ery different character and extent, and the
candidate may present any ten out of the twenty. Botany counts just as
much as Latin. There is a wide range of options at admission to the
University of Michigan, with its numerous courses leading to numerous
degrees; that is, there is a wide range of subjects permissible to a
candidate who is thinking of presenting himself for some one of its many
degrees. If we look nearer home, we find in so conservative an
institution as Dartmouth College that there are three different degrees
offered, with three different assortments of admission requirements, and
three different courses within the college. I noticed that at the last
commencement there were forty-one degrees of the old-fashioned sort and
twenty-seven degrees of the newer sorts given by Dartmouth College. Here
in Harvard we have had for many years a considerable range of electives
in the admission examinations, particularly in what we call the advanced
requirements. We therefore need to limit our subject a little by saying
that we are thinking of a wider range of admission electives in the
Eastern and Middle State colleges, the range of electives farther west
being already large in many cases.[54]

Professor William James, in his essay "The Will to Believe," in which he
argues that it is both right and unavoidable that our feelings shall
take part in the making of our faiths, begins with a careful definition
and illustration of certain terms he is going to use constantly.

Next, let us call the decision between two hypotheses an option. Options
may be of several kinds. They may be (1) _living_ or _dead_; (2) _forced_
or _avoidable_; (3) _momentous_ or _trivial_; and for our purposes we
may call an option a _genuine_ option when it is of the forced, living,
and momentous kind.

1. A living option is one in which both hypotheses are live ones. If I
say to you, "Be a theosophist or be a Mohammedan," it is probably a dead
option, because for you neither hypothesis is likely to be alive. But if
I say, "Be an agnostic or be a Christian," it is otherwise: trained as
you are, each hypothesis makes some appeal, however small, to your
belief.

2. Next, if I say to you, "Choose between going out with your umbrella
or without it," I do not offer you a genuine option, for it is not
forced. You can easily avoid it by not going out at all. Similarly, if I
say: "Either love me or hate me," "Either call my theory true or call it
false,