The Will to Believe is a lecture by William James first published in 1896 which defends in certain cases the adoption of a belief without prior evidence of its truth. In particular James is concerned in this lecture about defending the rationality of religious faith even lacking sufficient evidence of religious truth. James states in his introduction: "I have brought with me tonight [...] an essay in justification of faith a defense of our right to adopt a believing attitude in religious matters in spite of the fact that our merely logical intellect may not have been coerced. 'The Will to Believe' accordingly is the title of my paper."