TRUTH AMONG THE PRAGMATISTS. I95 



se])arate articles must show better reasons than any pragmatist 

 has yet shown. 



But let us apply the pragmatists' own test to the definition 

 of truth. Is it a true definition? Does it work? Is it in 

 accordance with man's experience? Is it an idea that we can 

 assimilate, corroborate, validate and verify? Is the true always 

 useful . even in the pragmatic sense of the word ? All these 

 ideas, distinct enough in common philosophy, are so linked 

 together in the pragmatist dictionaries that all these questions 

 can be answered together. To weaken the claim of any of them 

 is to impair the worth of this chain-like definition of truth. I 

 shall marshal a few of the reasons that seem to be fatal to these 

 claims. 



First, the definition does not work. For the expedient and 

 the true cannot be confounded. As far as the individual is con- 

 cerned, this is luminously clear. The life of many a man has 

 been wrecked by truths, which, however undeniable they may 

 have been, were certainly not expedient in any recognised sense 

 of the word, e.g., the proved treachery of a trusted friend. Hence 

 the pragmatist guards himself against this interpretation by limit- 

 ing the expedient with the phrases " in the long run " and " on 

 the whole." But whilst this limits the field of the expedient, it 

 increases enormously the demand upon the powers of the truth- 

 seeker. In so doing it appears to reduce to an infinitesimal degree 

 his chances of arriving at the truth. It is hard enough to fore- 

 cast what will be expedient to-morrow. But if I am to make 

 such a forecast as to the expedient " in the long run " and " on 

 the whole," I am essaying a task too great for any individual. 

 I may, of course, vault over this difficulty by postulating the 

 principle that there is a constant evolution of progress and better- 

 ment going on in the world, in which I am taking part. But 

 such a colossal assumption, unproved and unprovable, would not 

 tell me for certain that I may not be in some backwater of the 

 stream of general evolution, where the laws of the current " in 

 the long run " and " on the whole " are not verified. If the general 

 drift towards some far-off divine event is to justify those who 

 are in the current, when they confound their experience with the 

 true, it will hardly justify those in the backwater. Here the 

 contrary rule would hold. The preliminary problem of deter- 

 mining whether I flow with the tide of human progress or recede 

 gently with the backwater is surely too great for a straw on the 

 mighty waters, unless you will allow it some fixed point on the 

 shore by which it can take its bearings. But then you throw the 

 expedient to the winds, and become an absolutist. For what 

 truth such a human straw may gather from its experience will 

 not be found in seconding the experience, but in connecting and 

 inverting it. to get the proper direction and the real " hang " 

 of things. 



