§ 4 Causes and Grounds of Belief
The source, direct or indirect, of all belief is perception. In perception must be included, for subjective studies, introspection; though being difficult to keep steady, to repeat and to compare with the observation of other minds, it carries less conviction. As to perception we say that “seeing is believing”; and, in fact, an object holds the eye in a way that vouches for its own reality; but, if we suspect that our eyes deceive us, reassurance comes with the handling of the thing. Belief has sometimes been discussed as if it were chiefly concerned with ideas or the relations of ideas; and systems of philosophy have sought justification in the coherence of ideas, with little or no regard (not to say with contempt) for the coherence of ideas with perceptions. But nearly the whole of every man’s life (savage or philosopher) passes in an attitude of unquestioning belief in the evidence of his senses; and it is thence that belief extends to ideas on a presumption of their representing reality. We know that a perception may be fallible, but perceptions and the comparison of perceptions in the long run overrule everything else; and experimental methods consist in taking precautions against the errors of perception, and in bringing every hypothesis to the test of perception.
Further causes of belief are either Evidentiary, which (though often misleading) may generally be justified on reflection as raising some degree of probability, and which may, therefore, be called “grounds”; or Non-evidentiary, which (though very influential) cannot, on reflection, be justified as having any logical value, and are, therefore, causes only and not grounds.
(1) Evidentiary grounds of belief are (a) memory, which is plainly indispensable if we are to learn by experience; and (b) testimony, which must be trusted if language is not to be useless and social co-operation impossible: both these grounds are supposed to rest upon the primary rock of previous perception, but are slippery and treacherous. Memory is only valid so far as it truthfully represents original experience, and testimony only so far as it presents (i) a valid memory, (ii) correctly reported. Hence in serious matters precautions must be taken against their fallibility: otherwise they are not good evidence. A specious memory, so far as it is false, is imagination; and false testimony, so far as it reports (i) a false memory or (ii) an invention of the reporter, is also imagination. Testimony gathers force, as a cause of belief, with the numbers and consideration of those who support it, and is especially strengthened by their unanimity; but, as a ground of belief, it depends only on their knowledge and truthfulness. A third ground of belief is (c) inference; which is necessary to all original adjustment of our conduct to the future or to unperceived circumstances, but highly fallible, and constituting the chief problem for the exercise of Logic when that science arises: especially to explain the conditions of valid observations and experiments, of probability, of the conclusion of an argument being covered by its premises, and of the sufficiency of verification. False inferences that cannot be verified are imaginations.
As the growing mind of society deals with true beliefs they are piled up and classified in systems of science and philosophy: in which systems each belief or judgment strengthens and is strengthened by the rest. Even without systematisation, the mere structural similarity of judgments, formed unconsciously on the same implicit principles of causation and classification, throws them into those loose apperceptive masses which we call “common sense.” Such systems or masses, whether of science or of common sense, readily assimilate and confirm new inferences having the same character, and offer resistance to all inferences having a different structure, such as those about magic and spirits. The selective power of these apperceptive masses over novel ideas constitutes “understanding,” and is the plain solid man’s substitute for Logic; and so it is with many scientists, who often neglect the abstract study of Logic. For these systems or masses of experience are the substance of Logic and Methodology, which are their skeletons abstracted from them. They are the basis of all effective comparison and criticism; agreement or disagreement with them is the test of truth or error. It is the chief defect of common sense that the verification of its judgments depends almost entirely upon repetition of experiences (what Logicians call “simple enumeration”), without that analysis of observations which alone can show the necessary relations of facts; but this defect is in some measure remedied in good minds by that power of unformulated ideas of natural order, the result of unconscious analysis, which we call “good judgment”—a power which the fortunate possessor may be unable to explain.
(2) Non-evidentiary causes of belief are all reducible to bad observations, imaginations, and the causes that excite imagination; and bad observations are caused by false imaginations as to the meaning of sense-data. If it should seem to any one that since imagination consists of ideas it must be by nature incompatible with intense belief, we must consider that memory, the effects of testimony, and inferences also consist entirely of ideas; so that in that character they do not differ from imagination. Even perception depends for its meaning upon implicit ideas, and erroneous perception is due to erroneous ideas. The weakness of imagination-belief which (despite its frequent intensity) always in time becomes manifest, is due to its not being constantly confirmed by experience.
In detail the non-evidentiary causes of belief are as follows: (a) not only the truths of experience become massed or systematised in common sense and science, but the errors of misinterpreted experience and tradition form similar aggregates. Coincidences mistaken for causation, illusions, dreams, tales of thaumaturgy and ghost-stories, so far as they have anything in common in their outlines or emotional tone, form apperceptive masses which function in the same way as scientific systems: each of their constituent beliefs strengthens and is strengthened by the rest; and each mass (as a delusive “understanding”) readily assimilates and confirms any new tale or illusion having its own character, and resists and repels every judgment having a different structure—and, therefore, refuses explanation. And just as science and common sense have a sort of internal skeleton of principles which has been exhibited as Logic, so some of these comparatively obscure and chaotic masses of illusion and tradition contain certain structural principles which, though unconscious at the lowest human level, obtain recognition as culture advances—for example, the principles of mimetic and contagious magic; and then, too, arise such caricatures of science as theogonies and cosmologies, chiromancy, astrology and so forth. But nothing ever emerges from them that can be called a test of truth or methodology; much less, of course, can such a thing be found at lower levels of culture. There you see the accumulating clouds of imagination-belief, which gather together from all the winds and pile themselves up to overshadow poor humanity age after age; which still, in our own world, are by no means dissipated; and to whose persistent influence we may (I suppose) attribute the mysticism that periodically infects philosophy itself.
(b) Contributory to these masses of error are bad observations, confused and distorted memories, dreams and corrupted testimony and tradition, all of them having their origin in some sort of experience and matter-of-fact, and all issuing in vain imaginations. For of course there is no such thing as imagination underived from experience; experience is distorted and corrupted by superstition, but it transfers to superstition the attitude of belief that always belongs to experience, and supplies materials from which (as we shall see) it is often possible to construct such a defence of superstition as, to an unsophisticated mind, must be very plausible and persuasive.86 Direct experience is often interpreted by a story in such a way as to make the story more credible. If a stone is shown as marking the tomb of a hero, or a cleft in the mountain as proving the prowess of a wizard, one unconsciously transfers the attitude of belief involved in contemplating these relics to all the legends concerning those mighty men of old.
(c) The causes determining belief are reinforced in various ways by feeling and emotion. The agreeableness or disagreeableness of any judgment draws attention to, or diverts it from such a judgment and the evidence for it: except that some disagreeable emotions, especially fear, by a sort of fascination of attention, are favourable to belief in the reality of an imagined evil. They possess the whole mind.
(d) Every desire fixes attention upon beliefs favourable to it, and upon any evidence favourable to them, and diverts attention from conflicting beliefs and considerations. Thus every desire readily forms about itself a relatively isolated mass of beliefs, which resists comparison and, therefore (as Ribot says),87 does not recognise the principle of contradiction. Incompatible desires may be cherished without our becoming aware of their incompatibility; or, if the fact obtrudes itself upon us, we repudiate it and turn away.
The more immature a mind, again, and the less knowledge it has, the less inhibition of desire is exerted by foresight of consequences that ought to awaken conflicting desires or fears; and the less compassion one has, the less is desire inhibited by its probable consequences to others: therefore, in both cases, the less check there is upon belief.
(e) Voluntary action in connection with any belief, whether of a rational kind or in the routine of rites and ceremonies, favours that belief: (1) by establishing the idea-circuit of means and end, the end suggesting the means to it, and the thought of means running forward to the end—a circuit that resists interruption: (2) by the general effect of habit and prejudice; for every habit of action or of thought has inertia, and, moreover, it is agreeable, and to break it is disagreeable; so that, again, a relatively isolated system is formed, which resists comparison and criticism.
On the influence of desire and of activities for an end depends “the will to believe.” We cannot believe anything by directly willing it; but we can will what to attend to, or what to do, and that determines belief.
(f) Finally, belief is determined by certain social influences besides testimony and tradition: especially by sympathy and antipathy between families, parties, tribes; and by imitativeness and suggestibility (qualified fortunately by contra-suggestibility); so that beliefs become fashionable, endemic, coercive, impassioned and intolerant. The power of a crowd to inflict its passions and beliefs upon the individual has recently been much explained: it has always been practically understood by wizards, priests and politicians who lead mankind by the ears. Suggestibility, in general, is the liability to follow example or testimony without criticising it; and for many people it is so easy to fall into the attitude of belief upon slight provocation, that this liability, to the extent of weakness, is very common. Contra-suggestibility in general is the opposite tendency. But special suggestibility (I should say) is the liability to adopt a belief on testimony not only in the absence of evidence, but against evidence; and contra-suggestibility is the liability to reject a belief against the evidence. They are merely extreme cases. If you draw two equal straight lines, A and B, and say, “It seems to me that B is longer than A,” one person will reply “Certainly,” another “Certainly not; A is the longer.” The art of suggestion consists in reducing your audience to this state of imbecility; it requires you to bring them into such a condition of exclusive attention to your words that, comparison and criticism being excluded, their natural disposition to assent shall (for the time) have free play. The specially suggestible person is easily thrown into this state of exclusive attention, as if hypnotised. He who is suggestible by one man may not be so by another; or he may be more suggestible in the line of his prejudices than against them.