Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1905-08-03
The Observer.

| James, of Harvard, wrote little book
entitled '"The Will to Believe" in
which he showed, with the profound
analysis Of psychological expert and
with his well known literary skill, that
an act of will is involved in every act
| of belief, and that want of belief, OF
interest, Of conviction, is due to
| nerveless and passive will. The man
who has no beliefs is a non-entity, an
object of contempt Doubts and ques-
tionings have their place and function,
but their place and function should be
strictly subordinate to supreme posi-
tive conviction and active purpose. If
wear exhorted to ''prove all things"
we are also urged to "hold fast that
which is good" and are moreover
sharply warned against the spirit which
is ''ever learning, but never able to
come to knowledge of the truth"
Contrast the power of Peter the
Hermit, fanatic though he was, with
the pitiable eineffectiveness OF a Hamlet
whose "cast of thouGht' was not domi-
mated by ''native hue of resolution -
The man without faith, without a
cause, without enthusiasm, is to be
blamed for failing to exert the active
will power of vigorous and noble
manhood. The worlds leaders and
workers and battlers have ever been
man who have had the will to believe
in something. No man can sit on the
fence and believe in God or in any-
thing else The will must be active,
the mind must bestir itself, if there is
to be belief. Indeed, the mind is act
i've in all our acts of perception and
Judgment. Every mental process,
even those of our physical senses, in
wolves attention, which is an act of the
will. Without attention, ones beset
friend may stand right before his ewes,
and yet he will not be aware of that
friends presence. We see what we
give attention to. Two persons may
stand upon the same hilltop and cast
their eyes around the same sweep of
landscape, yet what the one sees NAV
be very different from what the other
sees. One may be a real estate agent,
or a mining prospector, while the other
may be painter or poet. What
each of them sees depends quite as
much upon what ne himself brings to
the scene as upon the scene itself. The
mind ofneither is mere passive, in
active surface. sensitized like camera
plate; but is very active agent which
discriminates, rejects, selects and con-
structs a picture of what is before it,
as unique as its cwn individuality. 1t
is commonplace, that if we know
what one sees, we know what he him
self is.
The pessimist and the cynic Justify
themselves by saying that they see
life as it, and that consequently they
are no more to be blamed for being
pessimistic and cynical than the side
OF scales is to be blamed for drop
ping when when a weight is placed on
it. If they We're really impartial in
their view of facts, the case would not
be so bad; but their view is not impair
tial; they do not see things whole, nor
as they are. TO see and appreciate
the better things of existence it is nee
essary that one come to the view with
heart ready to love them and with
will ready to cooperate with the spirit
of the best and to carry out one's own
part of the Larger Purpose. Without
such a disposition and will, one is with
out the very basis of character and
ones view of things is distorted and
dim.