Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 15.djvu/101

 TRUTH

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TRUTH

. illiic. and thosr pioviiloil by Iho settlor. Any person \\\in h:i-s capaoily to hokl property may be a cestui que I r although some jurisdictions restrict the rule to iiiiiiurs or otiier incompetents. He must be definitely
 * ixr.Tt:uned either in person or us a class, but need not

li. actually in being at the date of the settlement. A MiM-rcign, anv of the states of the United States, or till- Federal Government may be a beneficiarj', or a ct.rporation so far as personal property is concerned, ar.'l also as to real estate within the limits of its charter privilege or unless prohibited by statute. .\n unin- ■ qiorated society, however, cannot be a cestui que ! except in the case of a charitable or religious ■ty. The beneficiarj- has a right to alienate or . iimber his estate unless the terms of the trust ex- imssly or impliedly forbid or there is a statute which iiiiirferes; so too he may assign his interest or even iliriiate the income before it becomes due.

Ilie cestui que trust or beneficiarj- has three reme- lii'^ in the event of a breach of trust on the part of 111- trustee. He may follow the specific estate into I 111' hands of a stranger to whom it has been wTong- lullv conveyed; he has the right of attaching the prop- I rty into which the estate may have been converted; and the further right of action against the trustee per- sMiudly for reimbursement. As between him and the tnij^tee there is no time limit when an action may be 1.! ought. It is the nde that purcha-sers must see to \\[f ajiplication of the purchase money in the cases of tni^t estates, such as where it is provided that the liiiids be for the paj-ment of specific legacies or annui- t j-^ or debts. In some jurisdictions this nde has been a I )!■. .gated by statute. Technical terms are not neces- sary in a devise to create a trust but if used will be inii'rjjreted in their legal and technical sense, (ien- I'ral expressions, however, will not establish a trust unli'.Ks there appears a positive intention that they should do so, Bequests in trust for accumulation must be confined within the limits established against inrpetuiiies. A settlor can only extend the trust for ilir life or lives in being and twenty-one years, and anv attempt to extend the trust beyond this period \lt Kites it in toto. By statute, accumulations are for- bidden in some jurisdictions excepting during the minority of the beneficiarj- or for other fixed periods I'.'iiivier, "Law Diet.", s. v. Perpetuity). \s a rule, the interest of a beneficiary is liable for • ! ' pajTnent of his debts, but this does not prevail in a majority of the United States. Spendthrift trusts, a- they are called, being for the protection of the bene- ii I ir>- .against his own improvidence, are sustained in - • jurisdictions. Since the Statute of Wills equi- I • interests are devisable only in writing. How far visec of a tru.=:t estate can execute the trust de- is on the intention of the settlor expres.sed in the i ument. General words will not pass a tnist es- unless there is a positive intention that it should s puss. In order to create a valid trust by will, the m-trument must be legally executed and admitted to pr iliate. There is this distinction between wills and ■ 1' ' larations of trusts. The former, being ambula- '• r\ . take effect only on the death of the testator, the ' !<r at the time of execution. P'omierly under the iiion law an executor had title to all personal I'Tty of the decedent, an<l Wiis entitled to take the lus after the payment of ilebts and legacies; now, latute he is prima facie a tnistee for the next of Although a tmstee is, in thwjrj-, allowed noth- for his trouble, his commissions are, in point of ■ generally fixed by statute and he is allowed hia ' - 'irnate expenses. See Charitable Beque.sts;

I. U'lES.

I'.rviER. Law Did. (Boston. 1897): Am. and Eng. Eneyd. of I 2n<le<l.. London, 1904); Lewin, On TrusO (12th ed.. London, IMIl; Perrt, Trium and Trualees, (6th ed.. Boston, 1911); BiaPHAM, Principles of Equity (Philadelphia. 1882).

Walter George Smith.

Truth (.\. S. treou', tryu\ truth, preservation of a compact, from a Teutonic base Trau, to believe) is a relation which holds (1) between the knower and the known — Logical Truth; (2j between the knower and the outward expression which he gives to his knowledge — Moral Truth; and (3) between the thing itself, as it exists, and the idea of it, as conceived by God — Ontological Truth. In each case this relation is, according to the Scholastic theory, one of corre- spondence, conformity, or agreement {adeequatio) (St. Thomas, Summa, I, Q. xxi, a. 2.)

I. Ontological Truth. — Everj' existing thing is true, in that it is the expression of an idea which exists in the mind of God, and is, as it were, the exem- plar according to which the thing has been created or fashioned. Just as human creations — a cathedral, a painting, or an epic — conform to and embody the ideas of architect, artist, or poet, so, only in a more perfect way, God's creatures conform to and embody the ideas of Him who gives them being. (Q. D., I, De verit., a. 4; Summa, Q. x\-i, a. 1.) Things that exist, moreover, are active as well as pa.ssive. They tend not only to develop, and so to realize more and more perfectly the idea which they are created to express, but they tend also to reproduce themselves. Reprod\iction obtains wherever there is interaction between difTerent things, for an effect, in so far as it proceeds from a given cause, must resemble that cause. Now the cause of knowledge in man is — ultimately, at any rate — the thing that is known. By its activi- ties it causes in man an idea that is like to the idea embodied in the thing itself. Hence, things may also be said to be ontologicaUy true in that they are at once the object and the cause of human knowledge. (Cf. Idealism; and Summa, I, Q. x\d, aa. 7 and 8; in 1. periherm., 1. Ill; Q. D., I, De veritate, a. 4.)

II. Logical Truth. — A. The Scholastic Theory. — To judge that things are what they are is to judge truly. Every judgment comprises certain ideas which are referred to, or denied of, reality. But it is not these ide;is that are the objects of our judgment. They are merely the instruments by means of which we judge. The object about which we judge is reality itself — either concrete existing things, their attributes, and their relations, or else entities the existence of which is merely conceptual or imaginary, as in drama, poetrj', or fiction, but in any case entities which are real in the sense that their being is other than our present thought about them. Reality, therefore, is one thing, and the ideas and judgments by means of which %ve think about reality, another; the one objective, and the other subjective. Yet, diverse as they are, reality is somehow present to, if not present in, consciousness when we think, and somehow by means of thought the nature of reality is revealed. This being the case, the only term ade- quate to describe the relation that exi.sts between thought and reality, when our judgments about the latter are true judgments, wotdd .seem to be conform- ity or correspondence. "Veritas logica est adiequa- lio intellectus et rei" (.Summa, I, Q. xxi, a. 2). When- ever truth is predicable of a judgment, that judg- ment corresponds to, or resembles, the reality, the nature or attributes of which it reveals. Every judgment is, howe\'er, as we have said, made up of ideas, and may be logically analyzed into a subject and a predicate, which are either united by the copula is, or disjoined by the expression is not. If the judg- ment be true, therefore, these ideas must also be true, i. e. must correspond with the re.ahties which they signify. As, however, this objective reference or significance of ideas is not recognized or asserted except in the judgment, ideas as such are said to be only "materially" true. It is the judgment alone that is formally true, since in the judgment alone is a reference to reality formally made, and truth as such recognized or claimed.