es with the very nature of
all individual facts of experience; trifles also with life and with
his own decisive will. Every serious man does his daily business with
an {157} assurance that, since his deeds are irrevocable, his guiding
opinions, that counsel his individual deeds give, in an equally
irrevocable way, right or wrong guidance, precisely in so far as they
get their workings concretely presented in his deeds. And this view
about life is no philosopher's abstraction. It is the only genuinely
concrete view. Its contradiction is not merely illogical, but
practically inane. I cannot do a deed and then undo it. Therefore I
cannot declare it to be for a determinate purpose the right individual
deed at this point in life, and then say that I did not really mean
that counsel to be taken as simply and therefore absolutely true.
Absolute reality (namely, the sort of reality that belongs to
irrevocable deeds), absolute truth (namely, the sort of truth that
belongs to those opinions which, for a given purpose, counsel
individual deeds, when the deeds in fact meet the purpose for which
they were intended)--these two are not remote affairs invented by
philosophers for the sake of "barren intellectualism." _Such absolute
reality and absolute truth are the most concrete and practical and
familiar of matters._ The pragmatist who denies that there is any
absolute truth accessible has never rightly considered the very most
characteristic feature of the reasonable will, namely, that it is
always counselling irrevocable deeds, and therefore is always giving
counsel that is for its own determinate purpose irrevocably right or
wrong precisely in so far as it is definite counsel.

{158}

One of the least encouraging features of recent discussion is the
prominence and popularity of those philosophical opinions which are
always proclaiming their "concrete" and "practical" character, while
ignoring the most vital and concrete feature of all voluntary life.
For the very essence of the will is that, at every moment of action,
it decides absolute issues, because it does irrevocable deeds, and
therefore, if intelligent at all, is guided by opinions that are as
absolutely true or false as their intended workings are irrevocable. I
repeat: If you want to know what an absolute truth is, and what an
absolute falsity, do anything whatever, and then try to undo your
deed. You will find that the opinion which should counsel you to
regard it as