William James - The Choice & Consequence of Faith

"What do you think of yourself?  What do you think of the world?...These are questions with which all must deal as it seems good to them.  They are riddles of the Sphinx, and in some way or other we must deal with them...In all important transactions of life we have to take a leap in the dark...If we decide to leave the riddles unanswered, that is a choice; if we waver in our answer, that, too, is a choice: but whatever choice we make, we make it at our peril. If a man chooses to turn his back altogether on God and the future, no one can prevent him; no one can show beyond reasonable doubt that he is mistaken.  If a man thinks otherwise and acts as he thinks, I do not see that any one can prove that he is mistaken.  Each must act as he thinks best; and if he is wrong, so much the worse for him.  We stand on a mountain pass in the midst of whirling snow and blinding mist, through which we get glimpses now and then of paths which may be deceptive.  If we stand still we shall be frozen to death.  If we take the wrong road we shall be dashed to pieces.  We do not certainly know whether there is any right one.  What must we do?  'Be strong and of a good courage."  Act for the best, hope for the best, and take what comes...If death end all, we cannot meet death better."

-Fitz James Stephen, "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity"

Quoted in William James, "The Will to Believe"

William James - The Logic of Faith

...a rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those kinds of truth were really there, would be an irrational rule.

William James, "The Will to Believe"

William James - Sceptics of Faith

We cannot escape the issue [of faith] by remaining sceptical and waiting for more light, because, although we do avoid error in that way if religion be untrue, we lose the good, if it be true, just as certainly as if we positively chose to disbelieve.  It is as if a man should hesitate indefinitely to ask a certain woman to marry him because he was not perfectly sure that she would prove an angel after he brought her home.  Would he not cut himself off from that particular angel-possibility as decisevely as if he went and married some one else?  Scepticism, then is not avoidance of option; it is an option of a certain particular kind of risk.  Better risk loss of truth than chance of error - that is your faith veoter's exact position.  He is actively playing his stake as much as the believer is; he is backing the field against the religious hypothesis, just as the believer is backing the religious hypothesis against the field.  To preach scepticism to us as a duty until 'sufficient evidence' for religion be found, is tantamount therefore to telling us, when in presence of the religious hypothesis that to yield to our fear of its being error is wiser and better than to yield to our hope that it may be true...dupery for dupery, what proof is there that dupery through hope is so much worse than dupery through fear?

William James - "The Will to Believe"

William James - Science, Morality, Religion defined.

Science says things are; morality says some things are better than other things; and religion says essentially two things.

First she says that the best things are the more eternal things, the overlapping things, the things in the universe that throw the last stone, so to speak, and say the final word.  "Perfection is eternal" - this phrase of Charles Secrétan seems a good way of putting this first affirmation of religion, an affirmation which obviously cannot yet be verified scientifically at all.

The second affirmation of religion is that we are better off even now if we beleive her first affirmation to be true.

William James, "The Will to Believe"

William James - Faith in a Fact Can Create the Fact

Do you like me or not?...Whether you do or not depends in countless instances, on whether I meet you halfway, am willing to assume that you must like me, and show you trust and expectation.  The previous faith on my part in your liking's existence is in such cases what makes your liking come.  But if sI stand aloof, and refuse to budge an inch until I have objective evidence, until you shall have done something apt...ten to one your liking never comes....The desire for a certain kind of truth here brings about that special truth's existence
...
There are, then, cases where a fact cannot come at all unless a preliminary faith exists in its coming.  And where faith in a fact can help create the fact, that would be an insane logic which should say that faith running ahead of scientific evidence is the 'lowest kind of immorality' into which a thinking can fall.  Yet such is the logic by which our scientific absolutists pretend to regulate our lives!

William James, "The Will to Believe"

William James - Fear of Becoming a Dupe

Clifford writes..."It is wrong always, everywhere, and for every one, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence."

...

Beleive nothing, he tells us, keep your mind in suspense forever, rather than by closing it on insufficient evidence incur the awful risk of believing lies.  You, on the other hand, may think that the risk of being in error is very small compared with the blessings of real knowledge, and be ready to be duped many times in your investigation rather than postpone indefinitely the chance of guessing true....he who says, "Better to go without belief forever than believe a lie!" merely shows his own preponderant private horror of becoming a dupe.  He may be critical of many of his desire and fears, but this fear he slavishly obeys...It is like a general informing his soldiers that it is better to keep out of battle forever than to risk a single wound.  Not so are victories either over enemies or over nature gained.  Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things.  In a world where we are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a certain lightness of heart seems healthier than this excessive nervousness of their behalf.

-William James, "The Will to Believe"