THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 129 



of other men in whose judgment we have confidence) ; the other / 

 is the satisfactory guidance of conduct. The truth of an idea is, * 

 then, its workability in combination with our other ideas. Thus 

 the interpretation of a new experience, in such a way as to conflict 

 with a great body of accepted maxims, can hardly ever win our 

 acceptance, no matter how successfully it suggests the conduct 

 suitable to the circumstances. And, contrariwise, howevei 

 beautifully a theory may harmonize with accepted notions, its 

 persistent failure in practice not only condemns it but casts doubt 

 upon the old notions as well. Change of belief is thus character 

 ized by the continuity which belongs to evolution generally. Ex 

 isting structures and functions are modified as slightly as possible, 

 in accordance w r ith new demands; and, moreover, such modifica 

 tion as occurs is always more apt to attach to recently acquired, 

 than to older (and thus more deeply involved), features. 



The truth-formula is most frequently presented by pragmatists 

 in a form which consolidates the two factors. Recognizing that 

 consistency is itself an important subject of human interest, 

 they declare that the truth of an idea is its satis j actor iness in 

 cluding the satisfaction of intellectual interests as well as of all 

 others that may be involved. There may be matter for serious 

 criticism here (as we hope hereafter to show) ; but in fairness it 

 must be said that a mere confusion, in which the specific character 



wholly satisfied with the statement, that the experience of these sensations is a 

 potentiality of our nature. We desire to know the general characteristics of their 

 respective stimuli. It is a pressing problem of psychophysics. Even so the moral- 

 sense school of ethicists, who believed the feeling of approbation to be an original, 

 fundamental endowment of our nature, recognized the problem of determining what 

 the object of this peculiar reflective sense was. Indeed, they differed among them 

 selves upon the matter, Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, and Hume having each his own 

 characteristic theory. Now it is clear that logic has at least an equal interest 

 in determining the general nature of the combinations of ideas (or other forms 

 of experience) which are felt to agree. The mere fact that they are felt to agree 

 is so far from being a solution that it is what sets the logical problem. 



If we are correct in our interpretation, Professor James and his more immediate 

 friends have formally deprived themselves of the only means of attacking, much 

 less of solving, this problem. That the deprivation is only formal, and can be 

 amended in full accordance with the general spirit of the pragmatist theory, we 

 freely admit. 



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