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TEST OF TRUTH AND ERROR
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of the kind that objective idealism means by it. The Nyaya coherence is a practical test and means the harmony between cognitive and conative experiences (pravṛttisāmarthya) or between different kinds of knowledge (tajjūtīyatva). That there is truth in the sense of correspondence cannot, as a general rule, be known directly by intuition. We know it by inference from the fact that the knowledge in question coheres with other experiences of the same object as also with the general system of our knowledge. Thus the perception of water is known to be valid when different ways of reaction or experiment give us the same experience of water. It is this kind of coherence that Alexander accepts as a test of truth when he says: "If truth is tested by reference to other propositions, the test is not one of correspondence to reality but of whether the proposition tested is consistent or not with other propositions."1 Hobhouse also means the same thing by 'consilience' as a measure of validity. According to him, validity belongs to judgments as forming a consilient system. Of course, he admits that such validity is relative and not absolute, since the ideal of a complete system of consilient judgments is unattainable. The Nyaya idea of samvada or coherence may be better explained as a combination of Reid's methods of correspondence and coherence. If we take the judgment
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that is the light of a ship,' we can test its truth by what Reid calls the correspondence method "of approaching the light and seeing a ship." This is exactly what the Nyaya means by pravrttisämarthya or successful activity. Or, we can employ, so says Reid, the cheaper coherence method "of comparing this knowledge with other kinds of knowledge and see if it is consistent with them.' In this we have the Nyaya method of testing one knowledge by reference to
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1 Space, Time and Desty, Vol. II, p 252 The Theory of Knowledge, pp. 499-500 8 Knowledge and Truth, pp. 203-4, 211-12
