HAEOLD H. JOACHIM, The Nature of Truth. 547 tinctively characterised by a discordance and a hostility which debar it from becoming merely a contrasting element within the develop- ing system of knowledge ' (p. 147) is one of the best points in the book. Mr. Joachim has faced the problem frankly and resisted the temptation to disguise from himself and his readers how deep-seated the trouble really is. Most monistic systems have come to grief over it just because they failed to appreciate the real ' sting ' of the opposition between error and truth. In this connexion, one is glad to have Mr. Joachim's demonstration that a solution of the pro- blem by means of (esthetic categories, as if error were like a musical discord necessary to the harmony of the whole, is no more satisfac- tory than any other (p. 145). Another welcome point is the declara- tion that Truth, without ceasing to be universal, not only can, but must, submit to be coloured by the ' intellectual individuality ' of each thinker (p. 116). Many, however, will regard ' difference of empha- sis ' as too mild a term to describe the actual conflict of theories and creeds, though this is a fault largely remedied by Mr. Joachim's subsequent remarks on error. But the important question as to what distinguishes legitimate individual difference from error is not touched upon. There is one striking omission which some readers will note with joy and others with sorrow. Pragmatism is dismissed in a few somewhat contemptuous sentences of the Preface. For the purposes of review I prefer not to follow Mr. Joachim's own arrangement of chapters, but to treat chapter i. which deals with the ' Correspondence- notion ' of Truth in its natural connexion with the ' Coherence-notion ' in chapter iii. The criticism in chapter ii. of the theory that Truth is a quality of independent entities l is of special interest from the fact that the theory is maintained at the present day as a definite alternative to current Idealism by such skilful exponents as Mr. Moore and Mr. Eussell. Idealism itself is, therefore, on its trial, since failure to overthrow the enemy's position would argue fatal weakness in itself. It may be prejudice on my part due to the fact that I have been brought up in the same school of Idealism as Mr. Joachim, but it appears to me that his dialectics are entirely successful, more especially his attack on Mr. Russell's difficult conception of a ' strictly logical assertion ' as distinguishing true from false propositions (pp. 38 and 54). However I should say that Mr. Joachim's criticism would have been unnecessary but for the metaphysical and logical pretensions of the Independence-theory. If it claimed to be no more than a methodological device for separat- ing the spheres of Psychology and Logic, it would be highly attrac- tive. Such a separation, even though it be only provisional, is not merely possible, but for certain purposes necessary. It is as legiti- mate to study the psychological characteristics of such theoretical attitudes as Belief, Doubt, etc., without any reference to the par- 1 For the sake of shortness I shall refer to this theory as ' Independence- theory '.
