Theology, I am persuaded, derives its initial impulse from a religious wavering; for there is quite as much, or more, that is mysterious and calculated to awaken scientific curiosity in the intercourse with God, and it [is] a problem quite analogous to that of theology.

We shall do better to abandon the whole attempt to learn the truthunless we can trust to the human mind's having such a powerof guessing right that before very many hypotheses shall have been tried, intelligent guessing may be expected to lead us to one which will support all tests, leaving the vast majority of possible hypotheses unexamined.

... and it is probably that there is some secret here which remains to be discovered.

There is not a single truth of science upon which we ought to bet more than about a million of millions to one.

And what, then, is belief? It is the demi-cadence which closes a musical phrase in the symphony of our intellectual life.

It is a common observation that those who dwell continually upon their expectations are apt to become oblivious to the requirements of their actual situation.

Three elements go to make up an idea. The first is its intrinsic quality as a feeling. The second is the energy with which it affects other ideas, an energy which is infinite in the here-and-nowness of immediate sensation, finite and relative in the recency of the past. The third element is the tendency of an idea to bring along other ideas with it.