58 HUMANISM m 



After premising which we may return to our problem 

 of constructing an objective truth out of subjective truth- 

 valuations, of, as we saw, the most varied nature. Every 

 one of these subjective valuations is the product of a 

 psychological interest, and aims at the satisfaction of 

 such an interest. But even in the individual there is a 

 good deal of regulation of his subjective valuations ; 

 there is a tendency to the consolidation and subordination 

 of interests under the main purposes of his life. Hence 

 many of his initial interests will be suppressed, and the 

 valuations which ministered to them will tend to be 

 withdrawn, to be judged useless and, ultimately, false. 

 In other words, there begins to operate among our 

 subjective truth-valuations the great Pragmatist principle 

 of selection, viz. that the useless is not to be valued as 

 true. The use appealed to and the truth extracted 

 by this criterion are, it is true, only individual. But 

 not even of the individual is it true to say that his feeling a 

 thing true and calling it so makes it so. The question 

 of the sustaining of the valuation after it is made is a 

 distinct one, and that perhaps to which we mostly want 

 an answer when we inquire : What is truth ? 



This question becomes more intricate, but also more 

 interesting, when we take into account the social environ 

 ment. For man is a social being, and truth indubitably 

 is to a large extent a social product. For even though 

 every truth may start in a minority of one, its hold upon 

 existence is exceedingly precarious, unless it can con 

 trive to get itself more extensively appreciated. Those 

 unfortunate enough to have acquired and retained an 

 exclusive view of truth are usually secluded in prisons 

 or asylums, unless their truth is so harmlessly abstruse 

 as not to lead to action, when they are sometimes 

 allowed to be philosophers ! Truth, then, to be really 

 safe, has to be more than an individual valuation ; it 

 has to win social recognition, to transform itself into a 

 common property. 



But how? It is by answering this question that 

 Pragmatism claims to have made a real advance in our 



