372 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



By what process is ground won from the metapsychic ? How is the 

 threshold of consciousness overstepped? The mind is a stage, upon 

 which the actors come, and from which they go. Whence are they, and 

 whither do they depart? We can describe in terms of science the ac- 

 companying phenomena, but the thing itself evades us. What wonder 

 that mankind has always believed in supernatural, that is, meta- 

 psychical agencies ! 



Eeality is a poor word for the totality of being, because it implies to- 

 us realizableness. It is only justifiable on the ground just stated, by 

 postulating a being able to know the whole of it. Nevertheless, the 

 practical thing for us is to recognize the continuity of the known into 

 the unknown, without asking what the limits of the latter may be, sup- 

 posing it to have any. 



What is truth? Endless confusion has arisen from the double 

 meaning which has been given to this word. There is practical truth, 

 and abstract truth. The scientific man adheres to the former, the 

 philosopher may talk about the latter. 



Science tests things and finds them true, and is only willing to de- 

 clare them so after examination. Truth then, is the objective side of 

 knowledge, and without knowledge in this sense, there can be no truth. 

 It would conduce to clearness, could we so restrict the meaning of the 

 word, and I believe that in so doing we should have some support from 

 ancient usage. Otherwise, how could we speak of a fact verified, made 

 true, if the making true were not a process of the human mind, opera- 

 ting on preexisting reality? 



This would leave us with abstract reality, metaphysical and meta- 

 psychical reality, but no abstract truth. Truth would be concrete, ob- 

 jective, scientific, something to tie to and act upon. Hence, said Will- 

 iam James : " True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, 

 corroborate and verify," but he added something to which one need not 

 subscribe, namely, " False ideas are those which we can not/' This last 

 postulate would make all ideas false which are incapable of verification, 

 surely an absurd use of the word false. I would rather say that false 

 ideas are those which, having been put through legitimate tests for 

 verification, have failed to pass the examination. False ideas, then, are 

 those which we have tested and could not then verify. Of those which 

 we can not test, or have not tested, it is impossible to say whether 

 they are false or not. Thus we are left with three categories, 

 the true, the false and the candidates for admission into the first group, 

 liable to find themselves ultimately in the second. 



The power of verification is apperceptive; we are reminded of 

 Ehrlich's chain-theory to explain certain aspects of proteid metabolism. 

 There must have been an Adam and Eve of knowledge, when two sensa- 

 tions first joined together as the charter members of the society for con- 



