literary work and professional reading decreased, James's general
reading increased again. He began for the first time to browse in
military biographies, and commenced to collect material for a study
which he sometimes spoke of as a "Psychology of Jingoism," sometimes as
a "Varieties of Military Experience." What such a work would have been,
had he ever completed it, it is impossible to tell. It was never more
than a rather vague project, turned to occasionally as a diversion. But
it is safe to reckon that two remarkable papers--the "Energies of Men"
(written in 1906) and the "Moral Equivalent of War" (written in
1909)--would have appeared to be related to this study. That it would
not have been a utopian flight in the direction of pacifism need hardly
be said. However he might have described it, James was not disposed to
underestimate the "fighting instinct." He saw it as a persistent and
highly irritable force, underlying the society of all the dominant
races; and he advocated international courts, reduction of armaments,
and any other measures that might prevent appeals to the war-waging
passion as commendable devices for getting along without arousing it.
"The fatalistic view of the war-function is to me nonsense, for I know
that war-making is due to definite motives and subject to prudential
checks and reasonable criticisms, just like any other form of
enterprise.... All these beliefs of mine put me squarely into the
anti-militarist party. But I do not believe that peace either ought to
be or will be permanent on this globe, unless the states pacifically
organized preserve some of the old elements of army-discipline.... In
the more or less socialistic future towards which mankind seems
drifting, we must still subject ourselves collectively to those
severities which answer to our real position upon this only partly
hospitable globe. We must make new energies and hardihoods continue the
manliness to which the military mind so faithfully clings. Martial
virtues must be the enduring cement; intrepidity, contempt of softness,
surrender of private interest, obedience to command, must still remain
the rock upon which states are built--unless, indeed, we wish for
dangerous reactions against commonwealths fit only for contempt, and
liable to invite attack whenever a centre of crystallization for
military-minded enterprise gets formed anywhere in their
neighborhood."[76]
Any utterances about war, arbitration, and disarmament, are now likely
to have their original meaning distorted by reason of what may justly be
called the present fevered state of public opinion on such questions. It
should be clear that the foregoing sentences were not directed to any
particular question of domestic or foreign policy. They were part of a
broad picture of the fighting instinct, and led up to a suggestion for
diverting it into non-destructive channels. As to particular instances,
circumstances were always to be reckoned with. James believed in
organizing and strengthening the machinery of arbitration, but did not
think that the day for universal arbitration had yet come. He saw a
danger in military establishments, went so far--in the presence of the
"jingoism" aroused by Cleveland's Venezuela message--as to urge
opposition to any increase of the American army and navy, encouraged
peace-societies, and was willing to challenge attention by calling
himself a pacifist.[77] "The first thing to learn in intercourse with
others is non-interference with their own peculiar ways of being happy,
provided those ways do not presume to interfere by violence with
ours."[78] Tolerance--social, religious, and political--was fundamental
in his scheme of belief; but he took pains to make a proviso, and drew
the line at tolerating interference or oppression. Where he recognized a
military danger, there he would have had matters so governed as to meet
it, not evade it. Writing of the British garrison in Halifax in 1897, he
said: "By Jove, if England should ever be licked by a Continental army,
it would only be Divine justice upon her for keeping up the Tommy Atkins
recruiting system when the others have compulsory service."
* * * * *
In the case of one undertaking, which was much too troublesome to be
reckoned as a diversion, he let himself be drawn away from his
metaphysical work. He had taken no active part in the work of the
Society for Psychical Research since 1896. In December, 1905, Richard
Hodgson, the secretary of the American Branch, had died suddenly, and
almost immediately thereafter Mrs. Piper, the medium whose trances
Hodgson had spent years in studying, had purported to give
communications from Hodgson's departed spirit. In 1909 James made a
report to the S. P. R. on "Mrs. Piper's Hodgson control." The full
report will be found in its Proceedings for 19O9,[79] and the concluding
pages, in which James stated, more analytically than elsewhere, the
hypotheses which the phenomena suggested to him, have been reprinted in
the volume of "Collected Essays and Reviews." At the same time he wrote
out a more popular statement, in a paper which will be found in
"Memories and Studies." As to his final opinion of the spirit-theory,
the following letter, given somewhat out of its chronological place,
states what was still James's opinion in 1910.
_To Charles Lewis Slattery._
Cambridge, _Apr. 21, 1907_.
DEAR MR. SLATTERY,--My state of mind is this: Mrs. Piper has supernormal
knowledge in her trances; but whether it comes from "tapping the minds"
of living people, or from some common cosmic reservoir of memories, or
from surviving "spirits" of the departed, is a question impossible for
_me_ to answer just now to my own satisfaction. The spirit-theory is
undoubtedly not only the most natural, but the simplest, and I have
great respect for Hodgson's and Hyslop's arguments when they adopt it.
At the same time the electric current called _belief_ has not yet closed
in my mind.
Whatever the explanation be, trance-mediumship is an excessively complex
phenomenon, in which many concurrent factors are engaged. That is why
interpretation is so hard.
Make any use, public or private, that you like of this.
In great haste, yours,
Wm. James.
The next letter should be understood as referring to the abandonment of
an excursion to Lake Champlain with Henry L. Higginson. The celebration
alluded to in the last part of the letter had been arranged by the
Cambridge Historical Society in honor of the hundredth anniversary of
the birth of Louis Agassiz.
_To Henry L. Higginson._
CHOCORUA, N. H., _circa, June 1, 1907_.
DEAR HENRY,--On getting your resignation by telephone, I came straight
up here instead, without having time to write you my acceptance as I
meant to; and now comes your note of the fourth, before I have done so.
I am exceedingly sorry, my dear old boy, that it is the doctor's advice
that has made you fear to go. I hope the liability to relapse will soon
fade out and leave you free again; for say what they will of _Alters
Schwäche_ and resignation to decay, and _entbehren sollst du, sollst
entbehren_, it means only sour grapes, and the insides of one always
want to be doing the free and active things. However, a river can still
be lively in a shrunken bed, and we must not pay too much attention to
the difference of level. If you should summon me again this summer, I
can probably respond. I shall be here for a fortnight, then back to
Cambridge again for a short time.
I thought the Agassiz celebration went off very nicely indeed, didn't
you?--John Gray's part in it being of course the best. X---- was heavy,
but respectable, and the heavy respectable _ought_ to be one ingredient
in anything of the kind. But how well Shaler would have done that part
of the job had he been there! Love to both of you!
W. J.
_To W. Cameron Forbes._
CHOCORUA, _June 11, 1907_.
DEAR CAMERON FORBES,--Your letter from Baguio of the 18th of April
touches me by its genuine friendliness, and is a tremendous temptation.
Why am I not ten years younger? Even now I hesitate to say no, and the
only reason why I don't say yes, with a roar, is that certain rather
serious drawbacks in the way of health of late seem to make me unfit for
the various activities which such a visit ought to carry in its train. I
am afraid my program from now onwards ought to be sedentary. I ought to
be getting out a book next winter. Last winter I could hardly do any
walking, owing to a trouble with my heart.
Does your invitation mean to include my wife? And have you a good
crematory so that she might bring home my ashes in case of need?
I think if you had me on the spot you would find me a less impractical
kind of an anti-imperialist than you have supposed me to be. I think
that the manner in which the McKinley administration railroaded the
country into its policy of conquest was abominable, and the way the
country pucked up its ancient soul at the first touch of temptation, and
followed, was sickening. But with the establishment of the civil
commission McKinley did what he could to redeem things and now what the
Islands want is CONTINUITY OF ADMINISTRATION to form new habits that may
to some degree be hoped to last when we, as controllers, are gone. WHEN?
that is the question. And much difference of opinion may be fair as to
the answer. That we can't stay forever seems to follow from the fact
that the educated Philippinos differ from all previous colonials in
having been inoculated before our occupation with the ideas of the
French Revolution; and that is a virus to which history shows as yet no
anti-toxine. As I am at present influenced, I think that the U. S. ought
to solemnly proclaim a date for our going (or at least for a plebiscitum
as to whether we should go) and stand by all the risks. _Some_ date,
rather than indefinitely drift. And shape the whole interval towards
securing things in view of the change. As to this, I may be wrong, and
am always willing to be convinced. I wish I could go, and see you all
at work. Heaven knows I admire the spirit with which you are animated--a
new thing in colonial work.
It must have been a great pleasure to you to see so many of the family
at once. I have seen none of them since their return, but hope to do so
ere the summer speeds. The only dark spot was poor F----'s death.
Believe me, with affectionate regards, yours truly,
Wm. James.
I am ordering a little book of mine, just out, to be sent to you. Some
one of your circle may find entertainment in it.
_To F. C. S. Schiller._
[Post-card]
CHOCORUA, _June_ 13, 1907.
Yours of the 27th ult. received and highly appreciated. I'm glad you
relish my book so well. You go on playing the Boreas and I shedding the
sunbeams, and between us we'll get the cloak off the philosophic
traveler! But _have_ you read Bergson's new book?[80]It seems to me that
nothing is important in comparison with that divine apparition. All
_our_ positions, real time, a growing world, asserted magisterially, and
the beast intellectualism killed absolutely _dead_! The whole flowed
round by a style incomparable as it seems to me. Read it, and digest it
if you can. Much of it I can't yet assimilate.
[_No signature._]
_To Henri Bergson._
CHOCORUA, _June 13, 1907_.
O my Bergson, you are a magician, and your book is a marvel, a real
wonder in the history of philosophy, making, if I mistake not, an
entirely new era in respect of matter, but unlike the works of genius of
the "transcendentalist" movement (which are so obscurely and abominably
and inaccessibly written), a pure classic in point of form. You may be
amused at the comparison, but in finishing it I found the same
after-taste remaining as after finishing "Madame Bovary," such a flavor
of persistent _euphony_, as of a rich river that never foamed or ran
thin, but steadily and firmly proceeded with its banks full to the brim.
Then the aptness of your illustrations, that never scratch or stand out
at right angles, but invariably simplify the thought and help to pour it
along! Oh, indeed you are a magician! And if your next book proves to be
as great an advance on this one as this is on its two predecessors, your
name will surely go down as one of the great creative names in
philosophy.
There! have I praised you enough? What every genuine philosopher (every
genuine man, in fact) craves most is _praise_--although the philosophers
generally call it "recognition"! If you want still more praise, let me
know, and I will send it, for my features have been on a broad smile
from the first page to the last, at the chain of felicities that never
stopped. I feel rejuvenated.
As to the content of it, I am not in a mood at present to make any
definite reaction. There is so much that is absolutely new that it will
take a long time for your contemporaries to assimilate it, and I imagine
that much of the development of detail will have to be performed by
younger men whom your ideas will stimulate to coruscate in manners
unexpected by yourself. To me at present the vital achievement of the
book is that it inflicts an irrecoverable death-wound upon
Intellectualism. It can never resuscitate! But it will die hard, for all
the inertia of the past is in it, and the spirit of professionalism and
pedantry as well as the æsthetic-intellectual delight of dealing with
categories logically distinct yet logically connected, will rally for a
desperate defense. The _élan vital_, all contentless and vague as you
are obliged to leave it, will be an easy substitute to make fun of. But
the beast _has_ its death-wound now, and the manner in which you have
inflicted it (interval _versus_ temps d'arrêt, etc.) is masterly in the
extreme. I don't know why this later _rédaction_ of your critique of the
mathematics of movement has seemed to me so much more telling than the
early statement--I suppose it is because of the wider _use_ made of the
principle in the book. You will be receiving my own little "pragmatism"
book simultaneously with this letter. How jejune and inconsiderable it
seems in comparison with your great system! But it is so congruent with
parts of your system, fits so well into interstices thereof, that you
will easily understand why I am so enthusiastic. I feel that at bottom
we are fighting the same fight, you a commander, I in the ranks. The
position we are rescuing is "Tychism" and a really growing world. But
whereas I have hitherto found no better way of defending Tychism than by
affirming the spontaneous addition of _discrete_ elements of being (or
their subtraction), thereby playing the game with intellectualist
weapons, you set things straight at a single stroke by your fundamental
conception of the continuously creative nature of reality. I think that
one of your happiest strokes is your reduction of "finality," as usually
taken, to its status alongside of efficient causality, as the
twin-daughters of intellectualism. But this vaguer and truer finality
restored to its rights will be a difficult thing to give content to.
Altogether your reality lurks so in the background, in this book, that I
am wondering whether you _couldn't_ give it any more development _in
concreto_ here, or whether you perhaps were holding back developments,
already in your possession, for a future volume. They are sure to come
to you later anyhow, and to make a new volume; and altogether, the clash
of these ideas of yours with the traditional ones will be sure to make
sparks fly that will illuminate all sorts of dark places and bring
innumerable new considerations into view. But the process may be slow,
for the ideas are so revolutionary. Were it not for your style, your
book might last 100 years unnoticed; but your way of writing is so
absolutely commanding that your theories have to be attended to
immediately. I feel very much in the dark still about the relations of
the progressive to the regressive movement, and this great precipitate
of nature subject to static categories. With a frank pluralism of
_beings_ endowed with vital impulses you can get oppositions and
compromises easily enough, and a stagnant deposit; but after my one
reading I don't exactly "catch on" to the way in which the continuum of
reality resists itself so as to have to act, etc., etc.
The only part of the work which I felt like positively criticising was
the discussion of the idea of nonentity, which seemed to me somewhat
overelaborated, and yet didn't leave me with a sense that the last word
had been said on the subject. But all these things must be very slowly
digested by me. I can see that, when the tide turns in your favor, many
previous tendencies in philosophy will start up, crying "This is nothing
but what _we_ have contended for all along." Schopenhauer's blind will,
Hartmann's unconscious, Fichte's aboriginal freedom (reëdited at Harvard
in the most "unreal" possible way by Münsterberg) will all be claimants
for priority. But no matter--all the better if you are in some ancient
lines of tendency. Mysticism also must make claims and doubtless just
ones. I say nothing more now--this is just my first reaction; but I am
so enthusiastic as to have said only two days ago, "I thank heaven that
I have lived to this date--that I have witnessed the Russo-Japanese war,
and seen Bergson's new book appear--the two great modern turning-points
of history and of thought!" Best congratulations and cordialest regards!
Wm. James.
_To T. S. Perry._
SILVER LAKE, N.H., _June 24, 1907_.
DEAR THOS.,--Yours of the 11th is at hand, true philosopher that you
are. No one but one bawn & bred in the philosophic briar-patch could
appreciate Bergson as you do, without in the least understanding him. I
am in an identical predicament. This last of his is the _divinest_ book
that has appeared in _my_ life-time, and (unless I am the falsest
prophet) it is destined to rank with the greatest works of all time. The
style of it is as wonderful as the matter. By all means send it to Chas.
Peirce, but address him Prescott Hall, Cambridge. I am sending you my
"Pragmatism," which Bergson's work makes seem like small potatoes
enough.
Are you going to Russia to take Stolypin's place? or to head the
Revolution? I would I were at Giverny to talk metaphysics with you, and
enjoy a country where I am not responsible for the droughts and the
garden. Have been here two weeks at Chocorua, getting our place ready
for a tenant.
Affectionate regards to you all.
W. J.
_To Dickinson S. Miller._
LINCOLN, MASS., _Aug. 5, 1907_.
DEAR MILLER,--I got your letter about "Pragmatism," etc., some time ago.
I hear that you are booked to review it for the "Hibbert Journal." Lay
on, Macduff! as hard as you can--I want to have the weak places pointed
out. I sent you a week ago a "Journal of Philosophy"[81] with a word
more about Truth in it, written _at_ you mainly; but I hardly dare hope
that I have cleared up my position. A letter from Strong, two days ago,
written after receiving a proof of that paper, still thinks that I deny
the existence of realities outside of the thinker; and [R. B.] Perry,
who seems to me to have written far and away the most important critical
remarks on Pragmatism (possibly the _only_ important ones), accused
Pragmatists (though he doesn't name _me_) of ignoring or denying that
the real object plays any part in deciding what ideas are true. I
confess that such misunderstandings seem to me hardly credible, and cast
a "lurid light" on the mutual understandings of philosophers generally.
Apparently it all comes from the _word_ Pragmatism--and a most unlucky
word it may prove to have been. I am a natural realist. The world _per
se_ may be likened to a cast of beans on a table. By themselves they
spell nothing. An onlooker may group them as he likes. He may simply
count them all and map them. He may select groups and name these
capriciously, or name them to suit certain extrinsic purposes of his.
Whatever he does, so long as he _takes account_ of them, his account is
neither false nor irrelevant. If neither, why not call it true? It
_fits_ the beans-_minus_-him, and _expresses_ the _total_ fact, of
beans-_plus_-him. Truth in this total sense is partially ambiguous,
then. If he simply counts or maps, he obeys a subjective interest as
much as if he traces figures. Let that stand for pure "intellectual"
treatment of the beans, while grouping them variously stands for
non-intellectual interests. All that Schiller and I contend for is that
there is _no_ "truth" without _some_ interest, and that non-intellectual
interests play a part as well as intellectual ones. Whereupon we are
accused of denying the beans, or denying being in anyway constrained by
them! It's too silly!...
_To Miss Pauline Goldmark._
PUTNAM SHANTY,
KEENE VALLEY, _Sept. 14, 1907_.
DEAR PAULINE,-- ...No "camping" for me this side the grave! A party of
fourteen left here yesterday for Panther Gorge, meaning to return by the
Range, as they call your "summit trail." Apparently it is easier than
when on that to me memorable day we took it, for Charley Putnam swears
he has done it in five and a half hours. I don't well understand the
difference, except that they don't reach Haystack over Marcy as we did,
and there is now a good trail. Past and future play such a part in the
way one feels the present. To these youngsters, as to me long ago, and
to you today, the rapture of the connexion with these hills is partly
made of the sense of future power over them and their like. That being
removed from me, I can only mix memories of past power over them with
the present. But I have always observed a curious _fading_ in what
Tennyson calls the "passion" of the past. Memories awaken little or no
sentiment when they are too old; and I have taken everything here so
prosily this summer that I find myself wondering whether the time-limit
has been exceeded, and whether for emotional purpose I am a new self.
We know not what we shall become; and that is what makes life so
interesting. Always a turn of the kaleidoscope; and when one is utterly
maimed for action, then the glorious time for _reading_ other men's
lives! I fairly revel in that prospect, which in its full richness has
to be postponed, for I'm not sufficiently maimed-for-action yet. By
going slowly and alone, I find I can compass such things as the Giant's
Washbowl, Beaver Meadow Falls, etc., and they make me feel very good. I
have even been dallying with the temptation to visit Cameron Forbes at
Manila; but I have put it behind me for this year at least. I think I
shall probably give some more lectures (of a much less "popular" sort)
at Columbia next winter--so you see there's life in the old dog yet.
Nevertheless, how different from the life that courses through _your_
arteries and capillaries! Today is the first honestly fine day there has
been since I arrived here on the 2nd. (They must have been heavily
rained on at Panther Gorge yesterday evening.) After writing a couple
more letters I will take a book and repair to "Mosso's Ledge" for the
enjoyment of the prospect....
_To W. Jerusalem_ (Vienna).
ST. HUBERT'S, N.Y. _Sept._ 15, 1907.
DEAR PROFESSOR JERUSALEM,--Your letter of the 1st of September,
forwarded from Cambridge, reaches me here in the Adirondack Mountains
today. I am glad the publisher is found, and that you are enjoying the
drudgery of translating ["Pragmatism"]. Also that you find the book more
and more in agreement with your own philosophy. I fear that its
untechnicality of style--or rather its deliberate
_anti_-technicality--will make the German _Gelehrtes Publikum_,[82] as
well as the professors, consider it _oberflächliches Zeug_[83]--which
it assuredly is not, although, being only a sketch, it ought to be
followed by something _tighter_ and abounding in discriminations.
Pragmatism is an unlucky word in some respects, and the two meanings I
give for it are somewhat heterogeneous. But it was already in vogue in
France and Italy as well as in England and America, and it was
_tactically_ advantageous to use it....
_To Henry James._
STONEHURST, INTERVALE, N.H., _Oct._ 6, 1907.
DEAREST BROTHER,--I write this at the [James] Bryces', who have taken
the Merrimans' house for the summer, and whither I came the day before
yesterday, after closing our Chocorua house, and seeing Alice leave for
home. We had been there a fortnight, trying to get some work done, and
having to do most of it with our own hands, or rather with Alice's
heroic hands, for mine are worth almost nothing in these degenerate
days. It is enough to make your heart break to see the scarcity of
"labor," and the whole country tells the same story. Our future at
Chocorua is a somewhat problematic one, though I think we shall manage
to pass next summer there and get it into better shape for good renting,
thereafter, at any cost (not the renting but the shaping). After that
what _I_ want is a free foot, and the children are now not dependent on
a family summer any longer....