heard of my lecturing at Oxford) yet never given you a sign of life. The
reason is that I have sedulously kept away from London, which I admire,
but at my present time of life abhor, and only touched it two or three
times for thirty-six hours to help my wife do her "shopping" (strange
use for an elderly philosopher to be put to). The last time I was in
London, about a month ago, I called at your affectionately remembered
No. 45, only to find you gone to Yorkshire, as I feared I should. I go
back in an hour, en route for Liverpool, whence, with wife and daughter,
I sail for Boston in the Saxonia. I am literally enchanted with rural
England, yet I doubt whether I ever return. I never had a fair chance of
getting acquainted with the country here, and if I were a stout
pedestrian, which I no longer am, I think I should frequent this land
every summer. But in my decrepitude I must make the best of the more
effortless relations which I enjoy with nature in my own country. I have
seen many philosophers, at Oxford, especially, and James Ward at
Cambridge; but, apart from _very_ few conversations, didn't get at
close quarters with any of them, and they probably gained as little
from me as I from them. "We are columns left alone, of a temple once
complete." The power of mutual misunderstanding in philosophy seems
infinite, and grows discouraging. Schiller of course, and his pragmatic
friend Captain Knox, James Ward, and McDougall, stand out as the most
satisfactory talkers. But there is too much fencing and scoring of
"points" at Oxford to make construction active.
Good-bye! dear Hodgson, and pray think of me with a little of the
affection and intellectual interest with which I always think of you. My
Oxford lectures won't appear till next April. Don't read the extracts
which the "Hibbert Journal" is publishing. They are torn out of their
natural setting. I have, as you probably know, ceased teaching and am
enjoying a Carnegie pension. Yours ever fondly,
Wm. James.
_To Theodore Flournoy._
LONDON, _Oct. 4, 1908_.
DEAR FLOURNOY,--I got your delightful letter duly two weeks ago, or
more. I always have a bad conscience on receiving a letter from you,
because I feel as if I _forced_ you to write it, and I know too well by
your own confessions (as well as by my own far less extreme experience
of reluctance to write) what a nuisance and an effort letters are apt to
be. But no matter! this letter of yours was a good one indeed....
We sail from Liverpool the day after tomorrow, and tomorrow will be a
busy day winding up our affairs and making some last purchases of small
things. Alice has an insatiable desire (as Mrs. Flournoy may have
noticed at Geneva) to increase her possessions, whilst I, like an
American Tolstoy, wish to diminish them. The most convenient
arrangement for a Tolstoy is to have an anti-Tolstoyan wife to "run the
house" for him. We have been for three days in Devonshire, and for four
days at Oxford previous to that. Extraordinary warm summer weather, with
exquisite atmospheric effects. I am extremely glad to leave England with
my last optical images so beautiful. In any case the harmony and
softness of the landscape of rural England probably excels everything in
the world in that line.
At Oxford I saw McDougall and Schiller quite intimately, also Schiller's
friend, Capt. Knox, who, retired from the army, lives at Gründelwald,
and is an extremely acute mind, and fine character, I should think. He
is a militant "Pragmatist." Before that I spent three days at Cambridge,
where again I saw James Ward intimately. I prophesy that if he gets his
health again ... he will become also a militant pluralist of some sort.
I think he has worked out his original monistic-theistic vein and is
steering straight towards a "critical point" where the umbrella will
turn inside out, and not go back. I hope so! I made the acquaintance of
Boutroux here last week. He came to the "Moral Education Congress" where
he made a very fine address. I find him very _simpatico_.
[Illustration: William James and Henry Clement, at the "Putnam Shanty,"
in the Adirondacks (1907?).]
But the best of all these meetings has been one of three hours this very
morning with Bergson, who is here visiting his relatives. So modest and
unpretending a man, but such a genius intellectually! We talked very
easily together, or rather _he_ talked easily, for he talked much more
than I did, and although I can't say that I follow the folds of his
system much more clearly than I did before, he has made some points much
plainer. I have the strongest suspicions that the tendency which he has
brought to a focus will end by prevailing, and that the present epoch
will be a sort of turning-point in the history of philosophy. So many
things converge towards an anti-rationalistic crystallization.
_Qui vivra verra!_
I am very glad indeed to go on board ship. For two months I have been
more than ready to get back to my own habits, my own library and
writing-table and bed.... I wish you, and all of you, a prosperous and
healthy and resultful winter, and am, with old-time affection, your ever
faithful friend,
Wm. James.
If the duty of writing weighs so heavily on you, why obey it? Why, for
example, write any more reviews? I absolutely refuse to, and find that
one great alleviation.
_To Henri Bergson._
LONDON, _Oct. 4, 1908_.
DEAR BERGSON,--My brother was sorry that you couldn't come. He wishes me
to say that he is returning to Rye the day after tomorrow and is so
engaged tomorrow that he will postpone the pleasure of meeting you to
some future opportunity.
I need hardly repeat how much I enjoyed our talk today. You must take
care of yourself and economize all your energies for your own creative
work. I want very much to see what you will have to say on the
_Substanzbegriff_! Why should life be so short? I wish that you and I
and Strong and Flournoy and McDougall and Ward could live on some
mountain-top for a month, together, and whenever we got tired of
philosophizing, calm our minds by taking refuge in the scenery.
Always truly yours,
Wm. James.
_To H. G. Wells._
Cambridge, _Nov. 28, 1908_.
DEAR WELLS,--"First and Last Things" is a great achievement. The first
two "books" should be entitled "philosophy without humbug" and used as a
textbook in all the colleges of the world. You have put your finger
accurately on the true emphases, and--in the main--on what seem to me
the true solutions (you are more monistic in your faith than I should
be, but as long as you only call it "faith," that's your right and
privilege), and the simplicity of your statements ought to make us
"professionals" blush. I have been 35 years on the way to similar
conclusions--simply because I started as a professional and had to
_débrouiller_ them from all the traditional school rubbish.
The other two books exhibit you in the character of the Tolstoy of the
English world. A sunny and healthy-minded Tolstoy, as he is a
pessimistic and morbid-minded Wells. Where the "higher synthesis" will
be born, who shall combine the pair of you, Heaven only knows. But you
are carrying on the same function, not only in that neither of your
minds is boxed and boarded up like the mind of an ordinary human being,
but all the contents down to the very bottom come out freely and
unreservedly and simply, but in that you both have the power of
contagious speech, and set the similar mood vibrating in the reader. Be
happy in that such power has been put into your hands! This book is
worth any 100 volumes on Metaphysics and any 200 of Ethics, of the
ordinary sort.
Yours, with friendliest regards to Mrs. Wells, most sincerely,
Wm. James.
_To Henry James._
Cambridge, _Dec. 19, 1908_.
DEAREST H.,-- ...I write this at 6.30 [A.M.], in the library, which the
blessed hard-coal fire has kept warm all night. The night has been
still, thermometer 20°, and the dawn is breaking in a pure red line
behind Grace Norton's house, into a sky empty save for a big morning
star and the crescent of the waning moon. Not a cloud--a true American
winter effect. But somehow "le grand puits de l'aurore" doesn't appeal
to my sense of life, or challenge my spirits as formerly. It suggests no
more enterprises to the decrepitude of age, which vegetates along,
drawing interest merely on the investment of its earlier enterprises.
The accursed "thoracic symptom" is a killer of enterprise with me, and I
dare say that it is little better with you. But the less said of it the
better--it doesn't diminish!
My time has been consumed by interruptions almost totally, until a week
ago, when I finally got down seriously to work upon my Hodgson report.
It means much more labor than one would suppose, and very little result.
I wish that I had never undertaken it. I am sending off a preliminary
installment of it to be read at the S. P. R. meeting in January. That
done, the rest will run off easily, and in a month I expect to actually
begin the "Introduction to Philosophy," which has been postponed so
long, and which I hope will add to income for a number of years to come.
Your Volumes XIII and XIV arrived the other day--many thanks. We're
subscribing to two copies of the work, sending them as wedding presents.
I hope it will sell. Very enticing-looking, but I can't settle down to
the prefaces as yet, the only thing I have been able to read lately
being Lowes Dickinson's last book, "Justice and Liberty," which seems to
me a decidedly big achievement from every point of view, and probably
destined to have a considerable influence in moulding the opinion of the
educated. Stroke upon stroke, from pens of genius, the competitive
régime, so idolized 75 years ago, seems to be getting wounded to death.
What will follow will be something better, but I never saw so clearly
the slow effect of [the] accumulation of the influence of successive
individuals in changing prevalent ideals. Wells and Dickinson will
undoubtedly make the biggest steps of change....
Well dear brother! a merry Christmas to you--to you both, I trust, for I
fancy Aleck will be with you when this arrives--and a happy New Year at
its tail! Your loving
W. J.
_To T. S. Perry._
Cambridge, _Jan. 29, 1909_.
BELOVED THOMAS, cher maître et confrère,--Your delightful letter about
my Fechner article and about your having become a professional
philosopher yourself came to hand duly, four days ago, and filled the
heart of self and wife with joy. I always knew you was one, for to be a
real philosopher all that is necessary is to _hate_ some one else's type
of thinking, and if that some one else be a representative of the
"classic" type of thought, then one is a pragmatist and owns the fulness
of the truth. Fechner is indeed a dear, and I am glad to have
introduced, so to speak, his speculations to the English world, although
the Revd. Elwood Worcester has done so in a somewhat more limited manner
in a recent book of his called "The Living Word"-(Worcester of Emmanuel
Church, I mean, whom everyone has now begun to fall foul of for trying
to reanimate the Church's healing virtue). Another case of newspaper
crime! The reporters all got hold of it with their megaphones, and made
the nation sick of the sound of its name. Whereas in former ages men
strove hard for fame, obscurity is now the one thing to be _striven_
for. For _fame_, all one need do is to exist; and the reporter will do
the rest--especially if you give them the address of your fotographer. I
hope you're a spelling reformer--I send you the last publication from
that quarter. I'm sure that simple spelling will make a page look
better, just as a crowd looks better if everyone's clothes fit.
Apropos of pragmatism, a learned Theban named---- has written a
circus-performance of which he is the clown, called "Anti-pragmatisme."
It has so much verve and good spirit that I feel like patting him on the
back, and "sicking him on," but Lord! what a fool! I think I shall leave
it unnoticed. I'm tired of reëxplaining what is already explained to
satiety. Let _them_ say, now, for it is their turn, what the relation
called truth consists in, what it is known as!
I have had you on my mind ever since Jan. 1st, when we had our Friday
evening Club-dinner, and I was deputed to cable you a happy New Year.
The next day I couldn't get to the telegraph office; the day after I
said to myself, "I'll save the money, and save him the money, for if he
gets a cable, he'll be sure to cable back; so I'll write"; the following
day, I forgot to; the next day I postponed the act; so from postponement
to postponement, here I am. Forgive, forgive! Most affectionate remarks
were made about you at the dinner, which generally doesn't err by
wasting words on absentees, even on those gone to eternity....
I have just got off my report on the Hodgson control, which has stuck to
my fingers all this time. It is a hedging sort of an affair, and I don't
know what the Perry family will think of it. The truth is that the
"case" is a particularly poor one for testing Mrs. Piper's claim to
bring back spirits. It is _leakier_ than any other case, and
intrinsically, I think, no stronger than many of her other good cases,
certainly weaker than the G. P. case. I am also now engaged in writing a
popular article, "the avowals of a psychical researcher," for the
"American Magazine," in which I simply state without argument my own
convictions, and put myself on record. I think that public opinion is
just now taking a step forward in these matters--_vide_ the Eusapian
boom! and possibly both these _Schriften_ of mine will add their
influence. Thank you for the Charmes reception and for the earthquake
correspondence! I envy you in clean and intelligent Paris, though our
winter is treating us very mildly. A lovely sunny day today! Love to all
of you! Yours fondly,
W. J.
The "Charmes reception" was a report of the speeches at the French
Academy's reception of Francis Charmes. The "Eusapian boom" will have
been understood to refer to current discussions of the medium Eusapia
Paladino.
* * * * *
The next letter refers to a paper in which both James and Münsterberg
had been "attacked" in such a manner that Münsterberg proposed to send a
protest to the American Psychological Association.
_To Hugo Münsterberg._
Cambridge, _Mar. 16, 1909_.
DEAR MÜNSTERBERG,--Witmer has sent me the _corpus delicti_, and I find
myself curiously unmoved. In fact he takes so much trouble over me, and
goes at the job with such zest that I feel like "sicking him on," as
they say to dogs. Perhaps the honor of so many pages devoted to one
makes up for the dishonor of their content. It is really a great
compliment to have anyone take so much trouble about one. Think of
copying all Wundt's notes!
But, dear Münsterberg, I hope you'll withdraw a second time your
protest. I think it undignified to take such an attack seriously. Its
excessive dimensions (in my case at any rate), and the smallness and
remoteness of the provocation, stamp it as simply eccentric, and to show
sensitiveness only gives it importance in the eyes of readers who
otherwise would only smile at its extravagance. Besides, since these
temperamental antipathies exist--why isn't it healthy that they should
express themselves? For my part, I feel rather glad than otherwise that
psychology is so live a subject that psychologists should "go for" each
other in this way, and I think it all ought to happen _inside_ of our
Association. We ought to cultivate tough hides there, so I hope that you
will withdraw the protest. I have mentioned it only to Royce, and will
mention it to no one else. I don't like the notion of Harvard people
seeming "touchy"! Your fellow victim,
W. J.
_To John Jay Chapman._
Cambridge, _Apr. 30, 1909_.
DEAR JACK C.,--I'm not expecting you to _read_ my book, but only to
"give me a thought" when you look at the cover. A certain witness at a
poisoning case was asked how the corpse looked. "Pleasant-like and
foaming at the mouth," was the reply. A good description of you,
describing philosophy, in your letter. All that you say is true, and yet
the conspiracy has to be carried on by us professors. Reality has to be
_returned to_, after this long circumbendibus, though _Gavroche_ has it
already. There _are_ concepts, anyhow. I am glad you lost the volume.
It makes one less in existence and ought to send up the price of the
remainder.
Blessed spring! blessed spring! Love to you both from yours,
Wm. James.
The next post-card was written in acknowledgment of Professor Palmer's
comments on "A Pluralistic Universe."
_To G. H. Palmer._
[Post-card]
Cambridge, _May 13, 1909_.
"The finest critical mind of our time!" No one can mix the honey and the
gall as you do! My conceit appropriates the honey--for the gall it makes
indulgent allowance, as the inevitable watering of a pair of aged
rationalist eyes at the effulgent sunrise of a new philosophic day!
Thanks! thanks! for the honey.
W. J.
TO THEODORE FLOURNOY.
CHOCORUA, JUNE 18, 1909.
MY DEAR FLOURNOY,--You must have been wondering during all these weeks
what has been the explanation of my silence. It has had two simple
causes; 1st, laziness; and 2nd, uncertainty, until within a couple of
days, about whether or not I was myself going to Geneva for the
University Jubilee. I have been strongly tempted, not only by the
"doctorate of theology," which you confidentially told me of (and which
would have been a fertile subject of triumph over my dear friend Royce
on my part, and of sarcasm on his part about academic distinctions, as
well as a diverting episode generally among my friends,--I being so
essentially profane a character), but by the hope of seeing you, and by
the prospect of a few weeks in dear old Switzerland again. But the
economical, hygienic and domestic reasons were all against the journey;
so a few days ago I ceased coquetting with the idea of it, and have
finally given it up. This postpones any possible meeting with you till
next summer, when I think it pretty certain that Alice and I and Peggy
will go to Europe again, and probably stay there for two years....
What with the Jubilee and the Congress, dear Flournoy, I fear that your
own summer will not yield much healing repose. "Go through it like an
automaton" is the best advice I can give you. I find that it is
possible, on occasions of great strain, to get relief by ceasing all
voluntary control. _Do_ nothing, and I find that something will do
itself! and not so stupidly in the eyes of outsiders as in one's own.
Claparède will, I suppose, be the chief executive officer at the
Congress. It is a pleasure to see how he is rising to the top among
psychologists, how large a field he covers, and with both originality
and "humanity" (in the sense of the omission of the superfluous and
technical, and preference for the probable). When will the Germans learn
that part? I have just been reading Driesch's Gifford lectures, Volume
II. Very exact and careful, and the work of a most powerful intellect.
But why lug in, as he does, all that Kantian apparatus, when the
questions he treats of are real enough and important enough to be
handled directly and not smothered in that opaque and artificial veil? I
find the book extremely suggestive, and should like to believe in its
thesis, but I can't help suspecting that Driesch is unjust to the
possibilities of purely mechanical action. Candle-flames, waterfalls,
eddies in streams, to say nothing of "vortex atoms," seem to perpetuate
themselves and repair their injuries. You ought to receive very soon my
report on Mrs. Piper's Hodgson control. Some theoretic remarks I make at
the end may interest you. I rejoice in the triumph of Eusapia all along
the line--also in Ochorowicz's young Polish medium, whom you have seen.
It looks at last as if something definitive and positive were in sight.
I am correcting the proofs of a collection of what I have written on the
subject of "truth"--it will appear in September under the title of "The
Meaning of Truth, a Sequel to Pragmatism." It is already evident from
the letters I am getting about the "Pluralistic Universe" that that book
will 1st, be _read_; 2nd, be _rejected_ almost unanimously at first, and
for very diverse reasons; but, 3rd, will continue to be bought and
referred to, and will end by strongly influencing English philosophy.
And now, dear Flournoy, good-bye! and believe me with sincerest
affection for Mrs. Flournoy and the young people as well as for
yourself, yours faithfully,
Wm. James.
_To Miss Theodora Sedgwick._
CHOCORUA, _July 12, 1909_.
DEAR THEODORA,--We got your letter a week ago, and were very glad to
hear of your prosperous installation, and good impressions of the place.
I am sorry that Harry couldn't go to see you the first Sunday, but hope,
if he didn't go for yesterday, that he will do so yet. When your social
circle gets established, and routine life set up, I am sure that you
will like Newport very much. As for ourselves, the place is only just
beginning to smooth out. The instruments of labor had well-nigh all
disappeared, and had to come piecemeal, each forty-eight hours after
being ordered, so we have been using the cow as a lawn-mower, silver
knives to carve with, and finger-nails for technical purposes
generally. There is no labor known to man in which Alice has not
indulged, and I have sought safety among the mosquitoes in the woods
rather than remain to shirk my responsibilities in full view of them. We
have hired a little mare, fearless of automobiles, we get our mail
dally, we had company to dinner yesterday, relatives of Alice, the
children will be here by the middle of the week, the woods are
deliciously fragrant, and the weather, so far, cool--in fact we are
_launched_ and the regular summer equilibrium will soon set in. The
place is both pathetic and irresistible; I want to sell it, Alice wants
to enlarge it--we shall end by doing neither, but discuss it to the end
of our days.
I have just read Shaler's autobiography, and it has fairly haunted me
with the overflowing impression of his myriad-minded character. Full of
excesses as he was, due to his intense vivacity, impulsiveness, and
imaginativeness, his centre of gravity was absolutely steady, and I knew
no man whose sense of the larger relation of things was always so true
and right. Of all the minds I have known, his leaves the largest
impression, and I miss him more than I have missed anyone before. You
ought to read the book, especially the autobiographic half. Good-bye,
dear Theodora. Alice joins her love to mine, and I am, as ever, yours
affectionately,
Wm. James.
_To F. C. S. Schiller._
_Chocorua_, _Aug. 14, 1909_.
DEAR SCHILLER,-- ...I got the other day a very candid letter from A. S.
Pringle-Pattison, about my "Pluralistic Universe," in which he said: "It
is supremely difficult to accept the conclusion of an actually growing
universe, an actual addition to the sum of being or (if that expression
be objectionable) to the intensity and scope of existence, to a growing
God, in fact."--This seems to me very significant. On such minute little
snags and hooks, do all the "difficulties" of philosophy hang. Call them
categories, and sacred laws, principles of reason, etc., and you have
the actual state of metaphysics, calling all the analogies of phenomenal
life impossibilities.
No more lecturing from W. J., thank you! either at Oxford or elsewhere.
Affectionately thine,
W. J.
_To Theodore Flournoy._
CHOCORUA, S_ept. 28, 1909_.