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putting a meaning into the subject and predicate with putting a meaning into the proposition. "This square is round." Here both subject and predicate bring up familiar ideas. But a moment's reflection enables us to see that the intelligibleness of the subject and predicate is a very different thing from the intelligibleness of the proposition. For if the square is round, it is itself and not itself at the same time, which is unthinkable and impossible.

"Because it did

Necessary Beliefs. - Let us now turn our attention to a class of propositions that, at first sight, look very much like necessary truths, but which, nevertheless, are fundamentally different. You go to your room on a cold winter morning and begin to build a fire. "Why do you build a fire?" I ask. "Because it is cold." "What makes you think that a fire will make it warmer?" so yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that - because it always has done so in the past." "But what has the past to do with the present and the future? How do you know that things will behave in the future as they have done in the past?" I can not answer the question; I do not believe any one can. The past, as Bain says, is separated from the future by a chasm which no resources of logic will ever enable us to bridge.1

1 "The most authentic recollection gives only what has been, something that has ceased and can concern us no longer. A far more perilous leap remains, the leap to the future. All our interest is concentrated on what is yet to be; the present and the past are of value only as a clue to the events that are to come.

"The postulate that we are in quest of must carry us across the gulf, from the experienced known, either present or remembered, to the unexperienced and unknown- must perform the leap of real inference. Water has quenched our thirst in the past; by what assumption do we affirm

But while we "can give no reason or evidence" that "what has been will be," that things will behave in the future as they have done in the past under precisely similar circumstances, the peculiar fact is that we do not want any. When we know that a thing has happened in the past, we are entirely sure that it will, under similar circumstances, in the future so sure that we can not help believing it even if we would.

Necessity of Necessary Truths and Necessary Beliefs. This is one of the reasons why we may properly call such beliefs necessary - the fact that we can not rid ourselves of them. But while they share this characteristic of inevitableness or necessity with necessary truths, the necessity in the two cases is of a very different character. The necessity of necessary truths is a necessity of seeing; the necessity of necessary beliefs is a necessity of believing. We know with absolute certainty that two straight lines can not inclose a space; we believe with irresistible strength of conviction that what has been will be, under similar circumstances not that it must be. We can not even think of two straight lines inclosing a space; we can very easily think of this orderly universe becoming a chaos in which there would be an utter absence of law and order, in which combustion would be followed by heat one day, cold another, and so on. The necessity, then, of necessary beliefs is a necessity of belief, not of knowledge. We do

that the same will happen in the future?' Experience does not teach us this; experience is only what has actually been; and after ever so many repetitions of a thing there still remains the peril of venturing upon the untrodden land of future possibility. 'What has been will be,' justifies the inference that water will assuage thirst in after-times. We can give no reason or evidence for this uniformity." - Bain's Logic, p. 671.

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not know, strictly speaking, that the thing we believe so firmly is true, but we believe it with irresistible strength of conviction, notwithstanding.

Some of our necessary beliefs for instance, the one we have been considering - have another kind of necessity. If we did not assume that the past would enable us to judge of the future, all rational action would be impossible. Take that belief from the minds of men, and their rational activities would cease as suddenly as though they had been transformed into stone. I eat when I am hungry, drink when I am thirsty, rest when I am tired — do everything which I do under the influence of that belief far as my actions have any rational basis. The farmer sows, the mechanic builds, the lawyer prepares his brief, the doctor writes his prescription, because each thinks that a knowledge of the past enables him to anticipate the future more or less accurately.

SO

The principle, then, that what has been will be, is necessary not only in the sense that we can not get rid of it, but also in the sense that we must believe it in order to live in the world. If a being were born in the world destitute of the tendency or predisposition to accept the past as in some sense a type of the future, he would necessarily perish.

Of necessary beliefs of this class it is absurd to raise the question as to their truth. Though we are not prevented from questioning them by the very nature of our minds as in the case of necessary truths still, if we must accept them in order to act and live, the possibility of questioning them will remain a bare possibility.

But if we have beliefs that are necessary in the sense that we can not get rid of them, but not in the sense that

we must accept them because of their practical importance, it is evident that the question as to their truth is altogether in order. A dozen different branches of science-physics, chemistry, physiology, astronomy, etc., as well as Psychology have shown us very clearly that many of the things which seem to be true and which continue to seem to be after we know they are not are false. The sun still seems to rise and set, although we know it does not. Το call a halt to investigation, therefore, on the threshold of necessary beliefs of this character would amount to an attempt to protect Error against the assaults of Truth.

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT.

1. What is the relation between the introspective and inferential methods?

2. Why is it important for us to learn what we are conscious of? 3. State the difference between a necessary truth and a necessary

belief.

4. Can you doubt a necessary belief?

5. What are the two classes of necessary beliefs?

6. Can you question the truth of a necessary belief?

7. What is the difference in meaning between questions four and six?

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS.

1. Make as complete a fist as you can of what you regard as necessary truths.

2. What do you suppose the phrase, "entertain the idea," originally meant?

3. You believe many things because, as you say, you remember them. Are the assertions of memory examples of necessary truths, or necessary beliefs, or neither?

4. What does Bain mean by the "leap of real inference "?

5. Mention some other necessary beliefs besides the one spoken of in the lesson.

6. Mention some that are necessary in the sense that we can not help believing them, but not necessary in the sense that the nature of the world compels us to assume them.

7. Mention some things that seem to us to be true, although science has shown that they are not.

8. What is meant by the "uniformity of nature"?