Page:Psychology and preaching.djvu/155

 BELIEF 137

opposition between the presentation and the mental organ ization and consequently no impulse to reject it, and no hesitation in accepting it; and in such a situation, as will later be pointed out, the mind cannot reject what is pre sented to it. But it is not this negative inability of which I now speak. The characteristic note of the reaction now under consideration is that the presentation has a positive and compelling character; it must be received; it not only bears credentials which entitle it to be believed, but it comes too strongly armed to be rejected. It may be in large measure inconsistent with the mental organization in both its ideational and affective elements, but so much the worse for the mental organization. The presentation in this case necessitates a reorganization, and that means, of course, that it is disagreeable and would be rejected if that were practicable. There may arise an impulse to reject it, but the sense of necessity overwhelms such an impulse at its very birth; the presentation asserts itself and compels belief, whether or no. In such situations the mind is dealing either with presentations of the sensory type, which come with the clear and emphatic testimony of the senses ; or with those which bear the stamp of logical necessity, such as mathemat ical axioms and the demonstrations based upon them, or the principles of contradiction, identity, etc.

We shall not enter here into the question, which belongs to the theory of knowledge, whether or not these axiomatic principles themselves have an empirical origin. If their origin should be accounted for in that way, it seems evident that at any rate they do not originate in the experience of the present-day individual, though doubtless they are devel oped, brought into conciousness, through individual experi ence. Certain it is that when the mind is confronted by the clear testimony of the senses or by an axiom, it feels the necessity of accepting such a presentation as real, or true, provided it occurs in harmony with the conditions under which our senses normally give us information or under which our minds normally act. The only hesitation or ques-

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