390 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
(1) “Orange exceeds lemon”, and 
(2) “Orange to exceed lemon.” 
Interpreting these as indicating 
(1) My belief in a conception, and 
(2) a conception (and nothing more), 
I, so to speak, subtract the lower from the! upper. I thus ob¬ 
tain a remainder of belief, which was part of (1) but not a part 
of (2). Pending further examination, I postulate that, as the 
distinctive of coneption was, so to put it, the belief which it does 
not have, per contra the distinctive of a judgment is the belief 
which it has. 
General nature of belief. , 
Of this a working idea may be reached, I think, most easily 
through disbelief; and both will be appreciated better after an 
objective illustration. Suppose then that, in my walk, as I am 
just about to set upon the ground my leading foot, I see beneath 
it a rattlesnake!. The somewhat energetic withdrawal of foot—- 
and general self—I can indicate perhaps to best advantage by the 
word recoil. But for the opposite of this withdrawal, which I 
also wish to consider, I can not find an equally effective word. 
Such opposite action I seem to conceive with sufficient clearness ; 
indeed I find it picturesquely detailed, as I read in the gospel 
of St. Luke the father’s reception of the homing prodigal. “His 
father saw him: and had compassion and ran and fell on his 
neck and kissed him.” Something of this sort I wish to express 
by the word occurrence, that is, an eager running toward what is 
attractive—antagonistic to an equally eager running away from 
what is repulsive. 
In the field of thought, belief and disbelief impress me as 
closey analogous to these actions of the body. Speaking very 
roughly, if you set before my mental vision the thought expressed 
by “Men are vegetables,” I recoil from 1 it. I do not care at this 
moment to investigate the ground of this recoil, aesthetic, ethical, 
rational or any other; enough, in general, that I repel or reject 
the thought—that I disapprove it or dissent from it-—that in 
particular I disbelieve it. If on the other hand you put before 
my mind the thought expressed by “Men are animals,” I occur 
to it; I embrace or adopt it; I approve it or assent to it—more 
particularly I believe it. 
