsuggestions, and also to my friend Dr. T. Percy Nunn for a similar\nservice.\n\nH. WILDON CARR.\n\n\n\n\n{vii}\n\n  CONTENTS\n\n  CHAP.\n\n  I.  PHYSICS AND METAPHYSICS\n  II.  APPEARANCE AND REALITY\n  III.  THE LOGICAL THEORIES\n  IV.  THE ABSOLUTE\n  V.  PRAGMATISM\n  VI.  UTILITY\n  VII.  ILLUSION\n  VIII.  THE PROBLEM OF ERROR\n  IX.  CONCLUSION\n  BIBLIOGRAPHY\n  INDEX\n\n\n\n\n{9}\n\nTHE PROBLEM OF TRUTH\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nPHYSICS AND METAPHYSICS\n\nThe progress of physical science leads to the continual discovery of\ncomplexity in what is first apprehended as simple.  The atom of\nhydrogen, so long accepted as the ideal limit of simplicity, is now\nsuspected to be not the lowest unit in the scale of elements, and it is\nno longer conceived, as it used to be, as structureless, but as an\nindividual system, comparable to a solar system, of electrical\ncomponents preserving an equilibrium probably only temporary.  The same\ntendency to discover complexity in what is first apprehended as simple\nis evident in the study of philosophy.  The more our simple and\nordinary notions are submitted to analysis, the more are profound\nproblems brought to consciousness.  It is impossible to think that we\ndo not know what such an ordinary, simple notion as that of truth is;\nyet the attempt to give a definition of its meaning brings quite\nunexpected difficulties to light, and the widest divergence at the\npresent time between rival principles of philosophical interpretation\nis in regard to a theory of the nature of truth.  It is not a problem\nthat is pressed on us by any felt need, nor is anyone who does not feel\nits interest called upon to occupy himself with it.  We speak our\nlanguage before we know its {10} grammar, and we reason just as well\nwhether we have learnt the science of logic or not.\n\nThis science of Logic, or, as it is sometimes called, of Formal Logic,\nwas, until modern times, regarded as a quite simple account of the\nprinciples that govern the exercise of our reasoning faculty, and of\nthe rules founded on those principles by following which truth was\nattained and false opinion or error avoided.  It was called formal\nbecause it was supposed to have no relation to the matter of the\nsubject reasoned about, but only to the form which the reasoning must\ntake.  A complete account of this formal science, as it was recognised\nand accepted for many ages, might easily have been set forth within the\nlimits of a small volume such as this.  But the development of modern\nphilosophy has wrought an extraordinary change.  Anyone now who will\nset himself the task of mastering all the problems that have been\nraised round the question of the nature of logical process, will find\nhimself confronted with a vast library of special treatises, and\ninvolved in discussions that embrace the whole of philosophy.  The\nspecial problem of truth that it is the object of this little volume to\nexplain is a quite modern question.  It has been raised within the\npresent generation of philosophical writers, and is to-day, perhaps,\nthe chief controversy in which philosophers are engaged.  But although\nit is only in the last few years that controversy has been aroused on\nthis question, the problem is not new--it is indeed as old as\nphilosophy itself.  In the fifth century before Christ, and in the\ngeneration that immediately preceded Socrates, a famous philosopher,\nProtagoras (481-411 B.C.) published a book with the title _The Truth_.\nHe had the misfortune, common at that time, to offend the religious\nAthenians, {11} for he spoke slightingly of the gods, proposing to\n\"banish their existence or non-existence from writing and speech.\"  He\nwas convicted of atheism, and his books were publicly burnt, and he\nhimself, then seventy years of age, was either banished or at least was\nobliged to flee from Athens, and on his way to Sicily he lost his life\nin a shipwreck.  Our knowledge of this book of Protagoras is due to the\npreservation of its argument by Plato in the dialogue \"The\u00e6tetus.\"\nProtagoras, we are there told, taught that \"man is the measure of all\nthings--of the existence of things that are, and of the non-existence\nof things that are not.\"  \"You have read him?\" asks Socrates,\naddressing The\u00e6tetus.  \"Oh yes, again and again,\" is The\u00e6tetus' reply.\nPlato was entirely opposed to the doctrine that Protagoras taught.  It\nseemed to him to bring gods and men and tadpoles to one level as far as\ntruth was concerned; for he drew the deduction that if man is the\nmeasure of all things, then to each man his own opinion is right.\nPlato opposed to it the theory that truth is the vision of a pure\nobjective reality.\n\nThis same problem that exercised the ancient world is now again a chief\ncentre of philosophical interest, and the aim of this little book is\nnot to decide that question, but to serve as a guide and introduction\nto those who desire to know what the question is that divides\nphilosophers to-day into the hostile camps of pragmatism and\nintellectualism.\n\nThe subject is not likely to interest anyone who does not care for the\nstudy of the exact definitions and abstract principles that lie at the\nbasis of science and philosophy.  There are many who are engaged in the\nstudy of the physical and natural sciences, and also many who devote\nthemselves to the social and political {12} sciences, who hold in\nprofound contempt the fine distinctions and intellectual subtleties\nthat seem to them the whole content of logic and metaphysic.  The\nattitude of the scientific mind is not difficult to understand.  It has\nrecently been rather graphically expressed by a distinguished and\npopular exponent of the principles of natural science.  \"One may regard\nthe utmost possibilities of the results of human knowledge as the\ncontents of a bracket, and place outside the bracket the factor _x_ to\nrepresent those unknown and unknowable possibilities which the\nimagination of man is never wearied of suggesting.  This factor _x_ is\nthe plaything of the metaphysician.\"[1]  This mathematical symbol of\nthe bracket, multiplied by _x_ to represent the unknown and unknowable\npossibilities beyond it, will serve me to indicate with some exactness\nthe problem with which I am going to deal.  The symbol is an expression\nof the agnostic position.  The popular caricature of the metaphysician\nand his \"plaything\" we may disregard as a pure fiction.  The unknowable\n_x_ of the agnostic is not the \"meta\" or \"beyond\" of physics which the\nmetaphysician vainly seeks to know.  The only \"beyond\" of physics is\nconsciousness or experience itself, and this is the subject-matter of\nmetaphysics.  Our present problem is that of the bracket, not that of\nthe factor outside, if there is any such factor, nor yet the particular\nnature of the contents within.  There are, as we shall see, three views\nthat are possible of the nature of the bracket.  In one view, it is\nmerely the conception of the extent which knowledge has attained or can\nattain; it has no intimate relation to the knowledge, but marks\nexternally its limit.  This is the view of the realist.  In another\nview, the whole of knowledge is intimately related {13} to its\nparticular parts; the things we know are not a mere collection or\naggregate of independent facts that we have discovered; the bracket\nwhich contains our knowledge gives form to it, and relates organically\nthe dependent parts to the whole in one comprehensive individual\nsystem.  This is the view of the idealist.  There is yet another view:\nhuman knowledge is relative to human activity and its needs; the\nbracket is the ever-changing limit of that activity--within it is all\nthat is relevant to human purpose and personality without it is all\nthat is irrelevant.  This is the view of the pragmatist.\n\nIt is not only the scientific mind, but also the ethical and religious\nmind, that is likely to be at least impatient, if not contemptuous, of\nthis inquiry.  The question What is truth? will probably bring to\neveryone's mind the words uttered by a Roman Procurator at the supreme\nmoment of a great world-tragedy.  Pilate's question is usually\ninterpreted as the cynical jest of a judge indifferent to the\nsignificance of the great cause he was trying--the expression of the\nbelief that there is no revelation of spiritual truth of the highest\nimportance for our human nature, or at least that there is no\ninfallible test by which it can be known.  It is not this problem of\ntruth that we are now to discuss.\n\nThere are, on the other hand, many minds that can never rest satisfied\nwhile they have accepted only, and not examined, the assumptions of\nscience and the values of social and political and religious ideals.\nTheir quest of first principles may appear to more practical natures a\nharmless amusement or a useless waste of intellectual energy; but they\nare responding to a deep need of our human nature, a need that, it may\nbe, is in its very nature insatiable--the need of intellectual\nsatisfaction.  It is {14} the nature of this intellectual satisfaction\nitself that is our problem of truth.\n\nThere are therefore two attitudes towards the problem of truth and\nreality--that of the mind which brings a practical test to every\nquestion, and that of the mind restless to gain by insight or by\nspeculation a clue to the mystery that enshrouds the meaning of\nexistence.  The first attitude seems peculiarly to characterise the man\nof science, who delights to think that the problem of reality is simple\nand open to the meanest understanding.  Between the plain man's view\nand that of the man of high attainment in scientific research there is\nfor him only a difference of degree, and science seems almost to\nrequire an apology if it does not directly enlarge our command over\nnature.  It would explain life and consciousness as the result of\nchemical combination of material elements.  Philosophy, on the other\nhand, is the instinctive feeling that the secret of the universe is not\nopen and revealed to the plain man guided by common-sense experience\nalone, even if to this experience be added the highest attainments of\nscientific research.  Either there is far more in matter than is\ncontained in the three-dimensional space it occupies, or else the\nuniverse must owe its development to something beyond matter.  The\nuniverse must seem a poor thing indeed to a man who can think that\nphysical science does or can lay bare its meaning.  It is the intense\ndesire to catch some glimpse of its meaning that leads the philosopher\nto strive to transcend the actual world by following the speculative\nbent of the reasoning power that his intellectual nature makes possible.\n\n\n[1] Sir Kay Lankester.\n\n\n\n\n{15}\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nAPPEARANCE AND REALITY\n\nOur conscious life is one unceasing change.  From the first awakening\nof consciousness to the actual present, no one moment has been the mere\nrepetition of another, and the moments which as we look back seem to\nhave made up our life are not separable elements of it but our own\ndivisions of a change that has been continuous.  And as it has been, so\nwe know it will be until consciousness ceases with death.\nConsciousness and life are in this respect one and the same, although\nwhen we speak of our consciousness we think chiefly of a passive\nreceptivity, and when we speak of our life we think of an activity.\nConsciousness as the unity of knowing and acting is a becoming.  The\npast is not left behind, it is with us in the form of memory; the\nfuture is not a predetermined order which only a natural disability\nprevents us from knowing, it is yet uncreated; conscious life is the\nenduring present which grows with the past and makes the future.\n\nThis reality of consciousness is our continually changing experience.\nBut there is also another reality with which it seems to be in\nnecessary relation and also in complete contrast--this is the reality\nof the material or physical universe.  The world of physical reality\nseems to be composed of a matter that cannot change in a space that is\nabsolutely unchangeable.  This physical world seems made up of solid\nthings, formed out of matter.  Change in physical science is only a\nrearrangement of matter or an alteration of position in space.\n\nThis physical reality is not, as psychical reality is, {16} known to us\ndirectly; it is an interpretation of our sense experience.  Immediate\nexperience has objects, generally called sense data.  These objects are\nwhat we actually see in sensations of sight, what we actually hear in\nsensations of sound, and so on; and they lead us to suppose or infer\nphysical objects--that is, objects that do not depend upon our\nexperience for their existence, but whose existence is the cause of our\nhaving the experience.  The process by which we infer the nature of the\nexternal world from our felt experience is logical.  It includes\nperceiving, conceiving, thinking or reasoning.  The object of the\nlogical process, the aim or ideal to which it seeks to attain, is\ntruth.  Knowledge of reality is truth.\n\nThere are therefore two realities, the reality of our felt experience\nfrom which all thinking sets out, and the reality which in thinking we\nseek to know.  The one reality is immediate; it is conscious experience\nitself.  The other reality is that which we infer from the fact of\nexperience, that by which we seek to explain our existence.  The one we\nfeel, the other we think.  If the difference between immediate\nknowledge and mediate knowledge or inference lay in the feeling of\ncertainty alone or in the nature of belief, the distinction would not\nbe the difficult one that it is.  The theories of idealism and realism\nshow how widely philosophers are divided on the subject.  We are quite\nas certain of some of the things that we can only infer as we are of\nthe things of which we are immediately aware.  We cannot doubt, for\ninstance, that there are other persons besides ourselves, yet we can\nhave no distinct knowledge of any consciousness but one--our own.  Our\nknowledge that there are other minds is an inference from our\nobservation of the behaviour of some of the things we {17} directly\nexperience, and from the experience of our own consciousness.  And even\nthose things which seem in direct relation to us--the things we see, or\nhear, or touch--are immediately present in only a very small, perhaps\nan infinitesimal, part of what we know and think of as their full\nreality; all but this small part is inferred.  From a momentary\nsensation of sight, or sound, or touch we infer reality that far\nexceeds anything actually given to us by the sensation.\n\nThinking is questioning experience.  When our attention is suddenly\nattracted by something--a flash of light, or a sound, or a twinge of\npain--consciously or unconsciously we say to ourself, What is that?\nThe _that_--a simple felt experience--contains a meaning, brings a\nmessage, and we ask _what_?  We distinguish the existence as an\nappearance, and we seek to know the reality.  The quest of the reality\nwhich is made known to us by the appearance is the logical process of\nthought.  The end or purpose of this logical process is to replace the\nimmediate reality of the felt experience with a mediated-reality--that\nis, a reality made known to us.  Directly, therefore, that we begin to\nthink, the immediately present existence becomes an appearance, and\nthroughout the development of our thought it is taken to be something\nthat requires explanation.  We seek to discover the reality which will\nexplain it.\n\nIt is in this distinction of appearance and reality that the problem of\ntruth arises.  It does not depend upon any particular theory of\nknowledge.  The same fact is recognised by idealists and by realists.\nIdealism may deny that the knowledge of independent reality is\npossible; realism may insist that it is implied in the very fact of\nconsciousness itself--whichever is right, the reality which thinking\nbrings before the mind is quite {18} unlike and of a different order to\nthat which we immediately experience in feeling.  And even if we know\nnothing of philosophy, if we are ignorant of all theories of knowledge\nand think of the nature of knowledge simply from the standpoint of the\nnatural man, the fact is essentially the same--the true reality of\nthings is something concealed from outward view, something to be found\nout by science or by practical wisdom.  Our knowledge of this reality\nmay be true, in this case only is it knowledge; or it may be false, in\nwhich case it is not knowledge but opinion or error.\n\nThe reality then, the knowledge of which is truth, is not the immediate\nreality of feeling but the inferred reality of thought.  To have any\nintelligible meaning, the affirmation that knowledge is true supposes\nthat there already exists a distinction between knowledge and the\nreality known, between the being and the knowing of that which is\nknown.  In immediate knowledge, in actual conscious felt experience\nthere is no such distinction, and therefore to affirm truth or error of\nsuch knowledge is unmeaning.  I cannot have a toothache without knowing\nthat I have it.  In the actual felt toothache knowing and being are not\nonly inseparable--they are indistinguishable.  If, however, I think of\nmy toothache as part of an independent order of reality, my knowledge\nof it may be true or false.  I am then thinking of it as the effect of\nan exposed nerve, or of an abscess or of an inflammation--as something,\nthat is to say, that is conditioned independently of my consciousness\nand that will cease to exist when the conditions are altered.  In the\nsame way, when I behold a landscape, the blue expanse of sky and\nvariegated colour of the land which I actually experience are not\neither true or false, they are immediate experience in {19} which\nknowing is being and being is knowing.  Truth and error only apply to\nthe interpretation of that experience, to the independent reality that\nI infer from it.  We can, then, distinguish two kinds of knowledge\nwhich we may call immediate and mediate, or, better still, acquaintance\nand description.  Accordingly, when we say that something is, or when\nwe say of anything that it if real, we may mean either of two things.\nWe may mean that it is part of the changing existence that we actually\nfeel and that we call consciousness or life, or we may mean that it is\npart of an independent order of things whose existence we think about\nin order to explain, not what our feeling is (there can be no\nexplanation of this), but how it comes to exist.  We know by\ndescription a vast number of things with which we never can be actually\nacquainted.  Such, indeed, is the case with all the knowledge by which\nwe rule our lives and conceive the reality which environs us.  Yet we\nare absolutely dependent on the reality we know by acquaintance for all\nour knowledge of these things.  Not only is immediate sense experience\nand the knowledge it gives us by acquaintance the only evidence we have\nof the greater and wider reality, but we are dependent on it for the\nterms wherewith to describe it, for the form in which to present it,\nfor the matter with which to compose it.  And this is the real ground\nof the study of philosophy, the justification of its standpoint.  It is\nthis fact--this ultimate undeniable fact--that all reality of whatever\nkind and in whatever way known, whether by thought or by feeling,\nwhether it is perceived or conceived, remembered or imagined, is in the\nend composed of sense experience: it is this fact from which all the\nproblems of philosophy arise.  It is this fact that our utilitarian men\nof science find {20} themselves forced to recognise, however scornful\nthey may be of metaphysical methods and results.\n\nThe special problem of the nature of truth is concerned, then, with the\nreality that we have distinguished as known by description, and\nconceived by us as independent in its existence of the consciousness by\nwhich we know it.  What is the nature of the seal by which we stamp\nthis knowledge true?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nTHE LOGICAL THEORIES\n\nWhoever cares to become acquainted with the difficulty of the problem\nof truth must not be impatient of dialectical subtleties.  There is a\nwell-known story in Boswell's _Life of Dr. Johnson_ which relates how\nthe Doctor refuted Berkeley's philosophy which affirmed the\nnon-existence of matter.  \"I observed,\" says Boswell, \"that though we\nare satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it.\nI shall never forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking\nhis foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded\nfrom it--'I refute it _thus_.'\"  Dr. Johnson is the representative of\nrobust common sense.  It has very often turned out in metaphysical\ndisputes that the common-sense answer is the one that has been\njustified in the end.  Those who are impatient of metaphysics are,\ntherefore, not without reasonable ground; and indeed the strong belief\nthat the common-sense view will be justified in the end, however\npowerful the sceptical doubt that seems to contradict it, however\nstartling the paradox that seems to be involved in it, is a possession\nof the human mind without which the ordinary {21} practical conduct of\nlife would be impossible.  When, then, we ask ourselves, What is truth?\nthe answer seems to be simple and obvious.  Truth, we reply, is a\nproperty of certain of our ideas; it means their agreement, as falsity\nmeans their disagreement, with reality.  If I say of anything that it\nis so, then, if it is so, what I say is true; if it is not so, then\nwhat I say is false.  This simple definition of truth is one that is\nuniversally accepted.  No one really can deny it, for if he did he\nwould have nothing to appeal to to justify his own theory or condemn\nanother.  The problem of truth is only raised when we ask, What does\nthe agreement of an idea with reality mean?  If the reader will ask\nhimself that question, and carefully ponder it, he will see that there\nis some difficulty in the answer to the simple question, What is truth?\nThe answer that will probably first of all suggest itself is that the\nidea is a copy of the reality.  And at once many experiences will seem\nto confirm this view.  Thus when we look at a landscape we know that\nthe lines of light which radiate from every point of it pass through\nthe lens of each of our eyes to be focussed on the retina, forming\nthere a small picture which is the exact counterpart of the reality.\nIf we look into another person's eye we may see there a picture of the\nwhole field of his vision reflected from his lens.  It is true that\nwhat we see is not what he sees, for that is on his retina, but the\nanalogy of this with a photographic camera, where we see the picture on\nthe ground glass, seems obvious and natural; and so we think of\nknowledge, so far as it depends on the sense of vision, as consisting\nin more or less vivid, more or less faded, copies of real things stored\nup by the memory.  But a very little reflection will convince us that\nthe truth of our ideas cannot consist in the fact {22} that they are\ncopies of realities, for clearly they are not copies in any possible\nmeaning of the term.  Take, for example, this very illustration of\nseeing a landscape: what we see is not a picture or copy of the\nlandscape, but the real landscape itself.  We feel quite sure of this,\nand with regard to the other sensations, those that come to us by\nhearing, taste, smell, touch, it would seem highly absurd to suppose\nthat the ideas these sensations produce in us are copies of real\nthings.  The pain of burning is not a copy of real fire, and the truth\nof the judgment, Fire burns, does not consist in the fact that the\nideas denoted by the words \"fire,\" \"burns,\" faithfully copy certain\nreal things which are not ideas.  And the whole notion is seen to be\nabsurd if we consider that, were it a fact that real things produce\ncopies of themselves in our mind, we could never know it was so--all\nthat we should have any knowledge of would be the copies, and whether\nthese were like or unlike the reality, or indeed whether there was any\nreality for them to be like would, in the nature of the case, be\nunknowable, and we could never ask the question.\n\nIf, then, our ideas are not copies of things, and if there are things\nas well as ideas about things, it is quite clear that the ideas must\ncorrespond to the things in some way that does not make them copies of\nthe things.  The most familiar instance of correspondence is the\nsymbolism we use in mathematics.  Are our ideas of this nature?  And is\ntheir truth their correspondence?  Is a perfectly true idea one in\nwhich there exists a point to point correspondence to the reality it\nrepresents?  At once there will occur to the mind a great number of\ninstances where this seems to be the case.  A map of England is not a\ncopy of England such as, for example, a photograph might be if we were\nto imagine it taken {23} from the moon.  The correctness or the truth\nof a map consists in the correspondence between the reality and the\ndiagram, which is an arbitrary sign of it.  Throughout the whole of our\nordinary life we find that we make use of symbols and signs that are\nnot themselves either parts of or copies of the things for which they\nstand.  Language itself is of this nature, and there may be symbols of\nsymbols of symbols of real things.  Written language is the arbitrary\nvisual sign of spoken language, and spoken language is the arbitrary\nsign, it may be, of an experienced thing or of an abstract idea.  Is,\nthen, this property of our ideas which we call truth the correspondence\nof ideas with their objects, and is falsity the absence of this\ncorrespondence?  It cannot be so.  To imagine that ideas can correspond\nwith realities is to forget that ideas simply are the knowledge of\nrealities; it is to slip into the notion that we know two kinds of\ndifferent things, first realities and secondly ideas, and that we can\ncompare together these two sorts of things.  But it is at once evident\nthat if we could know realities without ideas, we should never need to\nhave recourse to ideas.  It is simply ridiculous to suppose that the\nrelation between consciousness and reality which we call knowing is the\ndiscovery of a correspondence between mental ideas and real things.\nThe two things that are related together in knowledge are not the idea\nand its object, but the mind and its object.  The idea of the object is\nthe knowledge of the object.  There may be correspondence between\nideas, but not between ideas and independent things, for that supposes\nthat the mind knows the ideas and also knows the things and observes\nthe correspondence between them.  And even if we suppose that ideas are\nan independent kind of entity distinguishable and separable from\nanother kind {24} of entity that forms the real world, how could we\nknow that the two corresponded, for the one would only be inferred from\nthe other?\n\nThere is, however, a form of the correspondence theory of truth that is\npresented in a way which avoids this difficulty.  Truth, it is said, is\nconcerned not with the nature of things themselves but with our\njudgments about them.  Judgment is not concerned with the terms that\nenter into relation--these are immediately experienced and\nultimate--but with the relations in which they stand to one another.\nThus, when we say John is the father of James, the truth of our\njudgment does not consist in the adequacy of our ideas of John and\nJames, nor in the correspondence of our ideas with the realities, but\nis concerned only with the relation that is affirmed to exist between\nthem.  This relation is declared to be independent of or at least\nexternal to the terms, and, so far as it is expressed in a judgment,\ntruth consists in its actual correspondence with fact.  So if I say\nJohn is the father of James, then, if John is the father of James, the\njudgment is true, the affirmation is a truth; if he is not, it is\nfalse, the affirmation is a falsehood.  This view has the merit of\nsimplicity, and is sufficiently obvious almost to disarm criticism.\nThere is, indeed, little difficulty in accepting it if we are able to\ntake the view of the nature of the real universe which it assumes.  The\ntheory is best described as pluralistic realism.  It is the view that\nthe universe consists of or is composed of an aggregate of an infinite\nnumber of entities.  Some of these have a place in the space and time\nseries, and these exist.  Some, on the other hand, are possibilities\nwhich have not and may never have any actual existence.  Entities that\nhave their place in the perceptual order of experience exist, {25} or\nhave existed, or will exist; but entities that are concepts, such as\ngoodness, beauty, truth, or that are abstract symbols like numbers,\ngeometrical figures, pure forms, do not exist, but are none the less\njust as real as the entities that do exist.  These entities are the\nsubject-matter of our judgments, and knowing is discovering the\nrelations in which they stand to one another.  The whole significance\nof this view lies in the doctrine that relations are external to the\nentities that are related--they do not enter into and form part of the\nnature of the entities.  The difficulty of this view is just this\nexternality of the relation.  It seems difficult to conceive what\nnature is left in any entity deprived of all its relations.  The\nrelation of father and son in the judgment, John is the father of\nJames, is so far part of the nature of the persons John and James, that\nif the judgment is false then to that extent John and James are not the\nactual persons John and James that they are thought to be.  And this is\nthe case even in so purely external a relation as is expressed, say, in\nthe judgment, Edinburgh is East of Glasgow.  It is difficult to discuss\nany relation which can be said to be entirely indifferent to the nature\nof its terms, and it is doubtful if anything whatever would be left of\na term abstracted from all its relations.\n\nThese difficulties have led to the formulation of an altogether\ndifferent theory, namely, the theory that truth does not consist in\ncorrespondence between ideas and their real counterparts, but in the\nconsistence and internal harmony of the ideas themselves.  It is named\nthe coherence theory.  It will be recognised at once that there is very\nmuch in common experience to support it.  It is by the test of\nconsistency and coherence that we invariably judge the truth of\nevidence.  {26} Also it seems a very essential part of our intellectual\nnature to reject as untrue and false any statement or any idea that is\nself-contradictory or irreconcilable with the world of living\nexperience.  But then, on the other hand, we by no means allow that\nthat must be true which does not exhibit logical contradiction and\ninconsistency.  It is a common enough experience that ideas prove false\nthough they have exhibited no inherent failure to harmonise with\nsurrounding circumstances nor any self-contradiction.  The theory,\ntherefore, requires more than a cursory examination.\n\nThinking is the activity of our mind which discovers the order,\narrangement, and system in the reality that the senses reveal.  Without\nthought, our felt experience would be a chaos and not a world.  The\nphilosopher Kant expressed this by saying that the understanding gives\nunity to the manifold of sense.  The understanding, he said, makes\nnature.  It does this by giving form to the matter which comes to it by\nthe senses.  The mind is not a _tabula rasa_ upon which the external\nworld makes and leaves impressions, it is a relating activity which\narranges the matter it receives in forms.  First of all there are space\nand time, which are forms in which we receive all perceptual\nexperience, and then there are categories that are conceptual frames or\nmoulds by which we think of everything we experience as having definite\nrelations and belonging to a real order of existence.  Substance,\ncausality, quality, and quantity are categories; they are universal\nforms in which the mind arranges sense experience, and which constitute\nthe laws of nature, the order of the world.  Space and time, and the\ncategories of the understanding Kant declared to be\ntranscendental--that is to say, they are the elements necessary to\nexperience which are not {27} themselves derived from experience, as,\nfor example, that every event has a cause.  There are, he declared,\nsynthetic _a priori_ judgments--that is, judgments about experience\nwhich are not themselves derived from experience, but, on the contrary,\nthe conditions that make experience possible.  It is from this doctrine\nof Kant that the whole of modern idealism takes its rise.  Kant,\nindeed, held that there are things-in-themselves, and to this extent he\nwas not himself an idealist, but he also held that things-in-themselves\nare unknowable, and this is essentially the idealist position.\nClearly, if we hold the view that things-in-themselves are unknowable,\ntruth cannot be a correspondence between our ideas and these\nthings-in-themselves.  Truth must be some quality of the ideas\nthemselves, and this can only be their logical consistency.\nConsistency, because the ideas must be in agreement with one another;\nand logical, because this consistency belongs to the thinking, and\nlogic is the science of thinking.  Truth, in effect, is the ideal of\nlogical consistency.  We experience in thinking an activity striving to\nattain the knowledge of reality, and the belief, the feeling of\nsatisfaction that we experience when our thinking seems to attain the\nknowledge of reality, is the harmony, the absence of contradiction, the\ncoherence, of our ideas themselves.  This is the coherence theory.  Let\nus see what it implies as to the ultimate nature of truth and reality.\n\nIn both the theories we have now examined, truth is a logical character\nof ideas.  In the correspondence theory there is indeed supposed a\nnon-logical reality, but it is only in the ideas that there is the\nconformity or correspondence which constitutes their truth.  In the\ncoherence theory, reality is itself ideal, and the {28} ultimate ground\nof everything is logical.  This is the theory of truth that accords\nwith the idealist view, and this view finds its most perfect expression\nin the theory of the Absolute.  The Absolute is the idea of an object\nthat realises perfect logical consistency.  This object logic itself\ncreates; if it be a necessary existence, then knowledge of it cannot be\nother than truth.  This view, on account of the supreme position that\nit assigns to the intellect, and of the fundamental character with\nwhich it invests the logical categories, has been named by those who\noppose it Intellectualism.  It is important that it should be clearly\nunderstood, and the next chapter will be devoted to its exposition.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nTHE ABSOLUTE\n\nA comparison of the two theories of truth examined in the last chapter\nwill show that, whereas both rest on a logical quality in ideas, the\nfirst depends on an external view taken by the mind of an independent\nnon-mental reality, whereas the second depends on the discovery of an\ninner meaning in experience itself.  It is this inner meaning of\nexperience that we seek to know when asking any question concerning\nreality.  It is the development of this view, and what it implies as to\nthe ultimate nature of reality and truth, that we are now to examine.\n\nWhen we ask questions about reality, we assume in the very inquiry that\nreality is of a nature that experience reveals.  Reality in its\nultimate nature may be logical--that is to say, of the nature of\nreason, or it may {29} be non-logical--that is to say, of the nature of\nfeeling or will; but in either case it must be a nature of which\nconscious experience can give us knowledge.  If indeed we hold the view\nwhich philosophers have often endeavoured to formulate, that reality is\nunknowable, then there is no more to be said; for, whatever the picture\nor the blank for a picture by which the mind tries to present this\nunknowable reality, there can be no question in relation to it of the\nnature and meaning of truth.  An unknowable reality, as we shall show\nlater on, is to all intents and purposes non-existent reality.  On the\nother hand, if thinking leads to the knowledge of reality that we call\ntruth, it is because being and knowing are ultimately one, and this\nunity can only be in conscious experience.  This is the axiom on which\nthe idealist argument is based.\n\nThe theory of the Absolute is a logical argument of great dialectical\nforce.  It is not an exaggeration to say that it is the greatest\ndialectical triumph of modern philosophy.  It is the most successful\nexpression of idealism.  That this is not an extravagant estimate is\nshown, I think, by the fact that, widespread and determined as is the\nopposition it has had to encounter, criticism has been directed not so\nmuch against its logic as against the basis of intellectualism on which\nit rests.  The very boldness of its claim and brilliance of its triumph\nlead to the suspicion that the intellect cannot be the sole determining\nfactor of the ultimate nature of reality.\n\nIt will be easier to understand the theory of the Absolute if we first\nof all notice, for the sake of afterwards comparing it, another\nargument very famous in the history of philosophy--the argument to\nprove the existence of God named after St. Anselm of Canterbury.  {30}\nIt runs thus: We have in God the idea of a perfect being; the idea of a\nperfect being includes the existence of that being, for not to exist is\nto fall short of perfection; therefore God exists.  The theological\nform of this argument need raise no prejudice against it.  It is of\nvery great intrinsic importance, and if it is wrong it is not easy to\npoint out wherein the fallacy lies.  It may, of course, be denied that\nwe have or can have the idea of a perfect being--that is to say, that\nwe can present that idea to the mind with a positive content or meaning\nas distinct from a merely negative or limiting idea.  But this is\npractically to admit the driving force of the argument, namely, that\nthere may be an idea of whose content or meaning existence forms part.\nWith regard to everything else the idea of existing is not existence.\nThere is absolutely no difference between the idea of a hundred dollars\nand the idea of a hundred dollars existing, but there is the whole\ndifference between thought and reality in the idea of the hundred\ndollars existing and the existence of the hundred dollars.  Their\nactual existence in no way depends on the perfection or imperfection of\nmy idea, nor in the inclusion of their existence in my idea.  This is\nsufficiently obvious in every case in which we are dealing with\nperceptual reality, and in which we can, in the words of the\nphilosopher Hume, produce the impression which gives rise to the idea.\nBut there are some objects which by their very nature will not submit\nto this test.  No man hath seen God at any time, not because God is an\nobject existing under conditions and circumstances of place and time\nimpossible for us to realise by reason of the limitations of our finite\nexistence, but because God is an object in a different sense from that\nwhich has a place in the perceptual order, and therefore it is affirmed\nof God that the {31} idea involves existence.  God is not an object of\nperception, either actual or possible; nor in the strict sense is God a\nconcept--that is to say, a universal of which there may be particulars.\nHe is in a special sense the object of reason.  If we believe that\nthere is a God, it is because our reason tells us that there must be.\nGod, in philosophy, is the idea of necessary existence, and the\nargument runs: God must be, therefore is.  If, then, we exclude from\nthe idea of God every mythological and theological element--if we mean\nnot Zeus nor Jehovah nor Brahma, but the first principle of\nexistence--then we may find in the St. Anselm argument the very ground\nof theism.\n\nI have explained this argument, which is of the class called\nontological because it is concerned with the fundamental question of\nbeing, in order to give an instance of the kind of argument that has\ngiven us the theory of the Absolute.  I will now try to set that theory\nbefore the reader, asking only that he will put himself into the\nposition of a plain man with no special acquaintance with philosophy,\nbut reflective and anxious to interpret the meaning of his ordinary\nexperience.\n\nWe have already seen that thinking is the questioning of experience,\nand that the moment it begins it gives rise to a distinction between\nappearance and reality.  It is the asking _what?_ of every _that_ of\nfelt experience to which the mind attends.  The world in which we find\nourselves is extended all around us in space and full of things which\naffect us in various ways: some give us pleasure, others give us pain,\nand we ourselves are things that affect other things as well as being\nourselves affected by them.  When we think about the things in the\nworld in order to discover _what_ they really are, we very soon find\nthat we are liable to illusion and error.  {32} Things turn out on\nexamination to be very different to what we first imagined them to be.\nOur ideas, by which we try to understand the reality of things are just\nso many attempts to correct and set right our illusions and errors.\nAnd so the question arises, how far are our ideas about things truths\nabout reality?  It is very soon evident that there are some qualities\nof things that give rise to illusion and error much more readily than\nothers.  The spatial qualities of things, solidity, shape, size, seem\nto be real in a way that does not admit of doubt.  We seem able to\napply to these qualities a test that is definite and absolute.  On the\nother hand, there seem to be effects of these things in us such as\ntheir colour, taste, odour, sound, coldness, or heat, qualities that\nare incessantly changing and a fruitful source of illusion and error.\nWe therefore distinguish the spatial qualities as primary, and consider\nthat they are the real things and different from their effects, which\nwe call their secondary qualities.  And this is, perhaps, our most\nordinary test of reality.  If, for example, we should think that\nsomething we see is an unreal phantom, or a ghost, or some kind of\nhallucination, and on going up to it find that it does actually occupy\nspace, we correct our opinion and say the thing is real.  But the\nspatial or primary qualities of a thing, although they may seem more\npermanent and more essential to the reality of the thing than the\nsecondary qualities, are nevertheless only qualities.  They are not the\nthing itself, but ways in which it affects us.  It seems to us that\nthese qualities must inhere in or belong to the thing, and so we try to\nform the idea of the real thing as a substance or substratum which has\nthe qualities.  This was a generally accepted notion until Berkeley\n(1685-1763) showed how contradictory it is.  So {33} simple and\nconvincing was his criticism of the notion, that never since has\nmaterial substance been put forward as an explanation of the reality of\nthe things we perceive.  All that he did was to show how impossible and\ncontradictory it is to think that the reality of that which we perceive\nis something in its nature imperceptible, for such must material\nsubstance be apart from its sense qualities.  How can that which we\nperceive be something imperceptible?  And if we reflect on it, we shall\nsurely agree that it is so--by the thing we mean its qualities, and\napart from the qualities there is no thing.  We must try, then, in some\nother way to reach the reality.\n\nWhat, we shall now ask, can it be that binds together these sense\nqualities so that we speak of them as a thing?  There are two elements\nthat seem to enter into everything whatever that comes into our\nexperience, and which it seems to us would remain if everything in the\nuniverse were annihilated.  These are space and time.  Are they\nreality?  Here we are met with a new kind of difficulty.  It was\npossible to dismiss material substance as a false idea, an idea of\nsomething whose existence is impossible; but space and time are\ncertainly not false ideas.  The difficulty about them is that we cannot\nmake our thought of them consistent--they are ideas that contain a\nself-contradiction, or at least that lead to a self-contradiction when\nwe affirm them of reality.  With the ideas of space and time are\nclosely linked the ideas of change, of movement, of causation, of\nquality and quantity, and all of these exhibit this same puzzling\ncharacteristic, that they seem to make us affirm what we deny and deny\nwhat we affirm.  I might fill this little book with illustrations of\nthe paradoxes that are involved in these ordinary working ideas.\nEveryone is familiar with the difficulty involved in the {34} idea of\ntime.  We must think there was a beginning, and we cannot think that\nthere was any moment to which there was no before.  So also with space,\nit is an infinite extension which we can only think of as a beyond to\nevery limit.  This receding limit of the infinitely extensible space\ninvolves the character of infinite divisibility, for if there are an\ninfinite number of points from which straight lines can be drawn\nwithout intersecting one another to any fixed point there is therefore\nno smallest space that cannot be further divided.  The contradictions\nthat follow from these demonstrable contents of the idea of space are\nendless.  The relation of time to space is another source of\ncontradictory ideas.  I shall perhaps, however, best make the meaning\nof this self-contradictory character of our ordinary ideas clear by\nfollowing out a definite illustration.  What is known as the antinomy\nof motion is probably familiar to everyone from the well-known paradox\nof the Greek philosopher Zeno.  The flying arrow, he said, does not\nmove, because if it did it would be in two places at one and the same\ntime, and that is impossible.  I will now put this same paradox of\nmovement in a form which, so far as I know, it has not been presented\nbefore.  My illustration will involve the idea of causation as well as\nthat of movement.  If we suppose a space to be fully occupied, we shall\nagree that nothing within that space can move without thereby\ndisplacing whatever occupies the position into which it moves.  That is\nto say, the movement of any occupant of one position must cause the\ndisplacement of the occupant of the new position into which he moves.\nBut on the other hand it is equally clear that the displacement of the\noccupant of the new position is a prior condition of the possibility of\nthe movement of {35} the mover, for nothing can move unless there is an\nunoccupied place for it to move into, and there is no unoccupied place\nunless it has been vacated by its occupant before the movement begins.\nWe have therefore the clear contradiction that a thing can only move\nwhen something else which it causes to move has already moved.  Now if\nwe reflect on it we shall see that this is exactly the position we\noccupy in our three-dimensional space.  The space which surrounds us is\noccupied, and therefore we cannot move until a way is made clear for\nus, and nothing makes way for us unless we move.  We cannot move\nthrough stone walls because we cannot displace solid matter, but we can\nmove through air and water because we are able to displace these.  The\nproblem is the same.  My movement displaces the air, but there is no\nmovement until the air is displaced.  Can we escape the contradiction\nby supposing the displacement is the cause and the movement the effect.\nAre we, like people in a theatre queue, only able to move from behind\nforward as the place is vacated for us in front?  In that case we\nshould be driven to the incredible supposition that the original cause\nor condition of our movement is the previous movement of something at\nthe outskirts of our occupied space, that this somewhat moving into the\nvoid made possible the movement of the occupant of the space next\nadjoining, and so on until after a lapse of time which may be ages,\nwhich may indeed be infinite, the possibility of movement is opened to\nus.  In fact we must believe that the effect of our movement--namely,\nthe displacement of the previous occupants from the positions we occupy\nin moving--happened before it was caused.  Now it is impossible for us\nto believe either of the only two alternatives--either that we do not\nreally move but only {36} appear to do so, or that the displacement our\nmovement causes really precedes the movement.  When we meet with a\ndirect self-contradiction in our thoughts about anything, we can only\nsuppose that that about which we are thinking is in its nature\nnonsensical, or else that our ideas about it are wrong.\n\nIt may perhaps be thought that the whole difficulty arises simply\nbecause what we are trying to think consistently about is a reality\nthat is external to us.  Space and time, movement, cause and effect are\nideas that apply to a world outside and independent of the mind that\ntries to think it.  May not this be the reason of our failure and the\nwhole explanation of the seeming contradiction?  If we turn our\nthoughts inward upon our own being and think of the self, the I, the\nreal subject of experience, then surely where thought is at home and\nits object is mental not physical, we shall know reality.  It is not\nso.  The same self-contradiction characterises our ideas when we try to\npresent the real object of inner perception as when we try to present\nthe real object of external perception.  Not, of course, that it is\npossible to doubt the reality of our own existence, but that we fail\naltogether to express the meaning of the self we so surely know to\nexist in any idea which does not fall into self-contradiction.  As in\nthe case of the thing and its qualities, we think that there is\nsomething distinct from the qualities in which they inhere and yet find\nourselves unable to present to the mind any consistent idea of such\nthing, so we think that there must be some substance or basis of\npersonal identity, some real self which _has_ the successive changing\nconscious states, which has the character which distinguishes our\nactions as personal but which nevertheless _is_ not itself these\nthings.  The self-contradiction {37} in the idea of self, or I, or\nsubject, is that it both cannot change and is always changing.  As\nunchanging, we distinguish it from our body, which is an external\nobject among other objects and is different from other objects only in\nthe more direct and intimate relation in which it stands to us.  The\nbody is always changing; never for two successive moments is it exactly\nthe same combination of chemical elements.  We distinguish also ourself\nfrom that consciousness which is memory, the awareness of past\nexperience, from present feelings, desires, thoughts, and\nstrivings--these, we say, belong to the self but are not it.  The self\nmust have qualities and dwell in the body, guiding, directing, and\ncontrolling it, yet this self we never perceive, nor can we conceive\nit, for our idea of it is of a reality that changes and is yet\nunchangeable.\n\nThere is, however, one idea--an idea to which we have already\nalluded--that seems to offer us an escape from the whole of this\nlogical difficulty, the idea that reality is unknowable.  May not the\ncontradictoriness of our ideas be due to this fact, that our knowledge\nis entirely of phenomena, of appearances of things, and not of things\nas they are in themselves?  By a thing-in-itself we do not mean a\nreality that dwells apart in a universe of its own, out of any relation\nwhatever to our universe.  There may or may not be such realities, and\nwhether there are or not is purely irrelevant to any question of the\nnature of reality in our universe.  The thing-in-itself is the\nunknowable reality of the thing we know.  We conceive it as existing in\ncomplete abstraction from every aspect or relation of it that\nconstitutes knowledge of it in another.  The self-contradiction of such\nan idea is not difficult to show, quite apart from any consideration of\nits utter futility as an {38} explanation.  The thing-in-itself either\nis or else it is not the reality of phenomena.  If it is, then,\ninasmuch as the phenomena reveal it, it is neither in-itself nor\nunknowable.  If, on the other hand, it is not, if it is unrelated in\nany way to phenomena, then it is not only unknowable--it does not exist\nto be known.  It is an idea without any content or meaning, and\ntherefore indistinguishable from nothing.  It is simply saying of one\nand the same thing that it must be and that there is nothing that it\ncan be.\n\nWhile, then, there is no actual thing that we experience, whether it be\nan object outside of us or an object within us, of which we can say\nthis is not a phenomenon or appearance of reality but the actual\nreality itself, we cannot also say that we do not know reality, because\nif we had no idea, no criterion, of reality we could never know that\nanything was only an appearance.  It is this fact--the fact that we\nundoubtedly possess, in the very process of thinking itself, a\ncriterion of reality--that the idealist argument lays hold of as the\nbasis of its doctrine.  The mere fact seems, at first sight, barren and\nunpromising enough, but the idealist does not find it so.  Possessed of\nthis principle, logic, which has seemed till now purely destructive,\nbecomes in his hands creative, and gives form and meaning to an object\nof pure reason.\n\nThe criterion of reality is self-consistency.  We cannot think that\nanything is ultimately real which has its ground of existence in\nsomething else.  A real thing is that which can be explained without\nreference to some other thing.  Reality, therefore, is completely\nself-contained existence, not merely dependent existence.\nContradictions cannot be true.  If we have to affirm a contradiction of\nanything, it must be due to an {39} appearance, and the reality must\nreconcile the contradiction.  The idea of reality, therefore, is the\nidea of perfect harmony.  Knowing, then, what reality is, can we say\nthat there is any actual object of thought that conforms to it?  And\nhave we in our limited experience anything that will guide us to the\nattainment of this object?  The idealist is confident that we have.\nSome things seem to us to possess a far higher degree of reality than\nothers, just because they conform in a greater degree to this ideal of\nharmonious existence.  It is when we compare the reality of physical\nthings with the reality of mental things that the contrast is most\nstriking, and in it we have the clue to the nature of the higher\nreality.  Physical reality may seem, and indeed in a certain sense is,\nthe basis of existence, but when we try to think out the meaning of\nphysical reality, it becomes increasingly abstract, and we seem unable\nto set any actual limit to prevent it dissipating into nothing.  In\nphysical science we never have before us an actual element, either\nmatter or energy, in which we can recognise, however far below the\nlimit of perceivability, the ultimate stuff of which the universe is\ncomposed.  Science has simply to arrest the dissipation by boldly\nassuming a matter that is the substance and foundation of reality and\nan energy that is the ultimate cause of the evolution of the universe.\nOn the other hand, when we consider mental existence, the pursuit of\nreality is in an exactly contrary direction.  There, the more concrete,\nthe more comprehensive, the more individual a thing is, the greater\ndegree of reality it seems to have.  In the spiritual realm, by which\nwe mean, not some supposed supra-mundane sphere, but the world of\nvalues, the world in which ideas have reality, in which we live our\nrational life, reality is always sought in a {40} higher and higher\nindividuality.  The principle of individuality is that the whole is\nmore real than the parts.  An individual human being, for example, is a\nwhole, an indivisible organic unity, not merely an aggregation of\nphysiological organs with special functions, nor are these a mere\ncollection of special cells, nor these a mere concourse of chemical\nelements.  The State as a community is an individual organic unity with\na reality that is more than the mere total of the reality of individual\ncitizens who compose it.  It is this principle of individuality that is\nthe true criterion of reality.  It is this principle that, while it\nleads us to seek the unity in an individuality ever higher and more\ncomplete than we have attained, at the same time explains the\ndiscrepancy of our partial view, explains contradictions as the\nnecessary result of the effort to understand the parts in independence\nof the whole which gives to them their reality.  Thus, while on the one\nhand the scientific search for reality is ever towards greater\nsimplicity and abstractness, a simplicity whose ideal limit is zero,\nthe philosophical search for reality is ever towards greater\nconcreteness, towards full comprehensiveness, and its ideal limit is\nthe whole universe as one perfect and completely harmonious individual.\nThis idea of full reality is the Absolute.  There are not two\nrealities, one material and the other spiritual; the material and the\nspiritual are two directions in which we may seek the one reality, but\nthere is only one pathway by which we shall find it.\n\nThe Absolute is the whole universe not in its aspect of an aggregate of\ninfinitely diverse separate elements, whether these are material or\nspiritual, but in its aspect of an individual whole and in its nature\nas a whole.  This nature of the whole is to be individual--only in {41}\nthe individual are contradictions reconciled.  Is the Absolute more\nthan an idea?  Does it actually exist?  Clearly we cannot claim to know\nit by direct experience, by acquaintance; it is not a _that_ of which\nwe can ask _what_?  It is the object of reason itself, therefore we\nknow that it must be.  Also we know that it can be; it is a possible\nobject in the logical meaning that it is not a self-contradictory idea,\nlike every other idea that we can have.  It is not self-contradictory,\nfor it is itself the idea of that which is consistent.  Therefore,\nargues the idealist, it is, for that which must be, and can be, surely\nexists.  The reader will now understand why I introduced this account\nof the Absolute with a description for comparison of the St. Anselm\nproof of the existence of God.\n\nThere is one further question.  Whether the Absolute does or does not\nexist, is it, either in idea or reality, of any use to us?  The reply\nis that its value lies in this, that it reveals to us the nature of\nreality and the meaning of truth.  Logic is the creative power of\nthought which leads us to the discovery of higher and higher degrees of\nreality.  The Satyr, in the fable, drove his guest from his shelter\nbecause the man blew into his hands to warm them, and into his porridge\nto cool it.  The Satyr could not reconcile the contradiction that one\ncould with the same breath blow hot and cold.  Nor would he reconcile\nit ever, so long as he sought truth as correspondence.  Truth would\nhave shown the facts coherent by reconciling the contradiction in a\nhigher reality.\n\n\n\n\n{42}\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nPRAGMATISM\n\nThe theory of the Absolute is only one form of Idealism, but it\nillustrates the nature and general direction of the development of\nphilosophy along the line of speculation that began with Kant.  There\nhave been, of course, other directions.  In particular many attempts\nhave been made to make philosophy an adjunct of physical science, but\nthe theory I have sketched is characteristic of the prevailing movement\nin philosophy during the last period of the Nineteenth Century, and\nuntil the movement known as Pragmatism directed criticism upon it.  The\nform the pragmatical criticism of the theory of the Absolute took was\nto direct attention to the logical or intellectual principle on which\nit rests--in fact to raise the problem of the nature of truth.\nPragmatism is a theory of the meaning of truth.  It is the denial of a\npurely logical criterion of truth, and the insistence that truth is\nalways dependent on psychological conditions.  Pragmatism therefore\nrejects both the views that we have examined--the theory that truth is\na correspondence of the idea with its object, and the theory that it is\nthe logical coherence and consistency of the idea itself.  It proposes\ninstead the theory that truth is always founded on a practical\npostulate, and consists in the verification of that postulate; the\nverification not being the discovery of something that was waiting to\nbe discovered, but the discovery that the postulate that claims to be\ntrue is useful, in that it works.  Truth is what works.\n\nThe Absolute is reality and truth.  The idealist argument which we have\nfollowed was an attempt to {43} determine the nature of reality, and\nnot an attempt to explain what we mean when we say that an idea agrees\nwith its object.  What is true about reality? was the starting point,\nand not, What is truth? nor even, What is true about truth?  The search\nfor reality failed to discover any object that agreed with its idea,\nbut at last there was found an idea that must agree with its object, an\nidea whose object cannot not be.  This idea, the Absolute, reveals the\nnature of reality.  The pragmatist when he asks, What is truth? seems\nto dig beneath the argument, seems indeed even to reach the bedrock,\nbut it is only in appearance that this is so.  How, indeed, could he\nhope to be able to answer the question he has himself asked, if there\nis no way of distinguishing the true answer from the false?  We must\nalready know what truth is even to be able to ask what it is--a point\nwhich many pragmatist writers appear to me to have overlooked.\n\nIn challenging the idea of truth, the pragmatist raises the no less\nimportant question of the nature of error.  A theory of truth must not\nonly show in what truth consists, but must distinguish false from true\nand show the nature of error.  The pragmatist claims for his theory\nthat it alone can give a consistent account of illusion and error.\nNow, as we saw in our account of the idealist argument, it is the fact\nof illusion and error that compels us to seek reality behind the\nappearances that are the sense data of our conscious experience.  The\nwhole force of the pragmatist movement in philosophy is directed to\nproving that truth is a prior consideration to reality.  If we\nunderstand the nature of truth, we shall see reality in the making.\nReality can in fact be left to look after itself; our business is with\nour conceptions alone, which are either true or false.  The distinction\nof appearance and reality does {44} not explain illusion and error\nbecause it does not distinguish between true and false appearance.\nThere is no principle in idealism by which the Absolute rejects the\nfalse appearance and reconciles the true.\n\nBefore I examine the pragmatist argument, I ought first to explain the\nmeaning and origin of the word.  The term pragmatism, that has in the\nlast few years entered so widely into all philosophical discussion, was\nused first by Mr. C. S. Peirce, an American philosopher, in a magazine\narticle written as long ago as 1878, but it attracted no attention for\nnearly twenty years, when it was recalled by William James in the\ncriticism of the current philosophy in his _Will to Believe_, a book\nwhich marks the beginning of the new movement.  Pragmatism was first\nput forward as the principle that the whole meaning of any conception\nexpresses itself in practical consequences.  The conception of the\npractical effects of a conception is the whole conception of the\nobject.  The pragmatist maxim is--would you know what any idea or\nconception means, then consider what practical consequences are\ninvolved by its acceptance or rejection.  Dr. Schiller, the leading\nexponent of the principle in England, prefers to call the philosophy\n\"Humanism\" in order still more to emphasize the psychological and\npersonal character of knowledge.  The name is suggested by the maxim of\nProtagoras, \"Man is the measure of all things.\"  The term\nIntellectualism is used by pragmatist writers to include all theories\nof knowledge that do not agree with their own, very much as the Greeks\ncalled all who were not Greeks, Barbarians.  It must not be taken to\nmean, as its etymology would imply, a philosophy like that of Plato,\nwhich held that only universals, the ideas, are real, or like that of\nHegel, who said that \"the actual is the rational and the rational is\nthe actual.\"  The {45} pragmatists apply the term intellectualist to\nall philosophers who recognise an objective character in the logical\nideal of truth, whether or not they also recognise non-logical elements\nin reality, and whether or not these non-logical elements are physical,\nsuch as matter and energy, or purely psychical, such as will, desire,\nemotion, pleasure, and pain.\n\nPragmatism is a criticism and a theory.  If reality in its full meaning\nis the Absolute, and if all seeming reality is only a degree of or\napproximation to this full reality, if the knowledge of this reality\nonly is truth, must it not seem to us that truth is useless knowledge?\nUseless, not in the sense that it is without value to the mind that\ncares to contemplate it, but useless in so far as the hard everyday\nworking world in which we have to spend our lives is concerned.  We who\nhave to win our existence in the struggle of life, need truth.  We need\ntruth in order to act.  Truth that transcends our temporal needs, truth\nthat is eternal, truth that reconciles illusion and error, that accepts\nthem as a necessary condition of appearance in time, is useless in\npractice, however it may inspire the poet and philosopher.  Truth to\nserve us must reject error and not reconcile it, must be a working\ncriterion and not only a rational one.  Whatever truth is, it is not\nuseless; it is a necessity of life, not a luxury of speculation.\nPragmatism therefore rejects the logical criterion of truth because it\nis purely formal and therefore useless.  It demands for us a practical\ncriterion, one that will serve our continual needs.  Whether our\nworking ideas--cause, time, space, movement, things and their\nqualities, terms and their relations, and the like--are consistent or\ninconsistent in themselves, they more or less work; and in so far as\nthey work they are useful and serve us, and because they work, and just\nin so far as they work, they are true.  {46} The pragmatist therefore\ndeclares that utility, not logical consistency, is the criterion of\ntruth.  Ideas are true in so far as they work.  The discovery that they\nserve us is their verification.  If we discover ideas that will serve\nus better, the old ideas that were true become untrue, and the new\nideas that we adopt become true because they are found to work.\n\nThis doctrine of the verification or making true of ideas leads to a\ntheory of the origin of the ideas themselves.  Each idea has arisen or\nbeen called forth by a human need.  It has been formed by human nature\nto meet a need of human nature.  It is a practical postulate claiming\ntruth.  Even the axioms that now seem to us self-evident--such, for\nexample, as the very law of contradiction itself, from which, as we\nhave seen, the logical criterion of consistency is deduced--were in\ntheir origin practical postulates, called forth by a need, and, because\nfound to work, true.  The inconsistencies and contradictions in our\nideas do not condemn them as appearance, and compel us to construct a\nreality in which they disappear or are reconciled, but are evidence of\ntheir origin in practical need and of their provisional character.\nTruth is not eternal, it is changing.  New conditions are ever calling\nforth new ideas, and truths become untrue.  Each new idea comes forward\nwith a claim to truth, and its claim is tested by its practicability.\nTruth is not something we discover, and which was there to be\ndiscovered.  We verify ideas.  To verify is not to find true but to\nmake true.\n\nThe pragmatist theory therefore is that truth is made.  In all other\ntheories truth is found.  But if we make truth we must make reality,\nfor it is clear that if reality is there already, the agreement with it\nof man-made truth would be nothing short of a miracle.  The pragmatist,\nor at all events the pragmatist who is also a {47} humanist, finds no\ndifficulty in accepting this consequence of the theory, although at the\nsame time insisting that the whole problem, of being as well as of\nknowing is concerned with truth.  We shall see, however, that it offers\na serious difficulty to the acceptance of the theory--a theory which in\nvery many respects agrees with ordinary practice and with scientific\nmethod.  Take, for example, scientific method.  Is not all progress in\nscience made by suggesting a hypothesis, and testing it by experiment\nto see if it works?  Do we not judge its claim to truth by the\npractical consequences involved in accepting or rejecting it?  Is there\nany other verification?  This is the simple pragmatist test,--does the\nlaboratory worker add to it or find it in any respect insufficient?  If\ntruth can be considered alone, then we must admit that it is the\nattribute of knowledge which is comprised under the term useful, the\nterm being used in its most comprehensive meaning to include every kind\nof practical consequence.  It is the question of reality that raises\nthe difficulty for the scientific worker.  We cannot believe, or\nperhaps we should say, the ordinary man and the scientific man would\nfind it very difficult to believe, that reality changes correspondingly\nwith our success or failure in the verification of our hypothesis.\nWhen the scientific worker verifies his hypothesis, he feels not that\nhe has made something true which before was not true, but that he has\ndiscovered what always was true, although until the discovery he did\nnot know it.  To this the pragmatist reply is, that this very belief is\na practical consequence involved in the verification of the hypothesis,\ninvolved in the discovery that it works.  What he denies is that truth\nreveals, or ever can reveal, a reality entirely irrelevant to any human\npurpose.  It is also very important to add that in declaring that truth\nis verification, the {48} pragmatist does not set up a purely practical\nor utilitarian standard.  The \"working\" of truth means theoretical as\nwell as practical working.  Much of the current criticism of pragmatism\nhas failed to take notice of this intention or meaning of its\nprinciple, and hence the common misapprehension that the maxim \"truth\nis what works\" must mean that whatever a man believes is for him truth.\n\nThe pragmatist doctrine and attitude will perhaps be easier to\nunderstand if we take it in regard to a particular instance of truth\nand error in regard to fundamental notions.  In the last four or five\nyears a new principle has been formulated in Physics, named the\nPrinciple of Relativity.  It revolutionises the current conceptions of\nspace and time.  It is so recent that probably some of my readers now\nhear of it for the first time, and therefore before I refer to its\nformulation by mathematicians I will give a simple illustration to\nexplain what it is.  Suppose that you are walking up and down the deck\nof a steamer, and let us suppose that the steamer is proceeding at the\nspeed of four miles an hour, the space that you cover and the interval\nof time that you occupy are exactly the same for you whether you are\nmoving up the deck in the direction the steamer is going or down the\ndeck in the direction which is the reverse of the steamer's movement.\nBut suppose some one on the shore could observe you moving while the\nship was invisible to him, your movement would appear to him entirely\ndifferent to what it is to you.  When you were walking up the deck you\nwould seem to be going at twice the speed you would be going, and when\nyou were going down the deck you would seem not to be moving at all.\nThe time measurement would also seem different to the observer on the\nshore, for while to you each moment would be measured by an equal {49}\nspace covered, to him one moment you would be moving rapidly, the next\nat rest.  This is simple and easy to understand.  Now suppose that both\nyou and the observer were each observing a natural phenomenon, say a\nthunder-storm, it would seem that each of you ought to observe it with\na difference--a difference strictly calculable from the system of\nmovement, the ship, in which you were placed in relation to him.  The\npropagation of the sound and of the light would have to undergo a\ncorrection if each of you described your experience to the other.  If\nyou were moving in the direction of the light waves they would be\nslower for you than for him, and if against their direction they would\nbe faster for you than for him.  Of course the immense velocity of the\nlight waves, about 200,000 miles a second, would make the difference in\na movement of four miles an hour so infinitesimal as to be altogether\ninappreciable, but it would not be nothing, and you would feel quite\nconfident that if it could be measured the infinitesimal quantity would\nappear in the result.  Now suppose that we could measure it with\nabsolute accuracy, and that the result was the discovery that the\nsupposed difference did not exist at all--and of course, we suppose\nthat there is no doubt whatever about the measurement--what, then,\nshould we be obliged to think?  We should be forced to believe that as\nthe velocity of light was the same for the two observers, one moving,\none at rest, therefore the space and the time must be different for\neach.  Now, however strange it may seem, such a measurement has been\nmade, and with this surprising result.  In consequence there has been\nformulated a new principle in Physics named the Principle of\nRelativity.  I take this Principle of Relativity for my illustration\nbecause it is based on reasoning that practically admits of no doubt,\nand because {50} it requires us to form new conceptions of space and\ntime which seem to alter fundamentally what we have hitherto considered\nas the evident and unmistakable nature of those realities.  It has\nalways seemed that the distance separating two points, and the interval\nof time separating two events, were each independent of the other and\neach absolute.  However different the distance and the interval may\nappear to observers in movement or to observers in different systems of\nmovement in relation to ourselves and to one another, in themselves\nthey are the same distance and the same interval for all.  They are the\nsame for the man in the express train as for the man standing on the\nstation platform.  The Principle of Relativity requires us to think\nthat this is not so, but that, contrary to all our settled notions, the\nactual space and time vary--really undergo an alteration, a contraction\nor expansion--with each different system of movement of translation to\nwhich the observer is bound.  Events that for an observer belonging to\none system of movement happen in the same place, for another observer\nin a different system of movement happen in different places.  Events\nthat for one observer happen simultaneously, for other observers are\nseparated by a time interval according to the movement of translation\nof the system to which they belong.  So that space, which Newton\ndescribed as rigid, and time which he described as flowing at a\nconstant rate, and which for him was absolute, are for the new theory\nrelative, different for an observer in every different system of\nmovement of translation.  Or we may state it in the opposite way, and\nsay that the Principle of Relativity shows us that the reason why\nnatural phenomena, such as the rate of propagation of light, undergo no\nalteration when we pass from one system of movement of translation to\nanother, as we {51} are constantly doing in the changing velocity of\nthe earth's movement round the sun, is that space and time alter with\nthe velocity.  I cannot here give the argument or describe the\nexperiments which have given this result--I am simply taking it as an\nillustration.[1]  It seems to me admirably suited to compare the\npragmatist method and the pragmatist attitude with that of scientific\nrealism and of absolute idealism.\n\n\n[1] The Principle of Relativity is mainly the result of the recent\nmathematical work of H. A. Lorentz, Einstein, and the late Professor\nMinkowski.  A very interesting and not excessively difficult, account\nof it is contained in _Derni\u00e8res Pens\u00e9es_, by the late Henri Poincar\u00e9;\nParis, Alcan.\n\n\nHere, then, is a question in which the truth of our accepted notions is\ncalled in question, and new notions claim to be true.  The sole\nquestion involved, pragmatism insists, is the truth of conceptions, not\nthe reality of things, and there is but one way of testing the truth of\nconceptions--and that is by comparing the rival conceptions in respect\nof the practical consequences that follow from them and adopting those\nthat will work.  If the old conceptions of space and time fail to\nconform to a new need, then what was true before the need was revealed\nis no longer true, the new conception has become true.  By verifying\nthe new conception, we make it true.  But, objects the realist, an idea\ncannot become true; what is now true always was true, and what is no\nlonger true never was true, though we may have worked with the false\nnotion ignorant that it was false.  Behind truth there is reality.  The\nearth was spherical even when all mankind believed it flat and found\nthe belief work.  To this the pragmatist reply is that reality is only\nour objectification of truth; it possesses no meaning divorced from\nhuman purposes.  Had anyone announced that the earth was a sphere {52}\nwhen it was generally held to be flat, unless his announcement had some\nrelevance to a defect in the flat earth notion, or a claim to revise\nthat notion, his announcement would have been neither a truth nor a\nfalsehood in any intelligible meaning of the term--he would have been\nmaking an irrelevant remark.  The notions of space and time that Newton\nheld worked, and were therefore true; if a new need requires us to\nreplace them with other notions, and these other notions will work and\nare therefore true, they have become true and Newton's notions have\nbecome false.  If it is still objected that the new notions were also\ntrue for Newton, although he was ignorant of them, the need for them\nnot having arisen, the only reply is that truth, or reality, in\ncomplete detachment from human purposes, cannot be either affirmed or\ndenied.\n\nWith this view the idealist will be in agreement; his objection is of a\ndifferent kind.  He rejects, as the pragmatist does, the notion of a\nreality independent of human nature that forces upon us the changes\nthat our conceptions undergo.  These changes, he holds, are the inner\nworking of the conceptions themselves, the manifestation of our\nintellectual nature, ever striving for an ideal of logical consistency.\nTruth is this ideal.  We do not make it; we move towards it.  If we\ncompare, then, the idealist and the pragmatist doctrine, it will seem\nthat, while for the idealist truth is growing with advancing knowledge\ninto an ever larger because more comprehensive system of reality, for\nthe pragmatist it is ever narrowing, discarding failures as useless and\nirrelevant to present purpose.  How indeed, the idealist will ask, if\npractical consequences be the meaning of truth, is it possible to\nunderstand that knowledge has advanced or can advance?  Does not the\nhistory of science prove a continual expansion, an increasing {53}\ncomprehension?  It is within the conception that the inconsistency is\nrevealed, not in any mere outward use of the conceptions, and the\nintellectual effort is to reconcile the contradiction by relating the\nconception to a more comprehensive whole.  How, then, does the idealist\nmeet this case which we have specially instanced, the demand for new\nnotions of space and time made by the Principle of Relativity?  He\ndenies that the new conceptions are called forth by human needs in the\nnarrow sense--that is to say, in the sense that working hypotheses or\npractical postulates are required.  The need is purely logical.  The\ninconsistency revealed in the notions that have hitherto served us can\nonly be reconciled by apprehending a higher unity.  If the older\nnotions of space and time are inadequate to the more comprehensive view\nof the universe as a co-ordination of systems of movement, then this\nvery negation of the older notions is the affirmation of the new, and\nfrom the negation by pure logic the content and meaning which are the\ntruth of the new notions are derived.  To this objection the pragmatist\nreply is that if this be the meaning of the truth there is no way shown\nby which it can be distinguished from error.  There is in fact for\nidealism no error, no illusion, no falsehood; as real facts, there are\nonly degrees of truth.  But a theory of truth which ignores such\nstubborn realities as illusion, falsehood, and error is, from whatever\nstandpoint we view it, useless.  On the other hand, pragmatism offers a\ntest by which we can discriminate between true and false--namely, the\nmethod of judging conceptions by their practical consequences.  Can we\nor can we not make our conceptions work?  That is the whole meaning of\nasking, Are they true or false?  And now, lest the reader is alarmed at\nthe prospect of having to revise his working ideas of space and {54}\ntime, I will, to reassure him, quote the words with which Henri\nPoincar\u00e9 concluded his account of the new conceptions, and which\nadmirably express and illustrate the pragmatist's attitude: \"What is to\nbe our position in view of these new conceptions?  Are we about to be\nforced to modify our conclusions?  No, indeed: we had adopted a\nconvention because it seemed to us convenient, and we declared that\nnothing could compel us to abandon it.  To-day certain physicists wish\nto adopt a new convention.  It is not because they are compelled to;\nthey judge this new convention to be more convenient--that is all; and\nthose who are not of this opinion can legitimately keep the old and so\nleave their old habits undisturbed.  I think, between ourselves, that\nthis is what they will do for a long time to come.\"\n\nI have so far considered pragmatism rather as a criticism than as a\ndoctrine.  I will now try and characterise it on its positive side.  It\ndeclares that there is no such thing as pure thought, but that all\nthinking is personal and purposive; that all knowing is directed,\ncontrolled, and qualified by psychological conditions such as interest,\nattention, desire, emotion, and the like; and that we cannot, as formal\nlogic does, abstract from any of these, for logic itself is part of a\npsychical process.  Truth therefore depends upon belief; truths are\nmatters of belief, and beliefs are rules of action.  It is this\ndoctrine that gives to pragmatism its paradoxical, some have even said\nits grotesque, character.  It seems to say that the same proposition is\nboth true and false--true for the man who believes it, false for the\nman who cannot.  It seems to say that we can make anything true by\nbelieving it, and we can believe anything so long as the consequences\nof acting on it are not absolutely disastrous.  And the proposition,\nAll truths work, seems to involve the conclusion that all that works is\ntrue; and the proposition, The true is the useful, seems to imply that\n{55} whatever is useful is therefore true.  No small part of the\npragmatist controversy has been directed to the attempt to show that\nall and each of these corollaries are, or arise from, misconceptions of\nthe doctrine.  I think, and I shall endeavour to show, that there is a\nserious defect in the pragmatist statement, and that these\nmisconceptions are in a great part due to it.  Nevertheless, we must\naccept the pragmatist disavowal.  And there is no difficulty in doing\nso, for the meaning of the theory is sufficiently clear.  Truth,\naccording to pragmatism, is a value and not a fact.  Truth is thus\nconnected with the conception of \"good.\"  In saying that truth is\nuseful, we say that it is a means to an end, a good.  It is not a moral\nend, but a cognitive end, just as \"beauty\" is an esthetic end.  Truth,\nbeauty, and goodness thus stand together as judgments of value or\nworth.  It is only by recognising that truth is a value that we can\npossess an actual criterion to distinguish it from error, for if truth\nis a judgment of fact, if it asserts existence, so also does error.\n\nThe pragmatist principle has an important bearing on religion.  It\njustifies the Faith attitude.  It shows that the good aimed at by a\n\"truth claim\" is only attainable by the exercise of the will to\nbelieve.  Thus it replaces the intellectual maxim, Believe in nothing\nyou can possibly doubt, with the practical maxim, Resolve not to quench\nany impulse to believe because doubts of the truth are possible.\nBelief may even be a condition of the success of the truth claim.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nUTILITY\n\nWe have seen in the last chapter that pragmatism is both a criticism\nand a theory.  It shows us that the {56} notion that truth is\ncorrespondence involves the conception of an \"impossible\" knowledge,\nand the notion that truth is coherence or consistency involves the\nconception of a \"useless\" knowledge.  The explanation pragmatism itself\noffers is of the kind that is called in the technical language of\nphilosophy teleological.  This means that to explain or to give a\nmeaning to truth all we can do is to point out the purpose on account\nof which it exists.  This is not scientific explanation.  Physical\nscience explains a fact or an event by showing the conditions which\ngive rise to it or that determine its character.  Pragmatism recognises\nno conditions determining truth such as those which science embodies in\nthe conception of a natural law--that is, the idea of a connection of\nnatural events with one another which is not dependent on human\nthoughts about them nor on human purposes in regard to them.  Truth is\nin intimate association with human practical activity; its meaning lies\nwholly in its utility.  We must therefore now examine somewhat closely\nthis notion of utility.\n\nThere appears to me to be a serious defect in the pragmatist conception\nand application of the principle of utility; it is based on a\nconception altogether too narrow.  A theory that condemns any purely\nlogical process as resulting in \"useless\" knowledge can only justify\nitself by insisting on an application of the principle of utility that\nwill be found to exclude not merely the Absolute of philosophy but most\nif not all of the results of pure mathematics and physics, for these\nsciences apply a method of pure logical deduction and induction\nindistinguishable from that which pragmatism condemns.  The\nintellectual nature of man is an endowment which sharply distinguishes\nhim from other forms of living creatures.  So supreme a position does\nour intellect assign to us, so wide is the gap that separates {57} us\nfrom other creatures little different from ourselves in respect of\nperfection of material organisation and adaptation to environment, that\nit seems almost natural to suppose that our intellect is that for which\nwe exist, and not merely a mode of controlling, directing, and\nadvancing our life.  Now it is possible to hold--and this is the view\nthat I shall endeavour in what follows to develop--that the intellect\nis subservient to life, and that we can show the manner and method of\nits working and the purpose it serves.  So far we may agree with the\npragmatist, but it is not the same thing to say that the intellect\nserves a useful purpose and to say that truth, the ideal of the\nintellect, the end which it strives for, is itself only a utility.\nWere there no meaning in truth except that it is what works, were there\nno meaning independent of and altogether distinct from the practical\nconsequences of belief, of what value to us would the intellect be?  If\nthe meaning the intellect assigns to truth is itself not true, how can\nthe intellect serve us?  The very essence of its service is reduced to\nnought; for what else but the conception of an objective truth, a\nlogical reality independent of any and every psychological condition,\nis the utility that the intellect puts us in possession of?  It is this\nconception alone that constitutes it an effective mode of activity.\nTherefore, if we hold with the pragmatist that the intellect is\nsubservient to life, truth is indeed a utility, but it is a utility\njust because it has a meaning distinct from usefulness.  On the other\nhand, to condemn any knowledge as \"useless\" is to deny utility to the\nintellect.\n\nBefore I try to show that the logical method of the idealist\nphilosophy, which pragmatism condemns because it leads to \"useless\"\nknowledge, is identical in every respect with the method employed in\npure mathematics and physics, I will give for comparison two\nillustrations {58} that seem to me instances of a narrow and of a wide\nuse of the concept of utility.\n\nA short time ago an orang-utang escaped from its cage in the Zoological\nGardens under somewhat singular and very interesting circumstances.\nThe cage was secured with meshed wire of great strength, judged\nsufficient to resist the direct impact of the most powerful of the\ncarnivora; but the ape, by attention to the twisting of the plied wire,\nhad by constant trying succeeded in loosening and finally in unwinding\na large section.  It escaped from its enclosure, and after doing\nconsiderable damage in the corridor, including the tearing out of a\nwindow frame, made its way into the grounds and took refuge in a tree,\ntwisting the branches into a platform said to be similar to the\nconstructions it makes in its native forests.\n\nIn taking this action as an illustration, I am not concerned with the\nquestion of what may be the distinction between action that is\nintelligent and action that is instinctive.  If we take intelligence in\na wide and general meaning, we may compare the intelligence shown by\nthis ape with the intelligence shown by man in the highest processes of\nthe mind.  Psychologists would, I think, be unanimous in holding that\nin the mind of the ape there was no conception of freedom, no kind of\nmental image of unrestricted life and of a distinct means of attaining\nit, no clearly purposed end, the means of attaining which was what\nprompted the undoing of the wire, such as we should certainly suppose\nin the case of a man in a similar situation.  It was the kind of\nintelligent action that psychologists denote by the description \"trial\nand error.\"  It seems to me, however, that this exactly fulfils the\nconditions that the pragmatist doctrine of the meaning of truth\nrequire.  We see the intellect of the ape making true by finding out\nwhat works.  {59} We can suppose an entire absence of the idea of\nobjective truth to which reality must conform, of truth unaffected by\npurpose.  Here, then, we seem to have the pure type of truth in its\nsimplest conditions, a practical activity using intelligence to\ndiscover what works.  Is the difference between this practical activity\nand the higher mental activities as we employ them in the abstract\nsciences one of degree of complexity only, or is it different in kind?\n\nLet us consider now, as an illustration of the method of the abstract\nsciences, the well-known case of the discovery of the planet Neptune.\nThis planet was discovered by calculation and deduction, and was only\nseen when its position had been so accurately determined that the\nastronomers who searched for it knew exactly the point of the heavens\nto which to direct their telescopes.  The calculation was one of\nextraordinary intricacy, and was made independently by two\nmathematicians, Adams of Cambridge and Leverrier of Paris, between the\nyears 1843 and 1846.  Each communicated his result independently--Adams\nto the astronomer Challis, the Director of the Cambridge Observatory,\nand Leverrier to Dr. Galle of the Berlin Observatory.  Within six weeks\nof one another and entirely unknown to one another, in August and\nSeptember 1846, each of these astronomers observed the planet where he\nhad been told to look for it.  This is one of the romances of modern\nscience.  It is not the discovery but the method that led to it which\nmay throw light on our problem of the nature of truth.\n\nAt first sight this seems exactly to accord with and even to illustrate\nthe pragmatist theory, that truth is what works.  The investigation is\nprompted by the discrepancies between the actual and the calculated\npositions of Uranus, the outermost planet, as it was then supposed, of\nthe system.  This revealed a need, and this {60} need was met by the\npractical postulate of the existence of another planet as yet unseen.\nThe hypothesis was found to work even before the actual observation put\nthe final seal of actuality on the discovery.  What else but the\npractical consequences of the truth claim in the form of the hypothesis\nof an undiscovered planet were ever in question?  Yes, we reply, but\nthe actual method adopted, and the knowledge sought for by the method,\nare precisely of the kind that pragmatism rejects as \"useless\"\nknowledge.  Why were not the observed movements of Uranus accepted as\nwhat they were?  Why was it felt that they must be other than they were\nseen to be unless there was another planet?  The need lay in the idea\nof system.  It was inconsistent with the system then believed complete,\nand the need was to find the complete system in which it would\nharmonise.  The truth that was sought for was a harmonious individual\nwhole, and the method employed precisely that which the Absolutist\ntheory of reality employs.  There is observed a discrepancy, an\ninconsistency, a contradiction within the whole conceived as a system.\nThis negation is treated as a defect, is calculated and accurately\ndetermined, and is then positively affirmed of the reality.  Now, what\nis distinctive in this method is that reality is conceived as a\ncomplete system.  If the felt defect in this system cannot be made good\nby direct discovery, its place is supplied by a fiction, using the term\nin its etymological meaning to express something made and not in its\nderived meaning to express something found false.  This intellectual\nprocess of construction is purely logical; no psychological element in\nthe sense of the will to believe enters into it or colours it in any\nway.\n\nThis is not an isolated instance, it illustrates the method of science\nin all theorising.  An even more {61} striking illustration than that\nwe have just given is the case of the hypothesis of the luminiferous\n\u00e6ther--a supposed existence, a fiction, that has served a useful, even\nan indispensable service in the history of modern physics.  To many\nphysicists, even to Lord Kelvin, the hypothesis seemed so surely\nestablished that its nonexistence hardly seemed thinkable, yet all the\nexperiments designed to detect its presence have been uniformly\nnegative in result, and it now seems not even necessary as a\nhypothesis, and likely to disappear.  The \u00e6ther was not only not\ndiscovered, it was not even suspected to exist, as in the case of the\nunknown planet Neptune--it was logically constructed.  It was required\nto support the theory of the undulatory nature of light and to fulfil\nthe possibility of light propagation in space.  It was therefore a\npostulate, called forth by a need--so far we may adopt the pragmatist\naccount.  But what was the nature of the need, and what was the method\nby which the postulate was called forth?  It is in answering this\nquestion that the pragmatist criterion fails.  The need was\nintellectual in the purely logical meaning of the term, and it was met\nby a purely logical construction.  The need was a practical human need\nonly in so far as the intellect working by logical process is a human\nendowment but not in any personal sense such as is conveyed by the term\npsychological.  Willingness or unwillingness to believe, desire,\naversion, interest were all irrelevant.  Given the intellect, the\nlogical necessity was the only need that called forth by logical\nprocess the \"truth-claiming\" hypothesis of the \u00e6ther.  But even so, the\npragmatist will urge, is its truth anything else but its usefulness as\nshown in the practical consequences of believing it?  Was it not true\nwhile it was useful, and is it not only now false, if it is false, if\nit is actually discovered not to be useful?  {62} The reply is that no\nmathematician or physicist would recognise the possibility of working\nwith a conception of truth that simply identified truth with utility,\nand for this reason that he can only conceive reality as a system whose\ntruth is symbolised in an equation.  It is the system that determines\nand characterises the postulate, and not the postulate advanced at a\nventure, tried and verified, that constitutes the system.  The\nmathematician begins by placing symbols to represent the unknown\nfactors in his equation, and proceeds by means of his known factors to\ndetermine their value.  The \u00e6ther is at first a pure fiction\nconstructed to supply an unknown existence recognised as a defect.  Its\ntruth cannot mean that it works for it cannot but work, having been\nconstructed purely for that purpose.  Its truth means that it\ncorresponds to some actual existence at present unknown.  To prove its\ntruth the physicist does not appeal to its value as a hypothesis, but\ndevises experiments by which, if it does exist, its existence will be\ndemonstrated.  In this actual case the experiments have had a uniformly\nnegative result, and therefore the truth of the hypothesis is made\ndoubtful or denied.  The hypothesis continues to work as well as it\never did, and physicists will probably long continue to use it, but it\nhas failed to establish its truth claim.  The result is the modern\nPrinciple of Relativity, which, as we have already said, has produced a\nrevolution in modern physics.  The abolition of the \u00e6ther would have\nbeen impossible if the physicist had been content with the utility of\nhis hypothesis and had not experimented to prove its truth.  The\nrelation between truth and utility is thus proved to be that it is\nuseful to know what is true.\n\nThese two illustrations of scientific method--namely, the discovery of\nNeptune and the negative discovery {63} that the \u00e6ther is\nnon-existent--make it evident that verification is the intellectual\nprocess not of making true, but of finding true.  We can, indeed,\ndistinguish quite clearly the two processes.  The first process, that\nof making true, is the constructing of the fiction by which we complete\nan incomplete system, and the second is the testing of that fiction to\nsee if it corresponds to anything actually existing.  No kind of\nintellectual activity will make an idea true, and conversely we may say\nthat were truth only a utility, then knowledge instead of being\nsystematic would be chaotic.  Existence has its roots in reality, not\nin knowledge.  Reality does not depend on truth.  Truth is the\nintellectual apprehension of reality.\n\nIf the pragmatist objects that in this argument I have throughout\nsupposed him to be urging the narrow meaning of utility, namely, that\nit is usefulness in the strictly practical sense, whereas he intends it\nin the widest possible meaning--a meaning that includes theoretical\nusefulness--then the trouble is a different one; it is to know how and\nwhere the pragmatist stops short of the coherence theory of truth, and\nwherein his method differs from that of the idealist.\n\nThis brings me to the consideration of another theory in which the\nconcept of utility plays a large, indeed a predominant part.  This is\nthe theory of the relation of knowledge to life that is given to us in\nthe philosophy of Bergson.  I have in one of the volumes of this series\ngiven an account of this philosophy; I am here only dealing with its\nrelation to this special problem of the nature of truth.  It has been\nclaimed that this philosophy is only a form of pragmatism, but it is\nnot a theory of truth, and it has this essential difference from\npragmatism that it is the intellect and not truth that is a utility.\nBefore we consider the question that it gives {64} rise to in regard to\ntruth, let us first examine the theory of the intellect, and the nature\nof its utility.  The intellect is a mode of activity, an endowment\nacquired in the course of evolution, and which has been retained and\nperfected because of its utility.  This does not mean that the\nintellect directs us to what is useful and inhibits us from courses\nfatal to life, neither does it mean that it gives us any power to make\ntrue what is not already true, it means that the power to acquire\nknowledge is useful.  There is a contrast in our own existence between\nour life and our intellect.\n\nTo understand the way in which the intellect serves the living creature\nendowed with it, we need only regard it from the standpoint of ordinary\nexperience.  We know in ourselves that our life is wider than our\nintellect, and that our intellect serves the activity of our life.  The\ncommon expressions we employ, such as using our wits, taking an\nintelligent interest, trying to think, all imply a utility distinct\nfrom the intellect.  So viewed, our life appears as an active principle\nwithin us, maintaining our organism in its relations, active and\npassive, and reactive to the reality outside and independent of it.\nOur intellect also seems both active and passive.  It receives the\ninfluences that stream in upon us from the reality around us, it\napprehends and interprets them, and works out the lines of our possible\naction in regard to them.  The influences that flow in upon us from the\noutside world are already selected before our intellect apprehends\nthem, for they flow in by the avenues of our senses, and the senses are\nnatural instruments of selection.  If we picture these influences as\nvibrations, then we may say that a certain group of vibrations of a\nvery rapid frequency are selected by the eye and give rise to vision,\nthat another group of very much lower frequency are selected by the ear\nand {65} give the sensation of sound, and other groups are selected by\ntaste, smell, and touch.  Many groups are known indirectly by means of\nartificial instruments, and all the infinite series that unite these\ngroups of the actually experienced vibrations escape our apprehension\naltogether--we have no means of selecting them.  But all these sense\ndata, as we may call them, come to us without exertion or activity on\nour part; it is the intellect which gives them meaning, which\ninterprets them, which makes them the apprehension or awareness of\nobjects or things.  And the active part that the intellect plays is\nalso a process of selection.  This is evident if we reflect upon the\nuniversal form which our intellectual activity takes, namely,\nattention.  It is in the act of attention that we are conscious of\nmental activity, and attention is essentially selection--the selection\nof an interest.  Besides the natural selection that is effected by our\nsenses and the conscious selection that is manifest in attention, there\nis also a more or less arbitrary selection that our intellect performs\nin marking out the lines of our practical interest and possible action.\nIn this work of selection the intellect makes the world conform to the\nnecessities of our action.\n\nSo far we have looked at our intellectual endowment from the standpoint\nof ordinary common-sense experience.  Let us now consider the\nphilosophical theory based on this view, which explains the nature of\nknowledge by showing its purpose.  The intellect not only selects, but\nin selecting transforms the reality.  It presents us with knowledge\nthat indeed corresponds with reality, for it is essentially a view of\nreality, but also in selecting it marks out divisions, and gives to\nreality a form that is determined by practical interest.  The same\nreality is different to different individuals and to different species\naccording to their practical interests.  {66} The practical end which\nthe human intellect serves is to present us with a field for our life\nactivity.  This is the real world for us, as we know it, real objects\nin a real space.  Had we no other way of knowing but that of our\nintellect we should not know the life which is active within us as it\nis really lived, we should be as those who, standing outside, watch a\nmovement, and not as those who are carried along in the movement and\nexperience it from within.  In life and intellect we have the\ncounterpart of reality and appearance.  Life is not something that\nchanges; it is the change of which the something is the appearance.\nLife is the reality of which all things, as we understand them, are the\nappearances, and on account of which they appear.  The solid things in\nspace and time are not in reality what they appear; they are views of\nthe reality.  The intellect guided by our practical interest presents\nreality under this form of solid spatial things.  Clearly, then, if\nthis view be true, the whole world, as it is presented to us and\nthought of by us, is an illusion.  Our science is not unreal, but it is\na transformed reality.  The illusions may be useful, may, indeed, be\nnecessary and indispensable, but nevertheless it is illusion.\n\nBut here there arises a new difficulty in regard to truth.  If the\nusefulness of the intellect consists in the active production of an\nillusion, can we say that the intellect leads us to truth?  Is it not\nonly if we can turn away from the intellect and obtain a\nnon-intellectual intuition that we can know truth?\n\n\n\n\n{67}\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nILLUSION\n\nThe doctrine that the world that appears is essentially unlike the\nworld that is is neither new nor peculiar to any particular theory of\nphilosophy.  It has received a new interest and a new interpretation\nlately in the theory that we are now considering, that the clue to the\nappearance of the world to us is to be found in the conception of the\nnature of the utility of the intellect and in the mode of its activity.\nThe idea that we are perhaps disqualified by our very nature itself\nfrom beholding reality and knowing truth is illustrated in the\nwell-known allegory in the _Republic_ of Plato:\n\n\"And now let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or\nunenlightened.  Behold! human beings living in an underground den,\nwhich has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the\nden; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and\nnecks chained so that they cannot move and can only see before them,\nbeing prevented by the chains from turning round their heads.  Above\nand behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire\nand the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look,\na low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette\nplayers have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.  And\nmen are passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and\nstatues, and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various\nmaterials, which appear over the wall....\n\n\"They are strange prisoners, like ourselves, and they see only their\nown shadows or the shadows of one another which the fire throws on the\nopposite wall of the cave.  And so also of the objects carried and of\nthe passers-by; to the prisoners the truth would be literally nothing\nbut the shadows of the images.\n\n{68}\n\n\"And now look again, and see what will naturally follow if the\nprisoners are released and disabused of their error.  At first, when\nany of them, is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn\nhis neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer\nsharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see\nthe realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows.\nAnd then conceive someone saying to him that what he saw before was an\nillusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being, and his\neye is turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision, and\nwhat will be his reply?  Will he not fancy that the shadows which he\nformerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?...\n\n\"And suppose that he is forced into the presence of the sun himself, is\nhe not likely to be pained and irritated?  When he approaches the light\nhis eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at\nall of what are now called realities.\"\n\nThe thought that Plato has expressed in this wonderful allegory has\nentered deeply into all philosophy.  What we first take for reality is\nmerely a shadow world.  But in Plato's view it is the intellect which\ngives us the means of escape, the power to turn from the illusion to\nbehold the reality.  It is not until now that philosophy has sought the\nclue to the illusion in the nature of the intellect itself.  The very\ninstrument of truth is unfitted to reveal to us the reality as it is,\nbecause its nature and purpose is to transform reality, to make reality\nappear in a form which, though of paramount importance to us as active\nbeings, is essentially an illusion.  The intellectual bent of our mind\nleads us away from, and not towards a vision of reality in its purity.\nThe more our intellect progresses, and the more and more clearly we\n{69} see into a greater and ever greater number of things, the farther\nare we from, and not the nearer to a grasp of reality as it is.  To\nobtain this vision of reality we have to turn away from the intellect\nand find ourselves again in that wider life out of which the intellect\nis formed.  Life, as it lives, is an intuition that is nonintellectual.\n\n\"Human intelligence,\" writes Bergson, \"is not at all what Plato taught\nin the allegory of the cave.  Its function is not to look at passing\nshadows, nor yet to turn itself round and contemplate the glaring sun.\nIt has something else to do.  Harnessed, like yoked oxen, to a heavy\ntask, we feel the play of our muscles and joints, the weight of the\nplough, and the resistance of the soil.  To act and to know that we are\nacting, to come into touch with reality and even to live it, but only\nin the measure in which it concerns the work that is being accomplished\nand the furrow that is being ploughed, such is the function of human\nintelligence.\"\n\nThe illusion to which our intellectual nature subjects us is the\nnecessity we are under to regard the things of the universe as more\nultimate, as more fundamental than the movement which actuates the\nuniverse.  It seems to us impossible that there could exist movement or\nchange, unless there already existed things to be moved or changed,\nthings whose nature is not altered, but only their form and their\nexternal relations, when they are moved or changed.  This necessity of\nthought seems to have received authoritative recognition in all\nattempts, religious and scientific, to conceive origins.  Thus we read\nin the Book of Genesis:\n\n\n\"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.  And the earth\nwas without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.\nAnd the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.\"\n\n\n{70} The matter of the universe, it is felt, must be in existence\nbefore the movement which vivifies it.  The dead inert stuff must be\ncreated before it can receive the breath of life.  And if God the\ncreator is conceived as living before the matter which He has created,\nit is as an external principle, the relation of which to the creation\nis by most religious minds thought to transcend the power of the finite\nunderstanding to conceive.\n\nThe same fundamental conception of the primacy of matter over movement\nis evident in the scientific theories of the nature and origin of life.\nLife appears to science as a form of energy that requires things,\nmatter occupying space, to support it.  According to one view, life is\nthe result of a certain combination or synthesis of chemical or\nphysical elements, previously existing separately--a combination of\nvery great complexity, and one that may possibly have occurred once\nonly in the long process of nature, but which nevertheless might be,\nand some think probably, or even certainly, will be brought about by a\nchemist working in his laboratory.  This is the mechanistic or\nmaterialist view.  On the other hand, there is the theory of vitalism.\nLife, it is contended, cannot be due to such a synthesis of material\nelements as the mechanistic view supposes, because it is of the nature\nof an \"entelechy\"--that is, an individual existence which functions, as\na whole, in every minutest part of the organism it \"vitalises.\"  Life\nhas supervened upon, and not arisen out of the material organism which\nit guides and controls not by relating independent parts, but by making\nevery part subserve the activity and unity of the whole.  But the\nvitalist theory, as well as the mechanistic theory, conceives the\nmovement and change which is life as dependent on the previous\nexistence of a matter or stuff which is moved or changed.  The\nphilosophical {71} conception differs, therefore, from both these\ntheories.  It is that life is an original movement, and that this\nmovement is the whole reality of which things, inert matter, even\nspatial extension, are appearances.  True duration is change, not the\npermanence of something amidst change.  There are no unchanging things.\nEverything changes.  Reality is the flux; things are views of the flux,\narrests or contractions of the flowing that the intellect makes.  The\nappearance of the world to us is our intellectual grasp of a reality\nthat flows.  This original movement is the life of the universe.\nBriefly stated, the argument on which the theory is based is that it is\nlogically impossible to explain change by changelessness, movement by\nimmobility.  Real change cannot be a succession of states themselves\nfixed and changeless; real movement cannot be the immobile positions in\nwhich some thing is successively at rest.  On the other hand, if\nmovement is original, the interruption of movement, in whatever way\neffected, will appear as things.  The experience which confirms this\nargument is the insight that everyone may obtain of the reality of his\nown life as continuous movement, unceasing change, wherein all that\nexists exists together in a present activity.  To develop this argument\nwould exceed the limits of this book, and would be outside its purpose.\nIt is essential, however, that such a theory should be understood, for\nclearly it is possible to hold not only that we are subject to\nillusion, but that illusion is of the very nature of intellectual\napprehension.  If, then, the understanding works illusion for the sake\nof action, is it thereby disqualified as an instrument for the\nattainment of truth?\n\nWe are brought, then, to the critical point of our inquiry.  If\nillusion is the essential condition of human activity, if the\nintellect, the very instrument of truth, {72} is itself affected, what\nis to save us from universal scepticism?  If the salt have lost his\nsavour, wherewith shall it be salted?  The intellect with its frames\nand moulds shapes living change and movement into fixed immobile\nstates; the process of knowing alters profoundly the reality known.\nMust we not conclude that knowledge, however useful, is not true?  And\nto what shall we turn for truth?  There is, indeed, if this be so, a\ndeeper irony in the question, What is truth? than even Pilate could\nhave imagined.  We have absolutely no practical concern with truth--we\nmust leave it to the mystic, to the unpractical, the contemplative man\nwho has turned aside from the stern task of busy life.\n\nIt is not so.  The problem that seems so fundamental admits a quite\nsimple solution.  Illusion is not error, nor is it falsehood; it is the\nappearance of reality.  It is the reality that appears, and when we\ngrasp the principle of utility we understand the shape that the\nappearance must assume.  This shape may seem to us a distortion, but in\nrecognising appearance we are in touch with reality, and practical\ninterest is the key that opens to us the interpretation of intellectual\nexperience.  And it is not only by the intellect that we interpret the\nnature of reality, for besides logic there is life, and in life we\ndirectly perceive the reality that in logic we think about.\n\nThe intellect, then, does not make truth, neither does it make reality;\nit makes reality take the form of spatial things, and it makes things\nseem to be the ground of reality.  Were our nature not intellectual, if\nall consciousness was intuitive, the world would not then appear as\nthings--there would be no things.  But, notwithstanding that our world\nis an illusion, it is not the less on that account a true world, and\nour science is true knowledge, in the objective meaning of truth, for\n{73} once an illusion is interpreted, it becomes an integral part of\nthe conception of reality.  It would be easy to find abundant\nillustration of this fact within science itself.  Thus in the familiar\ncase of the straight stick which appears bent when partly immersed in\nwater, as soon as the illusion is understood as due to the different\nrefraction of light in media of different density, air and water, it\nceases to be an illusion.  We then recognise that if a partly immersed\nstick did not appear bent, it would really be bent.  Again, the\nillusion that clings to us most persistently throughout our experience\nis that which is connected with movement and rest.  The system of\nmovement in which we are ourselves carried along appears to us\nstationary, while that which is outside it seems alone to move.  In\nvery simple cases, such as viewing the landscape from a\nrailway-carriage window, habit has long caused the illusion to cease,\nbut we all remember the child's feeling that the trees and fields were\nflying past us.  The earth's motion never becomes to us a real\nexperience of movement, we accept the fact and never doubt the\nscientific evidence on which it rests, yet we always speak and think of\nsunrise and sunset; and this is not merely due to the accident that our\nlanguage was fixed before the nature of the celestial movement was\nknown, but to a natural illusion which it is far more convenient to\nretain than to abandon.\n\nThe fact of illusion is not the tenet of any particular philosophy, nor\neven of philosophy itself; it is a recognised factor in common life and\nin physical science, but in instancing the theory of Bergson's\nphilosophy I am choosing an extreme case.  Berkeley held that illusion\nis practically universal; Kant taught that the apparent objectivity of\nphenomena is the form that the understanding imposes on things; but\nBergson teaches {74} not only that all material reality is illusion,\nbut also that this very illusion is the work of the intellect, that the\nintellect is formed for this purpose, intellect and matter being\ncorrelative, evolving _pari passu_.  To such a doctrine there is of\nnecessity a positive side, for it is impossible that it can rest on\nuniversal scepticism--scepticism both of knowledge and of the\ninstrument of knowledge.  If the intellectual view of reality as solid\nmatter in absolute space is illusion, it must be possible to apprehend\nthe reality from which the judgment that it is illusion is derived.  If\nthe intellect distorts, there must be an intuition which is pure, and\nthe relation between these will be the relation between reality and\nappearance.  Neither, then, is reality truth, nor appearance error.\nThere is a truth of appearance, a truth that is a value in itself, a\ntruth that is more than the mere negation that appearance is not\nreality.  The appearance is our hold upon the reality, our actual\ncontact with it, the mode and direction of our action upon it.  What,\nthen, is error?  It cannot consist in the fact that we know appearance\nonly, not reality, for we can only know reality by its appearance.  It\ncannot be an appearance behind which there is no reality, for non-being\ncannot appear.  It cannot be nothing at all or pure non-being, for to\nthink of absolute nothing is not to think.  In error there is some\nobject of thought which is denied real being.  What this is is the\nproblem of error.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nTHE PROBLEM OF ERROR\n\nIn the _The\u00e6tetus_ of Plato, Socrates has been discussing with\nThe\u00e6tetus what knowledge is, and when at last agreement seems to be\nreached in the definition that {75} knowledge is true opinion, a new\ndifficulty occurs to Socrates:\n\n\"There is a point which often troubles me and is a great perplexity to\nme both in regard to myself and to others.  I cannot make out the\nnature or origin of the mental experience to which I refer.  How there\ncan be false opinion--that difficulty still troubles the eye of my\nmind.  Do we not speak of false opinion, and say that one man holds a\nfalse and another a true opinion, as though there were some natural\ndistinction between them?  All things and everything are either known\nor not known.  He who knows, cannot but know; and he who does not know,\ncannot know....  Where, then, is false opinion?  For if all things are\neither known or unknown, there can be no opinion which is not\ncomprehended under this alternative, and so false opinion is excluded.\"\n\nThis difficulty may appear at first sight purely verbal, and we shall\nperhaps be inclined to see the answer to it in the double use that we\nmake of the word knowledge.  We use the word in two senses, in one of\nwhich it includes all and everything that is or can be present to the\nmind in thinking, and in another and narrower sense the word knowledge\nmeans truth.  It was in the narrow sense of the word that whatever is\nnot true is not knowledge that Socrates interpreted the meaning of the\nDelphic oracle that had declared him the wisest of men.  His wisdom\nmust be, he said, that whereas other men seemed to be wise and to know\nsomething, he knew that he knew nothing.  All men have opinion, but\nopinion is not knowledge, though easily and generally mistaken for it.\nHis perplexity was to understand what actually this false opinion could\nbe which passed for knowledge.  It could not be nothing at all, for\nthen it would simply mean ignorance; but in false opinion {76} some\nobject is present to the mind.  Everything that the mind thinks of has\nbeing.  A thing may have being that does not exist if by existence is\nmeant the particular existence of an event in time, for most of the\nthings we think about are timeless--they are ideas, such as whiteness,\ngoodness, numbers and the properties of numbers, faith, love, and\nsuch-like.  All such ideas are called universals, because their reality\ndoes not mean that they exist at one particular moment and no other,\nbut they are real, they have being.  How, then, can there be anything\nintermediate between being and not being, anything that is and also is\nnot, for this is what false opinion or error seems to be?\n\nThere is, then, a problem of error, and it is quite distinct from the\nproblem of truth.  The problem of truth is to know by what criterion we\ncan test the agreement of our ideas with reality; the problem of error\nis to know how there can be false opinion.  There is false opinion, of\nthis no one needs to be convinced; but where its place is in the\nfundamental scheme of the mental process, in what precisely it\nconsists, whether it is purely a negation or whether it has a positive\nnature of its own, this is the problem we have now to consider.\n\nThere is an important distinction in logic between what is\ncontradictory and what is contrary.  Of two contradictory propositions\none must be true, the other must be false; but of two contrary\npropositions one must be false, but both may be false.  Of\ncontradictory propositions one is always a pure negation, one declares\nthe non-existence of what the other affirms the existence; but of\ncontrary propositions each has a positive content, and both may be\nfalse.  A true proposition may be based on a false opinion, and it is\nvery important to have a clear idea of what we intend by false opinion.\nWe do not mean by false opinion such plainly false {77} propositions as\nthat two and two are five or that there may be no corners in a\nsquare--such propositions are false, because they contradict\npropositions that are self-evident.  If anyone should seriously affirm\nthem, we should not, I think, say that such a one had a false opinion,\nbut that he failed, perhaps through some illusion, to understand the\nmeaning of the terms he was using.  An example of what would now, I\nsuppose, be unquestionably regarded by everyone as error is that whole\nbody of opinion that found expression in the theory and practice of\nwitchcraft.  This was once almost universally accepted, and though\nprobably at no period nor in any country was there not some one who\ndoubted or disbelieved, still the reasons of such doubt or disbelief\nwould probably be very different from those reasons which lead us to\nreject it to-day.  For witchcraft was grounded on a general belief that\nspiritual agencies, beneficent and malign, were the cause of material\nwell-being or evil.  This conception has now given place to the\nmechanistic or naturalistic theory on which our modern physical science\nis based.  We interpret all physical occurrences as caused by material\nagency.  But this belief, quite as much as the belief in spiritual\nagencies, is opinion, not knowledge, and it may be false.  It is\nconceivable that future generations will reject our scientific notions,\nself-evident though they seem to us, as completely as we reject the\nnotions of the dark ages.  It is even conceivable that the whole of our\nmodern science may come to appear to mankind as not even an\napproximation to knowledge.  Error, like illusion, may be universal.\nNo one whose opinion counts as a rational belief now holds that\nsickness may be caused by the malign influence of the evil eye, and\nthat this influence may be neutralised by making the sign of the cross;\nsome, but very few, believe that a {78} sick man may be healed by the\nprayers and anointing of righteous men; many believe that material\ndisease, however malignant, may be expelled from the body by faith;\nwhile the majority of rational men, whatever independent religious\nviews they hold, regard sickness and disease as material in the\nordinary sense, and expect them to yield to drugs and treatment.  Now,\nof these various opinions some must be false, while all may be false.\nLet us add some illustrations from philosophy.  Some philosophers hold,\nin common with general opinion, that sense experience is caused by\nphysical objects; others hold that there are no physical objects, but\nthat consciousness is the one and only reality; and there are others\nwho think that the reality that gives rise to our sense experience is\nneither physical in the sense of a material thing, nor mental in the\nsense of consciousness or thought, but is movement or change--change\nthat requires no support and is absolute.  All these are opinions, and\nmay be false, and our belief that any one of them is true does not\ndepend on immediate experience, but on reasons.  The best that can be\nsaid in favour of any belief is that there is no reason for supposing\nit false, and the worst that can be said against any belief is that\nthere is no reason for supposing it true.  Our problem, then, is to\nknow what constitutes the nature of error in any one of these examples\nif it is, as each one may be, false?\n\nThe instances we have given are all of them propositions or judgments,\nor else conceptions formed out of propositions or judgments, the\npurpose of which is to interpret experience.  The actual experience\nitself, in so far as it consists of the actual presence of the object\nto the mind aware of it, is, as we have seen, neither truth nor error;\nit simply is what it is.  It is the conceptions by which we interpret\nthis experience that are {79} true or false.  And our problem is that\nthe meaning or content of a conception, that which is present to the\nmind when we make a judgment, is precisely the same whether the\nconception is true or false, there is no distinctive mark or feature by\nwhich we can know that in the one case the object of thought is a real\nor actual fact, in the other an opinion to which no reality\ncorresponds.  And, further, it seems exceedingly difficult to\nunderstand in what way a non-reality can be present to the mind at all.\n\nLet us now examine some attempts to solve this problem, and first of\nall let us take the pragmatist solution.  Pragmatism claims that it has\nno difficulty in explaining error, because, as we have already seen, it\nacknowledges no other test or criterion of truth except a pragmatic\none.  Every proposition or judgment that we make must, in order to have\nany meaning whatever, be relevant to some human purpose; every such\nproposition is a truth-claim; and every truth-claim is tested by its\nworkability.  Consequently, error is simply the failure of a\nproposition to establish its claim by the practical test of working.\nPropositions marked by such failure are errors.  As there is no truth\nindependent of time, place, and circumstance, no irrelevant truth, no\ntruth independent of the conditions under which its claim is put\nforward, there is no truth that may not become error.  No judgment,\naccording to pragmatism, is an error pure and simple--that is to say,\nit cannot come into existence as error, for it comes claiming truth,\nand maintaining that claim until challenged; it becomes an error in\nretrospect only, and always in relation to another judgment which\ncorrects it.  Error does not characterise a class of judgments; it is\nsomething that happens to a judgment, it is a judgment whose\ntruth-claim is rejected in reference to another judgment {80} which\nsucceeds.  The essential thing in the pragmatist doctrine of error is\nthat in claiming to be true a judgment is not challenging comparison\nwith some independent reality, nor is it claiming to belong to a\ntimeless order of existence--to be eternal; it is claiming to fulfil\nthe particular purpose for which it has been called forth, whether that\npurpose be practical or theoretical.\n\nLet us now consider the explanation of error offered by the idealist\nphilosophy.  In this view only the whole truth is wholly true; the\nAbsolute, as a perfect, concrete, individual system, is the ideal, and\nall that falls short of it can only possess a degree of truth--a degree\nwhich is greater or less according as it approximates to the ideal.\nThe degrees of truth are not quantitative, not a mixture of truth and\nerror, but a nearer or more distant approach to the ideal.  There can\nbe no absolute error, because if truth is the whole, error, if it\nexists at all, must in some way be included in truth.  Clearly error\ncannot as such be truth, and therefore it must follow that, in the\nwhole, error loses its character of error, and finds reconciliation of\nits contradiction to truth.  Error, then, if it is something, and not a\npure negation, is partial or incomplete truth; the perplexity and\ncontradiction that it gives rise to are incidental to our partial view.\nKnowledge, it must seem to us, can exist only for omniscience.  Unless\nwe know everything, we know nothing.\n\nThese two doctrines are in a sense the exact antithesis of one another.\nThey agree together in this, that in each the explanation of error\nfollows as a consequence of the conception of the nature of truth.  The\npragmatist theory implies that there is no truth in any real sense, but\nonly more or less successful error.  The idealist theory implies that\nthere is no real error, but only a variety in the degree of truth.\n\n{81}\n\nMost people, however, are convinced that truth and error are not\nrelated to one another, nor to the circumstances that call forth belief\nor disbelief.  Let us now examine a theory that recognises this.  There\nare false judgments, and they need explanation; error has a nature of\nits own.  If a judgment is false, it is absolutely and unalterably\nfalse; if it is true, it is unconditionally true and with no reserve.\nNo logical process, no psychological disposition, can make what is\nfalse true.  Error must lie in the nature of knowledge, and to discover\nthat nature we must understand the theory of knowledge and determine\nthe exact nature of the mental act in knowing.  The first essential is\nto distinguish the kind of knowledge to which truth and error can\napply.  We pointed out in the second chapter that all knowledge rests\nultimately on immediate experience.  In immediate experience the\nrelation between the mental act of knowing and the object that is known\nis so simple that any question as to truth or error in regard to it is\nunmeaning.  To question the truth of immediate experience is to\nquestion its existence; it is to ask if it is what it is, and this is\nplainly unmeaning.  But thinking, we said, is questioning experience in\norder to know its content or meaning, and in thinking, the simplicity\nof the relation which unites the mind to its object in immediate\nexperience is left behind, and a logical process of very great\ncomplexity takes its place.  It is in this complexity that the\npossibility of error lies.\n\nLet us look at it a little more closely.  Knowing is a relation which\nunites two things, one the mind that knows, the other the thing known.\nIn every act of knowing, something is present to the mind; if knowing\nis simply awareness of this actually present something, we call it\nimmediate experience, we are acquainted with the object.  But our\nknowledge is not only of objects {82} immediately present to the mind\nand with which we are therefore acquainted.  Knowledge embraces the\npast and future and the distant realms of space.  Indeed were knowledge\nonly of what is actually present to the mind, it is difficult to\nimagine that we could, in the ordinary meaning of the word, know\nanything at all.  I may be thinking, for example, of an absent friend;\nall that is present to my mind is, it may be, a memory image, a faint\nrecall of his appearance on some one occasion, or perhaps a\nrecollection of the tone of his voice, or it may be the black marks on\nwhite paper which I recognise as his handwriting.  This image is\npresent to my mind, but the image is not the object, my friend, about\nwhom I think and make endless judgments, true and false.  So also, if\nwhat is present to the mind is affecting me through the external\nsenses, if it is a sense impression, it is clear that what is actually\npresent is not the whole object of which I am aware, but only a very\nsmall part of it, or, it may be, no part of it at all, but something, a\nsound, or an odour, that represents it.  The immediate data of\nconsciousness are named by some philosophers sense data, by others,\npresentations, by others images, and there is much controversy as to\ntheir nature and existence, but with this controversy we are not here\nconcerned--we are seeking to make clear an obvious distinction, namely,\nthe distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by\ndescription.\n\nWhat kind of knowledge is it that we acquire by description?  Knowledge\nabout things with which we are not first acquainted.  The most\nimportant knowledge that we possess or acquire is knowledge of objects\nwhich we know only by the knowledge we have about them--objects that we\nknow about without knowing them.  They are not direct impressions on\nour senses, {83} nor are they ideas known in actual experience.  We\nmake judgments about them, and the subjects about which we make these\njudgments are really composed of these judgments that we make about\nthem.  To go back to our illustrations, we may know a great deal about\nthe evil eye, a malignant influence, disease, faith, healing,\ncausality, physical objects, without any acquaintance with them,\nwithout even knowing that they exist.  Such knowledge is descriptive,\nand the objects are descriptions.  Knowledge by description is never\nquite simple, and is often very complex, for, besides the relation of\nthe mental act to the object known, there are the terms and relations\nwhich are the elements in the judgment and the relations of the\njudgments themselves.  If we analyse a judgment, every word in which it\nis expressed, whether it is a noun or a verb or a preposition or a\nconjunction, conveys a distinct meaning, indicates a term or a\nrelation, each of which can be made a distinct object to the mind, and\nall of which are combined in the single meaning the judgment expresses.\nIt is in this complexity that the possibility of error lies, and the\npossibility increases as the complexity increases.  All the terms and\nthe relations which a judgment contains depend on the knowledge we have\nby acquaintance--that is to say, we are ultimately dependent on our\nactual experience for all knowledge whatever, whether it is\nacquaintance or description, for we can only describe in terms with\nwhich we are acquainted; but in the judgment these elements are\ncombined into new objects, or a certain relation is declared to exist\nbetween objects, and it is this combination of the elements of the\njudgment that involves its truth or falsehood.\n\nIf this view of the nature of the mental act of knowing is accepted, we\nare able to understand how false opinion {84} is consistent with the\nfact that all knowledge is truth.  We escape both the alternatives that\nseemed to Socrates the only possible ones.  \"When a man has a false\nopinion, does he think that which he knows to be some other thing which\nhe knows, and knowing both is he at the same time ignorant of both?  Or\ndoes he think of something which he does not know as some other thing\nwhich he does not know?\"   No, neither; in error he thinks that\nsomething that he knows is in a relation that he knows to some other\nthing that he knows, when in fact that relation is not relating the two\nthings.  The false proposition is not one in which the constituent\nterms and relations are unknown or non-existent, but one in which a\ncombination of these terms and relations is thought to exist when in\nfact it does not exist; and the true proposition is that in which the\ncombination thought to exist does exist.  We can, therefore, if this\naccount be true, at least know what false opinion or error can be,\nwhether or not we have any means of deciding in regard to any\nparticular opinion that it is false.\n\nThere is one other theory, the last we shall notice.  It is in one\nrespect the most important of all, namely, that it is the most direct\nattempt to grapple with the problem of error.  It is founded on a\ntheory of knowledge which we owe mainly to the profound and acute work\nof a German philosopher (Meinong), and which at the present time is\nbeing keenly discussed.  It is an attempt to determine more exactly\nthan has yet been done the fundamental scheme of the mental life and\ndevelopment.  The brief account that I am now offering, I owe to a\npaper by Prof. G. F. Stout on \"Some Fundamental Points in the Theory of\nKnowledge.\"  We have seen that the problem of error is the difficulty\nthere is in conceiving how there can be any real thing, any real {85}\nobject of thought, intermediate between being and not-being.  Error\nseems to exist and yet to have a nature which is a negation of\nexistence, and it seems therefore to be a downright contradiction when\nwe affirm that error or false opinion can _be_--that there is a real\nobject of thought when we judge falsely.  This theory meets the\ndifficulty directly by distinguishing in the mental act of knowing a\nprocess that is neither perceiving nor thinking of things, and that\ninvolves neither believing nor disbelieving on the one hand nor\ndesiring or willing on the other: this is the process of supposing.\nCorresponding to this mental act of supposing, there is a distinct kind\nof object intended or meant by the mind--an object that is neither a\nsense datum nor an idea, nor a judgment, but a supposition.  Also and\nagain corresponding to this mental act of supposing and its intended\nobject the supposition, there is a mode of being which is neither\nexistence nor non-existence, but is named subsistence.  A supposition,\nit is said, does not exist--it subsists.  This thesis, it will easily\nbe understood, is based on an analysis, and deals with arguments that\ntouch the most fundamental problems of theory of knowledge.  Moreover,\nits presentment is excessively technical, and only those highly trained\nin the habit of psychological introspection and skilled in\nphilosophical analysis are really competent to discuss it.  It is not\npossible to offer here anything but a simple outline of the part of the\ntheory that concerns the present problem.  The actual experience of\nknowing is a relation between two things, one of which is a mental\n_act_, the act of perceiving or thinking or having ideas, and the other\nis an _object_, that which is perceived or thought of.  The act is a\nparticular mental existence, it is the act of a psychical individual.\nThe object is not included within the actual experience which is the\nknowing of it, it is {86} that which is meant or intended by the\nexperience.  The act, then, is the mental process of meaning or\nintending, the object the thing meant or intended.  The mental act\ndiffers according to the kind of object intended.  The act of\nperceiving is the direction of the mind towards sense data and ideas;\nthe act of judging is the direction of the mind towards judgments or\npropositions about things, propositions that affirm or deny relations\nbetween things; the act of supposing is different from both these--it\nis the direction of the mind towards suppositions.  Suppositions differ\nfrom ideas in this, that they may be either positive or negative,\nwhereas ideas are never negative.  This may seem to contradict\nexperience.  Can we not, for example, have an idea of not-red just as\nwell as an idea of red?  No, the two ideas can easily be seen to be one\nand the same; in each case it is red we are actually acquainted with,\nand the difference is in affirming or denying existence to the one\nidea.  The difference is in our judgment, which may be affirmative or\nnegative.  A supposition is like a judgment in this respect; it may be\neither affirmative or negative, but it differs from a judgment in\nanother respect, that while a judgment always conveys a conviction,\nalways expresses belief or disbelief, a supposition does not--it is\nneither believed nor disbelieved.\n\nBefore I show the application of this analysis of knowledge to the\nproblem of error, let me try and clear up its obscurity, for\nundoubtedly it is difficult to comprehend.  Its difficulty lies in\nthis, that though all the ideas with which it deals are quite\nfamiliar--suppositions, real and unreal possibilities, fulfilled and\nnon-fulfilled beliefs--yet it seems to run counter to all our notions\nof the extreme simplicity of the appeal to reality.  It seems strange\nand paradoxical to our ordinary habit {87} of thinking to affirm that\nthere are real things and real relations between things which though\nreal yet do not exist, and also that non-existent realities are not\nthings that once were real but now are nought--they are things that\nsubsist.  Yet this is no new doctrine.  The most familiar case of such\nrealities is that of numbers.  The Greeks discovered that numbers do\nnot exist--that is to say, that their reality is of another kind to\nthat which we denote by existence.  Numbers are realities, otherwise\nthere would be no science of mathematics.  Pythagoras (about 540-500\nB.C.) taught that numbers are the reality from which all else is\nderived.  And there are many other things of the mind that seem indeed\nto be more real than the things of sense.  It is this very problem of\nerror that brings into relief this most important doctrine.\n\nNow let us apply this theory of the supposition to the problem of\nerror, and we shall then see how there can be an object present to the\nmind when we judge falsely, and also that the object is the same\nwhether we judge truly or falsely.  Suppositions are real\npossibilities; they are alternatives that may be fulfilled or that may\nnever be fulfilled.  These real possibilities, or these possible\nalternatives, are objects of thought; they do not belong to the mental\nact of thinking; they are not in the mind, but realities present to the\nmind.  In mere supposing they are present as alternatives; in judging,\nwe affirm of them or deny of them the relation to general reality that\nthey are fulfilled.  Judgments therefore are true or false accordingly\nas the fulfilment they affirm does or does not agree with reality.  In\nthis way, then, we may answer the perplexing question, How can there be\nan object of thought in a false judgment?  The answer is, that the\nobjects of thought about which we make judgments are suppositions, and\nour judgments {88} concern their fulfilment, and their fulfilment is a\nrelation external to them--it is their agreement or disagreement with\nreality.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nCONCLUSION\n\nI will now briefly sum up the argument of this book.  The problem of\ntruth is to discover the nature of the agreement between the things of\nthe mind, our ideas, and the reality of which ideas are the knowledge.\nWe call the agreement truth.  What is it?  We have seen that there are\nthree different answers, namely--(1) That it is a correspondence\nbetween the idea and the reality; (2) That it is the coherence of the\nidea in a consistent and harmonious whole; and (3) That it is a value\nthat we ourselves give to our ideas.\n\nThe theory that truth is correspondence we found to offer this\ndifficulty.  To say of an idea that it corresponds with reality\nsupposes a knowledge of reality in addition to and distinct from the\nknowledge that is the idea, and yet the knowledge of reality is the\nidea of it.  And if it be said that not the idea but the judgment is\nwhat corresponds with reality in truth, this equally supposes a\nknowledge of reality that is not a judgment.  If, as the common sense\nof mankind requires us to believe, the reality that is known by us\nexists in entire independence of our relation of knowing to it, how can\nwe state this fact without falling into contradiction in the very\nstatement of it?  This is the difficulty of a realist theory of\nknowledge.\n\nWe next examined the theory that truth is coherence, and this seemed to\npresent to us an unattainable ideal.  {89} Only the whole truth is\nwholly true.  We followed the idealist argument on which it is based,\nand this seemed to lead us inevitably, in the doctrine of the Absolute,\nto the paradox that unless we know everything we know nothing.\n\nIn pragmatism we met a new principle, the proposal to regard truth as a\nvalue.  Truth, it is said, is something that happens to ideas; they\nbecome true, or are made true.  There is no criterion, no absolute\nstandard, independent of ideas to which they must conform if they are\njudged to be true.  The value of an idea is its practical usefulness as\ntested by its workability.  Truth is what works.  This led us to\ncriticise the concept of utility.  We found that it is impossible to\nidentify utility with truth even if we include theoretical utility in\nits widest meaning, because over and above the usefulness and\nworkability of an idea there always remains the question of its\nrelation to reality.  But we recognised in the principle of truth-value\nan important advance towards a theory of knowledge.\n\nThe solution of the problem of truth, it became clear, must be sought\nin a theory of knowledge.  Have we, in the new theory of life and\nknowledge of Bergson's philosophy, an answer to the question, What is\ntruth?  Yes, but not in the form of a direct solution of the dilemma\nwhich confronts us in every theory that accepts the independence of\nknowledge and reality--rather in a theory of knowledge in which the\ndilemma does not and cannot arise.\n\nThe theory of Bergson is that in the intuition of life we know reality\nas it is, our knowledge is one with our knowing; and in the intellect\nwe possess a mode of knowing which is equally immediate but the\nessential quality of which is that it externalises or spatialises\nreality.  We understand this mode of knowing in {90} recognising the\npurpose it serves, its practical advantage to us.  The theory,\ntherefore, resembles pragmatism in bringing the concept of utility to\nthe aid of its theory of knowledge.  But, we insisted, the resemblance\nis outward only, for the essential tenet of pragmatism, that truth\nitself is a value, is fatal to the theory.  It would mean, in fact,\nthat not the mode of knowing, that is the intellect, but the actual\nknowledge itself, is a practical endowment.  But the problem of truth\narises in a new form, for the practical utility of the intellect\nconsists in the illusion which it produces in us.  It makes the flowing\nreality appear as fixed states.  How, then, can universal illusion be\nconsistent with the possession of truth?  To answer this question we\nexamined the nature of illusion and its distinction from error.\n\nIn the last chapter we have dealt with the problem of error.  The fact\nof error presented a difficulty distinct from the question, What is\ntruth? for it implied a real object of thought, of which it seemed\nequally contradictory to say that it exists and that it does not exist.\nIn the solutions that have been proposed we saw how the problem is\nforcing philosophers to examine again the fundamental processes of the\nmind and the nature of the universe they reveal.\n\n\n\n\n{91}\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY\n\nThe _The\u00e6tetus_ of Plato is an exposition of the problem of truth and\nerror as it presented itself in ancient philosophy.  The quotation I\nhave made from it, and also the quotations from the _Republic_, are\nfrom Jowett's translation.\n\nThe most clear exposition of what I have called the realistic doctrine\nis _The Problems of Philosophy_, by the Hon. Bertrand Russell, in the\nHome University Library (Williams and Norgate).  I have adopted Mr.\nRussell's terms, \"acquaintance\" and \"description\"; the distinction they\ndenote seems to me of fundamental importance, and Mr. Russell's\ndoctrine on this point a permanent addition to philosophy.  Mr.\nRussell's theory, that in the judgment what is present to the mind is a\nrelation which is external to the terms of the judgment, and that\nagreement or disagreement between this relation and reality makes the\ntruth or falsehood of the judgment, can only be appreciated if studied\nin connection with his general scheme.\n\nThe classical work on what I have called the modern idealist doctrine\n(I have avoided the word intellectualist) is Mr. F. H. Bradley's\n_Appearance and Reality_.  I have attempted to give the main lines of\nthe theory in my chapter on \"The Absolute.\"  Although it is a book for\nadvanced students, it is not a closed volume even to the uninstructed.\nThe brilliant dialectical skill of the {92} author is acknowledged and\nmay be enjoyed by those who reject or may fail to understand his\nconclusion.  Mr. Harold H. Joachim's _The Nature of Truth_ (Oxford,\nClarendon Press) is a most able and scholarly argument for the\ncoherence theory of truth.\n\nThe principal expositions of Pragmatism are the works of William James\nand of Dr. F. C. S. Schiller.  William James' _The Will to Believe_ was\nthe first distinct formulation of the principle.  _Pragmatism, a New\nName for some Old Ways of Thinking_, is the fullest and most systematic\nstatement of the doctrine.  _The Meaning of Truth_ is a defence of the\ndoctrine against the criticism that had been meted out to it\nunsparingly.  All three books are published by Longmans.\n\nDr. F. C. S. Schiller is uncompromising in his advocacy of a complete\nreturn to the doctrine taught in the ancient world by Protagoras.  He\nhas defended that philosopher against the arguments of Plato in a\npolemical pamphlet entitled _Plato or Protagoras?_ (Oxford, Blackwell).\nAn Essay on \"Axioms as Postulates\" in _Personal Idealism_ (Macmillan &\nCo.), and two volumes of collected essays on _Humanism_ (Macmillan &\nCo.), set forth the doctrine, which he prefers to call Humanism, with\ngreat force, abundant illustration, and the relief of no small amount\nof humour.\n\nFor an account of the theories of Bergson, I may mention my own little\nbook in this series, _Henri Bergson: The Philosophy of Change_.  M.\nBergson's books are _Time and Freewill_, _Matter and Memory_, and\n_Creative Evolution_.  To these has been recently added _An\nIntroduction to Metaphysics_ (Macmillan, 1912).  It is the\nrepublication in English of an article written in 1903, which has been\nfor a long time out of print.  It is a short and clear statement of the\ndoctrine of Intuition.\n\n{93}\n\nThe important studies of Professor G. F. Stout are not easily\naccessible to the general reader, as they consist in contributions to\nphilosophical journals and proceedings of learned societies.  The essay\nreferred to in the last chapter, \"Some Fundamental Points in the Theory\nof Knowledge,\" is in the _St. Andrews Quincentenary Publications_, 1911\n(Maclehose).  I may mention also his essay on \"Error\" in _Personal\nIdealism_, noticed above, and \"The Object of Thought and Real Being,\"\nin _Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society_, 1911.\n\n\n\n\n{94}\n\nINDEX\n\nNDX\n  Bergson, Mons. Henri, 63, 69, 73, 89\n  Berkeley, 20, 32, 73\n\n  Coherence Theory, 25, 27\n  Correspondence Theory, 24, 27\n\n  Discovery of Planet Neptune, 59\n\n  Faith-attitude of Pragmatism, 55\n  Formal Logic, 10\n\n  Hegel, 44\n  Hume, 30\n\n  Intellectualism, 44\n\n  James, William, 44\n\n  Kant, 26, 27, 42, 73\n\n  Meinong, 84\n\n  Pierce, C. S., 44\n  Plato, 11, 44, 67, 68, 74\n  Pluralistic Realism, 24\n  Poincar\u00e9, Henri, 54\n  Pragmatist Theory of Truth, 55\n  Primary Qualities, 32\n  Protagoras, His book _The Truth_, 10, 11; His maxim, 44\n  Pythagoras, 87\n\n  Relativity, Principle of, 48, 53, 62\n  _Republic_ of Plato, 67\n\n  S. Anselm's Argument, 29, 31, 41\n  Schiller, Dr. F. C. S., 44\n  Self, The Idea of, 36\n  Socrates, 11, 74\n  Space and Time, 33, 34, 36\n  Stout, Prof. G. F., 84\n\n  The\u00e6tetus of Plato, 11, 74\n\n  Unknowable, The, 29, 37\n\n  Zeno, 34\nENDX\n\n\n\n  Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & Co.\n  Edinburgh & London\n\n\n\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\n\n\n\nTHE PEOPLE'S BOOKS\n\nTHE FIRST HUNDRED VOLUMES\n\n(Spring 1913)\n\n\n  SCIENCE\n\n  1. The Foundations of Science . . . By W. C. D. Whetham, M.A., F.R.S.\n  2. Embryology--The Beginnings of Life . . . By Prof. Gerald Leighton, M.D.\n  3. Biology . . . By Prof. W. D. Henderson, M.A.\n  4. Zoology: The Study of Animal Life . . . By Prof. E. W. MacBride,\n             M.A., F.R.S.\n  5. Botany; The Modern Study of Plants . . . By M. C. Stopes, D.Sc.,\n             Ph.D., F.L.S.\n  7. The Structure of the Earth . . . By Prof. T. G. Bonney, F.R.S.\n  8. Evolution . . . By E. S. Goodrich, M.A., F.R.S.\n  10. Heredity . . . By J. A. S. Watson, B.Sc.\n  11. Inorganic Chemistry . . . By Prof. E. C. C. Baly, F.R.S.\n  12. Organic Chemistry . . . By Prof. J. B. Cohen, B.Sc., F.R.S.\n  13. The Principles of Electricity . . . By Norman K. Campbell, M.A.\n  14. Radiation . . . By P. Phillips, D.Sc.\n  15. The Science of the Stars . . . By E. W. Maunder, F.R.A.S.\n  16. The Science of Light . . . By P. Phillips, D.Sc.\n  17. Weather Science . . . By R. G. K. Lempfert, M.A.\n  18. Hypnotism and Self-Education . . . By A. M. Hutchison, M.D.\n  19. The Baby: A Mother's Book . . . By a University Woman.\n  20. Youth and Sex--Dangers and Safeguards for Boys and Girls . . .\n             By Mary Scharlieb, M.D., M.S., and F. Arthur Sibly, M.A., LL.D.\n  21. Marriage and Motherhood . . . By H. S. Davidson, M.B., F.R.C.S.E.\n  22. Lord Kelvin . . . By A. Russell, M.A., D.Sc., M.I.E.E.\n  23. Huxley . . . By Professor G. Leighton, M.D.\n  24. Sir William Huggins and Spectroscopic Astronomy . . .\n             By E. W. Maunder, F.R.A.S., of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.\n  62. Practical Astronomy . . . By H. Macpherson, Jr., F.R.A.S.\n  63. Aviation . . . By Sydney F. Walker, R.N.\n  64. Navigation . . . By William Hall, R.N., B.A.\n  65. Pond Life . . . By E. C. Ash, M.R.A.C.\n  66. Dietetics . . . By Alex. Bryce, M.D., D.P.H.\n  94. The Nature of Mathematics . . . By P. E. B. Jourdain, M.A.\n  95. Applications of Electricity . . . By Alex. Ogilvie, B.Sc.\n  96. Gardening . . . By A. Cecil Bartlett.\n  97. The Care of the Teeth . . . By J. A. Young, L.D.S.\n  98. Atlas of the World . . . By T. Bartholomew, F.R.G.S.\n  110.  British Birds . . . By F. B Kirkman, B.A.\n\n\n  PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION\n\n  25. The Meaning of Philosophy . . . By Prof. A. E. Taylor, M.A., F.B.A.\n  26. Henri Bergson . . . By H. Wildon Carr, Litt.D.\n  27. Psychology . . . By H. J. Watt, M.A., Ph.D., D.Phil.\n  28. Ethics . . . By Canon Rashdall, D.Litt., F.B.A.\n  29. Kant's Philosophy . . . By A. D. Lindsay, M.A., of\n             Balliol College, Oxford.\n  30. The Teaching of Plato . . . By A. D. Lindsay, M.A.\n  67. Aristotle . . . By Prof. A. E. Taylor, M.A., F.B.A.\n  68. Friedrich Nietzsche . . . By M. A. M\u00fcgge.\n  69. Eucken: A Philosophy of Life . . . By A. J. Jones, M.A., B.Sc., Ph.D.\n  70. The Experimental Psychology of Beauty . . . By C. W. Valentine,\n             B.A., D.Phil.\n  71. The Problem of Truth . . . By H. Wildon Carr, Litt.D.\n  99. George Berkeley: The Philosophy of Idealism . . . By C. W. Valentine, B.A.\n  31. Buddhism . . . By Prof. T. W. Rhys Davids, F.B.A.\n  32. Roman Catholicism . . . By H. B. Coxon.  Preface, Mgr. R. H. Benson.\n  33. The Oxford Movement . . . By Wilfrid Ward.\n  34. The Bible and Criticism . . . By W. H. Bennett, D.D., Litt.P.,\n             and W. F. Adeney, D.D.\n  35. Cardinal Newman . . . By Wilfrid Meynell.\n  72. The Church of England . . . By Rev. Canon Masterman.\n  73. Anglo-Catholicism . . . By A. E. Manning Foster.\n  74. The Free Churches . . . By Rev. Edward Shillito, M.A.\n  75. Judaism . . . By Ephraim Levine, M.A.\n  76. Theosophy . . . By Annie Besant.\n\n\n  HISTORY\n\n  36. The Growth of Freedom . . . By H. W. Nevinson.\n  37. Bismarck and the Origin of the German Empire . . .\n             By Professor F. M. Powicke.\n  38. Oliver Cromwell . . . By Hilda Johnstone, M.A.\n  39. Mary Queen of Scots . . . By E. O'Neill, M.A.\n  40. Cecil John Rhodes, 1853-1902 . . . By Ian D. Colvin.\n  41. Julius C\u00e6sar . . . By Hilary Hardinge.\n  42. England in the Making . . . By Prof. F. J. C. Hearnshaw, M.A., LL.D.\n  43. England in the Middle Ages . . . By E. O'Neill, M.A.\n  44. The Monarchy and the People . . . By W. T. Waugh, M.A.\n  45. The Industrial Revolution . . . By Arthur Jones, M.A.\n  46. Empire and Democracy . . . By G. S. Veitch, M.A., Litt.D.\n  61. Home Rule . . . By L. G. Redmond Howard.\n             Preface by Robert Harcourt, M.P.\n  77. Nelson . . . By H. W. Wilson.\n  78. Wellington and Waterloo . . . By Major G. W. Redway.\n  100. A History of Greece . . . By E. Fearenside, B.A.\n  101.  Luther and the Reformation . . . By Leonard D. Agate, M.A.\n  102. The Discovery of the New World . . . By F. B. Kirkman, B.A.\n  103.  Turkey and the Eastern Question . . . By John Macdonald, M.A.\n  104.  Architecture . . . By Mrs. Arthur Bell.\n\n\n  SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC\n\n  47. Women's Suffrage . . . By M. G. Fawcett, LL.D.\n  48. The Working of the British System\n           of Government to-day . . . By Prof. Ramsay Muir, M.A.\n  49. An Introduction to Economic Science . . . By Prof. H. O. Meredith, M.A.\n  50. Socialism . . . By F. B. Kirkman, B.A.\n  79. Medi\u00e6val Socialism . . . By Bede Jarrett, O.P., M.A.\n  80. Syndicalism . . . By J. H. Harley, M.A.\n  81. Labour and Wages . . . By H. M. Hallsworth, M.A., B.Sc.\n  82. Co-operation . . . By Joseph Clayton.\n  83. Insurance as a Means of Investment . . . By W. A. Robertson, F.F.A.\n  92. The Training of the Child . . . By G. Spiller.\n  105.  Trade Unions . . . By Joseph Clayton.\n  106.  Everyday Law . . . By J. J. Adams.\n\n\n  LETTERS\n\n  51. Shakespeare . . . By Prof. C. H. Herford, Litt.D.\n  52. Wordsworth . . . By Rosaline Masson.\n  53. Pure Gold--A Choice of Lyrics and Sonnets . . . by H. C. O'Neill\n  54. Francis Bacon . . . By Prof. A. R. Skemp, M.A.\n  55. The Bront\u00ebs . . . By Flora Masson.\n  56. Carlyle . . . By L. MacLean Watt.\n  57. Dante . . . By A. G. Ferrers Howell.\n  60. A Dictionary of Synonyms . . . By Austin K. Gray, B.A.\n  83. Insurance as a Means of Investment . . . By W. A. Robertson, F.F.A.\n  84. Classical Dictionary . . . By A. E. Stirling.\n  85. A History of English Literature . . . By A. Compton-Rickett, LL.D.\n  86. Browning . . . By Prof. A. R. Skemp, M.A.\n  87. Charles Lamb . . . By Flora Masson.\n  88. Goethe . . . By Prof. C. H. Herford, Litt.D.\n  89. Balzac . . . By Frank Harris.\n  90. Rousseau . . . By H. Sacher\n  91. Ibsen . . . By Hilary Hardinge.\n  93. Tennyson . . . By Aaron Watson.\n  107. R. L. Stevenson . . . By Rosaline Masson.\n  108. Shelley . . . By Sydney Waterlow, M.A.\n  109. William Morris . . . By A. Blyth Webster, M.A.\n\n\n  LONDON AND EDINBURGH: T. C. & E. C. JACK\n  NEW YORK: DODGE PUBLISHING CO.","title":"The Problem of Truth","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":28381}