It is plain, then, that by "making a belief true," we mean something quite different from what Professor James means by "making" that belief. Conditions which have a hand in making a given true belief, may (it appears) have no hand at all in making it true; and conditions which have a hand in making it true may have no hand at all in making _it._ Certainly this is how we use the words. We should never say that we had made a belief true, merely because we had made the belief. But now, which of these two things does Professor James mean? Does he mean _merely_ the accepted commonplace that we make our true beliefs, in the sense that almost all of them depend for their existence on what has been previously in some human mind? Or does he mean also that we _make them true_--that their truth also depends on what has been previously in some human mind?
I cannot help thinking that he has the latter, and not only the former in his mind. But, then, what does this involve? If his instances of "truth-making" are to be anything to the purpose, it should mean that, whenever I have a hand in causing one of my own beliefs, I always have to that extent a hand in making it true. That, therefore, I have a hand in actually making the sun rise, the wind blow, and the rain fall, whenever I cause my beliefs in these things. Nay, more, it should mean that, whenever I "make" a true belief about the past, I must have had a hand in making this true. And if so, then certainly I must have had a hand in causing the French Revolution, in causing my father's birth, in making Professor James write this book. Certainly he implies that some man or other must have helped in causing almost every event, in which any man ever truly believed. That it was we who made the planets revolve round the sun, who made the Alps rise, and the floor of the Pacific sink--all these things, and others like them, seem to be involved. And it is these consequences which seem to me to justify a doubt whether, in fact "our truths are to an unascertainable extent man-made." That some of our truths are man-made--indeed, a great many--I fully admit. We certainly do make some of our beliefs true. The Secretary probably had a belief that I should write this paper, and I have made his belief true by writing it. Men certainly have the power to alter the world to a certain extent; and, so far as they do this, they certainly "make true" any beliefs, which are beliefs in the occurrence of these alterations. But I can see no reason for supposing that they "make true" _nearly_ all those of their beliefs which are true. And certainly the only reason which Professor James seems to give for believing this--namely, that the _existence_ of almost all their beliefs depends on them--seems to be no reason for it at all. For unquestionably a man does not "make true" nearly every belief whose _existence_ depends on him; and if so, the question which of their beliefs and how many, men do "make true" must be settled by quite other considerations.