These, then, seem to me the plainest and most obvious objections to what Professor James says about the connection between truth and utility. And there are only two further points, in what he says under this head, that I wish to notice.
In the first place, we have hitherto been considering only whether it is true, as a matter of empirical fact, that all our true ideas are useful, and those which are not true, never. Professor James seems, at least, to mean that, _as a matter of fact,_ this is so; and I have only urged hitherto that _as a matter of fact_, it is not so. But as we have seen, he also asserts something more than this--he also asserts that this property of utility is the _only_ one which belongs to all our true ideas. And this further assertion cannot possibly be true, if, as I have urged, there are many true ideas which do not possess this property; or if, as I have urged, many ideas, which do possess it, are nevertheless not true. The objections already considered are, then, sufficient to overthrow this further assertion also. If there are any true ideas, which are not useful, or if any, which are useful, are not true, it cannot be the case that utility is the _only_ property which true ideas have in common. There must be some property, other than utility, which is common to all true ideas; and a correct theory as to what property it is that does belong to all true ideas, and to none but true ones, is still to seek. The empirical objections, hitherto given, are then sufficient objections to this further assertion also; but they are not the only objections to it. There is another and still more serious objection to the assertion that utility is the _only_ property which all true ideas have in common. For this assertion does not _merely_ imply that, as a matter of fact, all our true ideas and none but true ideas are useful. It does, indeed, imply this; and therefore the fact that these empirical assertions are not true is sufficient to refute it. But it also implies something more. If utility were the _only_ property which all true ideas had in common, it would follow not merely that all true ideas are useful, but also that any idea, which was useful, _would_ be true _no matter what other properties it might have or might fail to have._ There can, I think, be no doubt that Professor James does frequently speak as if this were the case; and there is an independent and still more serious objection to this implication. Even if it were true (as it is not) that all our true ideas and none but true ideas are, as a matter of fact, useful, we should still have a strong reason to object to the statement that any idea, which was useful, _would_ be true. For it implies that if such an idea as mine, that Professor James exists, and has certain thoughts, _were_ useful, this idea would be true, _even if_ no such person as Professor James ever did exist. It implies that, if the idea that I had the seven of diamonds in my hand at cards last night, _were_ useful, this idea would be true, even if, in fact, I did not have that card in my hand. And we can, I think, see quite plainly that this is not the case. With regard to some kinds of ideas, at all events--ideas with regard to the existence of other people, or with regard to past experiences of our own--it seems quite plain that they would not be true, unless they "agreed with reality" in some other sense than that which Professor James declares to be the only one in which true ideas must agree with it. Even if my idea that Professor James exists were to "agree with reality," in the sense that, owing to it, I handled _other_ realities better than I should have done without it, it would, I think, plainly not be true, unless Professor James really did exist--unless _he_ were a reality. And this, I think, is one of the two most serious objections to what he seems to hold about the connection of truth with utility. He seems to hold that any idea, which was useful, _would_ be true, _no matter what other properties it might fail to have._ And with regard to some ideas, at all events, it seems plain that they cannot be true, _unless_ they have the property that what they believe to exist, really does or did exist. Beliefs in the existence of other people might be useful to me, even if I alone existed; but, nevertheless, in such a case, they would not be true.