(II)

Professor James seems to hold, generally, that “truth” is mutable. And by this he seems sometimes to mean that an idea which, when it occurs at one time, is true, may, when it occurs at another time, not be true. He seems to hold that one and the same idea may be true at one time and false at another. That it may be, for I do not suppose he means that all ideas do actually undergo this change from true to false. Many true ideas seem to occur but once, and, if so, they, at least, will not actually be true at one time and false at another, though, even with regard to these, perhaps Professor James means to maintain that they might be false at another time, if they were to occur at it. But I am not sure that he even means to maintain this with regard to all our true ideas. Perhaps be does not mean to say, with regard to all of them, even that they can change from true to false. He speaks, generally, indeed, as if truth were mutable; but, in one passage, he seems to insist that there is a certain class of true ideas, none of which are mutable in this respect. “Relations among purely mental ideas,” he says (p. 209), “form another sphere where true and false beliefs obtain, and here the beliefs are absolute or unconditional. When they are true they bear the name either of definitions or of principles. It is either a principle or a definition that 1 and 1 make 2, that 2 and 1 make 3, and so on; that white differs less from grey than it does from black; that when the cause begins to act the effect also commences. Such propositions hold of all possible ‘ones,’ of all conceivable ‘ whites,’ ‘greys,’ and ‘causes.’ The objects here are mental objects. Their relations are perceptually obvious at a glance, and no sense-verification is necessary. Moreover, once true, always true, of those same mental objects. Truth here has an ‘eternal’ character. If you can find a concrete thing anywhere that is ‘one’ or ‘white’ or ‘grey’ or an ‘ effect,’ then your principles will everlastingly apply to it.” Professor James does seem here to hold that there are true ideas, which once true, are always true. Perhaps, then, he does not hold that all true ideas are mutable. Perhaps he does not even hold that all true ideas, except ideas of this kind, are so. But he does seem to hold at least that many of our true ideas are mutable. And even this proposition seems to me to be disputable. It seems to me that there is a sense in which it is the case with every true idea that, if once true, it is always true. That is to say, that every idea, which is true once, would be true at any other time at which it were to occur; and that every idea which does occur more than once, if true once, is true at every time at which it does occur. There seems to me, I say, to be a sense in which this is so. And this seems to me to be the sense in which it is most commonly and most naturally maintained that all truths are “immutable.” Professor James seems to mean to deny it, even in this sense. He seems to me constantly to speak as if there were no sense in which all truths are immutable. And I only wish to point out what seems to me to be the plainest and most obvious objection to such language.

And, first of all, there is one doctrine, which he seems to connect with this of his that “truths are mutable,” with regard to which I fully agree with him. He seems very anxious to insist that reality is mutable: that it does change, and that it is not irrational to hope that in the future it will be different from and much better than it is now. And this seems to me to be quite undeniable. It seems to me quite certain that I do have ideas at one time which I did not have at another; that change, therefore, doss really occur. It seems to me quite certain that in the future many things will be different from what they are now; and I see no reason to think that they may not be much better. There is much misery in the world now; and I think it is quite possible that some day there will really be much less. This view that reality is mutable, that facts do change, that some things have properties at one time which they do not have at other times, seems to me certainly true. And so far, therefore, as Professor James merely means to assert this obvious fact, I have no objection to his view. Some philosophers, I think, have really implied the denial of this fact. All those who deny the reality of time do seem to me to imply that nothing really changes or can change—that, in fact, reality is wholly immutable. And so far as Professor James is merely protesting against this view, I should, therefore, agree with him.

But I think it is quite plain that he does not mean merely this, when he says that truth is mutable. No one would choose this way of expressing himself if he merely meant to say that some things are mutable. Truth, Professor James has told us, is a property of certain of our ideas. And those of our ideas, which are true or false, are certainly only a part of the Universe. Other things in the Universe might, therefore, change, even if our ideas never changed in respect of this property. And our ideas themselves do undoubtedly change in some respects. A given idea exists in my mind at one moment and does not exist in it at another. At one moment it is in my mind and not in somebody else’s, and at another in somebody else’s and not in mine. I sometimes think of the truth that twice two are four when I am in one mood, and sometimes when I am in another. I sometimes think of it in connection with one set of ideas and sometimes in connection with another set. Ideas, then, are constantly changing in some respects. They come and go; and at one time they stand in a given relation to other things or ideas, to which at another time they do not stand in that relation. In this sense, any given idea may certainly have a property at one time which it has not got at another time. All this seems obvious; and all this cannot be admitted, without admitting that reality is mutable—that some things change. But obviously it does not seem to follow from this that there is no respect in which ideas are immutable. It does not seem to follow that because ideas, and other things, change some of their properties, they necessarily change that one which we are considering—namely, “truth.” It does not follow that a given idea, which has the property of truth at one time, ever exists at any other time without having that property. And yet that this does happen seems to be part of what is meant by saying that truth is mutable. Plainly, therefore, to say this is to say something quite different from saying that some things are mutable. Even, therefore, if we admit that some things are mutable, it is still open to consider whether truth is so. And this is what I want now to consider. Is it the case that an idea which exists at one time, and is true then, ever exists at any other time, without being true? Is it the case that any idea ever changes from true to false? That it has the property of being true on one of the occasions when it exists, and that it has not this property, but that of being false instead, on some other occasion when it exists? In order to answer this question clearly, it is, I think, necessary to make still another distinction. It does certainly seem to be true, in a sense, that a given idea may be true on one occasion and false on another. We constantly speak as if there were cases in which a given thing was true on one occasion and false on another; and I think it cannot be denied that, when we so speak, we are often expressing in a perfectly proper and legitimate manner something which is undeniably true. It is true now, I might say, that I am in this room; but to-morrow this will not be true. It is true now that men are often very miserable; but perhaps in some future state of society this will not be true. These are perfectly natural forms of expression, and what they express is something which certainly may be true. And yet what they do apparently assert is that something or other, which is true at one time, will not, or perhaps will not, be true at another. We constantly use such expressions, which imply that what is true at one time is not true at another; and it is certainly legitimate to use them. And hence, I think, we must admit that, in a sense, it is true that a thing may be true at one time which is not true at another; in that sense, namely, in which we use these expressions. And it is, I think, also plain that these things, which may be true at one time and false at another, may, in a sense, be ideas. We might even say: The idea that I am in this room, is true now; but to-morrow it will not be true. We might say this without any strain on language. In any ordinary book—indeed, in any philosophical book, where the subject we are at present discussing was not being expressly discussed—such expressions do, I think, constantly occur. And we should pass them, without any objection. We should at once understand what they meant, and treat them as perfectly natural expressions of things undeniably true. We must, then, I think, admit that, in a sense, an idea may be true at one time, and false at another. The question is: In what sense? What is the truth for which these perfectly legitimate expressions stand?

It seems to me that in all these cases, so far as we are not merely talking of facts, but of true ideas, that the “idea” which we truly say to be true at one time and false at another, is merely the idea of a sentence— that is, of certain words. And we do undoubtedly call words “true.” The words “I am at a meeting of the Aristotelian Society” are true, if I use them now; but if I use the same words to-morrow, they would not be true. The words “George III is king of England” were true in 1800, but they are not true now, That is to say, a given set of words may undoubtedly be true at one time, and false at another; and since we may have ideas of words as well as of other things, we may, in this sense, say the same of certain of our “ideas.” We may say that some of our “ideas” (namely those of words) are true at one time and not true at another.

But is it conceivable that Professor James merely meant to assert that the same words are sometimes true at one time and false at another? Can this be all he means by saying that truth is mutable? I do not think it can possibly be so. No one, I think, in definitely discussing the mutability of truth, could say that true ideas were mutable, and yet mean (although he did not say so) that this proposition applied solely to ideas of words. Professor James must, I think, have been sometimes thinking that other ideas, and not merely ideas of words, do sometimes change from true to false. And this is the proposition which I am concerned to dispute. It seems to me that if we mean by an idea, not merely the idea of certain words, but the kind of idea which words express, it is very doubtful whether such an idea ever changes from true to false—whether any such idea is ever true at one time and false at another.

And plainly, in the first place, the mere fact that the same set of words, as in the instances I have given, really are true at one time and false at another, does not afford any presumption that anything which they stand for is true at one time and false at another. For the same words may obviously be used in different senses at different times; and hence though the same words, which formerly expressed a truth, may cease to express one, that may be because they now express a different idea, and not because the idea which they formerly expressed has ceased to be true. And that, in instances such as I have given, the words do change their meaning according to the time at which they are uttered or thought of, is I think, evident. If I use now the words “I am in this room,” these words certainly express (among other things) the idea that my being in this room is contemporary with my present use of the words; and if I were to use the same words to-morrow, they would express the idea that my being in this room to-morrow, was contemporary with the use of them then. And since my use of them then would not be the same fact as my use of them now, they would certainly then express a different idea from that which they express now. And in general, whenever we use the present tense in its primary sense, it seems to me plain that we do mean something different by it each time we use it. We always mean (among other things) to express the idea that a given event is contemporary with our actual use of it; and since our actual use of it on one occasion is always a different fact from our actual use of it on another, we express by it a different idea each time we use it. And similarly with the past and future tenses. If anybody had said in 1807 “Napoleon is dead,” he would certainly have meant by these words something different from what I mean by them when I use them now. He would have meant that Napoleon’s death occurred at a time previous to his use of those words; and this would not have been true. But in this fact there is nothing to show that if he had meant by them what I mean now, his idea would not have been as true then as mine is now. And so, if I say “It will rain to-morrow,” these words have a different meaning to-day from what they would have if I used them to-morrow. What we mean by “to-morrow” is obviously a different day, when we use the word on one day, from what we mean by it when we use it on another. But in this there is nothing to show that if the idea, which I now mean by “It will rain to-morrow,” were to occur again to-morrow, it would not be true then, if it is true now. All this is surely very obvious. But, if we take account of it, and if we concentrate our attention not on the words but on what is meant by them, is it so certain that what we mean by them on any one occasion ever changes from true to false? If there were to occur to me to-morrow the very same idea which I now express by the words “ I am in this room,” is it certain that this idea would not be as true then as it is now? It is perhaps true that the whole of what I mean by such a phrase as this never does recur. But part of it does, and that a part which is true. Part of what I mean is Certainly identical with part of what I should mean to-morrow by saying “I was in that room last night.” And this part would be as true then, as it is now. And is there any part, which, if it were to recur at any time, would not then be true, though it is true now? In the case of all ideas or parts of ideas, which ever do actually recur, can we find a single instance of one, which is plainly true at one of the times when it occurs, and yet not true at another? I cannot think of any such instance. And on the other hand this very proposition that any idea (other than mere words) which is true once, would be true at any time, seems to me to be one of those truths of which Professor James has spoken as having an “eternal,” “absolute,” “unconditional” character—as being “perceptually obvious at a glance” and needing “no sense-verification.” Just as we know that, if a particular colour differs more from black than from grey at one time, the same colour would differ more from black than from grey at any time, so, it seems to me, we can see that, if a particular idea is true at one time, the same idea would be true at any time.

It seems to me, then, that if we mean by an idea, not mere words, but the kind of idea which words express, any idea, which is true at one time when it occurs, would be true at any time when it were to occur; and that this is so, even though it is an idea, which refers to facts which are mutable. My being in this room is a fact which is now, but which certainly has not been at every time and will not be at every time. And the words “I am in this room,” though they express a truth now, would not have expressed one if I had used them yesterday, and will not if I use them to-morrow. But if we consider the idea which these words now express— namely, the idea of the connection of my being in this room with this particular time—it seems to me evident that anybody who had thought of that connection at any time in the past, would have been thinking truly, and that anybody who were to think of it at any time in the future would be thinking truly. This seems to me to be the sense in which truths are immutable—in which no idea can change from true to false. And I think Professor James means to deny of truths generally, if not of all truths, that they are immutable even in this sense. If he does not mean this there seems nothing left for him to mean, when he says that truths are mutable, except (1) that some facts are mutable, and

(2) that the same words may be true at one time and false at another. And it seems to me impossible that he could speak as he does, if he meant nothing more than these two things. I believe, therefore, that he is really thinking that ideas which have been once true (ideas, and not merely words) do sometimes afterwards become false: that the very same idea is at one time true and at another false. But he certainly gives no instance which shows that this does ever occur. And how far does he mean his principle to carry him? Does he hold that this idea that Julius Cæsar was murdered in the Senate-House, though true now, may, at some future time cease to be true, if it should be more profitable to the lives of future generations to believe that he died in his bed? Things like this are what his words seem to imply; and, even if he does hold that truths like this are not mutable, he never tries to tell us to what kinds of truths he would limit mutability, nor how they differ from such as this.