Oh, if I had only thought to wish permanence for those lovely punishments! If only I had done more while I could do it, had half appreciated my privileges when I was a Witch!
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"I can understand," says Eugene Wood, "how some women want to vote. And
I can understand how some women do not want to vote."
"But I can't understand how some women do not want other women to vote."
BELIEVING AND KNOWING
What is Believing—psychologically? What does the brain do when it "believes" that is different from what it does when it "knows"?
There is a difference. When you know a thing you don't have to believe it. There is no effort, and no credit attached, in knowing; but this act of "believing" has long been held as both difficult and worthy.
There seems to be not only a clearly marked distinction between knowing and believing, but a direct incompatibility. It may be said roughly that the less we know the more we believe, and the more we know the less we believe. The credulity of the child, the savage, and the less educated classes in society, is in sharp contrast with the relative incredulity of the adult civilized human, and the more highly educated.
There is a difference also shown in our mental sensations as to a thing believed and a thing known. If a man tells you that grass is red and the sky yellow, you merely think him color blind—It does not anger you nor alter your opinion. If he tells you that two and two make ten, you think him ignorant, weak-minded, but your view is not changed, nor are you enraged by him. But if he contradicts you on some religious dogma you are hurt and angry. Why? As a matter of direct physicho-psychological action, why?
To make a physical comparison, it is like the difference between being pushed against when you stand square on your feet, and pushed when you stand on one leg.