276 HUMANISM X v 



Thus Truth will no longer shine upon us from afar 

 with the dim glimmer of an infinitely distant nebula. It 

 will no longer dazzle us with the delusive flashes of a 

 will-o -the-wisp that is really error. It will be a torch 

 kindled by human will and wielded by human hands (or 

 rather a succession of such torches, each rekindled as the 

 last expires), always lighting the way for man as he passes 

 onwards. The objects it illumines will come into its 

 sphere as man s life requires them ; they will drop back 

 into the limbo of the useless, out of which they were 

 drawn, as they are used up or improved upon. 



From such a reconstitution of the idea of Truth it is 

 clear that man must gain immensely. And, apart from 

 the glamour of words, even Truth will lose nothing. 

 Even its absoluteness is not wholly lost. It is only 

 avowed to be what it is an ideal, the culmination of 

 Truth s working value, the perfect satisfaction of every 

 cognitive ambition. As such it may still yield the remote 

 and emotional consolation which was all it could afford 

 before, when the illusions of verbiage were purged away. 

 The human truth which alone we have and alone we 

 need, on the other hand, will be a very real and potent 

 influence. It must enormously enlarge the liberty of 

 thought. It must enormously enhance humaneness of 

 discussion. It must utterly explode the foundations of 

 dogmatism and intolerance. 



For nothing at first can be true but what can 

 commend itself to some one and satisfy some spiritual 

 need. Conversely, whatever can do this can claim 

 truth ; it has a claim to be heard and tested, even 

 though it be merely the fleeting inspiration of a moment. 

 Every man has a vote in the making of truth ; any man s 

 truth may be elected, any man s vote may decide the 

 election. But no man has a right to use force ; no man 

 has a right to impose his convictions on any other : 

 superior attractiveness alone effects conversions in the 

 conflict of opinions. Nor has any one a right to argue 

 that because he is right every one else must be wrong : 

 Truth is plural, and can adjust herself, like a rainbow. 



