Owen—Interrogative Thought—Means of Its Expression. 391 
That belief is more than I have indicated—that it is attended 
by a feeling that it is inevitable, that others share or ought to 
share it, that it is a, proper and even necessary corollary of the 
existing order of things—I admit, but do. not think it necessary 
to consider for the present purpose. 
Linguistic neglect of disbelief. 
Of the two phenomena, belief is the recognition of agreement 
or harmony between thought and fact, between: self and the outer 
world, or better perhaps between the special self of the moment 
and the general, permanent self. Disbelief is the recognition of 
discord. Belief is satisfaction. Disbelief is dissatisfaction. 
The former is the more agreeable—the more human. In 
Goethe’s Faust the Devil is objection personified—“der Geist der 
stets verneint.” Belief is success; disbelief is failure—reason 
in itself enough for the linguistic predominance of expressions 
for belief. Indeed, for the sake, it may be, of being able to 
believe, we change to a believable form that even which we dis¬ 
believe. 
T'o show this, I note that, in my objective illustration, the aim 
of recoil is strictly to be far from the rattlesnake. But the act 
of recoil incidentally brings me nearer to another object.—say 
a, honeysuckle now in all its bloom and fragrance. It is not 
true that my jump with might and main was prompted by a 
longing toi be near that, object. True it is, however, that I did 
most energetically reach that object. I may say with perfect ad¬ 
herence to fact that, not liking the snake, I changed my course, 
approaching something else that I like better. 
So also when there looms, up in my mental path a thought 
which I cannot approve, instead of disapproving it I can ap¬ 
prove something else. Instead of disbelieving it, I can believe 
its untruth. Accordingly, if you say that “Mien are vegetables,” 
exhibiting, as I take it, your belief in the truth of mens being 
vegetables, instead of taking sides against the thought which you 
oblige me to think, and saying that “I disbelieve it,” I say “Men 
are not vegetables,” meaning that I believe the untruth of mens 
being vegetables, thus siding with what I think of, but thinking 
now of something different from that of which I was initially 
obliged to think. 
Siich considerations have by no means cogency enough to ex¬ 
plain complete neglect of disbelief, although they seem to me 
