The quandaries of which the two previous essays speak come alive with this classic piece by William James (1842–1910), hailed as the father of American psychology, one of the three founders of American pragmatism (along with C. S. Peirce and John Dewey), and one of the country's best known philosophers. Born to affluence in a cosmopolitan, cultured family deeply concerned with both religious and cultural diversity and development, James and his siblings (including famed writers Henry James and Alice James) spent their childhood surrounded by the period's most celebrated thinkers, and were inundated with the finest educational and cultural opportunities available.

James was educated as a medical doctor at Harvard, and went on to spend the whole of his working career there as well, teaching medicine, psychology, and ultimately, philosophy. At a time when the field of psychology was in its early stages, James wrote what were then considered to be groundbreaking treatises on the workings of the human mind, and particularly, the psychological aspects of religion, mysticism, and pragmatism.

Pragmatism, a philosophical position somewhat synonymous with James, asserts that one should measure the validity of a belief in relation to its usefulness or ability to create a satisfactory outcome. Put another way, pragmatism asserts that what is true is linked to what works to create positive results in human experience. Religion was thus, to James, “true” inasmuch as it made life more tolerable and hopeful, and exhorted humans to better moral behavior.