Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/178

164 F. H. BEADLEY : At an early stage of mind, every suggestion which does not conflict with the felt present is appropriated by that present and is necessarily believed in, so far as we are able as yet to speak of belief. The suggestion, on the other hand, which is not believed in, cannot possibly be retained theoretically, but, apart from appetite or fear, is banished forthwith. It is not my business here to attempt to show how mere ideas become possible, and again how far, and in what sense, the simple entertainment of them still involves judgment and their reference to a modified Reality. It is sufficient to have noticed in passing a common mistake and to have pointed out its nature. The main question, we may say, is not about the plus of belief, but about the minus of mere thinking. The main question in other words is, How is it possible not to believe. Then, when that point is clear, we may approach with confidence a different and subsequent problem, What is the difference between primitive belief and the belief or judgment which comes after doubt, and which really does supervene upon our " mere ideas " ? And when we have seen that mere ideas consist in the disruption of a unity, we shall not find it hard to perceive the nature of that which supervenes. It is the restoration of those ideas to the unity from which they were separated, and to which they are now once more joined in a higher sense. It is in this restoration that we must seek and find the real nature of that addition which we observe in belief. But the ques- tion of the separation is fundamental, and, if it is ignored, the whole enquiry is wrecked. 1 I should like to append to this paper some remarks on a point to which I have adverted (p. 156), the question, that is, about what is to be called " Matter of fact". So large a 1 In this matter Prof. Bain's doctrine of Primitive Credulity has been of great service to psychology. I must, however, in passing remark that I am forced largely to dissent from his view as to belief. I dissent further from the mere identification of judgment with belief, but I cannot enter here into the difference between them. I would further direct the reader's attention to the fact that I may disbelieve in that which I certainly remember. The memory is here a judgment necessary in and on its own ground, but that region has here been disconnected from the world which I call my real world. This attitude is, of course, my common attitude towards the " imaginary ". The judgment will be here a kind of condi- tional judgment. The difference I have noted between either the theoreti- cal or practical acceptance of an idea after it has been held as a mere idea and its acceptance previously, has great importance. There is a re-union of the element, which was held aloof, once more with the felt reality. And it is this re-union which gives that feeling of "consent " which has been found so inexplicable.