and for precisely the same reason, do we change the

future into a present.

There remains one most important order of truths yet to discuss. We habitually talk of laws of nature as true in the highest sense; and we should not be considered guilty of an impropriety of language, were we to say, that a collection of all such laws would include the whole realm of Human Truth. What mean we by Truth in this context? It seems to me that these laws are true in three of the senses which we have noticed above. First, many of them (as the axioms of mathematics and the more obvious physical laws) are true in the sense of being exact statements of the experience of innumerable men.* The number and comparative unimportance of the persons who made the statement renders the ellipsis of the speaker, which we have already noticed, so easy as to be absolutely imperceptible. Secondly, many of the wider laws, as, for instance, that of gravity, cannot be said to be correct statements of experience in any of the senses into which we have analysed that term (see p. 15), since we obviously have no direct consciousness of such laws. These are rather, I think, to be classed as prophecies which have been fulfilled, and therefore become true in an innumerable number of cases. Thus, the position of any given star,

* But see infra, Chapter VIII., where the nature of that experience is explained.

True Laws of Nature.

23

or the general appearance of the heavens at any given day or hour, has been innumerable times predicted by the use (among other data) of the law of gravity, and on each occasion, when the day or hour came round, the eyes of many men have directly confirmed the truth. of the prophecy.* Lastly, both these two classes of laws of nature are regarded as prophecies which we hope will be fulfilled in an innumerable number of future cases. What is our warrant for this expectation we shall consider later, but for the present may be content with noticing that this expectation will justify us in applying to the laws of nature the name Truth in the second of the two senses which we found applicable to the promises of the Bible.

I have searched my own thoughts, and the common speech of mankind, and can find no other meaning of our term which is universal. If any man knoweth of one and will instruct me, I profess myself his willing disciple, but in the meantime go forward with no slight confidence that I have explored every corner of this not very extended field. I sum up, then, to this effect. All the more proper uses of the word Truth imply some kind of correspondence between words, thoughts, and

*This view of the nature of true laws, which was propounded by Whewell, is contested by Mill (Cf. "Mill's Logic," Book III., Chapter II.). I fail to see the force of his arguments, which however will stand or fall with his doctrine of Causation, to be hereafter discussed.

facts, but the name is loosely applied to the two truncated halves of any one such complex correspondence; that is, either to a simple correspondence between two thoughts and facts, or to a similar agreement between words and thoughts. It is, moreover, with still greater latitude, applied to a few other correspondences, which do not consist of these three parts; as, for instance, that between the marble and the human form. In all cases, however, there is a correspondence or similarity between two or more things, and it is this which constitutes the most important element in the notion of Truth.

We must now return to the philosophers, with humble apologies for having neglected them so long, and enquire of them, What is that supreme Truth whereof they are for ever talking, whose worth outvalues all lesser and partial truths, and from which alone they derive their validity? Which be the terms in whose correspondence it consists? To this I find it hard to get any direct and positive answer; but I easily meet with a multitude of indirect and negative ones. I am told that it is Truth for all intelligence. But Truth for all intelligence cannot be accordance between the experience of any individual intelligent being and his words or thoughts; for we know that the sensations of different human beings vary greatly, and the variation would be indefinitely extended if we imagined other orders of intelligent beings, as the majority of the philosophers

bid us do. In fact, on this point there is a marvellous agreement between them. They all aver that the Truth they seek is nothing phænomenal, that is, nought which may be directly gained from sense. Still less can it be accordance between the words or thoughts of any being and his emotions or activities, for these are confessedly more various in different individuals than are even the sensations. Their Truth, then, is not the Truth whereof we have all along been talking.

But they will doubtless tell us that our definition of experience is too narrow, and that there are other elements thereof which we have omitted. Let them name them, then, and say with what element of experience their thought or their words are in accord, when they gain or state their Truth for all intelligence. Or will they altogether reject our definition of Truth? I know full well that in matters of this nature every man runs great danger of error, but I would humbly remind them that it was their neglect of what seemed a most important part of their duty which launched me forth on my dangerous voyage.

Even now, at the eleventh hour, I will humbly accept correction, but I make this alone stipulation. Let their definition, when they produce it, not only cover their peculiar use, but be at least equally applicable with mine to all the common usages of the word. Nay, say they, the thing we seek differs in kind from aught that

common men conceive or talk of. So be it, and I leave you in possession thereof; yet why apply to your rare discovery a name which is used by plain men in an entirely different signification? By all means, if you will, use every word in a sense that is not apprehended by the vulgar, and were you not the great philosophers that you are, I should say that you reminded me of nothing so much as of children who delight to interchange in the nursery a gibberish which is not understood of their elders. Meanwhile, I fear me, I must plod soberly along with my task without your aid.

Of all the varieties of Truth which we have gone through, there are two only with which I shall deal in this book-Truth in the most ordinary sense of the word by which a man communicates his experience and that of others, and true laws of nature. I shall inquire how ✦ far a man can by words arouse in another a state of

thought resembling his present thought and his past experience, and what are the surest methods for so doing. + Secondly, I shall consider our means for discovering true

laws of nature, the character of the evidence which induces us to believe in them, the value of these laws themselves, and our warranty that they will remain true for all time.

And here I beg leave to give a warning which I ought, perhaps, more properly to have placed at the beginning of my book. I write not solely nor specially