most important things in the life both of the community and of the
individual, deserves close and extended study. Such study can be of
value only if based upon the personal experiences of many
individuals. If you are in sympathy with such study and are willing
to assist in it, will you kindly write out the answers to the
following questions and return them with this questionnaire, as
soon as you conveniently can, to JAMES B. PRATT, 20 Shepard Street,
Cambridge, Mass.
Please answer the questions at length and in detail. Do not give
philosophical generalizations, but your own personal experience.
1. What does religion mean to you personally? Is it
(1) A belief that something exists? _Yes._
(2) An emotional experience? _Not powerfully so, yet a_ social
_reality_.
(3) A general attitude of the will toward God or toward
righteousness! _It involves these._
(4) Or something else?
If it has several elements, which is for you the most important?
_The social appeal for corroboration, consolation, etc., when
things are going wrong with my causes (my truth denied)_, etc.
2. What do you mean by God? _A combination of Ideality and (final)
efficacity._
(1) Is He a person--if so, what do you mean by His being a person?
_He must be cognizant and responsive in some way._
(2) Or is He only a Force? _He must_ do.
(3) Or is God an attitude of the Universe toward you? _Yes, but
more conscious. "God" to me, is not the only spiritual reality to
believe in. Religion means primarily a universe of spiritual
relations surrounding the earthly practical ones, not merely
relations of "value," but agencies and their activities. I suppose
that the chief premise for my hospitality towards the religious
testimony of others is my conviction that "normal" or "sane"
consciousness is so small a part of actual experience. What e'er be
true, it is not true exclusively, as philistine scientific opinion
assumes. The other kinds of consciousness bear witness to a much
wider universe of experiences, from which our belief selects and
emphasizes such parts as best satisfy our needs._
How do you apprehend his relation to mankind }
and to you personally? }
} _Uncertain._
If your position on any of these matters is uncertain, }
please state the fact. }
3. Why do you believe in God? Is it
(1) From some argument? _Emphatically, no._
Or (2) Because you have experienced His presence? _No, but rather
because I need it so that it "must" be true._
Or (3) From authority, such as that of the Bible or of some
prophetic person? _Only the whole tradition of religious people, to
which something in me makes admiring response._
Or (4) From any other reason? _Only for the social reasons._
If from several of these reasons, please indicate carefully the order of
their importance.
4. Or do you not so much _believe_ in God as want to _use_ Him? _I can't
use him very definitely, yet I believe._ Do you accept Him not so much
as a real existent Being, but rather as an ideal to live by? _More as a
more powerful ally of my own ideals._ If you should become thoroughly
convinced that there was no God, would it make any great difference in
your life--either in happiness, morality, or in other respects? _Hard to
say. It would surely make some difference._
5. Is God very real to you, as real as an earthly friend, though
different? _Dimly [real]; not [as an earthly friend]._
Do you feel that you have experienced His presence? If so, please
describe what you mean by such an experience. _Never._
How vague or how distinct is it? How does it affect you mentally and
physically?
If you have had no such experience, do you accept the testimony of
others who claim to have felt God's presence directly? Please answer
this question with special care and in as great detail as possible.
_Yes! The whole line of testimony on this point is so strong that I am
unable to pooh-pooh it away. No doubt there is a germ in me of something
similar that makes response._
6. Do you pray, and if so, why? That is, is it purely from habit, and
social custom, or do you really believe that God hears your prayers? _I
can't possibly pray--I feel foolish and artificial._
Is prayer with you one-sided or two-sided--_i.e._, do you sometimes feel
that in prayer you receive something--such as strength or the divine
spirit--from God? Is it a real communion?
7. What do you mean by "spirituality"? _Susceptibility to ideals, but
with a certain freedom to indulge in imagination about them. A certain
amount of "other worldly" fancy. Otherwise you have mere morality, or
"taste."_
Describe a typical spiritual person. _Phillips Brooks._
8. Do you believe in personal immortality? _Never keenly; but more
strongly as I grow older._ If so, why? _Because I am just getting fit to
live._
9. Do you accept the Bible as _authority_ in religious matters? Are your
religious faith and your religious life based on it? If so, how would
your belief in God and your life toward Him and your fellow men be
affected by loss of faith in the _authority_ of the Bible? _No. No. No.
It is so human a book that I don't see how belief in its divine
authorship can survive the reading of it._
10. What do you mean by a "religious experience"? _Any moment of life
that brings the reality of spiritual things more "home" to one._
_To Miss Pauline Goldmark._
CHOCORUA, _Sept. 21, 1904_.
DEAR PAULINE,--Alice went off this morning to Cambridge, to get the
house ready for the advent of the rest of us a week hence--viz.,
Wednesday the 28th. Having breakfasted at 6:30 to bid her God speed, the
weather was so lordly fine (after a heavy rain in the night) that I
trudged across lots to our hill-top, which you never saw, and now lie
there with my back against a stone, scribbling you these lines at
half-past nine. The vacation has run down with an appalling rapidity,
but all has gone well with us, and I have been extraordinarily well and
happy, and mean to be a good boy all next winter, to say nothing of
remoter futures. My brother Henry stayed a delightful fortnight, and
seemed to enjoy nature here intensely--found so much _sentiment_ and
feminine delicacy in it all. It is a pleasure to be with anyone who
takes in things through the eyes. Most people don't. The two "savans"
who were here noticed _absolutely nothing_, though they had never been
in America before.
Naturally I have wondered what things your eyes have been falling on.
Many views from hill-tops? Many magic dells and brooks? I hope so, and
that it has all done you endless good. Such a green and gold and scarlet
morn as this would raise the dead. I hope that your sister Susan has
also got great good from the summer, and that the fair Josephine is glad
to be at home again, and your mother reconciled to losing you. Perhaps
even now you are preparing to go down. I have only written as a
_Lebenszeichen_ and to tell you of our dates. I expect no reply, till
you write a word to say when you are to come to Boston. Unhappily we
can't ask you to Irving St, being mortgaged three deep to foreigners.
Ever yours,
W. J.
It will be recalled that the St. Louis Exposition had occurred shortly
before the date of the last letter and had led a number of learned and
scientific associations to hold international congresses in America.
James kept away from St. Louis, but asked several foreign colleagues to
visit him at Chocorua or in Cambridge before their return to Europe.
Among them were Dr. Pierre Janet of Paris and his wife, Professor C.
Lloyd Morgan of Bristol, and Professor Harold Höffding of Copenhagen.
_To F. C. S. Schiller._
Cambridge, _Oct. 26, 1904_.
DEAR SCHILLER,-- ...Last night the Janets left us--a few days previous,
Lloyd Morgan. I am glad to possess my soul for a while alone. Make much
of dear old Höffding, who is a good pluralist and irrationalist. I took
to him immensely and so did everybody. Lecturing to my class, he told
against the Absolutists an anecdote of an "American" child who asked his
mother if God made the world in six days. "Yes."--"The whole of
it?"--"Yes."--"Then it is finished, all done?"--"Yes."--"Then in what
business now is God?" If he tells it in Oxford you must reply: "Sitting
for his portrait to Royce, Bradley, and Taylor."
Don't return the "McGill Quarterly"!--I have another copy. Good-bye!
W. J.
_To F. J. E. Woodbridge._
Cambridge, _Feb. 6, 1905_.
DEAR WOODBRIDGE,--I appear to be growing into a graphomaniac. Truth
boils over from my organism as muddy water from a Yellowstone Geyser.
Here is another contribution to my radical empiricism, which I send hot
on the heels of the last one. I promise that, with the possible
exception of one post-scriptual thing, not more than eight pages of MS.
long, I shall do no more writing this academic year. So if you accept
this,[56] you have not much more to fear.... I think, on the whole, that
though the present article directly hitches on to the last words of my
last article, "The Thing and Its Relations," the article called the
"Essence of Humanism" had better appear before it.... Always truly yours
Wm. James.
_To Edwin D. Starbuck._
Cambridge, _Feb. 12, 1905_.
DEAR STARBUCK,--I have read your article in No. 2 of Hall's Journal with
great interest and profit. It makes me eager for the book, but pray take
great care of your style in that--it seems to me that this article is
less well written than your "Psychology of Religion" was, less clear,
more involved, more technical in language--probably the result of
rapidity. Our American philosophic literature is dreadful from a
literary point of view. Pierre Janet told me he thought it was much
worse than German stuff--and I begin to believe so; technical and
semi-technical language, half-clear thought, fluency, and no
composition! Turn your face resolutely the other way! But I didn't start
to say this. Your thought in this article is both important and
original, and ought to be worked out in the clearest possible manner....
Your thesis needs to be worked out with great care, and as concretely as
possible. It is a difficult one to put successfully, on account of the
vague character of all its terms. One point you should drive home is
that the anti-religious attitudes (Leuba's, Huxley's, Clifford's), so
far as there is any "pathos" in them, obey exactly the same logic. The
real crux is when you come to define objectively the ideals to which
feeling reacts. "God is a Spirit"--_darauf geht es an_--on the last
available definition of the term Spirit. It may be very abstract.
Love to Mrs. Starbuck. Yours always truly,
Wm. James.
_To F. J. E. Woodbridge._
[_Feb. 22, 1905._]
DEAR WOODBRIDGE,--Here's another! But I solemnly swear to you that this
shall be my very last offense for some months to come. This is the
"postscriptual" article[57] of which I recently wrote you, and I have
now cleaned up the pure-experience philosophy from all the objections
immediately in sight.... Truly yours,
Wm. James.
XV
1905-1907
_The Last Period (II)--Italy and Greece--Philosophical Congress in
Rome--Stanford University--The Earthquake--Resignation of
Professorship_
In the spring of 1905 an escape from influenza, from Cambridge duties,
and from correspondents, became imperative. James had long wanted to see
Athens with his own eyes, and he sailed on April 3 for a short southern
holiday. During the journey he wrote letters to almost no one except his
wife. On his way back from Athens he stopped in Rome with the purpose of
seeing certain young Italian philosophers. A Philosophical Congress was
being held there at the time; and James, though he had originally
declined the invitation to attend it, inevitably became involved in its
proceedings and ended by seizing the occasion to discuss his theory of
consciousness. It was obvious that the appropriate language in which to
address a full meeting of the Congress would be French, and so he shut
himself up in his hotel and composed "La Notion de Conscience." His
experience in writing this paper threw an instructive sidelight on his
process of composition. Ordinarily--when he was writing in
English--twenty-five sheets of manuscript, written in a large hand and
corrected, were a maximum achievement for one day. The address in Rome
was not composed in English and then translated, but was written out in
French. When he had finished the last lines of one day's work, James
found to his astonishment that he had completed and corrected over forty
pages of manuscript. The inhibitions which a habit of careful attention
to points of style ordinarily called into play were largely inoperative
when he wrote in a language which presented to his mind a smaller
variety of possible expressions, and thus imposed limits upon his
self-criticism.
In the following year (1906), James took leave of absence from Harvard
in January and accepted an invitation from Stanford University to give a
course during its spring term. He planned the course as a general
introduction to Philosophy. Had he not been interrupted by the San
Francisco earthquake, he would have rehearsed much of the projected
"Introductory Textbook of Philosophy," in which he meant to outline his
metaphysical system. But the earthquake put an end to the Stanford
lectures in April, as the reader will learn more fully. In the ensuing
autumn and winter (1907), James made the same material the basis of a
half-year's work with his last Harvard class.
In November, 1906, the lectures which compose the volume called
"Pragmatism" were written out and delivered in November at the Lowell
Institute in Boston. In January, 1907, they were repeated at Columbia
University, and then James published them in the spring.
The time had now come for him to stop regular teaching altogether. He
had been continuing to teach, partly in deference to the wishes of the
College; but it had become evident that he must have complete freedom to
use his strength and time for writing when he could write, for special
lectures, like the series on Pragmatism, when such might serve his ends,
and for rest and change when recuperation became necessary. So, in
February, 1907, he sent his resignation to the Harvard Corporation. The
last meeting of his class ended in a way for which he was quite
unprepared. His undergraduate students presented him with a silver
loving-cup, the graduate students and assistants with an inkwell. There
were a couple of short speeches, and words were spoken by which he was
very much moved. Unfortunately there was no record of what was said.
_To Mrs. James._
AMALFI, _Mar. 30, 1905_.
...It is good to get something in full measure, without haggling or
stint, and today I have had the picturesque ladled out in buckets full,
heaped up and running over. I never realized the beauties of this shore,
and forget (in my habit of never noticing proper names till I have been
there) whether you have ever told me of the drive from Sorrento to this
place. Anyhow, I wish that you could have taken it with me this day.
"Thank God for this day!" We came to Sorrento by steamer, and at 10:30
got away in a carriage, lunching at the half-way village of Positano;
and proceeding through Amalfi to Ravello, high up on the mountain side,
whence back here in time for a 7:15 o'clock dinner. Practically six
hours driving through a scenery of which I had never realized the
beauty, or rather the interest, from previous descriptions. The
lime-stone mountains are as _strong_ as anything in Switzerland, though
of course much smaller. The road, a _Cornice_ affair cut for the most
part on the face of cliffs, and crossing little ravines (with beaches)
on the side of which nestle hamlets, is positively ferocious in its
grandeur, and on the side of it the azure sea, dreaming and blooming
like a bed of violets. I didn't look for such Swiss strength, having
heard of naught but beauty. It seems as if this were a race such that,
when anyone wished to express an emotion of any kind, he went and built
a bit of stone-wall and limed it onto the rock, so that now, when they
have accumulated, the works of God and man are inextricably mixed, and
it is as if mankind had been a kind of immemorial coral insect. Every
possible square yard is terraced up, reclaimed and planted, and the
human dwellings are the fiercest examples of cliff-building,
cave-habitation, staircase and foot-path you can imagine. How I do wish
that you could have been along today....
_Mar. 31, 1905_.
From half-past four to half-past six I walked alone through the _old_
Naples, hilly streets, paved from house to house and swarming with the
very poor, vocal with them too (their voices carry so that every child
seems to be calling to the whole street, goats, donkeys, chickens, and
an occasional cow mixed in), and no light of heaven getting indoors. The
street floor composed of cave-like shops, the people doing their work on
chairs in the street for the sake of light, and in the black inside,
beds and a stove visible among the implements of trade. Such light and
shade, and grease and grime, and swarm, and apparent amiability would be
hard to match. I have come here too late in life, when the picturesque
has lost its serious reality. Time was when hunger for it haunted me
like a passion, and such sights would have then been the solidest of
mental food. I put up then with such inferior substitutional suggestions
as Geneva and Paris afforded--but these black old Naples streets are not
suggestions, they are the reality itself--full orchestra. I have got
such an impression of the essential sociability of this race, especially
in the country. A smile will go so far with them--even without the
accompanying copper. And the children are so sweet. Tell Aleck to drop
his other studies, learn _Italian_ (real Italian, not the awful
gibberish I try to speak), cultivate his beautiful smile, learn a
sentimental song or two, bring a tambourine or banjo, and come down
here and fraternize with the common people along the coast--he can go
far, and make friends, and be a social success, even if he should go
back to a clean hotel of some sort for sleep every night....
_To his Daughter._
On board S.S. Orénogne, approaching
PIRÆUS, GREECE, _Apr. 3, 1905_.
DARLING PEG,--Your loving Dad is surely in luck sailing over this almost
oily sea, under the awning on deck, past the coast of Greece (whose
snow-capped mountains can be seen on the horizon), towards the Piræus,
where we are due to arrive at about two. I had some misgivings about the
steamer from Marseilles, but she has turned out splendid, and the voyage
perfect. A 4000-ton boat, bran new as to all her surface equipment,
stateroom all to myself, by a happy stroke of luck (the boat being
full), clean absolutely, large open window, sea like Lake Champlain,
with the color of Lake Leman, about a hundred and twenty first-class
passengers of the most interesting description, one sixth English
archeologists, one sixth English tourists, one third French
archeologists, etc.,--an international archeological congress opens at
Athens this week,--the rest Dagoes _quelconques_, many distinguished
men, almost all educated and pronounced individualities, and so much
acquaintance and sociability, that the somewhat small upper deck on
which I write resounds with conversation like an afternoon tea. The
meals are tip-top, and the whole thing almost absurdly ideal in its
kind. I only wish your mother could be wafted here for one hour, to sit
by my side and enjoy the scene. The best feature of the boat is little
Miss Boyd, the Cretan excavatress, from Smith College, a perfect little
trump of a thing, who has been through the Greco-Turkish war as nurse
(as well as being nurse at Tampa during our Cuban war), and is the
simplest, most generally intelligent little thing, who knows Greece by
heart and can smooth one's path beautifully. Waldstein of Cambridge is
on board, also M. Sylvain of the Théâtre Français, and his
daughter--going to recite prologues or something at the representation
of Sophocles's "Antigone," which is to take place--he looking just like
your uncle Henry--both eminent comedians--I mean the two Sylvains. On
the bench opposite me is the most beautiful woman on board, a sort of
Mary Salter translated into French, though she is with rather common
men. Well, now I will stop, and use my Zeiss glass on the land, which is
getting nearer. My heart wells over with love and gratitude at having
such a family--meaning Alice, you, Harry, Bill, Aleck, and
Mother-in-law--and resolutions to live so as to be more worthy of them.
I will finish this on land.
* * * * *
Well, dear family,--We got in duly in an indescribable _embrouillement_
of small boats (our boatman, by the way, when Miss Boyd asked him his
name, replied "Dionysos"; our wine-bottle was labelled "John Solon and
Co."), sailing past the Island of Ægina and the Bay of Salamis, with the
Parthenon visible ahead--a worthy termination to a delightful voyage. We
drove the three miles from the Piræus in a carriage, common and very
dusty country road, also close by the Parthenon, through the cheap
little town to this hotel, after which George Putnam and I, washing our
hands, strolled forth to see what we could, the first thing being Mrs.
Sam Hoar at the theatre of Bacchus. Then the rest of the Acropolis,
which is all and more than all the talk. There is a mystery of
_rightness_ about that Parthenon that I cannot understand. It sets a
standard for other human things, showing that absolute rightness is not
out of reach. But I am not in descriptive mood, so I spare you. Suffice
it that I couldn't keep the tears from welling into my eyes. "J'ai vu la
beauté parfaite." Santayana is in a neighboring hotel, but we have
missed each other thrice. The Forbeses are on the Peloponnesus, but
expected back tomorrow. Well, dear ones all, good-night! Thus far, and
no farther! Hence I turn westward again. The Greek lower orders seem far
less avid and rapacious than the Southern Italians. God bless you all. I
must get to another hotel, and be more to myself. Good and dear as the
Putnams are and extremely helpful as they've been, it keeps me too much
in company. Good-night again. Your loving father, _respective_ husband,
W. J.
_To Mrs. James._
ROME, _Apr. 25, 1905_.
...Strong telegraphed me yesterday from Lausanne that he ... expected to
be at Cannes on the 4th of May. I was glad of this, for I had been
feeling more and more as if I ought to stay here, and it makes
everything square out well. This morning I went to the meeting-place of
the Congress to inscribe myself definitely, and when I gave my name, the
lady who was taking them almost fainted, saying that all Italy loved me,
or words to that effect, and called in poor Professor de Sanctis, the
Vice President or Secretary or whatever, who treated me in the same
manner, and finally got me to consent to make an address at one of the
general meetings, of which there are four, in place of Sully, Flournoy,
Richet, Lipps, and Brentano, who were announced but are not to come. I
fancy they have been pretty unscrupulous with their program here,
printing conditional futures as categorical ones. So I'm in for it
again, having no power to resist flattery. I shall try to express my
"Does Consciousness Exist?" in twenty minutes--and possibly in the
French tongue! Strange after the deep sense of nothingness that has been
besetting me the last two weeks (mere fatigue symptom) to be told that
_my_ name was attracting many of the young professors to the Congress!
Then I went to the Museum in the baths of Diocletian or whatever it is,
off there by the R. R., then to the Capitol, and then to lunch off the
Corso, at a restaurant, after buying a French book whose author says in
his preface that Sully, W. J., and Bergson are his masters. And I am
absolute 0 in my own home!...
_Apr. 30, 1905._ 7 P.M.