Ill 



TRUTH 49 



absolute determination of the universe, and it is only on 

 this assumption that the inference is cogent, that truth 

 and reality can only be completely construed in one 

 single way. If we doubt, or deny, or demand proof of, 

 this assumption, it may well be that many alternative 

 systems may be true, that reality can be constructed 

 in various ways by our varying efforts. The poet may 

 have exaggerated in suggesting 



There are nine-and-sixty ways 



Of composing tribal lays, 



And every single one of them is right ; 



but still the more sincerely and completely we recognize 

 the presence of human activity in the construction of 

 truth and reality, the more clearly is their contingence 

 suggested, and the less plausible does it seem that all these 

 apparently arbitrary procedures are foredoomed to issue 

 in the unveiling of one single, inevitable, and pre-existing 

 system. And if we doubt the legitimacy of this assump 

 tion, it follows at once that we cannot decide the measure 

 of truth possessed by our actual bodies of knowledge by 

 the mere test of systematic coherence. System A may 

 need reinterpretation into A to fit in with system B 

 in the final system X ; but we might as well or better 

 reinterpret B into B , so that it would fit with A into 

 the final system Y. In such a case are we to consider 

 A + B or A + B as ultimately true ? 



In short, our logic as well as our metaphysic will have 

 to concern itself more scrupulously and less perfunctorily 

 with pluralistic possibilities. 



(4) The last objection has brought out the fact that in 

 assuming truth to be univocally determined by the con 

 ception of a system, we went too far, and uncritically 

 settled an important issue ; we have now to face a criticism 

 urging that the conception of a system in another direction 

 does not go far enough to determine the nature of truth. 

 To win from us recognition as truth, it is not enough to 

 have a number of coherent judgments connected in a 

 system. The system to be true must also have value 



E 



