bmcn, tlrtc rk Pk,c1.:.lc&rcc-ti4i(l S o-c. 19S l TRUTH sttement s reltion to predicted experiences; the correspondence theory focuses on sttement s reltion to fcts; nd the coherence theory focuses on sttement s reltion to oilier sttements. Perhps, in the end, there no single reltion of sttement which qulifies it s true. Perhps the more of these three possible reltions sttement hs, the more confident we cn be of its truthfulness, nd the fewer it hs, the less confident we cn be. As you red the following selections, see if you cn endorse one of the three clssicl positions, or perhps formulte your own more dequte theory of truth. The Prgmtic Theory Willim Jmes Willim Jmes (1842 191) ws one of the boldest thinkers Americ hs produced. H erly spirtions were to become n rtt, but he chose medicine insted, obtining medicl degree from Hrvrd in 1869. Brnching out from medicine, he turned first to physiology nd then to psychology. H book The Principles of Psychology ws publhed in 189, nd for decdes ws the definitive text. From psychology Jmes moved next into the study of religious experience nd philosophy. During th period he produced such msterpieces s The rieties of Religious Experience (19 nd Prgmtm (197). Throughout h creer h work ws chrcterized by vitlity nd intensity which bring theory into close connection with life. n the following clssic essy, Jmes describes the prgmtic theory of truth. Although he defines truth in severl different wys, the most populr one truth s tht which works. Jmes suggests tht sttements, or beliefs, ber implicit or explicit predictions bout wht will follow if one cts upon them. When, if one cts upon sttement, the predicted consequences ctully follow, the sttement s true; if they do not, it flse. Jmes s critics climed tht h endorsing beliefs tht were doubtfully, if t ll, subject to fctul confirmtion in the usul wy, such s belief in God, ment tht works reducible to whtever produces personl stfction. Jmes protested, but with little pprent impct. As you red Jmes, try to determine wht he mens by truth s tht which works. Does he endorse holding belief which mkes one feel good in the bsence of confirming evidence, or in the presence of dcon firming evidence? Also, py ttention to h references to the copy theory of truth, nd h explntion s to why the prgmtic theory supposedly superior. Truth, s ny dictionry will tell you, property of certin of our ides. t mens their greement, s flsity mens their dgreement, with relity. Prgmtts nd intellectults both ccept th definition s mtter of course, They begin to qurrel only fter the question red s to wht my precely in 178 KNOWLEDGE be ment by the term relity, when relity tken s something for our ides to gree with. n nswering these questions the prgmtts re more nlytic nd pinstking, the intellectults more offhnd nd irrelleetive. The populr notion tht true ide must copy its relity. Like other populr views, th one follows the nlogy of the most usul experience. Our true ides of sensible things do indeed copy them. Shut your eyes nd think of yonder clock on the vil, nd you get just such true picture or copy of its dil. But your ide of its works (unless you re clock-mker) much less of copy, yet it psses muster, for it in no wy clshes with the relity. Even though it should shrink to the mere word works, tht word still serves you truly; nd when you spek of the time-keeping function of the clock, or of its spring s elsticity, it hrd to see exctly wht your ides cn copy. You perceive tht there problem here. Where our ides cnnot copy definitely their object, wht does greement with tht object men? Some idelts seem to sy tht they rc true whenever they re wht God mens tht we ought to think bout tht object. Others hold the copy-view ll through, nd spek s if our ides possessed truth just in proportion s they pproch to being copies of the Absolute s eternl wy of thinking. These views, you see, invite prgmttic dcussion, But the gret ssumption of the intellectults tht truth mens essentilly n inert sttic reltion. When you ve got your true ide of nything, there s n end of the mtter. You re in possession; you know; you hve fulfilled your thinking destiny. You re where you ought to be mentlly; you hve obeyed your ctegoricl impertive; nd nothing more need follow on tht climx of your rtionl destiny. Eptemologiclly you re in stble equilibrium. Prgmtm, on the other hnd, sks its usul question. Grnt n ide or belief to be true, it sys, wht concrete difference will its being true mke in ny one s ctul life? How will the truth be relized? Wht experiences will be different from those which would obtin if the belief were flse? Wht, in short, the truth s csh-vlue in experientil terms? The moment prgmtm sks th question, it sees the nswer: True ides re those tht we cn ssimilte, vlidte, corroborte nd verify. Flse ides re those tht we cn not. Tht the prcticl difference it mkes to us to hve true ides; tht, therefore, the mening of truth, for it ll tht truth known s. Th thes wht hve to defend. The truth of n ide not stgnnt property inherent in it. Truth hppens to n ide. t becomes true, mde true by events. ts verity in fct n event, process: the process nmely of its verifying itself, its verifiction. ts vlidity the process of its vlid-ilon. But wht do the words verifiction nd vlidtion themselves prgmticlly men? They gin signify certin prcticl consequences of the verified nd vlidted ide. t hrd to find ny one phrse tht chrcterizes these consequences better thn the ordinry greement formul just such conse quences being wht we hve in mind whenever we sy tht our ides gree with relity. They led us, nmely, through the cts nd other ides which they
TRUTH 179 18 KNOWLEDGE instigte, into or up to, or towrds, other prts of experience with which we feel ll the while such feeling being mong our potentilities tht the originl ides remin in greement. The connexions nd trnsitions come to us from point to point s being progressive, hrmonious, stfctory. Th function of greeble leding wht we men by n ide s verifiction. Such n ccount vgue nd it sounds t first quite trivil, but it hs results which it will tke the rest of my hour to explin. Let me begin by reminding you of the fct tht the possession of true thoughts mens everywhere the possession of invluble instruments of ction; nd tht our duty to gin truth, so fr from being blnk commnd from out of the blue, or stunt self-imposed by our intellect, cn ccount for itself by excellent prcticl resons. The importnce to humn life of hving true beliefs bout mtters of fct thing too notorious. We live in world of relities tht cn be infinitely useful or infinitely hrmful. des tht tell us which of them to expect count s the true ides in ll th primry sphere of verifiction, nd the pursuit of such ides primry humn duty. The possession of truth, so fr from being here n end in itself, only preliminry mens towrds other vitl stfctions. f m lost in the woods nd strved, nd find wht Looks like cow-pth, it of the utmost importnce tht should think of humn hbittion t the end of it, for if do so nd follow it, sve myself. The true thought useful here becuse the house which its object useful. Tle prcticl vlue of true ides thus primrily derived from the prcticl importnce of their objects to us. Their objects re, indeed, not importnt t ll times. my on nother occsion hve no use for the house; nd then my ide of it, however verifible, will be prcticlly irrelevnt, nd hd better remin ltent. Yet since lmost ny object my some dy become temporrily importnt, the dvntge of hving generl stock of extr truths, of ides tht shll be true of merely possible situtions, obvious. We store such extr truths wy in our memories, nd with the overflow we fill our books of reference. Whenever such n extr truth becomes prcticlly relevnt to one of our emergencies, it psses from cold-storge to do work in the world nd our belief in it grows ctive. You cn sy of it then either tht it useful becuse it true or tht it true becuse it useful. Both these phrses men exctly the sme thing, nmely tht here n ide tht gets fulfilled nd cn be verified. True the nme for whtever ide strts the verifiction-process, useful the nme for its completed function in experience. True ides would never hve been singled out s such, would never hve cquired clss-nme, lest of ll nme suggesting vlue, unless they hd been useful from the outset in th wy. From th simple cue prgmtm gets her generl notion of truth s something essentilly bound up with the wy in which one moment in our experience my led us towrds other moments which it will be worth while to hve been led to. Primrily, nd on the common-sense level, the truth of stte of mind mens th function of leding tht worth while. When moment in our experience, of ny kind whtever, inspires us with thought tht true, tht mens tht sooner or lter we dip by tht thought s guidnce into the prticulrs of experience gin nd mke dvntgeous connexion with them. Th vgue enough sttement, but beg you to retin it, for it essentil. Our experience menwhile ll shot through with regulrities. One bit of it, cn wrn us to get redy for nother bit, cn intend or be signilicnt of tht remoter object. The object s dvent the significnce s verifiction. Truth, in these cses, mening nothing but eventul verifiction, mnifestly incompti ble with wywrdness on our prt. Woe to him whose beliefs ply fst nd loose with the order which relities follow in h experience; they will led him nowhere or else mke flse connexions. By relities or objects here, we men either things of common sense, sensibly present, or else common-sense reltions, such s dtes, plces, dtnces, kinds, ctivities. Following our mentl imge of house long the cow-pth, we ctully come to see the house; we get the imge s full verifiction. Such simple nd fully verified ledings re certinly the originls nd prototypes of the truth-process. Experience offers indeed other forms of truth-process, but they re ll conceivble s being primry verifictions rrested, multiplied or substituted one for nother. Tke, for instnce, yonder object on the wll. You nd consider it to be clock, ltho no one of us hs seen the hidden works tht mke it one. We let our notion pss for true without ttempting to verify. f truths men verifictionprocess essentilly, ought we then to cll such unverified truths s th bortive? No, for they form the overwhelmingly Lrge number of the truths we Live by. ndirect s well s direct verifictions pss muster. Where circumstntil evidence sufficient, we cn go without eye-witnessing. Just s we here ssume Jpn to ext without ever hving been there, becuse it works to do so, everything we know conspiring with the belief, nd nothing interfering, so we ssume tht thing to be clock. We use it s clock, regulting the length of our lecture by it. The verifiction of the ssumption here mens its leding to no frustrtion or contrdiction. erifibility of wheels nd weights nd pendulum s good s verifiction. For one truth-process completed there re million in our lives tht function in th stte of nscency. They turn us towrds direct verifiction; led us into the surroundings of the objects they envge; nd then, if everything runs on hrmoniously, we re so sure tht verifiction possible tht we omit it, nd re usully justified by ll tht hppens. Truth lives, in fct, for the most prt on credit system. Our thoughts nd beliefs pss, so long s nothing chllenges them, just s bnk-notes pss so long s nobody refuses them. But th ll points to direct fce-to-lce verifictions somewhere, without which the fbric of truth collpses like finncil system with no csh-bs whtever. You ccept my verifiction of one thing, yours of nother. We trde on ech other s truth. But beliefs verified concretely by somebody re the posts of the whole superstructure. Another gret reson beside economy of time for wiving complete verifiction in the usul business of life tht ll things ext in kinds nd not singly. Our world found once for ll to hve tht peculirity. So tht when we
TRUTH 181 hve once directly verified our ides bout one specimen of kind, we consider ourselves free to pply them to other specimens without verifiction. A mind tht hbitully dcerns the kind of thing before it, nd cts by the lw of the kind immeditely, without pusing to verify, will be true mind in ninety-nine out of hundred emergencies, proved so by its conduct fitting everything it meets, nd getting no refuttion. ndirectly or only potentilly verifying processes my thus be true s well s full verifiction-processes. They work s true processes would work, give us the sme dvntges, nd clim our recounition for the sme resons. All th on the common-sense level of mtters of fct, which we re lone considering. But mtters of fct re not our only stock in trde. Reltions mong purely ineiitl ides form nother sphere where true nd flse beliefs obtin, nd here the beliefs re bsolute, or unconditionl. When they re true they ber the nme either of definitions or of principles. t either principle or definition tht 1 nd 1 mke 2, tht 2 nd 1 mke 3, nd so on; tht white differs less from gry thn it does from blck; tht when the cuse begins to ct the effect lso commences. Such propositions hold of ll possible ones, of ll conceivble whites nd grys nd cuses. The objects here re mentl objects. Their reltions re perceptully obvious t glnce, nd no sense-verifiction necessry. Moreover, once true, lwys true, of those sme mentl objects. Truth here hs n eternl chrcter. f you cn find concrete thing nywhere tht one or white or gry or n effect, then your principles will everlstingly pply to it. t but cse of scertining the kind, nd then pplying the lw of its kind to the prticulr object. You re sure to get truth if you cn but nme the kind rightly, for your mentl reltions hold good of everything of tht kind without exception. f you then, nevertheless, filed to get truth concretely, you would sy tht you hd clssed your rel objects wrongly. n th relm of mentl reltions, truth gin n ffir of Leding. We relte one bstrct ide with nother, frming in the end gret systems of logicl nd mthemticl truth, under the respective terms of which the sensible fcts of experience eventully rrnge themselves, so tht our eternl truths hold good of relities lso. Th mrrige of fct nd theory endlessly fertile. Wht we sy here lredy true in dvnce of specil verifiction, if we hve subsumed our objects rightly. Our redy-mde idel frmework for ll sorts of possible objects follows from the very structure of our thinking. We cn no more ply fst nd loose with these bstrct reltions thn we cn do so with our senseexperiences. They coerce us; we must tret them constently, whether or not we like the results. The rules of ddition pply to our debts s rigorously s to our ssets. The hundredth deciml of zr, the rtio of the circumference to its dimeter, predetermined idelly now, tho no one my hve computed it. f we should ever need the figure in our delings with n ctul circle we should need to hve it given rightly, cicuited by the usul rules; for it the sme kind of truth tht those rules elsewhere clculte. Between the coercions of the sensible order nd those of the idel order, 182 KNOWLEDGE our mind thus wedged tightly. Our ides must gree with relitiies, be such relities concrete or bstrct, be they fcts or be they principles, under penlty of endless inconstency nd frustrtion. So fr, intellectults cn re no protest. They cn only sy tht we hve brely touched the skin of the mtter. Relities men, then, either concrete fcts, or bstrct kinds of things nd reltions perceived intuitively between them, They furthermore nd thirdly men, s things tht new ides of ours must no less tke ccount of, the whole body of other truths lredy in our possession. But wht now does greement with such threefold relities men? to use gin the definition tht current. Here it tht prgmtm nd intellectulm begin to prt compny. Primrily, no doubt, to gree mens to copy, but we sw tht the mere word clock would do insted of mentl picture of its works, nd tht of mny relities our ides cn only be symbols nd not copies. Pst time, power, spontneity, how cn our mind copy such relities? To gree in the widest sense with relity cn only men to be guided either stright up to it or into its surroundings, or to be pitt into such working touch with it s to hndle either it or something connected with it better thn if we dgreed. Better either intellectully or prcticlly! And often greemcnt will only men the negtive fct tht nothing contrdictory from the qurter of tht relity comes to interfere with the wy in which our ides guide us elsewhere. To copy relity, indeed, one very importnt wy of greeing with it, but it fr from being essentil. The essentil thing the process of being guided. Any ide tht helps us to del, whether prcticlly or intellectully, with either the relity or its belongings, tht doesn t entngle our progress in frustrtions, tht fits, in fct, nd dpts our life to the relity s whole setting, will gree sufficiently to meet the requirement. U will hold true of tht relity. Thus, nmes re just s true or flse s definite mentl pictures re. They set up similr verifiction-processes, nd led to fully equivlent prcticl results. All humn thinking gets dcursified; we exchnge ides; we Lend nd borrow verifictions, get them from one nother by mens of socil intercourse. All truth thus gets verblly built out, stored up, nd mde vilble for every one. Hence, we must tlk constently just s we must think constently: for both in tlk nd thought we del with kinds. Nmes re rbitrry, but once understood they must be kept to. We mustn t now cd Abel in or in Abel. f we do, we unger ourselves from the whole book of Genes, nd from ll its connexions with the universe of speech nd fct down to the present time. We throw ourselves out of whtever truth tht entire system of speech nd fct my embody. The overwhelming mjority of our true ides dmit of no direct or fce-to-fce verifiction those of pst htory, for exmple, s of in nd Abel. The strem of time cn be remounted only verblly, or verified indirectly by the present prolongtions or effects of wht the pst hrbored. Yet if they
TRUTH 183 184 KNOWLEDGE gree with these verblities nd effects, we cn know tht our ides of the pst re true. As true s pst time itself ws, so true ws Julius esr, so true were ntediluvin monsters, ll in their proper dtes nd settings. Tht pst lime itself ws, gurnteed by its coherence with everything tht s present. True s the present, the pst ws lso. Agreement thus turns out to be essentilly n ffir of leding leding tht useful becuse it into qurters tht contin objects tht re importnt. True ides led us into useful verbl nd conceptul qurters s well s directly up to useful sensible termini. They led to constency, stbility nd flowing humn intercourse. They led wy from eccentricity nd oltion, from foiled nd brren thinking. The untrmmelled flowing of the leding-process, its generl freedom from clsh nd contrdiction, psses for its indirect verifiction; but ll rods led to Rome, nd in the end nd eventully, ll true processes must led to the fce of directly verifying sensible experiences somewhere, which some body s ides hve copied. Such the lrge loose wy in which the prgmtt interprets the word greement. He trets it ltogether prcticlly. He lets it cover ny process of conduction from prosperously. t only thus tht scientific ides, flying s they do beyond present ide to future terminus, provided only it run common sense, cn be sid to gree with their relities. t, s sid, s if relity were mde of ether, toms or electrons, but we mustn t think so hve lredy literlly. The term energy doesn t even pretend to stnd for nything objective. t only wy of mesuring the surfce of phenomen so s to string their chnges on simple formul. Yet in the choice of these mn-mde formuls we cn not be cpricious with impunity ny more thn we cn be cpricious on the common-sense prcticl level. We must find theory tht will work; nd tht mens something extremely difficult; for our theory must medite between ll previous truths nd certin new experiences. t must dernge common sense nd previous belief s little s possible, nd it must led to some sensible terminus or other tht cn be verified exctly. To work mens both these things; nd the squeeze there so tight tht little loose ply for ny hypothes. Our theories re wedged nd controlled s nothing else. Yet sometimes lterntive theoretic formuls re eqully comptible with ll the truths we know, nd then we choose between them for subjective resons. We choose the kind of theory to which we re lredy prtil; we follow elegnce or economy. lerk-mxwell some where sys it would be poor scientific tste to choose the more complicted of two eqully well-evidenced conceptions; nd you will ll gree with him. Truth in science wht gives us the mximum possible sum of stfctions, tste included, but constency both with previous truth nd with novel fct lwys the most imperious climnt. The true, to put it very briefly, only the expedient in the wy of our thinking, just s the right only the expedient in the wy of our behving. Expedient in lmost ny fshion; nd expedient in the long run nd on the whole of course; for wht meets expediently ll the experience in sight wont necessrily meet ll frther experiences eqully stfctorily, Experience, s we know, hs wys of boiling over, nd mking us correct our present formuls. The bsolutely true, mening wht no frther experience will ever lter, tht idel vnhing-point towrds which we imgine tht ll our temporry truths will some dy converge. ft runs on ll fours with the perfectly we mn, nd with the bsolutely complete experience; nd, if these idels re ever relized, they will ll be relized together. Menwhile we hve to Live to-dy by wht truth we cn get to-dy, nd be redy to-morrow to cll it flsehood. Ptolemic stronomy, eucliden spce, rtotelin logic, scholstic metphysics, were expedient for centuries, but humn experience hs boiled over those limits, nd we now cll these things only reltively true, or true within those borders of experience. Absolutely they re flse; for we know tht those limits were csul, nd might hve been trnscended by pst theorts just s they re by present thinkers. hen new experiences led to retrospective judgments, using the pst tense, wht these judgments utter ws true, even tho no pst thinker hd been led there. We live forwrds, Dnh thinker hs sid, but we understnd bckwrd light on the world s previous processes. They my hve been truth-processes for the ctors in them. They re bckwrds. The present sheds not so for one who knows the lter reveltions of the story. possibly Th regultive notion of potentil better truth to be estblhed lter, go be estblhed some dy bsolutely, nd hving powers of retroctive legltion, turns its fce, like ll prgmtt notions, towrds concreteness of fct, nd towrds the future. Like the hlf-truths, the bsolute truth will hve to be mde, mde s reltion incidentl to the growth of mss of verifictionexperience, to which the hlf-true ides re ll long contributing their quot. hve lredy insted on the fct tht truth mde lrgely out of previous truths. Men s beliefs t ny time re so much experience funded, But the beliefs re themselves prts of the sum totl of the world s experience, nd become mtter, therefore, for the next dy s funding opertions. So fr s relity mens expedenceble relity, both it nd the truths men gin bout it rc everlstingly in process of muttion muttion towrds definite gol, it my be but still muttion. Mthemticins cn solve problems with two vribles. On the Newtonin theory, for instnce, ccelertion vries with dtnce, but dtnce lso vries with ccelertion. n the relm of truth-processes fcts come independently nd determine our beliefs provionlly. But these beliefs mke us ct, nd s fst s they do so, they bring into sight or into extence new fcts which re-determine of truth, s it rolls up. the beliefs ccordingly. So the whole coil nd product of bll double inlluence. Truths emerge from fcts; but they dip forwrd into fcts gin nd dd to them; which fcts gin crete or revel new truth (the word indifferent) nd so on indefinitely. The fcts themselves menwhile re not true. They simply re. Truth strt nd terminte mong them. the the function of the beliefs tht
/Y/orr, j;;?%.2 4-- Rtiq %f} /çj / 7 o Wil(im Jmes on Precursice Fith Willim Jmes wrote fmous essy entitled The Will to Believe, where he explicitly criticized the evidentillst viewpoint of WK. lifford. lifford hd insted tht it ws wrong ever to llow our beliefs to go beyond wht evi dence could demonstrte. Jmes ws convinced tht lifford ws wrong. Jmes pointed out tht there re two very different pproches to mtters of life nd belief, one negtive, one positive. The negtive pproch bsed on the fer of ever mking mtke. Th pproch lwys enjoins cution. Be creful. Never tke rks. Tke n umbrell. Wit for evidence. Th the evi dentilt s perspective on life nd conviction. t merly regrding belief. The other, more positive, pproch to life nd belief more concerned with embrcing ll the truth it cn, its primry interest not voiding error t ll costs. t dves venturing forth, trying new things, hving new experiences, nd positoning yourself for gret dcoveries. Th, Jmes holds, s the better perspective. t generous regrding belief. Jmes thought tht we sometimes hve to meet relity hlfwy. We cn t just sit bck nd wit for the world to give us evidence of wht true. We need to move forwrd with n openness of mind, nd even the first glimmerings of positive conviction, in order to dcover some truths. He used s n exmple common, norml socil sitution. mgine tht you re entering room of people you ve never met before. f you worry tht they my not be nice people nd my not like you, nd you inwrdly demnd seeing evidence to the contrry before you form ny positive beliefs whtso ever bout them, you will probbly not get into the position to hve positive experience of ny good truths bout them s people. f you tke very different pproch, however, nd enter the room prepred to think of these strngers s most likely line people who will enjoy your compny, nd you ct on th s conviction, you will probbly find your conduct recipro cted, nd meet some friendly nd interesting individuls there. Sometimes something Like the positive stte of belief, however tenttive, helps to crete sitution in which evidence more likely to be forthcoming. n such circumstnces, it not more rtionl to wit on the evidence before grnting mesure of belief, but it rtionl to lunch out with wht Jmes clled precursive fith, fith tht, etymologiclly. Runs hed of the evidence. Believe tht life worth living nd your belief will help crete the fct. WilLim Jmes Jmes dcovered tht chmpionship level endevor in ny sport ws typi clly bsed on precursive fith. hmpions re regulrly chllenged to do something they ve never done before climb new mountin. wrestle new opponent, brek new world s record. they just look t the evidence they hve concerning their pst performnces, it will never be sufficient to ulrove tht they re up to the new chllenge nd will previl. But Jmes cme to relize tht wht sets chmpions prt their bility to engge in precursive fith nd lunch out with belief tht runs hed of the vilble evidence, believing in themselves up front. Willim Jmes didn t think it ws lwys pproprite or rtionl to engge in precursive fith, or belief stretching beyond the vilble evidence. Be sid tht th only pproprite if the option to believe genuine option tht could not be decided on the bs of evidence lone. After creful nlys, he becme convinced tht three conditions must be present in order for possi ble belief to be genuine option. The option to believe tht in question must be, he sid, live, forced, nd momentous. Let s see wht he ment: fr Willim Jmes: t rtionl to believe beyond the vilble evidence if the option so to believe genuine option. w Genuine option (definition): An option to believe genuine if nd only if it Live: You cn bring yourself to believe it. Forced: Not to choose hs the sme consequences of negtive choice. Momentous: Something of gret importnce t stke. An option to believe live if it within the bounds of believbility. The could lep over my house in single bound not live one for me. Thus, precursive fith nonstrter here. The option of believing tht cn bet tenn opponent who generlly little better option of believing tht thn me live one.
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Hoop rfe cf. TA (Ai York: / /9973.letno,,d Studies (New ork: Lohignii, rce lid o., ropvnghl (9 by linni Jnies). hp. X. pp. 26&195. Reprinted by permsion of the publhers. A. WAR-MAKNG MAY BE BROUGHT UNDER ONTROL will now confess my own utopi. devoutly believe in the reign of pece nd in the grdul dvent of some sort of sociltic equilibrium. The ftltic view of the wr-functiofl to me nonsense, for know tht wrmking due to definite motives nd subject to prudentil checks nd resonble criti cms, just s ny other form of enterpre. And when whole ntions re the rmies, nd the science of destruction vies in intellectul refinement with the sciences of production, see tht wr becomes bsurd nd impossible from its own mon strosily. Extrvgnt mbitions will hve to be replced by resonble clims, nd ntions lutt mke common cuse ginst them. see no reson why ll th should not pply to yellow s well s to white countries, nd look forwrd to future when cts of wr shll be formlly outlwed s between civi lized peoples. B. THE ALUE OF THE MLTARY RTUES ;fl 29 üi. THE MORAL EQUALENT OF WAR * TT illim Jnies (1812 191) All these beliefs of mine put me squrely into the nti militrt prty. But do not believe tht pece either ought to be or will be permnent on th globe, unless the sttes pcifi clly orgnized preserve some of the old elements of rmy dcipline. A permnently successful pece-economy cnnot be simple plesure-economy. n the more or less sociltic future towrds which mnkind seems drifting we must still subject ourselves collectively to those seventies which nswer to our rel position upon th only prtly hospitble globe. We must mke new energies nd hrdihoods continue the mnliness to which the militry mind so fithfully clings. Mrtil virtues must be the enduring cement; intrepidity, contempt of softness, surrender of privte interest, obedience to commnd, must still remin the rock upon which stles re built unless, indeed, we wh for dngerous rections ginst commonwelths fit only for contempt, nd lible to invite ttck whenever center of crys tlliztion for militry-minded enterpre gets formed nywhere in their neighborhood. The wr-prty ssuredly right in ffirming nd reffirming tht the mrtil virtues, lthough originlly gined by the rce through wr, re bsolute nd permnent humn goods. Ptri otic pride nd mbition in their militry form re, fter ll, only specifictions of more generl competitive pssion. They re its first form, but tht no reson for supposing them to be its lst form. Men now re proud of belonging to conquering ntion, nd without lilurmur they ly down their persons nd their welth, if by so doing they my fend off subjection.. THE REDRETON OF MARTAL 1RTUES TO ONSTRUTE ENTEftiR5Es But who my he sure tht oilier spects of one s colt ;itiy my not, with time nd eduction nd suggestion enough, cine to be regrded with similrly effective feelings of pride nti shme? Why should men not some dy feel tht it worth blood-lx to belong to collectivity superior in ny idel respect? Why thou d they not N usli with md igtin t shme if the co nun unity tht owns them vile in n) wy whtsoever? ndividuls, dily more numerous, now feel th civic l)soll. t omd y don of blowing on the sprk until the whole popultion gets incndescent, nd on the nuns of the old morls of militry honor, stble system of morls of civic honor btulds itself up. 1 ht [lie whole community comes to believe in grsps tile mdi vidtil s in ve. The wr-function hs grsped us so fr; but constructive interests my some dy seem no less impertive, nd impose on the individul hrdly lighter burden. Let me illustrte my ide more concretely. There notlun to mke one indignnt in tile mere fct tht life hrd, tht
LR2 men should toil nd suffer pin. The plnetry conditions once nd for ll re such, nd we cn stnd it. But tht so mny men, by mere ccidents of birth nd opportunity, should hve life of nothing else but toil nd pin nd hrdness nd inferi ority imposed upon them, should hve no vction, while others ntively no more deserving never get ny tste of th cmpign ing life t ll, th cpble of rousing indigntion in reflec tive minds. t my end by seeming shmeful to ll of us tht some of us hve nothing but cmpigning, nd others nothing but unmnly ese. f now nd th my ide there were, insted of militry conscription, conscription of the whole youthful popultion to form for certin number of yers prt of the rmy enlted ginst Nt nrc, the injustice would tend to he evened out, nd nulnerot other goods to the commonwelth would follow. The militry idels of hrdihood nd dcipline would be wrought into the growing fiber of the people; no one would remin blind s the luxurious clsses now re blind, to mn s reltions to the globe he lives on, nd to the permnently sour nd hrd found tions of h higher life. To col nd iron mines, to freight trins, to fhing fleets in December, to dhwshing, clothes-wshing. nd window-wshing, to rod-building nd tunnel-mking, to foundries nd stoke-holes, nd to the frmes of skyscrpers, would our gilded youths be drfted off, ccording to their choice, to get the childhness knocked out of them, nd to conic bck into society with helthier sympthies nd soberer ides. They would hve pid their blood-tx, done their own prt in the immemoril humn wrfre ginst nture; they would tred die erth more protidly, the women would vlue diem more highly, they would be better fthers nd techers of the follow ing genertion. Such conscription, with the stte of ptiblic opinion tht would hve required it, nd die mny morl fruits it would ber, would preserve in the midst of pcific civiliztion the mnly virtues which the niilitry prty so frid of seeing d pper in pece. We should get toughness without cllousness, uthority with s little criminl cruelty s possible, nd pinful work done cheerily becuse the duty temporry, nd thretens not, s now, to degrde the whole reminder of one s life. spoke of the morl equivlent of wr. So fr, wr hs been the only force tht cn dcipline whole community. nd until n equivlent dcipline orgnized, believe tht wr must hve its wy. But hve no serious doubt tht the ordinry prides nd shmes of socil mn, once developed to certin intensity, re cpble of orgnizing such morl equiv lent s hve sketched, or some other jtt s effective [or pre serving mnliness of type. t but question of time, of skilful propgndm nd of opinion-mking men seizing lustoric Opportunities D MARTAL HARATER HAS lken The mrtil type of Strenuous honor nd PRODUED WTHOUT WAR chrcter cn be bred without wr. dinterestedness bound elsewhere. j Priests nd medicl men re in fshion edtlcted to it, nd we should ll feel sonic degree of it impertive if we were con scious of our work s n obligtory service to the stte. We should be owned, s soldiers re by die rmy, nd our pride would re ccordingly. We could be poor, then, without liii milition, s rmy officers now re. The only tiung needed liencefonvrd to inflme the civic temper s pst htory hs inflmed the militry temper. H. G. \ ells dds tht he tli inks tht die conceptions of order nd dcipline. time trdition of service nd devotion, of p1 tl fitness, unstinted exertion, nd universl responsibility, which universl militry duty now teching Europen ntions, will remin permnent cquition, when the lst mmunition hs been used in the fireworks tht celebrte tme finl pece. be lieve s he does. t would be simply preposterous if tme only force tht could work idels of honor nd stndrds of efficiency into Englh or Americn nttires should be tme fer of being killed by tme Germns or tme Jpnese. Gret indeed Fer; but it not, s our militry enthusists believe nd try to mke us believe, the only stimtmltms known for wkening tme higher rnges of men s spiritul energy.