Belief, Faith, Courage…

There is a sentence accredited to William James, which says, “Our belief at the beginning of a doubtful undertaking is the one thing that insures the successful outcome of our venture.” This suggests comment on the question of belief, of faith, of courage: the will to succeed, the will to study, the will to know, the will to accomplish—even the will to live, which may at times be the difference between life and death.

The skeptics and the unbelievers play their parts, and they cannot be said to be unimportant parts, but progress principally is made by those who do things because they believe they can be done or don’t know they can’t be done—and yesterday’s seemingly impossible performance has often become today’s commonplace performance.

People often exceed their own past performance—or exceed other peoples’ past performance. Contestants have often won when all the odds were to the contrary. Ventures have succeeded which seemed to hold little promise of success. Patients have recovered where it hasn’t appeared to be possible. Men have survived when surely it seemed they couldn’t. And often in these equations the intangible enters in: the spirit, the faith, the prayer, the will, the courage, the honest, earnest, believing, extra effort; the help, the strength that inexplicable comes from sources both within and outside ourselves.

It the pessimist had always been right, the world would have never have had any peace or progress. If the pessimist had always been right the world would have starved long since; nothing much would ever have been invented; nothing much would ever have been discovered; nothing much would ever have been improved.

Facts are surely not to be ignored, but are to be sought for and respected and taken into account in calculating all consequences. But besides the known facts there are always, or often, unknown facts. “There are more things in heaven and earth” than we are aware of. And to those who have problems, to those who have sorrow or sickness, to those who have cherished dreams, high goals and ideals, and admirable objectives: Hold to hope, to courage; hold to faith; don’t too soon succumb to hopelessness; keep faith in the future.

“Our belief at the beginning of a doubtful undertaking is the one thing that insures the successful outcome of our venture.”