The Will to Believe and Other Essays

With regard to all other possible truths, however, a number of our most influential contemporaries think that an attitude of faith is not only illogical but shameful. Faith in a religious dogma for which there is no outward proof, but which we are tempted to postulate for our emotional interests, just as we postulate the uniformity of nature for our intellectual interests, is branded by Professor Huxley as “the lowest depth of immorality.” Citations of this kind from leaders of the modern Aufklärung might be multiplied almost indefinitely. Take Professor Clifford’s article on the ‘Ethics of Belief.’ He calls it ‘guilt’ and ‘sin’ to believe even the truth without ‘scientific evidence.’ But what is the use of being a genius, unless with the same scientific evidence as other men, one can reach more truth than they? Why does Clifford fearlessly proclaim his belief in the conscious-automaton theory, although the ‘proofs’ before him are the same which make Mr.