It should be clear, though it is often misunderstood, that there is nothing arbitrary or 'subjective' in this method of testing beliefs. It does not mean that we are free to assert the truth of every idea which seems to us pretty or pleasant. The very term 'useful' was chosen by pragmatists as a protest against the common philosophic licence of alleging 'truths' which could never be applied or tested, and were supposed to be none the worse for being 'useless.' It is clear both that such 'truths' must be a monopoly of Intellectualism, and also that they do allow every man to believe whatever he wishes, provided only that he boldly claims 'self-evidence' for his idiosyncrasy. In this purely subjective sense, into which Intellectualism is driven, it is, however, clear that there can be no useless ideas. For any idea anyone decided to adopt, because it pleased or amused him, would be _ipso facto_ true. Pragmatism, therefore, by refuting 'useless' knowledge, shows that it does _not_ admit such merely subjective 'uses.' It insists that ideas must be more objectively useful--viz., by showing ability to cope with the situation they were devised to meet. If they fail to harmonize with the situation they are untrue, however attractive they may be. For ideas do not function in a void; they have to work in a world of fact, and to adapt themselves to all facts, though they may succeed in transforming them in the end.
Nor has an idea to reckon only with facts: it has also to cohere with other ideas. It must be congruous with the mass of other beliefs held for good reasons by the thinker who accepts it. For no one can afford to have a stock of beliefs which conflict too violently with those of his fellows. If his 'intuitions' contrast too seriously with those of others, and he acts on them, he will be shut up as a lunatic. If, then, the 'useful' idea has to approve itself both to its maker and his fellows without developing limitations in its use, it is clear that a pragmatic truth is really far less arbitrary and subjective than the 'truths' accepted as absolute, on the bare ground that they seem 'self-evident' to a few intellectualists.
If, however, it be urged that pragmatic truths never grow absolutely true at all, and that the most prolonged pragmatic tests do not exclude the possibility of an ultimate error in the idea, there is no difficulty about admitting this. The pragmatic test yields _practical_, and not 'absolute,' certainty. The existence of absolute certainty is denied, and the demand for it, in a world which contains only the practical sort, merely plays into the hands of scepticism. The uncertainty of all our verificatory processes, however, is not the creation of the pragmatist, nor is he a god to abolish it. Abstractly, there is always a doubt about what transcends our immediate experience, and this is why it is so healthy to have to repudiate so many theoretic doubts in every act we do. For beliefs have to be acted on, and the results of the action rightly react on the beliefs. The pragmatic test is practically adequate, and is the only one available. That it brings out the risk of action only brings out its superiority to a theory which cannot get started at all until it is supplied with absolute certainty, and meantime can only idly rail at all existing human truths.