, that go on happily, tho in
this instance we are more inclined to think of it as a principle and
to say the man digests and sleeps so well BECAUSE he is so healthy.
With 'strength' we are, I think, more rationalistic still, and
decidedly inclined to treat it as an excellence pre-existing in the
man and explanatory of the herculean performances of his muscles.
With 'truth' most people go over the border entirely, and treat the
rationalistic account as self-evident. But really all these words in
TH are exactly similar. Truth exists ante rem just as much and as
little as the other things do.
The scholastics, following Aristotle, made much of the distinction
between habit and act. Health in actu means, among other things,
good sleeping and digesting. But a healthy man need not always be
sleeping, or always digesting, any more than a wealthy man need be
always handling money, or a strong man always lifting weights. All
such qualities sink to the status of 'habits' between their times of
exercise; and similarly truth becomes a habit of certain of our
ideas and beliefs in their intervals of rest from their verifying
activities. But those activities are the root of the whole matter,
and the condition of there being any habit to exist in the
intervals.
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