Page:Philosophical Review Volume 22.djvu/138

122 account of reality written by the outward-looking intellect and to picture it in analogy with the knowing human mind. They accentuate the dynamic character of reality, the Heraclitean world-view as against the static absolutes of the Eleatics, and conceive being in analogy with the human will.

All these points and many others in the writings of the newest reformers of philosophy are well taken and have been emphasized again and again in the history of speculation. The new doctrines are not new in principle, as we have seen, and their champions often thunder too much in the index. The motives behind their wholesale distrust of the intellect are fear of depreciation of standard moral and religious values, a preconceived metaphysics and an all-too narrow conception of intelligence. Distrust of reason based on cravings of the will is not necessarily a bona fide distrust. It is not rational to discredit the intelligence because it fails to give us the world we want, or the heaven we want, or the God we want. The direst need cannot make black white though it may persuade us to paint it white. Nor does the fact that hypotheses happen to please the will to believe, or succeed in this sense, make these hypotheses true. The will to be deceived, though it may stifle the will to know, does not make truth. It is necessary to give reasons for taking the side of the will to believe, that is, to appeal to the intelligence, the same intelligence that has helped to free us from the slavery of nature and the slavery of our own superstitions. Such an appeal is made by every anti-intellectualist, yes, by every pragmatist who asks us to accept his theory because it is rational, because it accounts for the facts as he sees the facts, because it is true,—true in the old sense of the word.

It may be held that where knowledge leaves us in the lurch, faith comes into its own, that of two equally unprovable hypotheses that one is to be accepted which works in the sense of satisfying ethical and religious needs. As a piece of practical advice to be followed or not, philosophy need not concern itself with this statement. But there is objection to calling the hypothesis true because it chimes in with our desires or works in that way. Truth and utility are not the same, and it does not