THE PERCEPTION OF REALITY. 321 



manner, and in other cases does not. Nature cannot change 

 the past to suit our thinking. She cannot change the stars 

 or the winds ; but she does change our bodies to suit our 

 thinking, and through their instrumentality changes much 

 besides ; so the great practical distinction between objecls 

 which we may will or unwill, and objects which we can merely 

 believe or disbelieve, grows up, and is of course one of the 

 most important distinctions in the world. Its roots, how- 

 ever, do not lie in psychology, but in physiology ; as the 

 chapter on Volition will abundantly make plain. Will and 

 Belief, in sJiort, meaning a certain relation hehveen objects and 

 the Self, are two names for one and the same psychological 

 phenomenon. All the questions which arise concerning one 

 are questions which arise concerning the other. The causes 

 and conditions of the peculiar relation must be the same 

 in both. The free-will question arises as regards belief. 

 If our wills are indeterminate, so must our beliefs be, etc. 

 The first act of free-will, in short, would naturally be to 

 believe in free-will, etc. In Chapter XXVI, I shall mention 

 this again. 



A practical observation may end this chapter. If belief 

 consists in an emotional reaction of the entire man on an 

 object, how can we believe at will ? We cannot control our 

 emotions. Truly enough, a man cannot believe at will 

 abruptly. Nature sometimes, and indeed not very infre- 

 quently, produces instantaneous conversions for us. She 

 suddenly puts us in an active connection with objects of 

 which she had till then left us cold. " I realize for the first 

 time," we then say, " what that means !" This happens often 

 with moral propositions. AVe have often heard them ; but 

 now they shoot into our lives ; they move us ; we feel their 

 living force. Such instantaneous beliefs are truly enough not 

 to be achieved by will. But gradually our will can lead us to 

 the same results by a very simple method : tve need only 

 in cold blood act as if the thing in question loere real, and keep 

 acting as if it loere real, atid it ivill infallibly end by groiving 

 into such a connection ivith our life that it ivill become real. 

 It will become so knit with habit and emotion that our 

 interests in it will be those which characterize belief. 



