" And
in almost the last philosophic work I have read, I find such
passages as the following: "Justice is ideal, solely ideal. Reason
conceives that it ought to exist, but experience shows that it can-
not. ... Truth, which ought to be, cannot be. ... Reason is deformed
by experience. As soon as reason enters experience, it becomes
contrary to reason."
The rationalist's fallacy here is exactly like the sentimentalist's.
Both extract a quality from the muddy particulars of experience, and
find it so pure when extracted that they contrast it with each and
all its muddy instances as an opposite and higher nature. All the
while it is THEIR nature. It is the nature of truths to be
validated, verified. It pays for our ideas to be validated. Our
obligation to seek truth is part of our general obligation to do
what pays. The payments true ideas bring are the sole why of our
duty to follow them.
Identical whys exist in the case of wealth and health. Truth makes
no other kind of claim and imposes no other kind of ought than
health and wealth do. All these claims are conditional; the concrete
benefits we gain are what we mean by calling the pursuit a duty. In
the case of truth, untrue beliefs work as perniciously in the long
run as true beliefs work beneficially.
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