o worse off than any other kind
of belief whatsoever. We can find grounds for doubting our own
identity, for doubting the multiplication table, for doubting the
fundamental axioms of thought--_if we are determined to find them_. On
all these beliefs doubt has, in fact, been cast by resolute doubters.
Nothing is proof against the will-to-disbelieve, not even disbelief
itself. Every scepticism makes assumptions which a deeper scepticism
can question. No reason can be given for doubting which a sufficiently
obstinate doubter cannot doubt. No reason for believing, but a more
ardent believer will find it inadequate. Here doubt and belief
resemble one another.

The will-to-disbelieve is as necessary a part of our equipment as the
will to believe: the two wills being indeed the same in principle, but
the opposite in application. The former is a weapon of defence, a
protection against deceivers, never more useful than when engaged in
exposing shams, fraud and cant practised under the name of religion.
The latter is a weapon of attack, the principle of all that is creative
in human life. It is akin to love, the most valiant of all qualities,
whether it appears in a tigress defending her cubs or in a martyr dying
for mankind.

If we fall under the power of the will-to-disbelieve, we shall indeed
be well protected from fraud, but ill equipped for the creation of new
values, either in our own life or in that of others, which is the prime
business of man. For this we need the will to believe that the new
values are possible, which the will-to-disbelieve can always doubt.

I cannot agree with those philosophers who maintain that religion is
based on the will-to-believe. The two are clearly connected; but it
would be truer to say that the will-to-believe is based on religion.
Religion encourages a man to act on the assumption that the best things
are possible, and checks the will-to-disbelieve precisely at the point
where it questions this. It is the God within the man which so acts,
and the moment the man perceives its divine origin the will-to-believe
acquires a new energy. God is not a product, but the author and living
principle of the will-to-believe.

The will-to-disbelieve, if given a free rein, would at last involve us
in a depth of scepticism indistinguishable from complete cowardice.
But in actual life it never goes to this length, except in the world of
pure dialectics and in asylums for the insane. However