science may possibly be far less life and far less assured of the future, than life controlled by instincts and powerful illusions. If it came to the worst, if a choice had to be made between knowledge at the expense of life and life at the expense of knowledge, he would not hesitate to give life the higher place—a knowledge that worked destructively on life would indeed in the end destroy itself.[1]
The foregoing considerations relate to truth in the theoretic sense. Truth in the moral sense is a different matter. Its origin is utility. Men live in society—have to, to live at all. They must then understand one another; to this extent at least they must put an end to the bellum omnium contra omnes. That is, they must use words in the same senses. When one person says "green" or "loud" or "cow" or "horse," he must mean what others mean by the same words. To speak "truly" is to agree with others, to conform to the general conventions. Language gave the first laws of truth; here the contrast between truth and falsehood first arose. But the conventions of speech have little or nothing to do with truth in the sense first mentioned—they had their origin in other than theoretic considerations. Speaking "truly" to one's fellow-man involves nothing as to giving a true, i.e., faithfully objective, report of things. German speech attributes a male gender to the tree and a female gender to the plant—how unwarrantable to draw theoretic conclusions therefrom! In fact truth in the moral (social) sense is entirely compatible with falsehood in the other sense; it means nothing more than that one faithfully uses the customary metaphors, i.e. (speaking now in more ultimate terms), that one falsifies as the flock does in a way recognized as binding upon all.
Yes, the needs of the flock not only cover up theoretic falsehood of the sort described, but they breed, or have bred, illusions on their own account. I have just used the phrase "binding upon all." But anything "binding" naturally brings along with it the idea that those who are bound can heed the obligation, that it is in their power to comply with it, whether they actually do or not—and this idea, when further developed and connected with obedience to the standards of the flock in gen-
- ↑ "The Use and Harm of History for Life," sects. 7, 9, 10.
