WE are all accustomed in everyday life to draw a dis-
tinction between some things which we know and other
things which we only believe, but do not know. But
what is the precise difference we mean, or ought to
mean, to mark by this distinction? Is there a real
difference in kind between the act, or attitude, of know-
ing and that of believing? If there is, is this difference
one which the psychologist could detect by an examina-
tion of the two acts as such, independently of any con-
sideration of the intrinsic characters of their objects, the
scitum, that which is known, and the creditum, that
which is believed, or is it only by explicit references to
the natures of scibile and credibile that the correlated
acts of knowing and believing can be discriminated?
The question is not, of course, whether that which is
known to one mind may not be merely believed by
another; it is manifest that there is much which he or
you may know, but I can only believe without know-
ing. It is whether there are certain things which, from
the nature of the case, are capable of being known,
whether a given mind knows them or only believes
them, and others which, again from the nature of the
case, can be believed but cannot be known by any mind
--or at any rate any human mind. Plato, as I presume
we all know, teaches emphatically that to know
(ἐπίστασθαι) and to believe (δοξάζειν) are radically distinct

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