B 



THE STABILITY OF TRUTH (1911) 

 (Extracts from Chapter /) 



THE purpose of this book is to set forth the doctrine that the 

 final test of truth is found in trusting our lives to it. Truth is 

 livable, while error is not, and the difference appears through 

 the strain of the conduct of life. The primal impulse as well as 

 the final purpose of science is the conduct of life. Science cannot 

 grasp ultimate truths that is, it cannot grasp any truth in final 

 or absolute completeness. But science may deal with certain 

 relations of truth and certain phases of reality, and may state 

 these in terms of previous human experience. Such versions or 

 transcripts of reality are truth, and represent actual verity so 

 far as they go. 



Incidentally I assert (a) that pure science cannot be separated 

 from applied science knowledge in action in which science 

 finds its verification, (b) that philosophy the logic or mathe- 

 matics of human experience is an outgrowth of science, 

 and (c) that in all matters concerning human conduct science 

 furnishes the final guide or, at least, that any guide to thought 

 and action which has proved to be safe becomes by that fact 

 a part of science. Thus right action is the final purpose of 

 science, and in like fashion and in the same degree the ac- 

 quisition of truth is the crowning glory of human endeavor. . . . 



(In opposition to those who regard all knowledge as merely 

 subjective, I claim in the name of science) that there exists a 

 parallelism or correlation between the actual character of 

 objects in nature, and the impressions these objects make on 

 the nervous system of man and the other animals. This impres- 

 sion is not the thing itself, but object and impression run the 

 same course. One is the inevitable effect of the other, as im- 

 pressed on human consciousness. . . . 



Men and animals are guided by their own realities. They 

 live by truth. That they move safely implies safe guidance, the 

 power to "size up the situation" about them with substantial 

 accuracy, so far as it concerns themselves; were it not so, no race 

 could ever have maintained itself. The sense organs of every 

 animal are so constructed that realities are adequate to needs. 



C787 II 



