Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/772

754, which is inevitable, follows certain lines, namely, of simplicity, necessity, regularity. As he puts it, we are prejudiced in favor of certain aspects of the world, and impose them upon the phenomena with which we come in contact.

This brings us again to the active side of belief. To quote Prof. Royce again: "Every one is certain to be prejudiced, simply because he does not merely receive experience, but himself acts, himself makes experience." That is, everybody makes his own belief, his own knowledge to some degree. And if we will only watch closely our own mental movements during the process of coming to a decision, we shall see how true this is. During such a process there is a period of balancing one side against the other, of more or less keen scrutiny of reasons, of swift discussion back and forth, accompanied by a tension and excitement rising to the height of exaltation. There is perhaps no attitude in which the mind shows greater activity than this of questioning. We have many times felt the drop that comes with decision. The swift and agile leaping back and forth, the piercing looks cast on this side and on that, are all stopped, sometimes for very weariness, but almost always with a slight sense of depression, like settling after flight. The act of deciding, of accepting one of two alternatives, does really seem, at the moment of doing it, like a lower form of action. It is not intellectual, but volitional. I am quite sure no man ever chose a sweetheart without a little sense of coming down from the freedom and daring of uncertainty. It is like the feeling we may imagine a cloud to have on condensing into rain. It has become effective at the cost of freedom and elasticity. This condensing, dampening turn of conception is belief, and it is our will, our activity, the momentum of our life that bring it to pass.

Though belief is thus primarily an expression of the instinctive force of life, determined by intelligence and choice, what we may believe is a matter of circumstance. To believe what one has never heard of is manifestly impossible. Further, inasmuch as belief means laying hold on a conception, accepting it as a basis of action, it is necessary not only to have the matter come before one's mind, but also to attend to it—to see it clearly. Hume was right in insisting on the liveliness, clearness, permanence, and firmness of the conception that is believed. We do not as a rule believe our dreams, but let a dream recur again and again, and few of us will be able to refuse it credence. Many things come to be believed by their traditional weight of authority. The creeds of Christendom have come down to us with the force of centuries behind them. They are accepted in their traditional form chiefly because by multitudinous repetitions they have been