SOURCE: "With Benefit of Fiction," in The New Republic, Vol. XL, No. 518, November, 1924, p. 254.

In the following essay, Ayres finds Vaihinger's views to be a valuable supplement to the body of Pragmatist works.

Truth, we have been told again and again by the philosophers, is the object of all thinking. But is it? Thinking is part of living. It would be strange indeed if the object and the reward of thinking were at odds with the necessities of life. A broader definition must take account of the contribution of thinking to living: the object of thinking is to facilitate living. This does not mean that whatever does so is true; but it may mean that any thinking which safeguards or enhances life is successful thinking, to which questions of truth are quite subordinate.

Indeed, that is precisely the contention of this book. Vaihinger's idea, at bottom as simple...