Chapter XXVI

, I shall mention this again.

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A practical observation may end this chapter. If belief consists in an emotional reaction of the entire man on an object, how _can_ we believe at will? We cannot control our emotions. Truly enough, a man cannot believe at will abruptly. Nature sometimes, and indeed not very infrequently, produces instantaneous conversions for us. She suddenly puts us in an active connection with objects of which she had till then left us cold. "I realize for the first time," we then say, "what that means!" This happens often with moral propositions. We have often heard them; but now they shoot into our lives; they move us; we feel their living force. Such instantaneous beliefs are truly enough not to be achieved by will. But _gradually_ our will can lead us to the same results by a very simple method: _we need only in cold blood_ ACT _as if the thing in question were real, and keep acting as if it were real, and it will infallibly end by growing into such a connection with our life that it will become real._ It will become so knit with habit and emotion that our interests in it will be those which characterize belief. Those to whom 'God' and 'Duty' are now mere names can make them much more than that, if they make a little sacrifice to them every day. But all this is so well known in moral and religious education that I need say no more.[318]

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[287] Reprinted, with additions, from 'Mind' for July 1889.

[288] Compare this psychological fact with the corresponding logical truth that all negation rests on covert assertion of something else than the thing denied. (See Bradley's Principles of Logic, bk. i. ch. 3.)

[289] See that very remarkable little work, 'The Anæsthetic Revelation and the Gist of Philosophy,' by Benj. P. Blood (Amsterdam, N. Y., 1874). Compare also Mind, vii. 206.

[290] "To one whose mind is healthy thoughts come and go unnoticed; with me they have to be faced, thought about in a peculiar fashion, and then disposed of as finished, and this often when I am utterly wearied and would be at peace; but the call is imperative. This goes on to the hindrance of all natural action. If I were told that the staircase was on fire and I had only a minute to escape, and the thought arose--'Have they sent for fire-engines? Is it probable that the man who has the key is on hand? Is the man a careful sort of person? Will the key be hanging on a peg? Am I thinking rightly? Perhaps they don't lock the depot'--my foot would be lifted to go down; I should be conscious to excitement that I was losing my chance; but I should be unable to stir until all these absurdities were entertained and disposed of. In the most critical moments of my life, when I ought to have been so _engrossed as to leave no room for any secondary thoughts_, I have been oppressed by the inability to be at peace. And in the most ordinary circumstances it is all the same. Let me instance the other morning I went to walk. The day was biting cold, but I was unable to proceed except by jerks. Once I got arrested, my feet in a muddy pool. One foot was lifted to go, knowing that it was not good to be standing in water, but there I was fast, the cause of detention being the discussing with myself the reasons why I should not stand in that pool." (T. S. Clouston, Clinical Lectures on Mental Diseases, 1883, p. 43. See also Berger, in Archiv f. Psychiatrie, vi. 217.)

[291] Note to Jas. Mill's Analysis, i. 412-428.

[292] For an excellent account of the history of opinion on this subject see A. Marty, in Vierteljahrsch. f. wiss. Phil., viii. 181 ff. (1884).

[293] We saw near the end of