It Is A Common Observation That Those

And What, Then, Is Belief? It Is The Demi-cadence Which Closes A Musical Phrase In The Symphony Of Our Intellectual Life.

Over Against Any Cognition, There Is An Unknown But Knowable Reality; But Over Against All Possible Cognition, There Is Only The Self-contradictory. In Short, Cognizability (in Its Widest Sense) And Being Are Not Merely Metaphysically The Same, But Are Synonymous Terms.

We Shall Do Better To Abandon The Whole Attempt To Learn The Truthunless We Can Trust To The Human Mind's Having Such A Powerof Guessing Right That Before Very Many Hypotheses Shall Have Been Tried, Intelligent Guessing May Be Expected To Lead Us To One Which Will Support All Tests, Leaving The Vast Majority Of Possible Hypotheses Unexamined.

The A Priori Method Is Distinguished For Its Comfortable Conclusions. It Is The Nature Of The Process To Adopt Whatever Belief Weare Inclined To, And There Are Certain Flatteries To The Vanity Of Man Which We All Believe By Nature, Until We Are Awakened From Our Pleasing Dream By Rough Facts.

The Difference Between A Pessimistic And An Optimistic Mind Is Of Such Controlling Importance In Regard To Every Intellectual Function, And Especially For The Conduct Of Life, That It Is Out Of The Question To Admit That Both Are Normal, And The Great Majority Of Mankind Are Naturally Optimistic.