Farther than that the ordinary lay-reader
in philosophy who thinks favorably of absolute idealism does not
venture to sharpen his conceptions. He can use the Absolute for so
much, and so much is very precious. He is pained at hearing you
speak incredulously of the Absolute, therefore, and disregards your
criticisms because they deal with aspects of the conception that he
fails to follow.
If the Absolute means this, and means no more than this, who can
possibly deny the truth of it? To deny it would be to insist that
men should never relax, and that holidays are never in order. I am
well aware how odd it must seem to some of you to hear me say that
an idea is 'true' so long as to believe it is profitable to our
lives. That it is GOOD, for as much as it profits, you will gladly
admit. If what we do by its aid is good, you will allow the idea
itself to be good in so far forth, for we are the better for
possessing it. But is it not a strange misuse of the word 'truth,'
you will say, to call ideas also 'true' for this reason?
To answer this difficulty fully is impossible at this stage of my
account. You touch here upon the very central point of Messrs.
Schiller's, Dewey's and my own doctrine of truth, which I cannot
discuss with detail until my sixth lecture.
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