THE PERCEPTION OF REALITY. 285 



There is, it is true, another pathological state which is as 

 far removed from doubt as from belief, and which some 

 may prefer to consider the proper contrary of the latter 

 state of mind. I refer to the feeling that everything is 

 hollow, unreal, dead. I shall speak of this state again 

 upon a later page. The point 1 wish to notice here is sim- 

 ply that belief and disbelief are but two aspects of one 

 psychic state. 



John Mill, reviewing various opinions about belief, 

 comes to the conclusion that no account of it can be given : 



" What," he says, "is the difference to our minds between thinking 

 of a reality and representing to ourselves an imaginary picture ? I con- 

 fess I can see no escape from the opinion that the distinction is ultimate 

 and primordial. There is no more difficulty in holding it to be so than 

 in holding the difference between a sensation and an idea to be primor- 

 dial. It seems almost another aspect of the same difference. ... I 

 cannot help thinking, therefore, that there is in the remembrance of a 

 real fact, as distinguished from that of a thought, an element which 

 does not consist ... in a difference between the mere ideas which are 

 present to the mind in the two cases. This element, howsoever we de- 

 fine it, constitutes belief, and is the difference between Memory and 

 Imagination. From whatever direction we approach, tliis difference 

 seems to close our path. When we arrive at it, we seem to have reached, 

 as it were, the central point of our intellectual nature, presupposed and 

 built upon in every attempt we make to explain the more recondite 

 phenomena of our mental being."* 



drance of all natural action. If I were told that the staircase was on tire 

 aud I had only a minute to escape, and the thought arose — ' Have they 

 sent for tire-engines? Is it probable that the man wbo has the key is on 

 hand? Is the man a careful sort of person? Will the kej' be hanging on 

 a peg? Am I thinking rightly? Perhaps they don't lock the depot' — 

 \ny foot would be lifted to go down ; I should be conscious to excitement 

 that I was losing m}^ chance ; but I thould be unable to stir until all these 

 absurdities were entertained and disposed of. In the most critical moments 

 of my life, when I ought to have been so engrossed as to leave no room for 

 any secondary thotighis,! have been oppressed by the inability to be at 

 peace. And in the most ordinary circumstances it is all the same. Let me 

 instance the other morning I went to walk. The day was biting cold, but 

 1 was unable to proceed except by jerks. Once I got arrested, my feet in 

 a muddy pool. One foot was lifted to go, knowing that it was not good to 

 be standing in water, but there I was fast, the cause of detention being the 

 discussing with myself the reasons why I should not stand in that pool." 

 (T. S. Clouston, CHnica! Lectures on Mental Diseases, 1883, p. 43. See 

 aiso Berger, in Archiv f. Psychiatrie, vi. 217.) 

 * Note to Jas. Mill's Analysis, i. 412-423. 



