It is, I should say: "Give to any hypothesis which is worth your while to consider just that degree
of credence which the evidence warrants." And if the hypothesis is sufficiently important there is
the additional duty of seeking further evidence. This is plain common sense, and in harmony with
the procedure in the law courts, but it is quite different from the procedure recommended by
James.
It would be unfair to James to consider his will to believe in isolation; it was a transitional
doctrine, leading by a natural development to pragmatism. Pragmatism, as it appears in James, is
primarily a new definition of "truth." There were two other protagonists of pragmatism, F.C.S.
Schiller and Dr. John Dewey. I shall consider Dr. Dewey in the next chapter; Schiller was of less
importance than the other two. Between James and Dr. Dewey there is a difference of emphasis.
Dr. Dewey's outlook is scientific, and his arguments are largely derived from an examination of
scientific method, but James is concerned primarily with religion and morals. Roughly speaking,
he is prepared to advocate any doctrine which tends to make people virtuous and happy; if it does
so, it is "true" in the sense in which he uses that word.
The principle of pragmatism, according to James, was first enunciated by C. S. Peirce, who
maintained that, in order to attain clearness in our thoughts of an object, we need only consider
what conceivable effects of a practical kind the object may involve. James, in elucidation, says
that the function of philosophy is to find out what difference it makes to you or me if this or that
world-formula is true. In this way theories become instruments, not answers to enigmas.
Ideas, we are told by James, become true in so far as they help us to get into satisfactory relations
with other parts of our experience: "An idea is 'true' so long as to believe it is profitable to our
lives." Truth is one species of good, not a separate category. Truth happens to an idea; it is made
true by events. It is correct to say, with the interectualists, that a true idea must agree with reality,
but "agreeing" does not mean "copying." "To 'agree' in the widest sense with a reality can only
mean to be guided either straight up to it or into its surroundings, or to be put into such working
touch with it as to handle either it or something connected with it better than if we disagreed." He
adds that "the 'true' is only the expedient in the way of our thinking... in the long run and on the
whole of course."