the very root of the distinction between knowledge and philosophical belief, and leads directly into the deepest problems of metaphysical science, its solution depending upon the answer given to the doubt whether or not our thinking is merely formal, receiving materials and working them up in forms which may have no correlates in reality. Hume, who in this connection has given the impulse to all subsequent British thinking, laid his finger with unerring precision on the crucial point, and deliberately relegated all matters of fact to the province of belief. According to him, knowledge never passes beyond immediate intuition of ideas and their relations. Whenever we touch upon real existence, past or future, belief, not knowledge, is our instrument. An adequate discussion of the difficulty would lead beyond the limits of the present inquiry ; it may suffice to indicate generally what can be said on one typical point of the debate. Is the supposition of a causal connection among phenomena merely belief, or is it a necessary condition of knowledge 1 If the latter, then our thinking carries us with apodictic certainty beyond present experience of facts, for every causal judgment is, ipso facto, universal, and therefore extends to all or any time. Now, no proof of the universality of law among phenomena can ever be given from empirical grounds, for all such attempts virtually involve the very principle in question. It is a necessary presupposition, without which knowledge would be impossible. Its contrary is certainly not self-contradic tory, if by self-contradiction be meant impossibility of representation, for chaos can be pictured ; but the power of imagination is surely not the criterion of truth. It is the power of knowing objects that is in question, and the non-existence of the causal relation among phenomena would render actual experience impossible. Objects cannot be known save under this supposition. A similar line of argument directed towards others of the notions involved in what Kant has called synthetical judgments a priori, would show that such notions are constitutive of our ex perience, that thought penetrates deeply into phenomena, and that phenomenal relations are but types of the forms of real cognition. It might, of course, still be maintained that all these synthetical propositions are only formal, are only true if experience be given, and that a wide field is still left for belief. Under certain conditions this may be admitted. A doubt as to the very existence of experi ence is hardly a valid argument, but that there should be specific connections of phenomena, permanent and con stant that, for example, the same cause should continue to have the same effects may seem not quite a matter of knowledge. The real element of doubt in such a case is not, however, whether the same cause under the same conditions shall give the same effects, but whether in any definite instance we have attained a thorough knowledge of the cause itself, and whether the conditions will recur. The first of these doubts is overcome in the ordinary pro gress of knowledge ; the other concerns the empirical appearance of the effects, relates therefore to what may be
called the contingent, and forms the object of belief.It follows from what has been said that we exclude from the province of belief primitive truths and facts of immediate experience, with such phenomena, past or future, as are connected causally or by rational links with facts immediately known. There is still a wide field left for belief, (a.) In the stage of knowledge which we call sensible cognition belief introduces itself ; for conscious ness, which unhesitatingly affirms the correspondence of its content -with reality, readily exhibits its falsity when sub mitted to analysis. The belief, though firm, is shown to be erroneous, to be merely the rapid summation of a number of signs, which themselves do not come clearly before consciousness, and are therefore accepted without examination. (6.) In memory of our own past experience belief is involved. When I remember, I have present to consciousness ideas which represent past reality. To have ideas simply is to imagine ; to have ideas which we are con vinced represent past experience is to have imagination plus belief, i.e., to remember. It should be observed that we are frequently said to trust our memory, to believe that what we remember is true. This phraseology is objectionable; we cannot properly be said to trust our memory, we simply use it. In the very fact of remembering is involved the reference to past reality which is the essence of belief, (c.) We believe testimony, i.e., we accept as true facts not in our experience, and which possibly may never be. In thia case our belief is, that under certain conditions we should have the experience which from the testimony we can picture to ourselves, (d.) Expectation, so far as merely contingent elements are concerned, is a pure case of belief.
2. So far as we have yet seen, all objects of belief have been or may be objects of knowledge ; and the most promi nent distinction between the two is the presence in the one of an actual intuition and its absence in the other. This distinction, however, as we have pointed out,- is not absolute ; all thinking of reality is not belief. Belief is rather the thinking of reality which is determined by grounds not necessarily valid for all intelligence, but satis factory for the individual thinker. The difference between imagination and the thought of some reality does not seem capable of further analysis ; it expresses an ultimate fact. Attempts, however, have been made to work out a psycho logy of belief, and to point out the characteristics differen tiating ideas believed in from mere pictures of the mind. These have been generally due to British thinkers; and, since the time of Hume, the problem has become one of consider able importance. Locke, who marked out very carefully the province of belief and considered its grounds, made no attempt to analyse the state itself. Hume,[1] however, puts the question clearly before himself and returns an unhesitating answer. " As it is certain," he says, "there is a great difference betwixt the simple conception of the existence of an object and the belief of it, and as this difference lies not in the parts or composition of the idea which we conceive, it follows that it must be in the manner in which we conceive it. When we are convinced of any matter of fact, we do nothing but conceive it along with a certain feeling, different from what attends the reveries of imagination." " This feeling is nothing but a firmer con ception or a faster hold that we take cf the object." This manner of conception arises from a customary con junction of the object with something present to the memory or senses." From the last sentence to the elaborate theory of James Mill is but a short step. According to Mill, belief is a case of constant association ; an idea is believed which is irresistibly called up in connection with present experience. Thus in memory, the ideas of the past experience are irresistibly associated with the idea of myself experiencing them, and this irresistibility constitutes belief. Expectation, again, is the irresistible suggestion by present experience of a consequent or train of consequents. And to memory and expectation all ordinary cases of belief may be reduced.
analysis of what is meant by object in general, and, con sequently, of what is involved in thinking of an object.
Hume s is open to the special objection that he makes the- ↑ A theory somewhat similar to that of Hume is worked out by Mr Bagehot, Contemporary Renew, April 1871.
