as the usual kind; and
a person who always believes falsely is just as sensitive an instrument
as a person who always believes truly. The observable and practical
difference between them would be that the one who always believed
falsely would quickly come to a bad end. This illustrates once more that
accuracy of response to stimulus does not alone show knowledge, but must
be reinforced by appropriateness, i.e. suitability for realizing one's
purpose. This applies even in the apparently simple case of answering
questions: if the purpose of the answers is to deceive, their falsehood,
not their truth, will be evidence of knowledge. The proportion of
the combination of appropriateness with accuracy in the definition
of knowledge is difficult; it seems that both enter in, but that
appropriateness is only required as regards the general type of
response, not as regards each individual instance.

II. I have so far assumed as unquestionable the view that the truth or
falsehood of a belief consists in a relation to a certain fact,
namely the objective of the belief. This view has, however, been often
questioned. Philosophers have sought some intrinsic criterion by which
true and false beliefs could be distinguished.* I am afraid their chief
reason for this search has been the wish to feel more certainty than
seems otherwise possible as to what is true and what is false. If
we could discover the truth of a belief by examining its intrinsic
characteristics, or those of some collection of beliefs of which it
forms part, the pursuit of truth, it is thought, would be a less arduous
business than it otherwise appears to be. But the attempts which
have been made in this direction are not encouraging. I will take two
criteria which have been suggested, namely, (1) self-evidence, (2)
mutual coherence. If we can show that these are inadequate, we may
feel fairly certain that no intrinsic criterion hitherto suggested will
suffice to distinguish true from false beliefs.

* The view that such a criterion exists is generally held by
those whose views are in any degree derived from Hegel. It
may be illustrated by the following passage from Lossky,
"The Intuitive Basis of Knowledge" (Macmillan, 1919), p.
268: "Strictly speaking, a false judgment is not a judgment
at all. The predicate does not follow from the subject S
alone, but from the subject plus a certain addition C, WHICH
IN NO SENSE BELONGS TO T