elopment. Doubt, suspense
of judgment and disbelief all seem later and more complex than a wholly
unreflecting assent. Belief as a positive phenomenon, if it exists,
may be regarded, in this view, as a product of doubt, a decision after
debate, an acceptance, not merely of THIS, but of THIS-RATHER-THAN-THAT.
It is not difficult to suppose that a dog has images (possible
olfactory) of his absent master, or of the rabbit that he dreams of
hunting. But it is very difficult to suppose that he can entertain mere
imagination-images to which no assent is given.

I think it must be conceded that a mere image, without the addition of
any positive feeling that could be called "belief," is apt to have a
certain dynamic power, and in this sense an uncombated image has the
force of a belief. But although this may be true, it accounts only for
some of the simplest phenomena in the region of belief. It will not, for
example, explain memory. Nor can it explain beliefs which do not issue
in any proximate action, such as those of mathematics. I conclude,
therefore, that there must be belief-feelings of the same order as those
of doubt or disbelief, although phenomena closely analogous to those of
belief can be produced by mere uncontradicted images.

(3) I come now to the view of belief which I wish to advocate. It seems
to me that there are at least three kinds of belief, namely memory,
expectation and bare assent. Each of these I regard as constituted by
a certain feeling or complex of sensations, attached to the content
believed. We may illustrate by an example. Suppose I am believing,
by means of images, not words, that it will rain. We have here two
interrelated elements, namely the content and the expectation. The
content consists of images of (say) the visual appearance of rain, the
feeling of wetness, the patter of drops, interrelated, roughly, as the
sensations would be if it were raining. Thus the content is a complex
fact composed of images. Exactly the same content may enter into the
memory "it was raining" or the assent "rain occurs." The difference of
these cases from each other and from expectation does not lie in the
content. The difference lies in the nature of the belief-feeling.
I, personally, do not profess to be able to analyse the sensations
constituting respectively memory, expectation and assent; but I am
not prepared to say that they cannot be analysed. There may be other
belief-feelings, for example in disjunct