The Essence Of Belief Is The Establishment

We Cannot Begin With Complete Doubt. We Must Begin With All The Prejudices Which We Actually Have When We Enter Upon The Study Ofphilosophy. These Prejudices Are Not To Be Dispelled By A Maxim, For They Are Things Which It Does Not Occur To Us Can Be Questioned. A Person May, It Is True, In The Course Of His Studies, Find Reason To Doubt What He Began By Believing; But In That Case He Doubts Because He Has A Positive Reason For It, And Not On Account Of The Cartesian Maxim. Let Us Not Pretend To Doubt In Philosophy What We Do Not Doubt In Our Hearts.

Doubt Is An Uneasy And Dissatisfied State From Which We Struggle To Free Ourselves And Pass Into The State Of Belief; While The Latter Is A Calm And Satisfactory State Which We Do Not Wish To Avoid, Or To Change To A Belief In Anything Else.

Still, It Will Sometimes Strike A Scientific Man That The Philosophers Have Been Less Intent On Finding Out What The Facts Are, Than On Inquiring What Belief Is Most In Harmony With Their System.

There Is Not A Single Truth Of Science Upon Which We Ought To Bet More Than About A Million Of Millions To One.

It Has Never Been In My Power To Study Anything, Mathematics, Ethics, Metaphysics, Gravitation, Thermodynamics, Optics, Chemistry, Comparative Anatomy, Astronomy, Psychology, Phonetics, Economics, The History Of Science, Whist, Men And Women, Wine, Metrology, Except As A Study Of Semeiotic .