the first place, it might be contended that a memory-image
acquires meaning only through the memory-belief, which would seem, at
least in the case of memory, to make belief more primitive than the
meaning of images. In the second place, it is a very singular thing that
meaning, which is single, should generate objective reference, which is
dual, namely true and false. This is one of the facts which any theory
of belief must explain if it is to be satisfactory.

It is now time to leave these preliminary requisites, and attempt the
analysis of the contents of beliefs.

The first thing to notice about what is believed, i.e. about the content
of a belief, is that it is always complex: We believe that a certain
thing has a certain property, or a certain relation to something else,
or that it occurred or will occur (in the sense discussed at the end of
Lecture IX); or we may believe that all the members of a certain class
have a certain property, or that a certain property sometimes occurs
among the members of a class; or we may believe that if one thing
happens, another will happen (for example, "if it rains I shall bring my
umbrella"), or we may believe that something does not happen, or did not
or will not happen (for example, "it won't rain"); or that one of two
things must happen (for example, "either you withdraw your accusation,
or I shall bring a libel action"). The catalogue of the sorts of things
we may believe is infinite, but all of them are complex.

Language sometimes conceals the complexity of a belief. We say that a
person believes in God, and it might seem as if God formed the whole
content of the belief. But what is really believed is that God exists,
which is very far from being simple. Similarly, when a person has a
memory-image with a memory-belief, the belief is "this occurred," in
the sense explained in Lecture IX; and "this occurred" is not simple.
In like manner all cases where the content of a belief seems simple at
first sight will be found, on examination, to confirm the view that the
content is always complex.

The content of a belief involves not merely a plurality of constituents,
but definite relations between them; it is not determinate when its
constituents alone are given. For example, "Plato preceded Aristotle"
and "Aristotle preceded Plato" are both contents which may be believed,
but, although they consist of exactly the same constituents, they are
different, and even incompatible.