And this simple and spontaneous sophistry is in a measure kept in countenance by quasi-philosophies such as that of the 'Will to Believe' and that latterly termed Pragmatism. The former, as brilliantly propounded by the late Professor James, amounts simply to this, that in matters on which there is no good or sufficient evidence either way, we do well to believe what we would like to believe. As the precept comes from the thinker who passed on to students the counsel of Pascal concerning the opiate value of religious practices,[13] it is easy to infer how it will tend to be interpreted. And the second philosophy is like unto the first, in so far as it conveys, under cover of the true formula that the valid beliefs are those which affect action, the antinomian hint that if we think we have found any belief a help to action, it is thereby sufficiently certificated as true. The rationalist comment on Pragmatism, thus applied, is that it really discredits the religious beliefs of most men, inasmuch as they never relate their faith to action in general, would not stake a shilling on a prayer, have no working faith in providence, and do not in the least desire to pass from this life to another. But these men do not study philosophy; while the emotional believers, who really feel their faith to be a help in life, do not need the pragmatist's precept, and believe without it. What is true in Pragmatism is of the essence of Rationalism. Our lives at their best are made valid for us by our mutual trust, our reciprocal sincerities; and Rationalism consists in the effort to extend intellectual and moral sincerity to the study of all problems. It may permit, none the less, of some such genial or affectionate glozing of some facts as love and friendship tend to set up in the relations of persons, tolerance taking on the vesture of sympathy; and it no more makes for Gradgrindism, or the belittlement of any of the higher joys, than for concentration on the lower. Its antagonists alternately indict it for 'gloom' and for licence; for coldness and for 'Epicureanism'; for seeking only happiness, and for turning happiness out of doors. The contradictions of the indictment tell of its collective origin in mere hostility of temper. Rationalism, of all codes and modes of life-philosophy, must most seek to make the best of life.