We store such extra truths away in
our memories, and with the overflow we fill our books of reference.
Whenever such an extra truth becomes practically relevant to one of
our emergencies, it passes from cold-storage to do work in the
world, and our belief in it grows active. You can say of it then
either that 'it is useful because it is true' or that 'it is true
because it is useful.' Both these phrases mean exactly the same
thing, namely that here is an idea that gets fulfilled and can be
verified. True is the name for whatever idea starts the
verification-process, useful is the name for its completed function
in experience. True ideas would never have been singled out as such,
would never have acquired a class-name, least of all a name
suggesting value, unless they had been useful from the outset in
this way.
From this simple cue pragmatism gets her general notion of truth as
something essentially bound up with the way in which one moment in
our experience may lead us towards other moments which it will be
worth while to have been led to. Primarily, and on the common-sense
level, the truth of a state of mind means this function of A LEADING
THAT IS WORTH WHILE. When a moment in our experience, of any kind
whatever, inspires us with a thought that is true, that means that
sooner or later we dip by that thought's guidance into the
particulars of experience again and make advantageous connexion with
them.
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