156 Measurement of Belief. [CHAP. vi. 



value of a loaf by its cost of production, because bread is 

 worth more to a man when he is hungry than it is just after 

 his dinner. 



31. One class of emotions indeed ought to be ex- 

 cepted, which, from the apparent uniformity and consist 

 ency with which they show themselves in different persons 

 and at different times, do really present some better claim to 

 consideration. In connection with a science of inference 

 they can never indeed be regarded as more than an accident 

 of what is essential to the subject, but compared with other 

 emotions they seem to be inseparable accidents. 



The reader will remember that attention was drawn in 

 the earlier part of this chapter to the compound nature of 

 the state of mind which we term belief. It is partly intel 

 lectual, partly also emotional ; it professes to rest upon 

 experience, but in reality the experience acts through the 

 distorting media of hopes and fears and other disturbing 

 agencies. So long as we confine our attention to the state 

 of mind of the person who believes, it appears to me that 

 these two parts of belief are quite inseparable. Indeed, to 

 speak of them as two parts may convey a wrong impression ; 

 for though they spring from different sources, they so en 

 tirely merge in one result as to produce what might be 

 called an indistinguishable compound. Every kind of infer 

 ence, whether in probability or not, is liable to be disturbed 

 in this way. A timid man may honestly believe that he will 

 be wounded in a coming battle, when others, with the same 

 experience but calmer judgments, see that the chance is 

 too small to deserve consideration. But such a man s belief, 

 if we look only to that, will not differ in its nature from 

 sound belief. His conduct also in consequence of his belief 

 will by itself afford no ground of discrimination; he will 

 make his will as sincerely as a man who is unmistakeably on 



