ABSTRACT
A true idea would be either one that has actually been verified or one that could be verified, and the truth of it would consist either in its concretely experienced leading to a satisfactory issue or in the possibility of such a leading. Having satisfied ourselves as to the exact meaning which the pragmatist gives to truth, let us turn to the intellectualist. By the truth of an idea the intellectualist means merely this simple thing, that the object of which one is thinking is as one thinks it. The usefulness of a hypothesis is indeed an excellent test of its truth. This is a practical method for the verification of an idea on which pragmatism has done well to insist. But to identify the truth of a thought with the process of its own verification can hardly lead to anything but intellectual confusion.
