THE TEST OF TRUTH 



that intercourse, must be necessarily true, not 

 because they are independent of experience, but 

 because they are the only complete unqualified 

 expression of it. Here then on the ruins of the 

 Kantian hypothesis, we may erect a canon of 

 truth, as follows : — 



A necessary truth is one that is expressed in 

 a proposition of which the negation is incon- 

 ceivable, after all disturbing conditions have 

 been eliminated. 



A proposition of which the negation is incon- 

 ceivable is necessarily true in relation to human 

 intelligence. 



This test of inconceivability is the only ulti- 

 mate test of truth which philosophy can accept 

 as valid. 



Thus the uniformity-test of Hume and the 

 inconceivability-test of Kant are fused together 

 in a deeper synthesis — the deepest which phi- 

 losophy can reach. As Mr. Spencer forcibly 

 states it : " Conceding the entire truth of the 

 position that, during any phase of human pro- 

 gress, the ability or inability to form a specific 

 conception wholly depends on the experience 

 men have had ; and that, by a widening of their 

 experiences, they may by and by be enabled 

 to conceive things before inconceivable to them ; 

 it may still be argued, that as at any time the 

 best warrant men can have for a belief is the 

 perfect agreement of all preexisting experience 



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