lity.' But Intellectualism
never perceived the difficulties lurking in it. At first sight this
seems a brave attempt to get outside the circle of thought in order to
test its value and to control its vagaries. Unluckily, this theory can
only assert, and neither explains nor proves, the connection between the
thought and the reality it desiderates. For, granting that it is the
intent of every thought to correspond with reality, we must yet inquire
how the alleged correspondence is to be made out. Made out it must be;
for as the criterion is quite formal and holds of all assertions, the
claim to 'correspond' may be false. To prove the correspondence, then,
the 'reality' would have somehow to be known apart from the truth-claim
of the thought, in order that the two might be compared and found to
agree. But if the reality were already known directly, what would be
the need of asserting an idea of it and claiming 'truth' for this? How,
moreover, could the claim be tested, if, as is admitted, the reality is
not directly known? To assert the 'correspondence' must become a
groundless postulate about something which is defined to transcend all
knowledge. The correspondence theory, then, does not _test_ the
truth-claim of the assertion; it only gives a fresh definition of it. A
'true' thought, it says, is one which _claims to correspond_ with a
'reality.' _But so does a false,_ and hence the theory leaves us as we
were, puzzled to distinguish them.[D]

Yet the theory is not wholly wrong. Many of our thoughts do claim to
correspond with reality in ways that can be verified. If the judgment
'There is a green carpet in my hall' is taken to mean 'If I enter my
hall, I shall _see_ a green carpet,' perception tests whether the
judgment 'corresponds' with the reality perceived, and so goes to
validate or disprove the claim. But the limits within which this
correspondence works are very strait. It applies only to such judgments
as are anticipations of perception,[E] and will test a truth-claim only
where there is willingness to act on it. It implies an experiment, and
is not a wholly intellectual process.

The superiority of the 'correspondence' theory over the belief in
'intuitions' lies in its insistence that thought is not to audit its own
accounts. Its success or failure depends upon factors external to it,
which establish the truth or falsehood of its claims. No such guarantee
is offered by the next theory, which is known a