394 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters. 
Intensity of belief. 
While conceding that, as an initial mental act, belief is com¬ 
monly subject to great variation, I claim that, in linguistic ex¬ 
pressions of the type considered, the intensity of belief does not 
vary. To illustrate, suppose a cube and a, sphere of approxi¬ 
mately equal bulk; and suppose I find it hard to determine 
whether they be equal or not and, if not, which is the larger. 
Suppose that, on the whole I incline to regard the cube as 
greater than the sphere, but am still unwilling to risk the asser¬ 
tion: “Cube exceeds sphere.” 
As I have not reached a fully developed belief, it would be 
most rational for me to renounce all dealing with such belief, 
and. to seek an expression for my actual mental status. This I 
might describe as a half, quarter or thirty-seven per cent, belief, 
an opinion, a doubt, a suspicion. But all of these require spe¬ 
cial indication and in linguistic practice become in turn the 
theme of full belief itself. Thus, in the expression “I suppose 
C to exceed S,” what is centrally announced as believed to be 
true is the supposing, and not the excess, etc. That is, the full 
expression of my thought would be: “I believe in the truth of 
my supposing—O to be greater than S.” And this belief, of 
course, is complete. 
With an expression so obtrusive of oneself, the sentence is 
however by no means always satisfied. It seeks a form appa¬ 
rently more self-effacing or impersonal—a parallel to that 
afforded by “C exceeds S.” In this expression a full belief and 
a believing self are indicated by a trifling modification of the 
relation word. (Conf. “C to exceed S.”) That is, myself and 
my belief are part of what is meant by “exceeds.” I should like 
very much to express m:y incomplete' belief in the same way. 
But obviously, if what I incorporate in my verb (by its trifling 
modification) be sometimes complete belief and sometimes be¬ 
lief that is incomplete, I shall fall into hopless ambiguity. 
In some way the incomplete belief must be plainly indi¬ 
cated. Such indication, as noted above, may be ac¬ 
complished by a, special word for incomplete belief (e. g., 
“suppose”) or by the ordinary word for belief plus a word of 
description (e. g., “partly believe”). If neither expedient he 
adopted, it remains possible to use a describer or modifier 1 , under¬ 
stood to bear on the belief (which is incorporated in the verb, 
but otherwise unexpressed) ; e. g., instead of “O exceeds S’” I 
might say “Partly O exceeds S,” meaning that what is partial 
