remainder of the present lecture I shall
ignore truth and falsehood, which will be the subject of Lecture XIII.
It is the intrinsic nature of belief that will concern us to-day.

* This terminology is suggested by Meinong, but is not
exactly the same as his.

(2) We must distinguish between believing and what is believed. I may
believe that Columbus crossed the Atlantic, that all Cretans are liars,
that two and two are four, or that nine times six is fifty-six; in
all these cases the believing is just the same, and only the contents
believed are different. I may remember my breakfast this morning, my
lecture last week, or my first sight of New York. In all these cases the
feeling of memory-belief is just the same, and only what is remembered
differs. Exactly similar remarks apply to expectations. Bare assent,
memory and expectation are forms of belief; all three are different from
what is believed, and each has a constant character which is independent
of what is believed.

In Lecture I we criticized the analysis of a presentation into act,
content and object. But our analysis of belief contains three very
similar elements, namely the believing, what is believed and the
objective. The objections to the act (in the case of presentations)
are not valid against the believing in the case of beliefs, because the
believing is an actual experienced feeling, not something postulated,
like the act. But it is necessary first to complete our preliminary
requisites, and then to examine the content of a belief. After that, we
shall be in a position to return to the question as to what constitutes
believing.

(3) What is believed, and the believing, must both consist of present
occurrences in the believer, no matter what may be the objective of
the belief. Suppose I believe, for example, "that Caesar crossed the
Rubicon." The objective of my belief is an event which happened long
ago, which I never saw and do not remember. This event itself is not in
my mind when I believe that it happened. It is not correct to say that
I am believing the actual event; what I am believing is something now
in my mind, something related to the event (in a way which we shall
investigate in Lecture XIII), but obviously not to be confounded with
the event, since the event is not occurring now but the believing is.
What a man is believing at a given moment is wholly determinate if we
know the contents of his mind at that moment; but Caesar's