36 HUMANISM n 



of a conception be decided in the abstract and without 

 experience of the manner of its working. It gets its real 

 meaning only in, from, and by, its use : apart from its use 

 the meaning of any &quot; truth &quot; remains potential. And you 

 can use it only if you desire to use it. And the desire to 

 use it can only arise if it makes a difference to you 

 whether or not you conceive it, and, if so, how. You 

 must, therefore, desire, or, as I should say, postulate it, if 

 you are to have it at all. If, on the other hand, your 

 practical experience suggests to you that a certain con 

 ception would be useful, if it were true, you will reasonably 

 give it a trial to see whether it is not &quot; true,&quot; and if thus 

 you discover it and find that you can work with it, you 

 will certainly call it &quot; true &quot; and believe that it is &quot; true,&quot; 

 and has been so from all eternity, and all this the more 

 confidently and profoundly, the more extensively useful it 

 appears. Thus it is by hypothetically postulating what 

 we desire to be true because we expect it to be useful, and 

 accepting it as true if we can in any way render it useful, 

 that we seem to me manifestly to come by our principles. 

 Nor do I see how we could really come by them in any 

 other way, or that we should be prudent if we admitted 

 their claims to truth on any other ground. 



Might they not be self-evident ? 



Self-evidence only seems an accident of our state of 

 mind and in no Way a complete guarantee of truth. Much 

 that was false has been accepted as self-evident and no 

 doubt still is. Its self-evidence only means that we have 

 ceased to question a principle, or not yet begun to do so. 



And can you not see that there are intrinsically 

 necessary truths ? 



Not a bit. Unless by necessary you mean needful, an 

 intrinsic necessity seems to me a contradiction. Necessity 

 is always dependence, and so hypothetical. 



You blaspheme horribly against the highest beings in 

 the universe, the Deity and the Triangle ! 



Even though you should threaten to impale me on 

 the acutest angle of the most acute-angled specimen of the 

 latter you can find in your world of &quot; necessary matter &quot; 



