can readily give what seem to us "good" reasons for being a Catholic
or a Mason, a Republican or a Democrat, an adherent or opponent of the
League of Nations. But the "real" reasons are usually on quite a
different plane. Of course the importance of this distinction is
popularly, if somewhat obscurely, recognized. The Baptist missionary
is ready enough to see that the Buddhist is not such because his
doctrines would bear careful inspection, but because he happened to be
born in a Buddhist family in Tokio. But it would be treason to his
faith to acknowledge that his own partiality for certain doctrines is
due to the fact that his mother was a member of the First Baptist
church of Oak Ridge. A savage can give all sorts of reasons for his
belief that it is dangerous to step on a man's shadow, and a newspaper
editor can advance plenty of arguments against the Bolsheviki. But
neither of them may realize why he happens to be defending his
particular opinion.

The "real" reasons for our beliefs are concealed from ourselves as
well as from others. As we grow up we simply adopt the ideas presented
to us in regard to such matters as religion, family relations,
property, business, our country, and the state. We unconsciously
absorb them from our environment. They are persistently whispered in
our ear by the group in which we happen to live. Moreover, as Mr.
Trotter has pointed out, these judgments, being the product of
suggestion and not of reasoning, have the quality of perfect
obviousness, so that to question them

... is to the believer to carry skepticism to an insane degree, and
will be met by contempt, disapproval, or condemnation, according to
the nature of the belief in question. When, therefore, we find
ourselves entertaining an opinion about the basis of which there is