believe what one desires; for the belief is one of
the indispensable preliminary conditions of the realization of its
object. _There are then cases where faith creates its own
verification_. Believe, and you shall be right, for you shall save
yourself; doubt, and you shall again be right, for you shall perish.
The only difference is that to believe is greatly to your advantage.

The future movements of the stars or the facts of past history are
determined now once for all, whether I like them or not. They are
given irrespective of my wishes, and in all that concerns truths like
these subjective preference should have no part; it can only obscure
the judgment. But in every fact into which there enters an element of
personal contribution on my part, as soon as this personal contribution
demands a certain degree of subjective energy which, in its turn, calls
for a certain amount of faith in the result,--so that, after all, the
future fact is conditioned by my present faith in it,--how trebly
asinine would it be for me to deny myself the use of the subjective
method, the method of belief based on desire!

In every proposition whose bearing is universal (and such are all the
propositions of philosophy), the acts of the subject and their
consequences throughout eternity should be included in the formula. If
_M_ {98} represent the entire world _minus_ the reaction of the thinker
upon it, and if _M_ + _x_ represent the absolutely total matter of
philosophic propositions (_x_ standing for the thinker's reaction and
its results),--what would be a universal truth if the term x were of
one complexion, might become egregious error if _x_ altered its
character. Let it not be said that _x_ is too infinitesimal a
component to change the character of the immense whole in which it lies
imbedded. Everything depends on the point of view of the philosophic
proposition in question. If we have to define the universe from the
point of view of sensibility, the critical material for our judgment
lies in the animal kingdom, insignificant as that is, quantitatively
considered. The moral definition of the world may depend on phenomena
more restricted still in range. In short, many a long phrase may have
its sense reversed by the addition of three letters, _n-o-t_; many a
monstrous mass have its unstable equilibrium discharged one way or the
other by a feather weight that falls.

Let us make this clear by a few examples. The philosophy