William James delivered his now-notorious essay on "The Will to Believe" first as a guest lecturer, a guest of the combined "Philosophical Clubs" of Yale and Brown University in 1896. That's important to remember because it gives one a sense of who is the "we" is when James talks about what "we" believe. Ivy League students almost all (possibly all) white men from well-off families. I will contend in what follows that there was an esoteric message in this essay, a message that was likely very clear to many if not most of those in the hall, but the salience of which faded with the passage of time. The pertinence of a key contemporary reference came to seem quaint. So the esoteric meaning has become utterly inaccessible until recovered by -- well, by me. Just now. In the passage below, James is making the point that we take a wide range of our beliefs on authority - we believe a lot on no evidence or personal consideration of our own. T...