THE EXPERIMENTAL THEORY 95 



the property of affording assurance and correction 

 of confirming and refuting. Truth and falsity 

 are not properties of any experience or thing, in 

 and of itself or in its first intention ; but of things 

 where the problem of assurance consciously enters 

 in. Truth and falsity present themselves as sig 

 nificant facts only m situations m which specific 

 meanings and their already experienced fulfilments 

 and non-fulfilments are intentionally compared and 

 contrasted with reference to the question of the 

 worth, as to reliability of meaning, of the given 

 meaning or class of meanmgs. Like knowledge 

 itself, truth is an experienced relation of things, 

 and it has no meaning outside of such relation, 1 any 

 more than such adjectives as comfortable applied 

 to a lodging, correct applied to speech, persuasive 

 applied to an orator, etc., have worth apart from 

 the specific things to which they are applied. It 

 would be a great gain for logic and epistemology, 

 if we were always to translate the noun &quot; truth &quot; 

 back into the adjective &quot; true,&quot; and this back into 

 the adverb &quot; truly &quot; ; at least, if we were to do so 

 until we have familiarized ourselves thoroughly 



1 It is the failure to grasp the coupling of truth of mean- 

 * ing with a specific promise, undertaking, or intention ex 

 pressed by a thing which underlies, so far as I can see, 

 the criticisms passed upon the experimental or pragmatic 

 view of the truth. It is the same failure which is re 

 sponsible for the wholly at large view of truth which char 

 acterizes the absolutists. 



