ABSTRACT
In any inquiry into the nature of truth, two questions meet us on the threshold: (1) In what sense, if any, is truth dependent upon mind? (2) Are there many different truths, or is there only the Truth? These two questions are largely interconnected, and it is more or less optional whether we begin with the first or with the second. But, on the whole, the second, namely, the question whether we ought to speak of truths or of the Truth, seems the more fundamental, and the bulk of the present essay will be occupied with this question. The view that truth is one may be called ‘logical monism’; it is, of course, closely connected with ontological monism, i.e. the doctrine that Reality is one. The following essay will consist of two parts. In the first I shall state the monistic theory of truth, sketching the philosophy with which it is bound up, and shall then consider certain internal difficulties of this philosophy, which suggests a doubt as to the
axioms upon which the philosophy is based. In the second part I shall consider the chief of these axioms, namely, the axiom that relations are always grounded in the natures of their terms, and I shall try to show that there are no reasons in favour of this axiom and strong reasons against it.2
