Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/771

Rh of nerve and muscle, comparatively few ever produce in us sensation. This is matter of mere physical organization. We are conscious of a much more important selective process. We know that we do choose what things we shall respond to, and what not. We are now brought to see the two chief phases of belief, the voluntary and the involuntary sides of it.

Much has been said of the uncontrollable nature of belief. This is no mere fancy. We do believe in an involuntary sort of way, much as a child puts everything into its mouth. In fact. Prof. James has said, "Whatever is uncontradicted is ipso facto believed." In such a sense as this, belief is uncontrollable. But the other side of the matter is more important. We may will to believe—that is, we may choose what we will believe and what we will not believe.

This possibility of choice depends upon two things, one subjective, the other objective. To the former fact Prof. James has already called attention in pointing out that the same things may seem different to us. My table-top, for instance, will look like a rhombus, a square, or an oblong rectangle, depending upon the point of view. I deliberately choose to regard it as a square, and in so doing ignore the other aspects, which none the less remain equally true and real. The second fact upon which the possibility of choice depends is a matter of mental constitution. Prof. Royce gives this a very clear statement. "We are prejudiced," he says, "in favor of regularity in the world; and so we continually manipulate the data of sense for the sake of building up a notion of a regular, necessary, and simple universe." Just as the sponge, again, by its constitution of calcareous outer skeleton and soft inner substance, must prefer to absorb from the varied materials offered by the passing current lime and carbon, so we choose what we choose largely per force of our racial and individual constitutions.

"And so," continues Prof. Royce, "though it is true that our knowledge of the world is determined by what is given to our senses, it is equally true that our idea of the world is determined quite as much by our own active combination, completion, anticipation of sense experience." It is unnecessary to repeat the arguments upon which the conclusion Prof. Royce reaches is based. I have already indicated them. Because we can receive more sensations than we can follow, we choose to reject some and retain others, thus carrying out consciously the selective process that our organization unconsciously begins. Now, what Prof. Royce emphasizes is the fact that this conscious process of