This, then, was the second feature

This, then, was the second feature of belief: that the most straightforward expression of a belief is an assertion, but this does not prevent our using concepts of belief or something rather like belief with regard to animals which are incapable of making assertions and do not possess a language ——although we will have to warn ourselves that such beliefs, recognitions and so on, are going to be ascribed to animals in an impoverished and a somewhat conventionalised sense.