"Will to Believe" - читать интересную книгу автора (James William)

as either or . A live hypothesis is one which
appeals as a real possibility to him to whom it is proposed.
If I asked you to believe in the Mahdi, the notion makes no
electric connection with your nature, -- it refuses to
scintillate with any credibility at all. As an hypothesis it
is completely dead. To an Arab, however (even if he be not
one of the Mahdi's followers), the hypothesis is among the
mind's possibilities: it is alive. This shows that deadness
and liveness in an hypothesis are not intrinsic properties,
but relations to the individual thinker. They are measured
by his willingness to act. The maximum of liveness in an
hypothesis , means willingness to act irrevocably.
Practically, that means belief; but there is some believing
tendency wherever there is willingness to act at all.

Next, let us call the decision between two hypotheses
an