The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy

Chapter 1 · 1/21

The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy

Chapter 1

¹Produced by Al Haines. ²(This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive.) ³THE WILL TO BELIEVE AND OTHER ESSAYS IN POPULAR PHILOSOPHY BY WILLIAM JAMES NEW IMPRESSION LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. ⁴FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK LONDON, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA 1912 _Copyright, 1896_ BY WILLIAM JAMES First Edition. ⁵February, 1897, Reprinted, May, 1897, September, 1897, March, 1898, August, 1899, June, 1902, January, 1903, May, 1904, June, 1905, March, 1907, April, 1908, September, 1909, December, 1910, November, 1911, November, 1912 To My Old Friend, CHARLES SANDERS PEIRCE, To whose philosophic comradeship in old times and to whose writings in more recent years I owe more incitement and help than I can express or repay. {vii} PREFACE. ⁶At most of our American Colleges there are Clubs formed by the students devoted to particular branches of learning; and these clubs have the laudable custom of inviting once or twice a year some maturer scholar to address them, the occasion often being made a public one. ⁷I have from time to time accepted such invitations, and afterwards had my discourse printed in one or other of the Reviews. ⁸It has seemed to me that these addresses might now be worthy of collection in a volume, as they shed explanatory light upon each other, and taken together express a tolerably definite philosophic attitude in a very untechnical way. ⁹Were I obliged to give a short name to the attitude in question, I should call it that of _radical empiricism_, in spite of the fact that such brief nicknames are nowhere more misleading than in philosophy. ¹⁰I say 'empiricism,' because it is contented to regard its most assured conclusions concerning matters of fact as hypotheses liable to modification in the course of future experience; and I say 'radical,' because it treats the doctrine of monism itself as an hypothesis, and, {viii} unlike so much of the half-way empiricism that is current under the name of positivism or agnosticism or scientific naturalism, it does not dogmatically affirm monism as something with which all experience has got to square. ¹¹The difference between monism and pluralism is perhaps the most pregnant of all the differences in philosophy. ¹²_Prima facie_ the world is a pluralism; as we find it, its unity seems to be that of any collection; and our higher thinking consists chiefly of an effort to redeem it from that first crude form. ¹³Postulating more unity than the first experiences yield, we also discover more. ¹⁴But absolute unity, in spite of brilliant dashes in its direction, still remains undiscovered, still remains a _Grenzbegriff_. ¹⁵"Ever not quite" must be the rationalistic philosopher's last confession concerning it. ¹⁶After all that reason can do has been done, there still remains the opacity of the finite facts as merely given, with most of their peculiarities mutually unmediated and unexplained. ¹⁷To the very last, there are the various 'points of view' which the philosopher must distinguish in discussing the world; and what is inwardly clear from one point remains a bare externality and datum to the other. ¹⁸The negative, the alogical, is never wholly banished. ¹⁹Something--"call it fate, chance, freedom, spontaneity, the devil, what you will"--is still wrong and other and outside and unincluded, from _your_ point of view, even though you be the greatest of philosophers. ²⁰Something is always mere fact and _givenness_; and there may be in the whole universe no one point of view extant from which this would not be found to be the case. ²¹"Reason," as a gifted writer says, "is {ix} but one item in the mystery; and behind the proudest consciousness that ever reigned, reason and wonder blushed face to face. ²²The inevitable stales, while doubt and hope are sisters. ²³Not unfortunately the universe is wild,--game-flavored as a hawk's wing. ²⁴Nature is miracle all; the same returns not save to bring the different. ²⁵The slow round of the engraver's lathe gains but the breadth of a hair, but the difference is distributed back over the whole curve, never an instant true,--ever not quite."[ ²⁶1] This is pluralism, somewhat rhapsodically expressed. ²⁷He who takes for his hypothesis the notion that it is the permanent form of the world is what I call a radical empiricist. ²⁸For him the crudity of experience remains an eternal element thereof. ²⁹There is no possible point of view from which the world can appear an absolutely single fact. ³⁰Real possibilities, real indeterminations, real beginnings, real ends, real evil, real crises, catastrophes, and escapes, a real God, and a real moral life, just as common-sense conceives these things, may remain in empiricism as conceptions which that philosophy gives up the attempt either to 'overcome' or to reinterpret in monistic form. ³¹Many of my professionally trained _confreres_ will smile at the irrationalism of this view, and at the artlessness of my essays in point of technical form. ³²But they should be taken as illustrations of the radically empiricist attitude rather than as argumentations for its validity. ³³That admits meanwhile of {x} being argued in as technical a shape as any one can desire, and possibly I may be spared to do later a share of that work. ³⁴Meanwhile these essays seem to light up with a certain dramatic reality the attitude itself, and make it visible alongside of the higher and lower dogmatisms between which in the pages of philosophic history it has generally remained eclipsed from sight. ³⁵The first four essays are largely concerned with defending the legitimacy of religious faith. ³⁶To some rationalizing readers such advocacy will seem a sad misuse of one's professional position. ³⁷Mankind, they will say, is only too prone to follow faith unreasoningly, and needs no preaching nor encouragement in that direction. ³⁸I quite agree that what mankind at large most lacks is criticism and caution, not faith. ³⁹Its cardinal weakness is to let belief follow recklessly upon lively conception, especially when the conception has instinctive liking at its back. ⁴⁰I admit, then, that were I addressing the Salvation Army or a miscellaneous popular crowd it would be a misuse of opportunity to preach the liberty of believing as I have in these pages preached it. ⁴¹What such audiences most need is that their faiths should be broken up and ventilated, that the northwest wind of science should get into them and blow their sickliness and barbarism away. ⁴²But academic audiences, fed already on science, have a very different need. ⁴³Paralysis of their native capacity for faith and timorous _abulia_ in the religious field are their special forms of mental weakness, brought about by the notion, carefully instilled, that there is something called scientific evidence by {xi} waiting upon which they shall escape all danger of shipwreck in regard to truth. ⁴⁴But there is really no scientific or other method by which men can steer safely between the opposite dangers of believing too little or of believing too much. ⁴⁵To face such dangers is apparently our duty, and to hit the right channel between them is the measure of our wisdom as men. ⁴⁶It does not follow, because recklessness may be a vice in soldiers, that courage ought never to be preached to them. ⁴⁷What _should_ be preached is courage weighted with responsibility,--such courage as the Nelsons and Washingtons never failed to show after they had taken everything into account that might tell against their success, and made every provision to minimize disaster in case they met defeat. ⁴⁸I do not think that any one can accuse me of preaching reckless faith. ⁴⁹I have preached the right of the individual to indulge his personal faith at his personal risk. ⁵⁰I have discussed the kinds of risk; I have contended that none of us escape all of them; and I have only pleaded that it is better to face them open-eyed than to act as if we did not know them to be there. ⁵¹After all, though, you will say, Why such an ado about a matter concerning which, however we may theoretically differ, we all practically agree? ⁵²In this age of toleration, no scientist will ever try actively to interfere with our religious faith, provided we enjoy it quietly with our friends and do not make a public nuisance of it in the market-place. ⁵³But it is just on this matter of the market-place that I think the utility of such essays as mine may turn. ⁵⁴If {xii} religious hypotheses about the universe be in order at all, then the active faiths of individuals in them, freely expressing themselves in life, are the experimental tests by which they are verified, and the only means by which their truth or falsehood can be wrought out. ⁵⁵The truest scientific hypothesis is that which, as we say, 'works' best; and it can be no otherwise with religious hypotheses. ⁵⁶Religious history proves that one hypothesis after another has worked ill, has crumbled at contact with a widening knowledge of the world, and has lapsed from the minds of men. ⁵⁷Some articles of faith, however, have maintained themselves through every vicissitude, and possess even more vitality to-day than ever before: it is for the 'science of religions' to tell us just which hypotheses these are. ⁵⁸Meanwhile the freest competition of the various faiths with one another, and their openest application to life by their several champions, are the most favorable conditions under which the survival of the fittest can proceed. ⁵⁹They ought therefore not to lie hid each under its bushel, indulged-in quietly with friends. ⁶⁰They ought to live in publicity, vying with each other; and it seems to me that (the regime of tolerance once granted, and a fair field shown) the scientist has nothing to fear for his own interests from the liveliest possible state of fermentation in the religious world of his time. ⁶¹Those faiths will best stand the test which adopt also his hypotheses, and make them integral elements of their own. ⁶²He should welcome therefore every species of religious agitation and discussion, so long as he is willing to allow that some religious hypothesis _may_ be {xiii} true. ⁶³Of course there are plenty of scientists who would deny that dogmatically, maintaining that science has already ruled all possible religious hypotheses out of court. ⁶⁴Such scientists ought, I agree, to aim at imposing privacy on religious faiths, the public manifestation of which could only be a nuisance in their eyes. ⁶⁵With all such scientists, as well as with their allies outside of science, my quarrel openly lies; and I hope that my book may do something to persuade the reader of their crudity, and range him on my side. ⁶⁶Religious fermentation is always a symptom of the intellectual vigor of a society; and it is only when they forget that they are hypotheses and put on rationalistic and authoritative pretensions, that our faiths do harm. ⁶⁷The most interesting and valuable things about a man are his ideals and over-beliefs. ⁶⁸The same is true of nations and historic epochs; and the excesses of which the particular individuals and epochs are guilty are compensated in the total, and become profitable to mankind in the long run. ⁶⁹The essay 'On some Hegelisms' doubtless needs an apology for the superficiality with which it treats a serious subject. ⁷⁰It was written as a squib, to be read in a college-seminary in Hegel's logic, several of whose members, mature men, were devout champions of the dialectical method. ⁷¹My blows therefore were aimed almost entirely at that. ⁷²I reprint the paper here (albeit with some misgivings), partly because I believe the dialectical method to be wholly abominable when worked by concepts alone, and partly because the essay casts some positive light on the pluralist-empiricist point of view. {xiv} The paper on Psychical Research is added to the volume for convenience and utility. ⁷³Attracted to this study some years ago by my love of sportsmanlike fair play in science, I have seen enough to convince me of its great importance, and I wish to gain for it what interest I can. ⁷⁴The American Branch of the Society is in need of more support, and if my article draws some new associates thereto, it will have served its turn. ⁷⁵Apology is also needed for the repetition of the same passage in two essays (pp. 59-61 and 96-7, 100-1). ⁷⁶My excuse is that one cannot always express the same thought in two ways that seem equally forcible, so one has to copy one's former words. ⁷⁷The Crillon-quotation on page 62 is due to Mr. ⁷⁸Salter (who employed it in a similar manner in the 'Index' for August 24, 1882), and the dream-metaphor on p. 174 is a reminiscence from some novel of George Sand's--I forget which--read by me thirty years ago. ⁷⁹Finally, the revision of the essays has consisted almost entirely in excisions. ⁸⁰Probably less than a page and a half in all of new matter has been added. ⁸¹HARVARD UNIVERSITY, CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, December, 1896. ⁸²[1] B. ⁸³Blood: The Flaw in Supremacy: Published by the Author, Amsterdam, N. ⁸⁴Y., 1893. {x} CONTENTS. ⁸⁵PAGE THE WILL TO BELIEVE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ⁸⁶1 Hypotheses and options, 1. ⁸⁷Pascal's wager, 5. ⁸⁸Clifford's veto, 8. ⁸⁹Psychological causes of belief, 9. ⁹⁰Thesis of the Essay, 11. ⁹¹Empiricism and absolutism, 12. ⁹²Objective certitude and its unattainability, 13. ⁹³Two different sorts of risks in believing, 17. ⁹⁴Some risk unavoidable, 19. ⁹⁵Faith may bring forth its own verification, 22. ⁹⁶Logical conditions of religious belief, 25. ⁹⁷IS LIFE WORTH LIVING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ⁹⁸32 Temperamental Optimism and Pessimism, 33. ⁹⁹How reconcile with life one bent on suicide? ¹⁰⁰38. ¹⁰¹Religious melancholy and its cure, 39. ¹⁰²Decay of Natural Theology, 43. ¹⁰³Instinctive antidotes to pessimism, 46. ¹⁰⁴Religion involves belief in an unseen extension of the world, 51. ¹⁰⁵Scientific positivism, 52. ¹⁰⁶Doubt actuates conduct as much as belief does, 54. ¹⁰⁷To deny certain faiths is logically absurd, for they make their objects true, 56. ¹⁰⁸Conclusion, 6l. ¹⁰⁹THE SENTIMENT OF RATIONALITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ¹¹⁰63 Rationality means fluent thinking, 63. ¹¹¹Simplification, 65. ¹¹²Clearness, 66. ¹¹³Their antagonism, 66. ¹¹⁴Inadequacy of the abstract, 68. ¹¹⁵The thought of nonentity, 71. ¹¹⁶Mysticism, 74. ¹¹⁷Pure theory cannot banish wonder, 75. ¹¹⁸The passage to practice may restore the feeling of rationality, 75. ¹¹⁹Familiarity and expectancy, 76. ¹²⁰'Substance,' 80. ¹²¹A rational world must appear {xvi} congruous with our powers, 82. ¹²²But these differ from man to man, 88. ¹²³Faith is one of them, 90. ¹²⁴Inseparable from doubt, 95. ¹²⁵May verify itself, 96. ¹²⁶Its role in ethics, 98. ¹²⁷Optimism and pessimism, 101. ¹²⁸Is this a moral universe?--what does the problem mean? ¹²⁹103. ¹³⁰Anaesthesia _versus_ energy, 107. ¹³¹Active assumption necessary, 107. ¹³²Conclusion, 110. ¹³³REFLEX ACTION AND THEISM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ¹³⁴111 Prestige of Physiology, 112. ¹³⁵Plan of neural action, 113. ¹³⁶God the mind's adequate object, 116. ¹³⁷Contrast between world as perceived and as conceived, 118. ¹³⁸God, 120. ¹³⁹The mind's three departments, 123. ¹⁴⁰Science due to a subjective demand, 129. ¹⁴¹Theism a mean between two extremes, 134. ¹⁴²Gnosticism, 137. ¹⁴³No intellection except for practical ends, 140. ¹⁴⁴Conclusion, 142. ¹⁴⁵THE DILEMMA OF DETERMINISM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ¹⁴⁶145 Philosophies seek a rational world, 146. ¹⁴⁷Determinism and Indeterminism defined, 149. ¹⁴⁸Both are postulates of rationality, 152. ¹⁴⁹Objections to chance considered, 153. ¹⁵⁰Determinism involves pessimism, 159. ¹⁵¹Escape _via_ Subjectivism, 164. ¹⁵²Subjectivism leads to corruption, 170. ¹⁵³A world with chance in it is morally the less irrational alternative, 176. ¹⁵⁴Chance not incompatible with an ultimate Providence, 180. ¹⁵⁵THE MORAL PHILOSOPHER AND THE MORAL LIFE . . . . . . . . . . . . ¹⁵⁶184 The moral philosopher postulates a unified system, 185. ¹⁵⁷Origin of moral judgments, 185. ¹⁵⁸Goods and ills are created by judgment?, 189. ¹⁵⁹Obligations are created by demands, 192. ¹⁶⁰The conflict of ideals, 198. ¹⁶¹Its solution, 205. ¹⁶²Impossibility of an abstract system of Ethics, 208. ¹⁶³The easy-going and the strenuous mood, 211. ¹⁶⁴Connection between Ethics and Religion, 212. ¹⁶⁵GREAT MEN AND THEIR ENVIRONMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ¹⁶⁶216 Solidarity of causes in the world, 216. ¹⁶⁷The human mind abstracts in order to explain, 219. ¹⁶⁸Different cycles of operation in Nature, 220. ¹⁶⁹Darwin's distinction between causes that produce and causes that preserve a variation, 221. ¹⁷⁰Physiological causes produce, the environment only adopts or preserves, great men, 225. ¹⁷¹When adopted they become social ferments, 226. ¹⁷²Messrs. {xvii} Spencer and Allen criticised, 232. ¹⁷³Messrs. ¹⁷⁴Wallace and Gryzanowski quoted, 239. ¹⁷⁵The laws of history, 244. ¹⁷⁶Mental evolution, 245. ¹⁷⁷Analogy between original ideas and Darwin's accidental variations, 247. ¹⁷⁸Criticism of Spencer's views, 251. ¹⁷⁹THE IMPORTANCE OF INDIVIDUALS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ¹⁸⁰255 Small differences may be important, 256. ¹⁸¹Individual differences are important because they are the causes of social change, 259. ¹⁸²Hero-worship justified, 261. ¹⁸³ON SOME HEGELISMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ¹⁸⁴263 The world appears as a pluralism, 264. ¹⁸⁵Elements of unity in the pluralism, 268. ¹⁸⁶Hegel's excessive claims, 273. ¹⁸⁷He makes of negation a bond of union, 273. ¹⁸⁸The principle of totality, 277. ¹⁸⁹Monism and pluralism, 279. ¹⁹⁰The fallacy of accident in Hegel, 280. ¹⁹¹The good and the bad infinite, 284. ¹⁹²Negation, 286. ¹⁹³Conclusion, 292.--Note on the Anaesthetic revelation, 294. ¹⁹⁴WHAT PSYCHICAL RESEARCH HAS ACCOMPLISHED . . . . . . . . . . . . ¹⁹⁵299 The unclassified residuum, 299. ¹⁹⁶The Society for Psychical Research and its history, 303. ¹⁹⁷Thought-transference, 308. ¹⁹⁸Gurney's work, 309. ¹⁹⁹The census of hallucinations, 312. ²⁰⁰Mediumship, 313. ²⁰¹The 'subliminal self,' 315. ²⁰²'Science' and her counter-presumptions, 317. ²⁰³The scientific character of Mr. ²⁰⁴Myers's work, 320. ²⁰⁵The mechanical-impersonal view of life versus the personal-romantic view, 324. ²⁰⁶INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ²⁰⁷329 {1} ESSAYS IN POPULAR PHILOSOPHY. ²⁰⁸THE WILL TO BELIEVE.[ ²⁰⁹1] In the recently published Life by Leslie Stephen of his brother, Fitz-James, there is an account of a school to which the latter went when he was a boy. ²¹⁰The teacher, a certain Mr. ²¹¹Guest, used to converse with his pupils in this wise: "Gurney, what is the difference between justification and sanctification?--Stephen, prove the omnipotence of God!" ²¹²etc. ²¹³In the midst of our Harvard freethinking and indifference we are prone to imagine that here at your good old orthodox College conversation continues to be somewhat upon this order; and to show you that we at Harvard have not lost all interest in these vital subjects, I have brought with me to-night something like a sermon on justification by faith to read to you,--I mean an essay in justification _of_ faith, a defence of our right to adopt a believing attitude in religious matters, in spite of the fact that our merely logical {2} intellect may not have been coerced. ²¹⁴'The Will to Believe,' accordingly, is the title of my paper. ²¹⁵I have long defended to my own students the lawfulness of voluntarily adopted faith; but as soon as they have got well imbued with the logical spirit, they have as a rule refused to admit my contention to be lawful philosophically, even though in point of fact they were personally all the time chock-full of some faith or other themselves. ²¹⁶I am all the while, however, so profoundly convinced that my own position is correct, that your invitation has seemed to me a good occasion to make my statements more clear. ²¹⁷Perhaps your minds will be more open than those with which I have hitherto had to deal. ²¹⁸I will be as little technical as I can, though I must begin by setting up some technical distinctions that will help us in the end.

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