'What would be better for us to believe'! This sounds very like a
definition of truth. It comes very near to saying 'what we OUGHT to
believe': and in THAT definition none of you would find any oddity.
Ought we ever not to believe what it is BETTER FOR US to believe?
And can we then keep the notion of what is better for us, and what
is true for us, permanently apart?
Pragmatism says no, and I fully agree with her. Probably you also
agree, so far as the abstract statement goes, but with a suspicion
that if we practically did believe everything that made for good in
our own personal lives, we should be found indulging all kinds of
fancies about this world's affairs, and all kinds of sentimental
superstitions about a world hereafter. Your suspicion here is
undoubtedly well founded, and it is evident that something happens
when you pass from the abstract to the concrete, that complicates
the situation.
I said just now that what is better for us to believe is true UNLESS
THE BELIEF INCIDENTALLY CLASHES WITH SOME OTHER VITAL BENEFIT. Now
in real life what vital benefits is any particular belief of ours
most liable to clash with? What indeed except the vital benefits
yielded by OTHER BELIEFS when these prove incompatible with the
first ones? In other words, the greatest enemy of any one of our
truths may be the rest of our truths.
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