Tests of Truth in the External World 251 



latter abridged to the 'test of fact'). These two functions 

 of selection work together. The tests of habit, the intra- 

 organic tests, represent an organization or systematic deter- 

 mination of the things already guaranteed by the tests of 

 fact ; and, on the other hand, things which are not assimi- 

 lable to the life of habit cannot come to be established as 

 intelligible facts. The great difference between the two 

 tests is that that of habit is less exacting ; for after a 

 datum has passed the gantlet of habit — or several alter- 

 native data have together passed it — it must still compete 

 for survival in the domain of fact. 



What, then, do we finally mean by truth in the sphere 

 of external knowledge ? This, I think : a truth in nature 

 is just something selected by the test of fact (after having 

 passed the gantlet of habit, of course), and then so passed 

 back into the domain of habit that it forms part of that 

 organization which shows the ' systematic determination ' 

 of the thinker. What the word ' truth ' adds to the word 

 *fact' is only that a truth is a presentative datum of the 

 intra-organic system which has stood the test of fact and 

 can stand it again. A truth is an item of content which 

 is expected, when issuing in movement, to ' work ' under 

 the exactions of fact. We speak of a correspondence be- 

 tween the idea and the fact as constituting truth ; and so 

 it does. But we should see that a truth is not selected 

 because it is true ; it is true because it has been selected^ and 

 that in both of two ways : first, by fulfilling habit, and 

 second, by revealing fact. There is no question of truth 

 until both these selective functions have been operative. 

 This is to say, from the point of view of motor develop- 

 ment, that accommodation always takes place from a 

 platform of habit, and that in the case of the external 



