162 HUMANISM 



IX 



thing to do would be, I suppose, either to evade an 

 answer altogether or to decide in favour of the third 

 alternative, which is nearly as unsatisfactory as no 

 answer at all, and to finish up with a learned sneer at 

 those who venture on dogmatic conclusions. But, 

 for once, I should like to dare to be dogmatic at least 

 to some extent and to indicate some reasons at least for 

 eliminating that third alternative. 



For it seems to me that it reduces itself to the second, 

 that the emotional value of no answer is equivalent 

 to an answer in the negative. Nor can I see why, if 

 judgments of Value are rightly and properly made, they 

 should not be applicable to the scheme of things as a 

 whole. Certainly we make this assumption in the case 

 of the judgments of intellectual Value, i.e. in determin 

 ing the value of our judgments of Fact. We assume that 

 because judgments of relative truth and falsity are made, 

 the former can ultimately be fitted into a coherent and 

 congruous system of Truth. That is, we recognise that 

 in the end Truth too is Value^ and decline to predicate 

 the truth of any fact which seems discordant with 

 our system. Indeed it is by such a reference to logical 

 values that we discriminate among the facts which 

 claim reality, and grant or refuse their application. 



But if we are entitled to hold that there is Truth, and 

 not merely judgments relatively true, in other words, 

 that is, that our logical valuations may be combined into 

 a system, and that the ideal of Truth is valid of Reality 

 and controls it, why should we not be equally entitled 

 to affirm similar validity for the ideals of Goodness and 

 Happiness ? 2 If Experience as a whole can be judged 

 true or false, coherent or incoherent, why should it not 

 be judged as a whole good or bad ? At all events, it 

 cannot be taken for granted, without attempt at argument, 

 that human judgments of good and bad mean 

 nothing to the whole, while (equally human) judgments 

 of true and false may be appealed to to extract its 

 inmost mysteries. 3 



1 Cp. pp. 54-55. 2 Cp. pp. 260-261. 3 Cp. pp. 9-10. 



