The quality of this attitude (or the “feeling” of it) as a specific “state of consciousness” is difficult to observe, because (like pleasure or displeasure) it is always marginal to something else in the focus of attention, some object, judgment or action; but we can appreciate it in its variations by considering the very different degrees of “force, steadiness,” etc., which characterise several beliefs regarded as more or less probable. The degree of belief ought to correspond with the weight of evidence: if evidence for any judgment is complete and uncontradicted, it may be called 1, and the corresponding state of mind should be “certainty”; if evidence for it there is none, or if evidence for the contradictory judgment is complete, it may be called 0, and the state of mind “disbelief.” Between these extremes there is room for an infinite series of fractions, and for corresponding shades of doubt (which, of course, do not really occur); and in the middle, at ½, there should be suspension of judgment. But most of these refined attitudes are the luxury of a few men severely trained in estimating evidence, and by them enjoyed only in the departments they have been trained in. For the mass of mankind, a very few shades of confidence or dubiety fill up their scale of judgment-values; and these may be far from corresponding as they should do with the quantity or quality of the evidence; and the nearest they get to suspension of judgment is a state of hesitation between alternatives that by turns seem equally likely. Disbelief, though the opposite logically to belief, as rejection to acceptance, has, nevertheless, much in common with it—the character of finality and positiveness, which is often (perhaps always) derived from belief in something else which is incompatible with the given judgment. When the attitude of belief is established in one’s mind by evidence clearly conceived, whether by the examination of facts or the weighing of arguments, it is called “conviction,” and so is the process of bringing it about; but if it results from considerations imperfectly appreciated, and from emotional appeals, especially when urged by another person, it may be called “persuasion,” though the word describes the process rather than the result. Most imagination-beliefs, including all superstitions, are persuasions. It is generally admitted that the test of the strength of one’s belief is its influence upon our actions—where the test is practicable. With full belief one acts “confidently” (a significant verbal proposition!); in doubt, hesitatingly or cautiously; in disbelief, not at all, or in the sense of the contrary belief. But we cannot always judge of a man’s beliefs from his actions; for he may be actuated by several beliefs, and we do not know what they are. And popular actions that involve no loss or hardship may express mere assent without belief.