Professor James certainly wishes to assert that there is _some_ connection between truth and utility. And the connection which I have suggested that he has vaguely before his mind is this: that every true idea is, at some time or other, useful, and conversely that every idea, which is ever useful, is true. And I have urged that-there are obvious objections to both these views. But now, supposing Professor James does not mean to assert either of these two things, what else can he mean to assert? What else can he mean, that would account for the interest and importance he seems to attach to his assertion of connection between truth and utility? Let us consider the alternatives.
And, first of all, he might mean that _most_ of our true ideas are useful, and _most_ of our useful ideas true. He might mean that most of our true ideas are useful at some time or other; and even that most of them are useful, whenever they actually occur. And he might mean, moreover, that if we consider the whole range of ideas, which are useful to us, we shall find that by far the greater number of them are true ones; that true ideas are far more often useful to us, than those which are not true. And all this, I think, may be readily admitted to be true. If this were all that he meant, I do not think that anyone would be very anxious to dispute it. But is it conceivable that this is _all_ that he means? Is it conceivable that he should have been so anxious to insist upon this admitted commonplace? Is it conceivable that he should have been offering us this, and nothing more, as a theory of what truth means, and a theory worth making a fuss about, and being proud of? It seems to me quite inconceivable that this should have been _all_ that he meant. He must have had something more than this in his mind. But, if so, what more?
In the passage which I quoted at the beginning, as showing that he does mean to assert that _all_ useful ideas are true, he immediately goes on to assert a qualification, which must now be noticed. "The true," he says, "is only the expedient in the way of our thinking" (p. 222). But he immediately adds: "Expedient in the long run, and on the whole, of course; for what meets expediently all the experience in sight won't necessarily meet all further experiences equally satisfactorily." Here, therefore, we have something else that he might mean. What is expedient _in the long run_, he means to say, is true. And what exactly does this mean? It seems to mean that an idea, which is not true, may be expedient _for some time_. That is to say, it may occur _once,_ and be expedient then; and again, and be expedient then; and so on, over a considerable period. But (Professor James seems to prophesy) if it is not true, there will come a time, when it will cease to be expedient. If it occurs again and again over a long _enough_ period, there will at last, if it is not true, come a time when it will (for once at least) fail to be useful, and will (perhaps he means) _never_ be useful again. This is, 1 think, what Professor James means in this passage. He means, I think, that though an idea, which is not true, may for some time be repeatedly expedient, there will at last come a time when its occurrence will, perhaps, _never_ be expedient again, certainly will, for a time, not be _generally_ expedient. And this a view which, it seems to me, may possibly be true. It is certainly possible that a time may come, in the far future, when ideas, which are not true, will hardly ever, if ever, be expedient. And this is all that Professor James seems here positively to mean. He seems to mean that, if you take time _enough_, false ideas will some day cease to be expedient. And it is very difficult to be sure that this is not true; since it is very difficult to prophesy as to what may happen in the far future. I am sure I hope that this prophesy will come true. But in the meantime (Professor James seems to admit) ideas, which are not true, may, for an indefinitely long time, again and again be expedient. And is it conceivable that a theory, which admits this, is _all_ that he has meant to assert? Is it conceivable that what interests him, in his theory of truth, is merely the belief that, some day or other, false ideas will cease to be expedient? "In the long run, _of course_," he says, as if this were what he had meant all along. But I think it is quite plain that this is _not_ all that he has meant. This may be one thing which he is anxious to assert, but it certainly does not explain the whole of his interest in his theory of truth.