There is a distinction, first characterized by Aristotle, between potentiality and actu ality (posse and esse), which truly represents two different states of mind of real occur rence. Besides the actual doing of a thing, we know what it is to be in a state of preparedness to act, before the emergency has arisen, or while it is still at a distance and uncertain. The thirsty traveler, not knowing of a spring where he may drink, is debarred from the net that his condition prompts him to, but he is in an attitude of mind that we call being ready for action the moment the opportunity arrives. We all carry about us a number of unexecuted resolutions, some of them perhaps remaining so to the last, for want of the occasion. They are not, on that account, to be set aside as having no part in our nature; they are genuine phases of our activity. So it is with many things believed in by us, without any actual prospect of grounding actions, or staking our welfare, upon such things. When we say we believe that the circumference of the globe is 25,000 m., if not repeating an empty sound, or indulging an idle conception, we give it out that if any occasion arise for acting on this fact, we are ready to do so. If we were about to circumnavigate the earth, we should commit ourselves to this reek • oning. Should there be any hesitation on the point when the time for action came, the professed belief would be shown to be hollow, no matter how often we heard the state ment, or repeated it, with acquiescence. The genuineness of conviction is notoriously open to question, until an opportunity of proceeding upon it occurs. Very often we deceive ourselves and others on the point—whether we are in full potentiality or pre paredness in some matter of truth or falsehood. There is a very large amount of blind acquiescence in, or tacit acceptance of, propositions which never become the subject of any real or practical stake. These beliefs falsely so called confuse the line of demarka tion between mere intellectual notions and states of credence or conviction. Of this nature is the acceptance given by the mass of mankind to the statements they arc accus tomed to hear from the better informed class respecting the facts of science and the transactions of history. They do not dispute those statements; and yet they might be little disposed to commit their serious interests to such facts. So with regard to the religious creed handed down from parent to child. Some are found believing, in the full import of the term; others, opposing no negative in any way, yet never peiforming any actions, or entertain either hopes or fears, as a consequence of their supposed accept ance of the religion of their fathers; their belief, accordingly, must be set down as a nonentity.
2. There is considerable interest attached to the inquiry into the sources or operating causes of this efficacious attribute of our active nature. What are the influences that determine us to adopt some notions as grounds of action and elements of hope or depres sion, in preference to others? The common answer to this question is the possession of evidence, of which two kinds are reckoned by some schools--namely, experience and foundation of belief.
, As regards the actual sources of men's convictions, it is undeniable that many things are credited without any reference to experience. The existence of superstitions is an example. So the partialities arising out of our likings to i o particularpersons, and the undue depreciation of the merits of those Whom we dislike, present instances equally removed from the criterion of experience. It is evident, therefore, that men do not abide by that criterion, even granted that they ought to do so. Accordingly, it is one of the tasks of the mental philosopher to specify the portions of our con stitution that give birth to false, mistaken, or unfounded beliefs; and in so doing he indicates, first, certain intuitive impulses connected with our active nature; and sec ondly, mit' Various feelings, or emotions. Whether the intuitive be a source of authentic
beliefs, may be a matter of doubt; there is no doubt as to its being a genuine source of teal convictions. We have a decided tendency from the first to believe that the present state of things will continue, and that the absent resembles the present. He that has a We seen water liquid, cannot at first be convinced that it is ever or anywhere solid. have always a great difficulty culty in surmounting the primitive impulse to consider other men's minds as exactly like our own. It is the tendency of the uncultured human being to overgeneralize; and experience comes as a corrective, often very painful to submit to. Then, again, as regards the emotions, it is found that every c of these, if at all strong, is liable to blind us to the realities of the world. Fear is a notable exam ple. Under a fright, a man will believe in the approach of the direst calamities. Super stition is, for the most part, the offspring of men's fears. The effect of a strong emotion is to exclude from the mind every fact or consideration except those in keeping with itself. Intense vanity so lords it over the current of the thoughts and the course of the observations, as to present to one's mind only the very best side of the character. A fit of self-abasement and remorse will work the contrary effect.
It is plain enough, therefore, that we are very often in the wrong, by trusting to our intuitive tendencies, and as often so under our emotions; while we are as ready to act, and to derive comfort or the opposite, under false beliefs, as under the very soundest that we can ever arrive at. The practice of life points to experience as the check to wrong believing. If we find on trial that another man's feelings differ very much from ours in the same circumstances. we stand corrected, and are perhaps wiser in future. So, in science, experiment is the ultimate canon of truth. There prevails, notwithstanding, in one school of philosophy, comprising the majority of metaphysical philosophers both in England and in Germany and France, the opinion that experience is not the only source even of sound or true beliefs. There are those who contend for an aprioriorigin of scientific first principles; such, for example, as the axioms of mathematics. " Things that are equal to the same thing are equal to one another," is one of the class about which this dispute reigns. There is also a doctrine current that the law of causation has an authority derived from intuition. Another class of beliefs relates to matters alto gether' beyond experience; such is the metaphysical doctrine of the infinite. These .varidits convictions-4 priori, as they are called, being grounded solely in the internal impulses of the human mind—are all open to one common remark. It must be conceded that some intuitive beliefs are unsound. seeing that we are obliged to reject a greater or less number because of their being flatly contradicted by our experience. But if any have to be. rejected in this way, why may not all be; and what criterion. apart from experience, can be set up for discriminating those .that we are to retain? Man undoubt edly has boundless longings; and the doctrine of the infinite corresponds in a manner to these. But in actual life we find very few of our desires fully gratified, not even those most honorable to the human mind, such as curiosity, the passion for self-improvement, and the desire of doing good. How, then, are we to ascertain which of the longings carries with it its own necessary fulfillment ? Moreover, the intuitive tendencies are exceed ingly various in men; and all cannot be equally true.