INTELLIGENT BELIEF VERSUS BLIND CREDULITY. 93 



ordinary causes ; and he fails to believe in the action of 

 deep-seated and abstruse causes in cases where the assump- 

 tion of more apparent or simple causes is contradicted by 

 some of the effects. 



In acquiring an intelligent or rational belief, we com- 

 pare an idea with the thing it represents ; and if the two 

 agree, we then, by a conscious mental effort or attention, 

 fix it in the mind. A rational belief, therefore, is a fixed 

 idea, resulting from a previous perception of agreement 

 between it and the thing it represents. In acquiring a blind 

 belief, we do not trouble ourselves to exercise comparison 

 or reason (or we may not have had the opportunity of com- 

 paring), but simply perceive the idea, and at once fix it 

 in the mind. There may be every degree both of intelli- 

 gent and of blind belief, from that which is perfectly blind 

 to that which results from the most powerful and com- 

 plete evidence. Strictly speaking, science ends where 

 faith begins, and both must be kept distinct. 



Our mental constitution admits of our believing con- 

 tradictory statements, and we often, without knowing it, 

 deny in one form of words what we admit in another. 

 But although we often believe that which is contradictory, 

 we cannot simultaneously do so. No man simultaneously 

 believes to be true that which he believes to be false ; the 

 conditions of mental action prevent him. We may all, 

 however, change our opinions, and believe contradic- 

 tory statements at different times. Both individuals 

 and nations grow out of old beliefs into new ones. No 

 man who has had the requisite experience of nature, and 

 knows the meanings of the terms employed, can believe a 

 statement which contradicts itself, nor two statements 

 which contradict each other ; for instance, he cannot 

 believe that the longest periods are the shortest, the 

 smallest spaces are the largest, the lightest bodies are the 



