Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 15.djvu/186

172 F. C. S. SCHILLER : complaining that a truth capable of being improved on, i.e. capable of growing, is so far not absolutely true and therefore somewhat false, and worthy of contempt. For such com- plaints spring from an arbitrary interpretation of a situation that might more sensibly be envisaged as meaning that none of the falsehoods, out of which our knowledge struggles in its growth, is ever wholly false. But in actual knowing we are not concerned with such arbitrary phrases, but with the bear- ing of an answer on a question actually propounded. And whatever really answers is really ' true,' even though it may at once be turned into a stepping-stone to higher truth. 1 V. We now find ourselves in a position to lay down some pragmatic definitions. Truth we may define as logical value, and a claim to truth as a claim to possess such value. The validation of such claims proceeds, we hold, by the pragmatic test, i.e., by experience of their effect upon the bodies of established truth which they affect. It is evident that in this sense truth will admit of degrees, extending from the humble truth which satisfies some purpose, even though it only be the lowly purpose of some subordinate end, to that ineffable ideal which would satisfy every purpose and unify all endeavours. But the main emphasis will clearly fall on the former : for to perfect truth we do not yet attain, and after all even the humblest truth may hold its ground with- 1 If therefore we realise that we are concerned with human truth alone there is nothing paradoxical in affirmatively answering Prof. A. E. Taylor's question (Phil. Rev., xiv., 268) as to whether " the truth of a newly discovered theorem is created by the fact of its discovery ". He asks " did the doctrine of the earth's motion become true when enunciated by the Pythagoreans, false again when men forgot the Pythagorean astronomy, and true a second time on the publication of the book of Copernicus ? " If we grant (what is, I suppose, the case) that the Pytha- gorean, Ptolemaic and Copernican systems represent stages in a progres- sive approximation to an adequate account of celestial motions, it is clear that each of them was esteemed ' true ' while it seemed adequate, and became ' false ' when it was improved on. A very slight improve- ment, moreover, might occasion such a change in valuation. Prof. Taylor has failed to observe that he has conceived the scientific problem too loosely in grouping together the Pythagorean and the Copernican theory as alike cases of the earth's motion. No doubt they may both be so denominated, but the scientific value of the two theories was very differ- ent, and the Ptolemaic system is intermediate in value as well as in time. He might just as well have argued that the emission theory of light was true all along because the discovery of radioactivity has forced its un- dulatory rival to admit that light is sometimes produced by the impact of corpuscles. Perhaps also the pragmatic doctrine has given him offence because he has mistakenly conceived the waking of truth as a crtation. But it should by this time be unnecessary to point out that truth is not made out of nothing but out of earlier ' truth,' and that the notion of a creation out of nothing is pseudo-theological.