ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE LOGIC OF SCIENCE. 291 



not concern that purpose belongs to some other system of relations. 

 The action of thinking may incidentally have other results ; it may 

 serve to amuse us, for example, and among dilettanti it is not rare 

 to find those who have so perverted thought to the purposes of pleas- 

 ui*e that it seems to vex them to think that the questions upon which 

 they delight to exercise it may ever get finally settled; and a positive 

 discovery which takes a favorite subject out of the arena of literary 

 debate is met with ill-concealed dislike. This disposition is the very 

 debauchery of thought. But the soul and meaning of thought, ab- 

 stracted from the other elements which accompany it, though it may 

 be voluntarily thwarted, can never be made to direct itself toward 

 anything but the production of belief. Thought in action has for its 

 only possible motive the attainment of thought at rest ; and what- 

 ever does not refer to belief is no part of the thought itself. 



And what, then, is belief? It is the demi-cadence which closes a 

 musical phrase in the symphony of our intellectual life. We have 

 seen that it has just three properties : First, it is something that we 

 are aware of; second, it appeases the irritation of doubt; and, third, 

 it involves the establishment in our nature of a rule of action, or, say 

 for short, a habit. As it appeases the irritation of doubt, which is the 

 motive for thinking, thought relaxes, and comes to rest for a moment 

 when belief is reached. But, since belief is a rule for action, the 

 application of which involves further doubt and further thought, at 

 the same time that it is a stopping-place, it is also a new starting- 

 place for thought. That is why I have permitted myself to call it 

 thought at rest, although thought is essentially an action. The final 

 upshot of thinking is the exercise of volition, and of this thought no 

 longer forms a part ; but belief is only a stadium of mental action, 

 an effect upon our nature due to thought, which will influence future 

 thinking. 



The essence of belief is the establishment of a habit, and different 

 beliefs are distinguished by the different modes of action to which 

 they give rise. If beliefs do not differ in this respect, if they appease 

 the same doubt by producing the same rule of action, then no mere 

 differences in the manner of consciousness of them can make them 

 different beliefs, any more than playing a tune in different keys is 

 playing different tunes. Imaginary distinctions are often drawn 

 between beliefs which differ only in their mode of expression ; the 

 wrangling which ensues is real enough, however. To believe that any 

 objects are arranged as in Fig. 1, and to believe that they are arranged 

 in Fig. 2, are one and the same belief; yet it is conceivable that a man 

 should assert one proposition and deny the other. Such false dis- 

 tinctions do as much harm as the confusion of beliefs really different, 

 and are among the pitfalls of which we ought constantly to beware, 

 especially when we are upon metaphysical ground. One singular 

 deception of this sort, which often occurs, is to mistake the sensation 



