The Letters of William James, Vol. 2. William James

1

"It seems to me that psychology is like physics before Galileo's time—not a single elementary law yet caught a glimpse of. A great chance for some future psychologue to make a greater name than Newton's; but who then will read the books of this generation? Not many, I trow. Meanwhile they must be written." To James Sully, July 8, 1890.

2

President Eliot, in a memorandum already referred to (vol. 1, p. 32, note), calls attention to these courses and remarks: "These frequent changes were highly characteristic of James's whole career as a teacher. He changed topics, textbooks and methods frequently, thus utilizing his own wide range of reading and interest and his own progress in philosophy, and experimenting from year to year on the mutual contacts and relations with his students." James continued to be titular Professor of Psychology until 1897, just as he had been nominally Assistant Professor of Physiology for several years during which the original and important part of his teaching was psychological. His title never indicated exactly what he was teaching.

3

At this meeting he delivered a presidential address "On the Knowing of Things Together," a part of which is reprinted in The Meaning of Truth, p. 43, under the title, "The Tigers in India." Vide, also, Collected Essays and Reviews.

4

In a brief letter to the Harvard Crimson (Jan. 9, 1896), James urged the right and duty of individuals to stand up for their opinions publicly during such crises, even though in opposition to the administration. Mr. Rhodes, in his History of the United States, 1877-1896, makes the following observation: "Cleveland, in his chapter on the 'Venezuelan Boundary Controversy,' rates the un-Americans who lauded 'the extreme forbearance and kindness of England.' … The reference … need trouble no one who allows himself to be guided by two of Cleveland's trusted servants and friends. Thomas F. Bayard, Secretary of State during the first administration, and actual ambassador to Great Britain, wrote in a private letter on May 25, 1895, 'There is no question now open between the United States and Great Britain that needs any but frank, amicable and just treatment.' Edward J. Phelps, his first minister to England, in a public address on March 30, 1896, condemned emphatically the President's Venezuela policy." See Rhodes, History, vol. VIII, p. 454; also p. 443 et seq.

5

"The Evolution of the Summer Resort."

6

"Address of the President before the Society for Psychical Research." Proc. of the (Eng.) Soc. for Psych. Res. 1896, vol. XII, pp. 2-10; also in Science, 1896, N. S., vol. IV, pp. 881-888.

7

From the last paragraph of Cleveland's Venezuela message.

8

In 1910—during his final illness, in fact—James fulfilled this promise. See "A Pluralistic Mystic," included in Memories and Studies; also letter of June 25, 1910, p. 348 infra.

9

Cf. William James's unsigned review of Blood's Anæsthetic Revelation in the Atlantic Monthly, 1874, vol. XXXIV, p. 627.

10

James always did a reasonable share of college committee work, especially for the committee of his own department. But although he had exercised a determining influence in the selection of every member of the Philosophical Department who contributed to its fame in his time (except Professor Palmer, who was his senior in service), he never consented to be chairman of the Department. He attended the weekly meetings of the whole Faculty for any business in which he was concerned; otherwise irregularly. He spoke seldom in Faculty. Occasionally he served on special committees. He usually formed an opinion of his own quite quickly, but his habitual tolerance in matters of judgment showed itself in good-natured patience with discussion—this despite the fact that he often chafed at the amount of time consumed. "Now although I happen accidentally to have been on all the committees which have had to do with the proposed reform, and have listened to the interminable Faculty debates last winter, I disclaim all powers or right to speak in the name of the majority. Members of our dear Faculty have a way of discovering reasons fitted exclusively for their idiosyncratic use, and though voting with their neighbors, will often do so on incommunicable grounds. This is doubtless the effect of much learning upon originally ingenious minds; and the result is that the abundance of different points and aspects which a simple question ends by presenting, after a long Faculty discussion, beggars both calculation beforehand and enumeration after the fact."—"The Proposed Shortening of the College Course." Harvard Monthly, Jan., 1891.

11

"I loved Child more than any man I know." Sept. 12, '96.

12

Eight lectures on "Abnormal Mental States" were delivered at the Lowell Institute in Boston, but were never published. Their several titles were "Dreams and Hypnotism," "Hysteria," "Automatisms," "Multiple Personality," "Demoniacal Possession," "Witchcraft," "Degeneration," "Genius." In a letter to Professor Howison (Apr. 5, 1897) James said, "In these lectures I did not go into psychical research so-called, and although the subjects were decidedly morbid, I tried to shape them towards optimistic and hygienic conclusions, and the audience regarded them as decidedly anti-morbid in their tone."

13

Demon Possession and Allied Themes, by John C. Nevius.

14

The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy had just appeared.

15

The Address has been reprinted in Memories and Studies.

16

For a short while MacMonnies's Bacchante stood in the court of the Boston Public Library.

17

These words were not employed in public, but were once applied to a well-known professor in a private letter.

18

A full report of the speech made at the Legislative hearing was printed in the Banner of Light, Mar. 12, 1898. The letter to the Boston Transcript in 1894 appeared in the issue of Mar. 24.

19

James J. Putnam to William James

Boston, Mar. 9, 1898.

Dear William,—We have thought and talked a good deal about the subject of your speech in the course of the last week. I prepared with infinite labor a letter intended for the Transcript of last Saturday, but it was not a weighty contribution and I am rather glad it was too late to get in. I think it is generally felt among the best doctors that your position was the liberal one, and that it would be a mistake to try to exact an examination of the mind-healers and Christian Scientists. On the other hand, I am afraid most of the doctors, even including myself, do not have any great feeling of fondness for them, and we are more in the way of seeing the fanatical spirit in which they proceed and the harm that they sometimes do than you are. Of course they do also good things which would remain otherwise not done, and that is the important point, and sincere fanatics are almost always, and in this case I think certainly, of real value.

20

That is, there was here no path to follow, only "blazes" on the trees.

21

The housekeeper at the Putnam-Bowditch "shanty."

22

Photograph of a boy and girl standing on a rock which hangs dizzily over a great precipice above the Yosemite Valley.

23

G. E. Woodberry: The Heart of Man; 1899.