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Logic is the mind's systematic attempt to understand the nature and the conditions of the search after Truth. To the question, 'What is Truth?' we would answer by suggesting the following provisional definition: Truth is the Unity of ideas as systematically organized through the control exercised by relevant fact. Or: Truth is the Unity of Thought as systematically organized through the control exercised by that aspect of Reality which is relevant to the purpose of the thinker. With a view to bringing out the meaning of these definitions, we must state in the first place that we do not regard Truth as a datum, but as a problem. The truth we seek cannot be that from which we start, for were truth already attained at the outset, no sufficient reason could be assigned for proceeding any further with the quest. We might, of course, regard the Truth as given, and devote our energies to its systematic exposition and application. But, in that case, we should have radically to alter our definition of Logic. Logic would no longer deal with the Search after Truth, but would be busied solely with the question of its consistent presentation. Logic would just mean Consistency-Logic, and might be defined as the mind's systematic attempt to understand the nature and the conditions of a correct presentation of the Truth. But, valuable as such a Consistency-Logic would be, its logical value would be, not in its relation to a system of given truth, but in its analysis and development of the laws of consistent thinking.

Objectively and apart from our cognition, aspects of truth may, for aught we know, be diverse and multiform; in the infinity of space and time we have no adequate reason for affirming that they are not; but we cannot without the most gratuitous mental suicide allow the subjective co-existence of antagonistic convictions both claiming to be true at the same time. We must maintain, I think, the indivisibility of consciousness not only as an ultimate postulate of truth, but as a sine qua non of all affirmation and ratiocination of whatever kind. I am aware that this position — the ultimate veracity of consciousness, has been questioned; indeed, in a dialectical mood I have frequently questioned it myself, and in my own opinion not unsuccessfully so far as formal ratiocination is concerned. For that matter, I have had too long an experience of the subtleties and multiform aspects of logic not to know that there is no principle which can be formulated as an axiom of truth which unscrupulous dialectic cannot undermine. Even the 'Cogito, ergo sum,' of Descartes may be shown to be open to innumerable objections both as to form and substance. But while I think those extreme exercitations not only harmless in themselves but useful as intellectual gymnastics — just as the paradoxes of the higher mathematics may be useful — I nevertheless regard them as mere brutem fulmen when employed seriously to destroy consciousness: at most they can only result in setting reason to destroy reason — a mere self-stultifying and utterly ineffective operation. Reason and the direct deliverances of consciousness have a vitality much too inherent to succumb to attacks of formal logic, no matter how adroitly planned or how skilfully conducted. The dialectician who in earnest undertakes such a task is engaged in an enterprise much more fruitless than the ancient battle with the Hydra: the heads he amputates replace themselves with greater facility — the life he supposes himself to take is but the precursor of renewed vitality. From this standpoint of reason and consciousness we must, then, pronounce against all extreme forms of double-truth.