Page:Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology (1916).djvu/272

 cultivate ideals. That is but idle dreaming. Do not forget that Kepler cast horoscopes for money, and that countless artists have been condemned to work for wages.

V.

From Dr. Loÿ. 9th February, 1913.

The selfsame passion for truth possesses us both when we think of pure research, and the same desire to cure when we are considering therapy. For the scientist, as for the doctor, we desire the fullest freedom in all directions, fullest freedom to select and use the methods which promise the best fulfilment of their ends at any moment. Here we are at one; but there remains a postulate we must establish to the satisfaction of others if we want recognition for our views.

First and foremost there is a question that must be answered, an old question asked already in the Gospels: What is Truth? I think clear definitions of fundamental ideas are most necessary. How shall we contrive a working definition of the conception “Truth”? Perhaps an allegory may help us.

Imagine a gigantic prism extending in front of the sun, so that its rays are broken up, but suppose man entirely ignorant of this fact. I exclude the invisible, chemical and ultra-violet rays. Men who live in a blue-lit region will say: “The sun sends forth blue light only.” They are right and yet they are wrong: from their standpoint they are capable of perceiving only a fragment of truth. And so too with the inhabitants of the red, yellow, and in-between regions. And they will all scourge and slay one another to force their belief in their fragment upon the others—till, grown wiser through travelling in each others’ regions, they come to the harmonious agreement that the sun sends out light of varying colours. That comprehends more truth, but it is not yet the Truth. Only when a giant lens shall have re-combined the split-up rays and when the invisible, chemical and heat rays have given proof of their own specific effects, will a view more