immediately recognize, that it proceeds from another. We must not be afraid of tediousness, while we {371} adduce instances in superabundance, to prove that in dissoluble association (in one remarkable class of its cases, which, on account of their vast importance, it is found expedient to distinguish by a particular name) is that state of consciousness, to which we have given the name of BELIEF. We are all of us familiar with that particular feeling, which is produced, when we have turned ourselves round with velocity several times. We BELIEVE that the world is turning round. The sound of bells, opposed by the wind, appears to be farther off. A person speaking through a trumpet appears to be nearer. Our experience is, that sounds decrease by distance. A sound is decreased by opposition of the wind; the idea of distance is associated; and the association being inseparable, it is belief. A sound is increased by issuing from a trumpet, the idea of proximity is associated, and the association being indissoluble, it is belief. In passing, on board of ship, another ship at sea, we believe that she has all the motion, we none: though we may be sailing rapidly before the wind, she making hardly any progress against it. When we have been making a journey in a stage coach, or a voyage in a ship, we believe, for some time after leaving the vehicle, that still we are feeling its motion; more especially just as we are falling asleep. Nobody doubts, that these, and similar cases of belief, which are very numerous, are all to be resolved into pure association. What the associations are, we leave to be traced by the learner; so many repetitions of the same process, though a useful exercise to him, would be very tedious here. {372} The Belief which takes place in Dreaming merits great attention in this part of our inquiry. No belief is stronger than that which we experience in dreaming. Our belief of some of the frightful objects, which occur to us, is such, as to extort from us loud cries; and to throw us into such tremors and bodily agitations, as the greatest real dangers would fail in producing. Not less intense is our belief in the pleasurable objects which occur to us in dreams; nor are the agitations which they produce in our bodies much less surprising. Yet there is hardly any difference of opinion about the real nature of the phenomena which occur in dreaming. That our dreams are mere currents of ideas, following one another by association; not controlled, as in our waking hours, by sensations and will; is the substance of every theory of dreaming. The belief, therefore, which occurs in dreaming, is merely a case of association; and hence it follows that nothing more is necessary to account for Belief.