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The criterion of utility in its relation

to truth is capable of two interpretations : either as meaning (a)

that the utility of a judgment or belief is its truth, so that truth

would not be conformity of the judgment or belief with things

or reality, but its conformity or harmony with the progress or

TirnoR y OF KNO WLR

development of human life or existence in all its amplitude ; or as

meaning (If) that the utility of the judgment or belief is not

identically the truth of this belief, but is only a criterion or sign

or index revealing and vindicating the truth of the belief, the

truth of this being still its conformity with reality. This latter

meaning would then leave two alternatives : either that the con

formity of the belief with things, i.e. its truth, remains unknow

able, or that it can be known.

Moreover, understood as a criterion, utility might be proposed

as a universal criterion, so that no human judgment of any kind

or on any subject could be accepted as true unless it passed this

test ; or as a partial criterion, i.e. a criterion to be used for some

particular domain of human beliefs, e.g. for general doctrines or

systems that have a direct bearing on human conduct by reason

of their affirmation or denial of God, freedom, immortality, moral

duty, etc.

Then, again, utility propounded as a criterion of truth may

be either individual or social. For utility is a relative term, in

telligible only in relation to an end, to the attainment of a good.

And by the social or general good will be meant the realization

of the supreme perfection or ultimate end of human existence

generally, whatever this may be, and everything that really con

tributes thereto.

Finally, the criterion of utility is a test that is understood

not to be applicable to any judgment or belief a priori > but only

a posteriori, i.e. by actual experience of the success or otherwise

of the belief, of Jiow it works out in practice.

In the light of these distinctions we can now formulate our

third main argument against Pragmatism.

III. We do not deny that the practical issues of a belief can

create a presumption for or against its truth, that the " fruits " of

a doctrine can be even a criterion, a subsidiary test, of its truth

or falsity, i.e. its practical fruits : for of course if speculatively

false conclusions follow logically from any doctrine as antece

dent, this is a certain index that the doctrine is false. 1 But in

some measure the truth or otherwise of doctrines that have or

ought to have a bearing on human conduct can be judged by

their moral consequences. Let us see how, and how far.

Firstly, man ought to find in his fundamental beliefs, in his

"philosophy of life," his general "world-outlook " or " Wcltan-

J Cf. Science of Logic, i., pp. 296-7 ; il., p. 313.

PRAGMATISM 361

schauung" principles whereby to guide and direct his conduct : all

philosophy should embody an Ethic or practical philosophy, a

philosophy of conduct. Hence if any philosophy contains no

directive principles, throws no light on the problem of conduct

(e.g. Scepticism ; Agnosticism), or contains ethical principles the

application of which would do violence to man s moral nature,

subvert the whole moral order and lead to moral chaos, e.g. by

opening the way to murder, suicide, fraud, injustice, sexual im

morality, etc. (as would Atheism ; Materialism ; Evolutionism or

the survival of the fittest, meaning the strongest, with the Nietz-

schean corollary that Might is Right, etc.), such philosophy

cannot be sound or true but must have something rotten in it

Yet, obviously, the test is not ultimate, for it assumes that we

know (otherwise and independently) what kind of conduct is right,

and what kind is criminal : which implies knowledge of the real

nature, destiny, and end of man.

Hence, secondly, it yields only a presumption, or a practical

confirmation, of the truth or falsity of doctrines. The moral issues

of a system, therefore, should arouse inquiry, stimulate reflection,

and urge us to verify by speculative investigation the conclusion

they suggest to us regarding the truth or falsity of the system.

Thirdly, when the moral issues of a philosophy are perverse,

noxious, disastrous, scholastics use thus " argumentum ex consec-

tariis" this discerning of systems by their fruits: " ex fructibus

eorum cognoscetis eos" as a negative, indirect and confirmatory ar

gument in refutation of such systems. It is an argument which

can have much force and can make a strong and effective appeal

to right-minded people. But for grounding human certitude it can

never be ultimate.

Pragmatism, however, goes much farther than all this, for (a]

it identifies the truth of a judgment or belief with its utility ; (b)

it denies that truth in the sense of conformity of the judgment

with reality is intellectually attainable ; (c) it holds that the only

and universal test of the truth of a judgment, i.e. of its real con

formity or harmony with the veritable needs of human life and

existence, is to be found by living it, by experiencing how it

works, whether it succeeds by being assimilated, incorporated in

the progressive current of human existence, or fails by being

rejected and eliminated from among the beliefs that are found

really helpful and beneficent. Against all of which we assert

that experienced utility is neither identical with truth, nor is it

362 THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE

the only or the adequate test of truth, nor is the Pragmatist applica

tion of it any more than a misleading evasion of the real problem

as to the ultimate ground and motive of human certitude.

What do Pragmatists mean by the utility of a belief, its

suitability, its working-value > its success, the character of its

practical issues, its harmony with the process and purpose of human

existence?^- We are told that a belief or judgment is true if it

verifies or realizes what those and other similar expressions im

ply. But what do they imply? They are all relative to an end.

They are all unintelligible unless in reference to an end, and

to a known end, to something certainly known to be an end, a

good, a perfection, a something really worthy of attainment. A

belief is true if it proves useful, suitable, workable, successful.

But useful, etc., for what? For helping, developing, enlarging,

perfecting human life and existence generally? But what is the

end or object or aim of human existence ? Until I know this

how am I to know whether the "actual working" of a belief is

good or bad, successful or unsuccessful ? How am I to judge

of a means unless and until I know the nature of the end to

which it is a means? And how can I discover the supreme,

essential end or perfection of human nature, and the veritable

goal of human existence, unless by the use of my intellect or reason

on the data of experience. But there we are back into the " in-

tellectualism," and " metaphysics " which it was the raison d etre

of Pragmatism to demolish.

Apparently any doctrine that is widely received, and which

therefore " works," at least in the measure in which it is received

and "lived" by mankind, be it Agnosticism, Atheism,

Materialism, Hedonism, or what not, is trite in that same

measure, inasmuch as in that measure it is actually assimilated

into the current or process of human existence : as the " corridor-

theory " explicitly admits. But if that be so, then, and this is

1 While admitting the difficulty from the very nature of the theory which

Pragmatists must feel in attaining to a clearly conceived and clearly expressed

presentation of their views (which is partly a task for the poor, belittled, deriva

tive evolution-product which is the intellect!); and while admitting and admiring

the felicity of expression with which many of their writers, especially the late W.

James, can charm their readers, we can understand the chorus of complaint that

has arisen about the vagueness and obscurity of the pragmatist teaching. According

to M. A. O. LOVEJOY, Pragmatism is a " Protean entity," of which he enumerates

no less than thirteen distinct forms ! Cf. PKRK BLANCHE, Rev. des Sc. phil . ct tJuol.,

igog, p. 97, quoted by JKANNIKRK, op. cit., p. 286, n. ; also Journal of Pliilos.,

Psychol. and Scient. Metli., 1909, pp. 5-12; 29-39, -ibid.

PRAGMATISM 363

possibly the underlying thought in the minds of pragmatists,

the actual process of human life or existence, as it goes on in

time and space, is its own end. But this, too, is an intellectual

thesis ; and, what is more, it is one the truth or falsity of which

obviously cannot be tested by the Fragmatist criterion. So, then,

Pragmatism has postulates which escape its net and must be

sifted by the reflecting intellect.

Or is it that not all the actual phases or currents in the flow

of human existence are useful or beneficial thereto, that some

do not make for its perfection, that not all change is evohttion, i.e.

progress or movement towards the good, towards perfection ?

But this implies that, at any particular stage, the life-process

as it actually goes on is not an end in itself, but a tendency or

movement towards some ulterior good. Perhaps, however, this

ulterior good consists in the indefinite progress, development,

evolution of life itself into ever greater largeness and fullness

of expression? But the very concept of evolution, progress,

development, implies the concept of a good, towards which the

movement is. If there is indefinite movement or change with no

purpose or goal beyond itself, the distinction between evolution

and devolution, progression and retrogression, amelioration and

deterioration, simply disappears as unmeaning and unintelligible

for want of a goal or term as standard by which to determine

what change is progress and what change is decay. Hence the

pragmatist criterion of the experienced success of a belief "in help

ing, developing, forwarding, enlarging, perfecting human exist

ence, will not itself " work," and cannot itself even begin to be

applied, until we know whether human life has a purpose, whether

there is a good towards which it moves, and what this good is :

for only then can we judge what movements, what conduct, what

beliefs, tend to develop and perfect life, and what ones tend in

the opposite direction. But how can we know these things ?

Only by intellect, if at all. They are some of the problems of

metaphysics ; and their solution is a " piece of amusement " * in

which pragmatists might profitably indulge.

Again: if it is only by the actuah " living " of a belief that

men generally can discover its "truth" by assimilating it with

their " vital experience," or its " falsity " by rejecting or eliminat

ing it from their "vital experience" ; if its truth or falsity con

sists in the relation it gets to " vital experience " through this

1 Cf. supra, p. 353, n. 3.

364 THEOR V OF KNO PLEDGE

alternative process, and is always relative to the actual stage of

human progress at which this sifting process is going on ; and if

also the whole general human movement, or the whole cosmic

movement, with which all human vital experience, intellectual

or intuitional, is one and continuous, 1 be the whole of (the ever-

evolving) reality, and be an end in itself, does it not follow that

all beliefs, while entertained by any one and in any degree oper

ative, are eo ipso true ? And moreover, do not these questions

inevitably arise : Are not all beliefs and all conduct equally

right or equally wrong? Is it not that whatever is, is right? or

rather that right and wrong become unintelligible ? Is man

really responsible and free? or is the process of perpetual

change, or "fieri" in which reality is supposed to consist, subject

to a rigid and blind determinism ? Once more, these are all

questions for which we must find an answer before the test pro

posed by pragmatists can be intelligently reduced to practice.

They are questions which the Pragmatist test cannot decide, and

which must be decided, if at all, by intellect interpreting the

data of experience.

Finally, if we apply to beliefs the test of success, of harmoniz

ing or not harmonizing with the progressive development of our

human activity, it must be remembered that no small department

of that activity is intellectual ; and, what is more, that intellect

exercises and that as rational beings we should not try to pre

vent it, and cannot succeed even if we try to prevent it, from ex

ercising a supreme suzerainty over all other domains of mental

life and action. If a belief cannot be " assimilated " or "lived "

because it is intellectually incompatible with some already ac

cepted belief, is this failure a practical issue which determines

the falsity of the former belief? If so, and the pragmatist can

not consistently deny it, the whole intellectual domain becomes

practical, and the intellectual failure of any belief becomes the

index of its falsity. But the intellectual failure of a belief to im

pose itself arises from its apprehended incompatibility with other

judgments known to be true, or from its opposition to the ob

jective evidence of the data of experience, or from its want of

adequate objective grounds for intellectual assent. The Prag

matist test, therefore, as applied to the domain of intellectual

needs and functions and interests, becomes the test demanded

by intellectualism, vis. objective evidence. Now there is an

1 Cf. BHRGSON, passim.

PRAGMATISM 365

exceedingly wide department of human judgments, belief in

which can have no other human interest to test them than this

purely intellectual kind of success or failure : all purely specula

tive judgments the knowledge of which can have no other cause

than man s intellectual desire for knowledge, and no other

practical effect or interest (by which to test " how they work ")

than the satisfaction of this natural cupiditas sciendi. And if,

further, intellect will nolens volens assert its supremacy over all

our beliefs, and its right to judge all their sources and motives,

then the intellectual test of objective evidence must remain

supreme and ultimate.

Will the pragmatist meet all the considerations we have been so far

urging against his position by the rejoinder that even though they may be

intellectually unanswerable, still, being dictated by speculative intellectual re

flection, they do not and cannot effectually assail a theory of certitude such

as his, a theory which teaches that certitude can neither be vindicated nor

destroyed by any effort of the intellect ; that it is not a matter for the intellect

at all ; that truth and knowledge and belief and certitude are things that can

be appreciated and tested only by " living " them, by feeling and experienc

ing how they work, and not at all by intellect speculatively discussing or ex

ploring or disputing about them ? Well, if he does we must leave him so.

For of course there can be no discussion with one who appeals from reason.

But we cannot keep remembering, and neither can the pragmatist, that in

putting forward his theory as a philosophical theory, he himself has battled

for its acceptance not merely by eloquent and persuasive appeals to the feel

ings and emotions, the will and the sentiments, and all the affective chords of

the human heart, but by reasoned and logical appeals to the human intel

lect, and by free recourse to the armoury of a keen dialectic, in the hope of

not merely persuading but convincing. Moreover, a philosophical theory

must be a reasoned theory : at least in the sense that it must show grounds

which the human intelligence will pronounce to be reasonably adequate for

its credibility, for its acceptance by intelligent beings. We take it, therefore,

that the pragmatist will allow t u at his theory is open to the influence of such

criticisms as have just been set forth.

And when, finally, we consider the gravity of the issues at stake, the

foundations of the intellectual, moral and religious life of man, we cannot

help thinking that the anti-intellectualist attitude, which is that of Pragmatism

in common with the other subjectivist theories, voluntarist and sentiment

alist, suggests an extremely imprudent decision to the inquiring mind. For

it says, in effect : " You can t find out anything for certain about the reality of

things. You need not attempt the task of exploring them intellectually, by

rational reflection : such a task would be futile, would be labour in vain.

Rather trust your own instincts, follow your own feelings, obey your own

mental impulses and inclinations, hearken to your own aspirations and

yearnings, be faithful to what you feel to be the true and the good and the

right, conscious that you cannot really know for certain what these are, and

366 THEOR V OF KNO WLEDGE

resigned to your inevitable limitations. Even against this counsel, your

troublesome reflecting reason may raise reasons that seem to forbid your

following it. But, then, reason has no sure course itself to point out to you,

no counsel to offer against which it will not itself raise similar reasons. What

then ? // faut vivrc. You must decide, you cannot live without deciding.

So take the counsel I offer you." And this is the advice of the philosopher,

the expert, to the untrained inquirer. The latter might possibly have the

courage or the curiosity to ask : " How do you know that reason cannot

find out for certain what things really are, and what is the right course?"

But the chances are that he will rather say: " You ought to know ; I will

follow your advice". And the advice given is wrong. How much more

momentous and disastrous are the effects likely to be than in this roughly

parallel case from the physical order ? A grown-up person offers a draught

to a thirsty child and says : " Drink this, you are thirsty. It is the only

drink available. I do not know and I cannotifind out what exactly it is ; nor

do I know but it may possibly disagree with you. However, you are very

thirsty : you must have something to drink ; so you may as well chance it if

you find it agreeable. Taste it." And the thirsty child tastes, finds it agree

able, drinks it off. And the draught was poison.