The epitheton "true" has reference to representative states only. A representation is true, if it conforms to, or agrees with, experience; in other words, if it is an interpretation of given facts, is free from contradiction, and nowhere collides with any one of the given facts and their consistent interpretation. There is no sense in speaking of mere feelings as being true. We can never meet, in our own experience, with given facts that are nothing but meaningless feelings; for we (as thinking beings) are incapable of bringing meaningless feelings into the scope of consciousness, since in the very act of thinking we comment upon the given facts of our feelings. But supposing there are mere given facts, mere meaningless feelings void of any representative element, the application of the word true to such non-representative feelings would be improper. States of consciousness become true or untrue only by being representative of objective conditions or things. There is no trace of truth in mere feelings, but only in representative feelings. Truth and error are the privilege of mind. A representation is true, if all the various experiences concerning a certain thing or state of things agree with the representation; it is untrue if they do not agree. We observe that certain classes of facts, in spite of all variety, exhibit in one or another respect a sameness, and science attempts to express the sameness in exact formulas. These formulas we call natural laws. If a natural law covers all cases of a class that have come or even that possibly can come within the range of our experience, if it agrees with every one of them, we call it a truth. "Truth" accordingly is not at all identical with "fact." These two words are often used as synonyms, but properly employed they are quite distinct. Truth is the agreement of a representation with the facts represented. The fall of a stone is a fact; it is an inferred fact deduced from certain sense-impressions. In so far as the inference is made with necessity as the only proper and simplest explanation of a certain given fact or sense-impression, it must be considered as a fact or as real. The law of gravitation, however, is not a fact, but a truth. Facts are real. There is no sense in speaking of facts as being true. Representations of facts are true or untrue. Reality is the characteristic feature of all facts, but truth is a quality that can reside in mind alone. #Facts and truth.#