beliefs, and ethical postulates.  Hence such pragmatic aphorisms as ‘truth is useful’ or ‘truth is a matter of practical consequences’ mean essentially that all assertions must be tested by being applied to a real problem of knowing. What is signified by such statements is that no ‘truth’ must be accepted merely on account of the insistence of its claim, but that every idea must be tested by the consequences of its working.  Its truth will then depend upon those consequences being fruitful for life in general, and in particular for the purpose behind the particular inquiry in which it arose.  Truth is a value and a satisfaction; but ‘intellectual satisfaction’ is not a morbid delight in dialectical and verbal juggling:  it is the satisfaction which rewards the hard labour of rationalizing experience and rendering it more conformable with human desires.

It should be clear, though it is often misunderstood, that there is nothing arbitrary or ‘subjective’ in this method of testing beliefs.  It does not mean that we are free to assert the truth of every idea which seems to us pretty or pleasant.  The very term ‘useful’ was chosen by pragmatists as a protest against the common philosophic licence of alleging ‘truths’ which could never be applied or tested, and were supposed to be none the worse for being ‘useless.’  It is clear both that such ‘truths’ must be a monopoly of Intellectualism, and also that they do allow every man to believe whatever he wishes, provided only that he boldly claims ‘self-evidence’ for his idiosyncrasy.  In this purely subjective sense, into which Intellectualism is driven, it is, however, clear that there can be no useless ideas.  For any idea anyone decided to adopt, because it pleased or amused him, would be ipso facto true.  Pragmatism, therefore, by refuting ‘useless’ knowledge, shows that it does not admit such merely subjective ‘uses.’  It insists that ideas must be more objectively useful—­viz., by showing ability to cope with the situation they were devised to meet.  If they fail to harmonize with the situation they are untrue, however attractive they may be.  For ideas do not function in a void; they have to work in a world of fact, and to adapt themselves to all facts, though they may succeed in transforming them in the end.

Nor has an idea to reckon only with facts:  it has also to cohere with other ideas.  It must be congruous with the mass of other beliefs held for good reasons by the thinker who accepts it.  For no one can afford to have a stock of beliefs which conflict too violently with those of his fellows.  If his ‘intuitions’ contrast too seriously with those of others, and he acts on them, he will be shut up as a lunatic.  If, then, the ‘useful’ idea has to approve itself both to its maker and his fellows without developing limitations in its use, it is clear that a pragmatic truth is really far less arbitrary and subjective than the ‘truths’ accepted as absolute, on the bare ground that they seem ‘self-evident’ to a few intellectualists.