The genesis of these beliefs is extremely interesting as an illustration of primitive mentality. Since the attitudes on which he fell back are those of a very early stage of human development, it is not surprising that the means by which he has supported them should be of the same era, or that the world-picture which he has worked out should be similar to that described in _The Golden Bough_. The mental process at work is schematically as follows: First, undergo an intense emotion, located with unusual definiteness in the body, which can be described as “a feeling _as though_ the solar plexus were connected by a current of dark passional energy with another person.” Those whose emotions tend to be localised will be familiar with such feelings. The second step is to say “I must trust my feelings.” The third is to call the feeling an intuition. The last is to say “_I know_ that my solar plexus is, etc.” By this means we arrive at indubitable knowledge that the sun’s energy is recruited from the life on the earth and that the astronomers are wrong in what they say about the moon, and so on. The illicit steps in the argument are not quite so evident as they appear to be in this analysis. To distinguish an intuition _of_ an emotion from an intuition _by_ it is not always easy, nor is a description of an emotion always in practice distinguishable from an emotion. Certainly we must trust our feelings--in the sense of acting upon them. We have nothing else to trust. And to confuse this trusting with believing an emotive description of them is a mistake which all traditional codes of morality encourage us to commit. The significance of such similar disasters in the work of poets so unlike and yet so greatly gifted as Mr. Yeats and Mr. Lawrence is noteworthy. For each the traditional scaffolding of conventional beliefs has proved unsatisfying, unworkable as a basis for their attitudes. Each has sought, in very different directions it is true, a new set of beliefs as a remedy. For neither has the world-picture of science seemed a possible substitute. And neither seems to have envisaged the possibility of a poetry which is independent of all beliefs, probably because, however much they differ, both are very serious poets. A great deal of poetry can, of course, be written for which total independence of all beliefs is an easy matter. But it is never poetry of the more important kind, because the temptation to introduce beliefs is a sign and measure of the importance of the attitudes involved. At present it is not primarily religious beliefs, in the stricter sense of the word, which are most likely to be concerned. Emphases alter surprisingly. University societies founded fifteen years ago, for example, to discuss religion, are usually found to be discussing sex to-day. And serious love poetry, which is independent of beliefs of one kind or another, traditional or eccentric, is extremely rare.