Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 15.djvu/182

168 F. C. S. SCHILLER : question raised in that science. An irrelevant answer is justly treated as non-existent for that science, i.e. as, strictly, neither ' true ' nor ' false '. We observe, secondly, that every science has a definitely circumscribed subject-matter, a de- finite method of treating it, and a definitely articulated body of interpretations. Every science, in other words, forms a system of truths about some subject. But inas- much as every science is concerned with some aspect of our total experience, and no science deals with that whole under every aspect, it is clear that sciences arise by the limitation of subjects, the selection of standpoints, and the specialisation of methods. All these operations, however, are artificial, and in a sense arbitrary, and none of them can be conceived to come about except by the action of a purposing intelligence, it follows that the nature of the purpose which is pursued in a science will yield the deepest insight into its nature ; for what we want to know in the science will de- termine the questions we put, and their bearing on the ques- tions put will determine the standing of the answers we attain. If we can take the answers as relevant to our questions and conducive to our ends, they will yield ' truth ' ; if we cannot, ' falsehood '. Seeing thus that everywhere truth and falsehood depend on the purpose which constitutes the science and are be- stowed accordingly, we begin to perceive that the predicates ' true ' and ' false ' are not unrelated to ' good ' and ' bad '. For good and bad also have reference to purpose. ' Good ' is what conduces to, ' bad ' what thwarts, a purpose. And so it would seem that ' true ' and ' false ' were valuations, forms of the ' good '-or-' bad ' which indicates a reference to an end. Or, as Aristotle said long ago, in a passage the significance of which I am ashamed to have observed only quite recently, "in the case of the intelligence which k theoretical, and neither practical nor productive, its ' good ' and ' bad ' is ' truth ' and ' falsehood ' 'V Truth then, being a valuation, has reference to a purpose. What precisely that reference is will depend on the purpose, which may extend over the whole range of human interest. But it is only in its primary aspect, as valued by individuals, that the predication of ' truth ' will refer thus widely to any purpose any one may entertain in a cognitive operation. For it stands to reason that the power of constituting ' objective ' truth is not granted so easily. Society exercises 1 Eth. Nic., vi., 2, 3. Of. De Anim., iii., 7, 431, b 10, where it is stated that "the true and false are in the same class with the good and bad," i.e., are valuations.