HUMANISM 229 



great lesson of pragmatism. The making of truth (i. e., the 

 forming of true beliefs) and the making of reality are aspects ot 

 one process, namely, the development of intelligent behavior. 

 Having such an origin, reality is necessarily (or presumably) 

 plastic in relation to human effort. 



So far as we can perceive, the evidences upon which pragmatism 

 is founded justify no such interpretation of its leading doctrine. 

 A simple example will help to make this clear. Crusoe, observing 

 the footprint in the sand, becomes aware of the presence of at least 

 one man in his vicinity. This man exists for Crusoe in the sense 

 that he must be seriously taken account of in the future. But 

 Crusoe is aware that the man existed and was in the vicinity 

 before he discovered him; yes, that he existed for him in the 

 very important sense that if they had met a variety of interesting 

 consequences might have ensued say a fight to the death, or 

 the succor of a friendly bark. The case is a typical one, and the 

 generalization is easy. The making of truth is the discovery of 

 reality, not the making of it except in the sense that enlarging 

 knowledge establishes a new and very real relation between the 

 knower and the object known, from which results of importance 

 to both may spring. An object not known is not less real (may 

 easily be far more dangerous) than an object known. 



Perhaps this is too obvious to be conclusive. Are not all the 

 realities of which we have knowledge man-made? Is not the 

 best assured of them liable to be condemned tomorrow to un 

 reality ; and may not the progress of science transform the worst 

 of unrealities ghosts and spirit-tappings into genuine realities? 

 Perhaps ; but such a change is never, by science or common sense, 

 regarded as taking place in the real object; except, again, as 

 knowing and being known are real conditions. We do not say 

 of the demolished myth that it was real, but that it seemed so; 

 it was our deception that was real. 



In the third place, we are reminded that the real is the object 

 of interest. Every reality is strictly relative to human character, 

 to human desires and aversions. Hence it must change at our 



