ported, instead of being an act of that desperate courage which risks all, because not to risk is to perish anyhow.
It is in a hope to meet this query — to show, if possible, the way of raising this ideal hypothesis into fact resting upon positive evidence — that I offer you what follows in this essay.
I
Before entering upon the affirmative argument for the imperishableness of the light that lighteth every man when he cometh into the world, and essaying to prove really his the white radiance of eternity, which by the dome of physical life, however many-coloured, is only stained, let me point out clearly a certain oversight in the otherwise brilliant reasoning by which our guest and essayist would provide a justifiable chance for faith and courage to cast in for immortality — a chance to risk belief without the risk of demonstrable folly. For that, in brief, is what Professor James’s general aim in the philosophical field may be said to be, — to vindicate the exercise of moral and religious faith against the charge of ignorance, unreason, and folly; to make it plain that one is not a fool, even though he do believe out of sheer fealty and loyal will, when once a proved uncertainty leaves him an open chance; and to dis-
