The chapters that follow comprise what might be called an introductionto philosophy, but such a description of them would probably bemisleading, for they are addressed quite as much to the general reader,or rather to the general thinker, as to the prospective student oftechnical philosophy. They are the attempt of a University teacher ofphilosophy to meet what is a real emergency of the day, namely, thedoubt that is appearing in so many departments of life, that isaffecting so many people, and that is fraught with so many dangers, andin attempting this they would also at least help to bridge the chasmbetween academic sophistication and practical life, self-consciousnessand positive activity. With peculiar truth at the present time theUniversity can justify itself only by serving real life, and it canserve real life, not merely by bringing its pure science down to, or upto, the health and the industrial pursuits of the people, but also byexplaining, which is even to say by applying, as science is "applied,"or by animating the general scepticism of the time.
That this scepticism is often charged to the peculiar training of theUniversity hardly needs to be said, but except for its making such anundertaking as the present essay only the more appropriate the chargeitself is strangely humorous. One might also accuse the University ofmaking atoms and germs, or, by its magic theories, of generatingelectricity or disease. Scepticism is a world-wide, life-wide fact; evenlike heat or electricity, it is a natural force or agent—unlessforsooth one must exclude all the attitudes of mind from what in thefullest and deepest sense is natural; scepticism, in short, is a realphase of whatever is real, and its explanation is an academicresponsibility. Its explanation, however, like the explanation ofeverything real or natural, can be complete only when, as alreadysuggested here, its application and animation have been achieved, orwhen it has been shown to be properly and effectively an object of will.So, just as we have the various applied sciences, in this essay there isoffered an applied philosophy of doubt, a philosophy that would showdoubt to have a real part in effective action, and that with the showingwould make both the doubting and the acting so much the more effective.
But it may be said that effective acting depends, not on doubt, butrather on belief, on confidence or "credit." This will prove to be true,excepting in what it denies. To be commonplace, to write down here andnow what is at once the truism and the paradox of this book, a vital,practical belief must always live by doubting. Was it Schopenhauer whodeclared that man walks only by saving himself at every step from afall? The meaning of this book is much the same, although no pessimismis either intended or necessarily implied in such a declaration. Doubtis no mere negative of belief; rather it is a very vital part of belief,it has a place in the believer's experience and volition; the doubtersin society, be they trained at the University or not, and thosepractical creatures in society who have kept the faith, who believe andwho do, are naturally and deeply in sympathy. And this essay seeks todeepen their natural sympathy.
Here, then, is my simple thesis. Doubt is essential to real belief.Perhaps this means that all vital problems are bound in a real life tobe perennial, and certainly it cannot mean that i