So my belief in Cicero's oratory resolves itself into the conviction that I should have heard Cicero under certain conditions of time and place, which is identical with my expectation that I shall hear a certain speaker to-morrow if I go to the House of Commons.[140] However this be, the thing to note is that such retrospective beliefs, when once formed, tend to approximate in character to recollections.

This is true even of new beliefs in recent events directly made known by present objective consequences or signs, as the snowstorm.

For in this case there is commonly no conscious comparison of the present signs with previously known signs, but merely a direct quasi-mnemonic passage of mind from the present fact to its antecedent.

And it is still more true of long-entertained retrospective beliefs.

When, for example, the original grounds of an historical hypothesis are lost sight of, and after the belief has hardened and solidified by time, it comes to look much more like a recollection than an expectation.