And, in fact, there is quite a different theory which he seems plainly to have in his mind in other places. When Professor James says, "in the long run, of course," he implies that ideas which are expedient only for a short run, are very often not true. But in what he says elsewhere he asserts the very opposite of this. He says elsewhere that a belief is true "so long as to believe it is profitable to our lives" (p. 75). That is to say, a belief will be true, so long as it is useful, even if it is not useful in the long run! This is certainly quite a different theory; and, strictly speaking, it implies that an idea, which is useful even on one occasion, will be true. But perhaps this is only a verbal implication. I think very likely that here Professor James was only thinking of ideas, which can be said to have a run, though only a comparatively short one—of ideas, that is, which are expedient, not merely on one occasion, but for some time. That is to say, the theory which he now suggests, is that ideas, which occur again and again, perhaps to one man only, perhaps to several different people, over some space of time are, if they are expedient on most occasions within that space of time, true. This is a view which he is, I think, really anxious to assert; and if it were true, it would, I think, be important. And it is difficult to find instances which show, with certainty, that it is false. I believe that it is false; but it is difficult to prove it, because, in the case of some ideas it is so difficult to be certain that they ever were useful, and in the case of others so difficult to be certain that they are not true. A belief such as I spoke of before—the belief in eternal hell—is an instance. I think this belief has been, for a long time, useful, and that yet it is false. But it is, perhaps, arguable that it never has been useful; and many people on the other hand, would still assert that it is true. It cannot, therefore, perhaps, fairly be used as an instance of a belief, which is certainly not true, and yet has for some time been useful. But whether this view that all beliefs, which are expedient for some time, are true, be true or false; can it be all that Professor James means to assert? Can it constitute the whole of what interests him in his theory of truth?
I do not think it can. I think it is plain that he has in his mind something more than any of these alternatives, or than all of them taken together. And I think so partly for the following reason. He speaks from the outset as if he intended to tell us what distinguishes true ideas from those which are not true; to tell us, that is to say, not merely of some property which belongs to all our true ideas; nor yet merely of some property, which belongs to none but true ideas; but of some property which satisfies both these requirements at once—which both belongs to all our true ideas, and also belongs to none but true ones. Truth, he says to begin with, means the agreement of our ideas with reality; and he adds "as falsity their disagreement." And he explains that he is going to tell us what property it is that is meant by these words "agreement with reality." So again in the next passage which I quoted: "True ideas," he says "are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate and verify." But, he also adds, "False ideas are those that we cannot." And no one, I think, could possibly speak in this way, who had not in his head the intention of telling us what property it is which distinguishes true ideas from those which are not true, and which, therefore, not only belongs to all ideas which are true, but also to none that are not. And that he has this idea in his head and thinks that the property of being "useful" or "paying" is such a property, is again clearly shown by a later passage. "Our account of truth," he says (p. 218) "is an account of truths in the plural, of processes of leading, realised in rebus, and having only this quality in common, that they pay." Only this quality in common! If this be so, the quality must obviously be one, which is not shared by any ideas which are not true; for, if true ideas have any quality in common at all, they must have at least one such quality, which is not shared by those which are not true. Plainly, therefore, Professor James is intending to tell us of a property which belongs both to all true ideas and only to true ideas. And this property, he says, is that of "paying." But now let us suppose that he means by "paying," not "paying once at least," but, according to the alternative he suggests, "paying in the long run" or "paying for some time." Can he possibly have supposed that these were properties which belonged both to all true ideas and also to none but true ones? They may, perhaps, be properties which belong to none but true ones. I doubt, as I have said, whether the latter does; but still it is difficult to prove the opposite. But even if we granted that they belong to none but true ones, surely it is only too obvious that they do not fulfil the other requirement—that they do not belong to nearly all true ones. Can anyone suppose that all our true ideas pay "in the long run" or repeatedly for some time? Surely it is plain that an enormous number do not for the simple reason that an enormous number of them have no run at all, either long or short, but occur but once, and never recur. I believe truly that a certain book is on a particular shelf about 10.15 p.m. on December 21st, 1907; and this true belief serves me well and helps me to find it But the belief that that book is there at that particular time occurs to no one else, and never again to me. Surely there are thousands of useful true beliefs which, like this, are useful but once, and never occur again; and it would, therefore, be preposterous to say that every true idea is useful "in the long run" or repeatedly for some time. If, therefore, we supposed Professor James to mean that "paying in the long run" or "paying repeatedly over a considerable period" were properties which belonged to all true ideas and to none but true ones, we should be supposing him to mean something still more monstrous than if we suppose him to mean that "paying at least once" was such a property.
To sum up then:
I think there is no doubt that Professor James' interest in "the pragmatist theory of truth" is largely due to the fact that he thinks it tells us what distinguishes true ideas from those which are not true. And he thinks the distinction is that true ideas "pay," and false ones don't. The most natural interpretation of this view is: That every true idea pays at least once; and that every idea, which pays at least once, is true. These were the propositions I considered first, and I gave reasons for thinking that both are false. But Professor James suggested elsewhere that what he means by "paying" is "paying in the long run." And here it seems possibly true that all ideas which "pay in the long run" are true; but it is certainly false that all our true ideas "pay in the long run," if by this be meant anything more than "pay at least once." Again, he suggested that what he meant by paying was "paying for some time." And here, again, even if it is true (and it seems very doubtful) that all ideas which pay for some time are true, it is certainly false that all our true ideas pay for some time, if by this be meant anything more than that they pay "at least once."
This, I think, is the simplest and most obvious objection to Professor James' "instrumental" view of truth—the view that truth is what "works," "pays," is "useful." He seems certainly to have in his mind the idea that this theory tells us what distinguishes true ideas from false ones, and to be interested in it mainly for this reason. He has vaguely in his mind that he has told us of some property which belongs to all true ideas and to none but true ones; and that this property is that of "paying." And the objection is, that, whatever we understand by "paying," whether "paying at least once," or "paying in the long run," or "paying for some time," it seems certain that none of these properties will satisfy both requirements. As regards the first, that of "paying at least once," it seems almost certain that it satisfies neither: it is neither true that all our true ideas "pay at least once," nor yet that every idea which pays at least once, is true. On the contrary, many true ideas never pay at all; and many ideas, which are not true, do pay on at least one occasion. And as regards the others, "paying in the long run" and "paying for some time," even if these do belong to none but true ideas (and even this seems very doubtful), they certainly neither of them satisfy the other requirement—neither of them belong to all our true ideas. For, in order that either of them may belong to an idea, that idea must pay at least once; and, as we have seen, many true ideas do not pay even once, and cannot, therefore, pay either in the long run or for some time. And, moreover, many true ideas, which do pay on one occasion, seem to pay on one occasion and one only.
And, if Professor James does not mean to assert any of these things, what is there left for him to mean? There is left in the first place, the theory that most of our true ideas do pay; and that most of the ideas which pay are true. This seems to me to be true, and, indeed, to be all that is certainly true in what he says. But is it conceivable that this is all he has meant? Obviously, these assertions tell us of no property at all which belongs to all true ideas, and to none but true ones; and, moreover, it seems impossible that he should have been so anxious to assert this generally admitted commonplace. What a very different complexion his whole discussion would have worn, had he merely asserted this—this quite clearly, and nothing but this, while admitting openly that many true ideas do not pay, and that many, which do pay, are not true!
And, besides this commonplace, there is only left for him to mean two one-sided and doubtful assertions to the effect that certain properties belong to none but true ideas. There is the assertion that all ideas which pay in the long run are true, and the assertion that all ideas which pay for some considerable time are true. And as to the first, it may be true; but it may also be doubted, and Professor James gives us no reason at all for thinking that it is true. Assuming that religious ideas have been useful in the past, is it quite certain that they may not permanently continue to be useful, even though they are false? That, in short, even though they are not true, they nevertheless will be useful, not only for a time, but in the long run? And as for the assertion that all ideas, which pay for a considerable time, are true, this is obviously more doubtful still. Whether certain religious ideas will or will not be useful in the long run, it seems difficult to doubt that many of them have been useful for a considerable time. And why should we be told dogmatically that all of these are true? This, it seems to me, is by far the most interesting assertion, which is left for Professor James to make, when we have rejected the theory that the property of being useful belongs to all true ideas, as well as to none but true ones. But he has given no reason for asserting it. He seems, in fact, to base it merely upon the general untenable theory, that utility belongs to all true ideas, and to none but true ones; that this is what truth means.
These, then, seem to me the plainest and most obvious objections to what Professor James says about the connection between truth and utility. And there are only two further points, in what he says under this head, that I wish to notice.
In the first place, we have hitherto been considering only whether it is true, as a matter of empirical fact, that all our true ideas are useful, and those which are not true, never. Professor James seems, at least, to mean that, as a matter of fact, this is so; and I have only urged hitherto that as a matter of fact, it is not so. But as we have seen, he also asserts something more than this—he also asserts that this property of utility is the only one which belongs to all our true ideas. And this further assertion cannot possibly be true, if, as I have urged, there are many true ideas which do not possess this property; or if, as I have urged, many ideas, which do possess it, are nevertheless not true. The objections already considered are, then, sufficient to overthrow this further assertion also. If there are any true ideas, which are not useful, or if any, which are useful, are not true, it cannot be the case that utility is the only property which true ideas have in common. There must be some property, other than utility, which is common to all true ideas; and a correct theory as to what property it is that does belong to all true ideas, and to none but true ones, is still to seek. The empirical objections, hitherto given, are then sufficient objections to this further assertion also; but they are not the only objections to it. There is another and still more serious objection to the assertion that utility is the only property which all true ideas have in common. For this assertion does not merely imply that, as a matter of fact, all our true ideas and none but true ideas are useful. It does, indeed, imply this; and therefore the fact that these empirical assertions are not true is sufficient to refute it. But it also implies something more. If utility were the only property which all true ideas had in common, it would follow not merely that all true ideas are useful, but also that any idea, which was useful, would be true no matter what other properties it might have or might fail to have. There can, I think, be no doubt that Professor James does frequently speak as if this were the case; and there is an independent and still more serious objection to this implication. Even if it were true (as it is not) that all our true ideas and none but true ideas are, as a matter of fact, useful, we should still have a strong reason to object to the statement that any idea, which was useful, would be true. For it implies that if such an idea as mine, that Professor James exists, and has certain thoughts, were useful, this idea would be true, even if no such person as Professor James ever did exist. It implies that, if the idea that I had the seven of diamonds in my hand at cards last night, were useful, this idea would be true, even if, in fact, I did not have that card in my hand. And we can, I think, see quite plainly that this is not the case. With regard to some kinds of ideas, at all events—ideas with regard to the existence of other people, or with regard to past experiences of our own—it seems quite plain that they would not be true, unless they "agreed with reality" in some other sense than that which Professor James declares to be the only one in which true ideas must agree with it. Even if my idea that Professor James exists were to "agree with reality," in the sense that, owing to it, I handled other realities better than I should have done without it, it would, I think, plainly not be true, unless Professor James really did exist—unless he were a reality. And this, I think, is one of the two most serious objections to what he seems to hold about the connection of truth with utility. He seems to hold that any idea, which was useful, would be true, no matter what other properties it might fail to have. And with regard to some ideas, at all events, it seems plain that they cannot be true, unless they have the property that what they believe to exist, really does or did exist. Beliefs in the existence of other people might be useful to me, even if I alone existed; but, nevertheless, in such a case, they would not be true.