l three are psychologically very real to
those who believe in them, but logically they succumb to the assaults of
a scepticism which infers from the fact that no 'truths' are absolute
that all may reasonably be overthrown.

The only obstacle to its triumph lies in the existence of 'relative'
truths which are _not_ absolute, and do not claim to be, and in the
unexamined possibility that in a relativist interpretation of all truth
a meaning may be found for the distinction between 'true' and 'false.'
Now, not even a sceptic could deny that the size of an object is better
measured by a yard-measure than by the eye, even though it may be
meaningless to ask what its size may be absolutely; or that it is
probable that bread will be found more nourishing than stone, even
though it may not be a perfect elixir of life. Even if he denied this,
the sceptic's _acts_ would convict his _words_ of insincerity, and
_practically_, at any rate, no one has been or can be a sceptic,
whatever the extent of his _theoretic_ doubts.

This fact is construed by the pragmatist as a significant indication of
the way out of the epistemological _impasse_. The 'relative' truths,
which Intellectualism passed by with contempt, may differ in _practical
value_ and lead to the conceptions of _practical truth_ and certainty
which may be better adapted to the requirements of human life than the
elusive and discredited ideals of absolute truth and certainty, and may
enable us to justify the distinctions we make between the 'true' and the
'false. At any rate, this suggestion seems worth following up.

To begin with, we must radically disabuse our minds of the idea that
thinking _starts from certainty._ Even the self-evident and
self-confident 'intuitions' that impress the uncritical so much with
their claim to infallibility are really the results of antecedent doubts
and ponderings, and would never be enunciated unless there were thought
to be a dispute about them. In real life thought starts from
perplexities, from situations in which, as Professor Dewey says, beliefs
have to be 'reconstructed,' and it aims at setting doubts at rest. It is
psychologically impossible for a rational mind to assert what it knows
to be true, and supposes everyone else to admit the truth of. This is
why even a philosopher's conversation does not consist of a rehearsal of
all the unchallenged truisms that he can remember.

Being thus conditioned by a doubt, every judgment is a