Page:Psychology and preaching.djvu/167

 BELIEF 149

equally important role in their determination in all minds, because all minds are not equal in their capacity for feeling. Minds vary in sensibility ; vary not only as to the keenness of the feeling awakened by the same stimulus but as to the strength of their feeling responses in general. And, other things being equal, the mind of keen and delicate sensibility may possibly be more influenced by feeling in the accept ance of presentations than the mind of dull sensibility. However that may be, it is certain that in minds of unusual sensibility the influence of the feelings in this respect is more apparent ; though, perhaps, if we could lay bare the inner life of all minds we should discover that they differ from one another in this matter, not as to the extent to which feeling influences the acceptance of new ideas or facts, but as to the intensity or positiveness of the beliefs so determined. The mind of extreme sensibility holds its beliefs more pas sionately, more dogmatically, than the mind of dull sensi bility. Its beliefs have for a mind of great sensibility a value, a preciousness, which they do not have for a mind of the opposite type ; though probably feeling is equally potent in each in determining the content of belief.

But how does feeling operate in the determination of belief? Manifestly it is not the sole factor. It does not operate apart from the organized experience as represented in the system of ideas. Belief is the acceptance of a pres entation and its instalment in this system of ideas based upon the perception of agreement between the two. Feel ing, then, must become influential in determining belief by exercising some measure of control over the action of con sciousness as organized in this system. It operates as a power behind the throne.

First, it influences the direction of the attention. Feel ing is the peculiar emphasis of meaning for the self with which each presentation is clothed as consciousness is di rected upon it. It is obvious that the specific feeling which accompanies the direction of the attention does not de termine this act; but the mood, or the course of feeling, or

�� �