Now, there is one element of our active nature which the Christian religion has emphatically recognized, but which philosophers as a rule have with great insincerity tried to huddle out of sight in their pretension to found systems of absolute certainty. ...
..... I mean the element of faith. Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is still theoretically possible; ...
...and as the test of belief is willingness to act, one may say that faith is the readiness to act in a cause the prosperous issue of which is not certified to us in advance. ...
... It is in fact the same moral quality which we call courage in practical affairs;
William James, "The Will to Believe"
