Essays in Rationalism

by Charles Robert Newman

The above are examples of the criterion of truth, applied to the ideas and proceedings of ordinary life. It will be seen therefrom, first that mankind have in all ages been educated in an acceptance of its principle, according to my definition of it, the principle, namely, of an indubitable certainty of truth, resulting from the unanimous assent to some idea of all who are thought by self and neighbors competent to pronounce thereon; possibly too they may be said to have been educated in some imperfect theoretical appreciation of this principle.

It will secondly be seen therefrom, that the two kinds of unanimity which I have predicated as essential to the proper use and results of this criterion, an unanimity, namely, on the part of the supposed good judges of certain descriptions of truth, who may be called the adepts or knowing ones imagined by the public; and again an unanimity on the part of the public itself in interpreting and adopting their opinion; it will be seen, I say, that this double unanimity is perfectly attainable, nay, perfectly attained, and that too so extensively, as to constitute a common and familiar occurrence on all manner of occasions of daily life.

I will now give instances of their similar use of it in directing their judgments on philosophical questions.

3. Very few of the public are able to examine the proof of any of the theorems of Euclid, yet there is none of them who would think of seriously doubting the truth of anything contained in that book, the ground of their confidence being solely their knowledge of the fact, that the learned in these matters have unanimously so decided.

Every one, again, believes in certain facts that are asserted by navigators, explorers, and geographers, respecting the existence, position, and products of various countries of the globe. Every one, further, believes in certain deductions derived from these facts by naturalists, geologists, astronomers, and so forth. The belief is owing to the unanimous testimony of all these confessedly competent authorities; but whenever they are seen to differ among themselves, the public withholds its entire belief, and either doubts or disbelieves the things asserted. Thus the public is at this day doubtful and divided whether there is such a creature as the sea-serpent. Similarly the public is dubious—for it must needs be so if any section of it is so—whether a certain explorer who was authoritatively sent out about a dozen years ago conjointly by the French Government and Institute, was, in any degree, justified in bringing home the account he did of there being a tribe of men in the interior of Africa having tails, whether this unexpected information is, in any important particular, true.

The two last examples have been furnished by material science. I will now draw one from the other department, with the view of indicating that in non-material science also, numerous propositions circulate among the public that are franked by the same principle to pass as undoubted truth. Such is the maxim of heathen philosophy, recorded by Cicero in his “Officiis”: “Do not to another what you would not he should do to you”; or the same maxim, in its modified form, as given in the New Testament, with the characteristic omission of the negative. The truth of this moral maxim is universally admitted, because it is supposed that no person of presumable moral judgment has ever been known to call it in question.

It would seem, then, that this criterion of truth is—what confessedly, or from easy proof, it is predicable that no other criterion of truth is—a general criterion of truth. I will, however, restrict this pretension to the statement—to be hereafter more largely explained—that it is a general criterion of truth to the public as such, to the public considered as a public; for, indeed, it is not properly usable at all by anyone except in the character of a member of the public. This means that it is a general criterion of truth in the following way: it is applicable to the verification of all truth, so far as it admits of being verified before the public, and made the common property of the community.

6. For even where at first sight you might think it most out of place, I mean in relation to that kind of truth whose primary evidence is the consciousness of the individual, so that the competent witness of truth is necessarily but one person, there is oneness of opinion, there is unanimity, and the testimony of the one competent witness is not contradicted or doubted by that of any other presumably competent. When, for instance, I am conscious of the sensation of seeing an inkstand before me, no one seeing reason to doubt my assertion to that effect, all presumably competent testimony on the subject must needs be concentrated in myself; and the fact of my seeing an inkstand, though for my own conviction verified in a way independent of any such argument, is, for the conviction of others, only pronounceable as true, because all presumably competent authority is of one mind in alleging its truth.

In thus far exemplifying the use of this principle, I have exhibited it in the exercise of its primary office only, which, however, is not that which, on behalf of philosophy, I am here demanding from it. I have shown it, namely, as used by the public to establish truth positively, and not in the way wherein it may be used to distinguish truth comparatively.

But it is solely in this latter office that it becomes a criterion of truth, an arbiter between the true and the false, an indicator of both, and more especially of what has the character of ascertained truth, and what has not; and this, it will be remembered, was the office I sought from it, and constituted the ultimate purpose of my taking up the consideration of the subject.