| I therefore ask, Wherein consists the difference betwixt believing and disbelieving any proposition? The answer is easy with regard to propositions, that are proved by intuition or demonstration. |
| In that case, the person, who assents, not only conceives the ideas according to the proposition, but is necessarily determined to conceive them in that particular manner, either immediately or by the interposition of other ideas. |
| Whatever is absurd is unintelligible; nor is it possible for the imagination to conceive any thing contrary to a demonstration. |
| But as in reasonings from causation, and concerning matters of fact, this absolute necessity cannot take place, and the imagination is free to conceive both sides of the question, I still ask, Wherein consists the deference betwixt incredulity and belief? since in both cases the conception of the idea is equally possible and requisite. |
| It will not be a satisfactory answer to say, that a person, who does not assent to a proposition you advance; after having conceived the object in the same manner with you; immediately conceives it in a different manner, and has different ideas of it. |
| This answer is unsatisfactory; not because it contains any falshood, but because it discovers not all the truth. |
| It is contest, that in all cases, wherein we dissent from any person, we conceive both sides of the question; but as we can believe only one, it evidently follows, that the belief must make some difference betwixt that conception to which we assent, and that from which we dissent. |
| We may mingle, and unite, and separate, and confound, and vary our ideas in a hundred different ways; but until there appears some principle, which fixes one of these different situations, we have in reality no opinion: And this principle, as it plainly makes no addition to our precedent ideas, can only change the manner of our conceiving them. |
| All the perceptions of the mind are of two kinds, viz. |
| impressions and ideas, which differ from each other only in their different degrees of force and vivacity. |
| Our ideas are copyed from our impressions, and represent them in all their parts. |
| When you would any way vary the idea of a particular object, you can only encrease or diminish its force and vivacity. |
| If you make any other change on it, it represents a different object or impression. |
| The case is the same as in colours. |
| A particular shade of any colour may acquire a new degree of liveliness or brightness without any other variation. |
| But when you produce any other variation, it is no longer the same shade or colour. |
| So that as belief does nothing but vary the manner, in which we conceive any object, it can only bestow on our ideas an additional force and vivacity. |
| An opinion, therefore, or belief may be most accurately defined, a lively idea related to or associated with a present impression. |
| We may here take occasion to observe a very remarkable error, which being frequently inculcated in the schools, has become a kind of establishd maxim, and is universally received by all logicians. |
| This error consists in the vulgar division of the acts of the understanding, into CONCEPTION, JUDGMENT and REASONING, and in the definitions we give of them. |
| Conception is defind to be the simple survey of one or more ideas: Judgment to be the separating or uniting of different ideas: Reasoning to be the separating or uniting of different ideas by the interposition of others, which show the relation they bear to each other. |