Still shutting himself up within these limits, let us suppose the inquirer to ask himself what he thinks about these various degrees of cohesion among his states of consciousness—how he names them, and how he behaves toward them. If there comes, no matter whence, the proposition—“The bird was brown,” subject and predicate answering to these words spring up together in consciousness; and if there is no opposing proposition, he unites the specified and implied attributes without effort, and believes the proposition. If, however, the proposition is—“The bird was necessarily brown,” he makes an experiment like those above described, and finding that he can separate the attribute of brownness, and can think of the bird as green or yellow, he does not admit that the bird was necessarily brown. When such a proposition as “The ice was cold” arises in him, the elements of the thought behave as before; and so long as no test is applied, the union of the consciousness of cold with the {207} accompanying states of consciousness, seems to be of the same nature as the union between those answering to the words _brown_ and _bird_. But should the proposition be changed into—“The ice was necessarily cold,” quite a different result happens from that which happened in the previous case. The ideas answering to subject and predicate are here so coherent, that in the absence of careful examination they might pass as inseparable, and the proposition be accepted. But suppose the proposition is deliberately tested by trying whether ice can be thought of as not cold. Great resistance is offered in consciousness to this. Still, by an effort, he can imagine water to have its temperature of congelation higher than blood heat; and can so think of congealed water as hot instead of cold. Now the extremely strong cohesion of states of consciousness, thus experimentally proved by the difficulty of separating them, he finds to be what he calls a strong belief. Once more, in response to the words—“Along with motion there is something that moves,” he represents to himself a moving body; and, until he tries an experiment upon it, he may suppose the elements of the representation to be united in the same way as those of the representations instanced above. But supposing the proposition is modified into—“Along with motion there is necessarily something that moves,” the response made in thought to these words, discloses the fact that the states of consciousness called up in this case are indissolubly connected in the way alleged. He discovers this by trying to conceive the negation of the proposition—by trying to think of motion as _not_ having along with it something that moves; and his inability to conceive this negation is the obverse of his inability to tear asunder the states of consciousness which constitute the affirmation. Those propositions which survive this strain, are the propositions he distinguishes as necessary. Whether or not he means any