284 PSYCHOLOGY. 



consent and belief, characterized by repose on the purely 

 intellectual side, are both intimately connected with subse- 

 quent practical activity. This inward stability of the mind's 

 content is as characteristic of disbelief as of belief. But we 

 shall presently see that we never disbelieve anything ex- 

 cept for the reason that we believe something else which 

 contradicts the first thing.* Disbelief is thus an incidental 

 complication to belief, and need not be considered by itself. 



The true opposites of belief, psychologically considered, 

 are doubt and inquiry, not disbelief. In both these states the 

 content of our mind is in unrest, and the emotion engen- 

 dered thereby is, like the emotion of belief itself, perfectly 

 distinct, but perfectly indescribable in words. Both sorts 

 of emotion may be pathologically exalted. One of the 

 charms of drunkenness unquestionably lies in the deepen- 

 ing of the sense of reality and truth which is gained therein. 

 In whatever light things may then appear to us, they seem 

 more utterly what they are, more ' utterly utter ' than when 

 we are sober. This goes to a fully unutterable extreme 

 in the nitrous oxide intoxication, in which a man's very soul 

 will sweat w^th conviction, and he be all the while unable 

 to tell what he is convinced of at all.f The j^athological 

 state opposed to this solidity and deepening has been called 

 the questioning mania ( Griibelsucht by the Germans). It is 

 sometimes found as a substantive affection, paroxysmal or 

 chronic, and consists in the inability to rest in any concep- 

 tion, and the need of having it confirmed and explained. 

 * Why do I stand here where I stand ? ' ' Why is a glass a 

 glass, a chair a chair ? ' ' How is it that men are only of 

 the size they are ? Why not as big as houses,' etc., etc. J 



* Compare this psychological fact with the corresponding logical truth 

 that all negation rests on covert assertion of something else than the thing 

 denied. (See Bradley's Principles of Logic, bk. i. ch. 3.) 



f See that very remarkable little work, ' The Anaesthetic Revelation and 

 the Gist of Philosophy,' by Benj. P. Blood (Amsterdam, N. Y., 1874). 

 Compare also Mind, vir. 206. 



4 "To one whose mind is healthy thoughts come and go unnoticed; 

 with me they have to be faced, thought about in a peculiar fashion, and 

 then disposed of as tiuished, and this often when I am utterly wearied and 

 would be at peace ; but the call is imperative. This goes on to the hin- 



