I cannot help thinking that he has the latter, and not only the former in his mind. But, then, what does this involve? If his instances of "truth-making" are to be anything to the purpose, it should mean that, whenever I have a hand in causing one of my own beliefs, I always have to that extent a hand in making it true. That, therefore, I have a hand in actually making the sun rise, the wind blow, and the rain fall, whenever I cause my beliefs in these things. Nay, more, it should mean that, whenever I "make" a true belief about the past, I must have had a hand in making this true. And if so, then certainly I must have had a hand in causing the French Revolution, in causing my father's birth, in making Professor James write this book. Certainly he implies that some man or other must have helped in causing almost every event, in which any man ever truly believed. That it was we who made the planets revolve round the sun, who made the Alps rise, and the floor of the Pacific sink--all these things, and others like them, seem to be involved. And it is these consequences which seem to me to justify a doubt whether, in fact "our truths are to an unascertainable extent man-made." That some of our truths are man-made--indeed, a great many--I fully admit. We certainly do make some of our beliefs true. The Secretary probably had a belief that I should write this paper, and I have made his belief true by writing it. Men certainly have the power to alter the world to a certain extent; and, so far as they do this, they certainly "make true" any beliefs, which are beliefs in the occurrence of these alterations. But I can see no reason for supposing that they "make true" _nearly_ all those of their beliefs which are true. And certainly the only reason which Professor James seems to give for believing this--namely, that the _existence_ of almost all their beliefs depends on them--seems to be no reason for it at all. For unquestionably a man does not "make true" nearly every belief whose _existence_ depends on him; and if so, the question which of their beliefs and how many, men do "make true" must be settled by quite other considerations. In conclusion, I wish to sum up what seems to me to be the most important points about this "pragmatist theory of truth," as Professor James represents it. It seems to me that, in what he says about it, he has in his mind some things which are true and others which are false; and I wish to tabulate separately the principal ones which I take to be true, and the principal ones which I take to be false. The true ones seem to me to be these:-- That _most_ of our true beliefs are useful to us; and that _most_ of the beliefs that are useful to us are true. That the world really does change in some respects; that facts exist at one time, which didn't and won't exist at others; and that hence the world may be better at some future time than it is now or has been in the past.