THE PSYCHOLOGY OF BELIEF. 229 



carries conviction to their own minds, or an intellectual incapacity 

 to appreciate it. For, as I shall now endeavour to show you, the 

 ordinary beliefs of every individual are mainly determined by a 

 "personal equation" not less definite than that of the man who 

 has studied some particular subject, though it is the exponent 

 rather of his general than of his special culture. Here we shall 

 find it convenient to resume our former comparison, and liken the 

 mind of each individual to an edifice, — palace, dwelling-house, or 

 cottage, as the case may be, — which, though partially furnished, 

 still has some of its rooms entirely empty, while in others there 

 are recesses, nooks, and corners remaining to be filled, or perhaps 

 only a few pegs on which some lighter articles may be loosely 

 hung. 



Now it seems to me that our immediate acceptance or rejec- 

 tion of the propositions daily coming before us, as to which our 

 judgment does not need to be specially informed, but which the 

 ordinary common sense, or acquired instinct, of an average man 

 is quite competent to decide, is determined on exactly the same 

 principle, as our acceptance or rejection of (let us say) a book- 

 case, which may be offered as likely to suit a certain recess 

 in our library. For just as our decision is guided in the latter 

 case by i\\Q fifting-in of the piece of furniture to the vacant nook, 

 so does our intellectual assent to a new proposition depend upon 

 its fitting-in to some appropriate place in our existing fabric of 

 thought. The fit of this new bookcase may be so perfect, that 

 we have no question whatever about retaining it ; and it gradually, 

 by use and habit, becomes to ourselves as much a part of the 

 library, as if it had grown into its walls. And so a new belief, for 

 which an appropriate place is ready in our fabric of thought, and 

 which precisely fits into that place, not only obtains immediate 

 acceptance, but ere long (if not called in question) is adopted 

 into the fabric itself 



But, again, the fit of the bookcase may not be perfect in the 

 first instance, and yet we may think so well of its general 

 suitableness as not to like to let it go ; and we then consider 

 whether by some slight alteration either of the bookcase or of the 

 recess, we can bring about an adjustment. If this can be done, 

 we keep the bookcase ; if it cannot, we send it back. Even so, 



