Young William James Thinking

by Paul J Croce

  that shaped the sense of harmony he observed in their art, he was also enter-

  ing into evaluation of the whole Greek way of looking at the natu ral world,

  encompassing not only the Greeks’ pantheon of gods but also their view of

  health, beauty, higher ideals, personal identity, and social relations. James

  found the sculptures inspiring because they did not strain to refer to some-

  thing beyond themselves; the Greeks accepted, and strug gled within, the

  constraints and abundance of the given world without longing for more be-

  yond this world.

  In James’s reports on Greek polytheism in 1868, as with his review of

  Thomas Huxley in 1865, he highlighted a distinct way of looking at nature:

  naturalism without defiance of religion. In contrast with the predominant

  Western attention to an all- powerful deity creating and transcending the

  natu ral world, in ancient Greece multiple gods contributed expressive per-

  sonalities within the natu ral world, with close integration of material and

  spiritual facets of life. The gods were uncountable in number and ranged

  from the local divinities of par tic u lar localities to the Olympian gods who

  directed major forces of nature. Dating back to archaic Greek times, the

  gods were “chthonic,” which refers both to a set of gods of the earth rather

  than the sky and to the general tendency of the whole worldview to compre-

  The Ancient Art of Natu ral Grace  155

  hend the sacred in immanent terms, as a component of the mysteries of

  earthly existence. The ancient narratives themselves evolved with the emer-

  gence of the Olympian pantheon of gods in the fifth and fourth centuries bce,

  overshadowing those archaic gods; they had more “glory and serenity,” as

  British classicist Jane Harrison explained. While they still pervaded na-

  ture, they did undercut some of the even more intimate relations between

  the people and their gods from earlier times. 38 With these changes, some of the

  cardinal features of polytheism were already beginning to erode, a trend

  that would continue in the next few centuries.

  The ancient Greek world retained a spirit of enchantment, peopled with

  personalities and pulsating with vital forces in the stuff of everyday life.

  James’s interpretations point to the disenchantment of the world since an-

  cient times. Max Weber argues this explic itly, as part of his analy sis of the

  “radical elimination of magic from the world” through the rationalizing trends

  of modern times. Homer offered the classic expression of the enchanted

  Greek world; his Iliad and Odyssey, prob ably written in the eighth century

  bce, depict the gods’ contests and interventions in the human world; count-

  less sculptures followed the narratives established in Homer’s epics. Art

  was an essential form of expression because of its capacity to convey human

  ideals through truly beautiful depictions of this earthly world without

  reference to another world. Many late nineteenth- century artists and intel-

  lectuals, most prominently Friedrich Nietz sche, likewise placed art above

  religion for its capacity to reenchant the world. 39 While James did not fully

  endorse or adopt the Greek worldviews, he thoroughly admired their ability

  to mediate issues that have remained in tension or simply separate in mod-

  ern times. In their personal identification with the natu ral world, the an-

  cients found worldly and spiritual forces intermingled, providing humanity

  with good reason to feel at home in the world; and in the diversity of their

  pantheon, they were also ready to incorporate the divinities of new locali-

  ties— a flexibility that also suggested their weakness.

  Resisting the Modern Insolence toward Natu ral Existence

  The flexibility of ancient worldviews, which had been a great strength, be-

  came increasingly a burden in the wake of Alexander the Great’s conquests

  in the fourth century bce, from the Aegean peninsula to the whole Near

  East, from Egypt to India. The spread of Greek culture to neighboring re-

  gions also brought a diversity of gods competing in diverse regions. The dis-

  semination of deities extended still further with the Roman conquest of

  156  Young William James Thinking

  Greece through the first century bce and the growth of its domain over the

  whole Mediterranean world. The Romans adopted many facets of Greek

  culture, including its deities, and they had a similar openness to new and

  diverse religious views. The period from about 100 bce to 200 ce was a

  high point of confident, cosmopolitan polytheism under Roman domina-

  tion, with a spirituality rooted in this world, and an incorporation of diverse

  gods serving as an agent of imperial control of diverse cultures. In this set-

  ting, there was a whole range of spiritual movements that proposed single

  paths away from the dizzying array of polytheistic divinities. Many of them

  proposed a masculine redeemer who would transcend the claims of mere

  nature, which were often associated with the feminine. Of these move-

  ments, which included the Mysteries of Isis, Mithraism, hermeticism, and

  gnosticism, Chris tian ity became the most persuasive force, leading to its

  domination of the Roman Empire itself by the fourth century ce.40

  Emerging from the mono the ism of Judaism, Chris tian ity was absolutely

  uncompromising about the truth and power of one all- powerful God. Wel-

  comed at first into the polytheistic Greco- Roman cosmology, Chris tian ity

  did not tolerate the multiple gods surrounding it; and it also rejected poly-

  theism’s finite cosmos of earthly life. In the face of the limits of human exis-

  tence, Chris tian ity offered the promise of transcendence with its beliefs in

  God and afterlife. James endorsed mainstream historical interpretation in

  noting that this was how the new religion could appeal so strongly in the

  Roman world: feeling the limits of their merely finite and worldly goals,

  pagans turned to the redemptive religion of Chris tian ity. By the twentieth

  century, revisionist challenges to this view of ancient anxiety producing a

  craving for mono the ism have countered that Chris tian ity also benefited

  from po liti cal and military factors, and that paganism did not dissipate so

  readily; even when Constantine adopted Chris tian ity as emperor in 312, the

  empire was only 10 percent Christian. In the 1860s, however, James empha-

  sized the power of Christian belief in salvation beyond this world; and he

  saw its triumph as the crucial turning point toward the attitude of longing

  that would characterize modern sensibilities. Yet aspects of premono the-

  istic comfort with this world would indeed endure, even within Christen-

  dom, notably with saints, feast days, traditional rituals, and carols, as well

  as in the immanentist doctrine of the incarnation of Christ, with God be-

  coming a man— immaterial within the material indeed. Yet these worldly

  aspects of spirituality have generally had less influence in Christian history

  The Ancient Art of Natu ral Grace  157

  than the tendency to devalue the serene ac cep tance of this world by foster-

  ing attention to God on high and human longing for the next
world.41

  James suggested that the loss of the ancient comfortableness with the

  natu ral world prompted a general disregard for natu ral experiences; he

  even said this “modern idea” brought an “insolence of life” for its belittling

  of our worldly existence as it is. And that spirit of insolence, he said point-

  edly, had “acquired . . . [its] shade of signification . . . since Chris tian ity.” In

  the atmosphere shaped by Christian longing, people since ancient times

  “attempt to exhaust thought by expression”; when that falls short, they

  strongly feel the pang of not being able to express all thoughts in words. By

  contrast, “the Greeks did not,” because they were working with ideas that

  were not so ineffable.42 As young James became more absorbed in the

  depths of his questions and the grandness of his distinctions between an-

  cient and modern with their contrasting ways of comprehending the rela-

  tion of nature and spirit, he turned to the modern world for comparative

  examples.

  In the spring of 1868, when James was writing most intently about the

  ancients, he saw William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, which was widely popu lar

  in nineteenth- century Amer i ca and in Germany as well, where Prince

  Hamlet’s deep reflections appealed strongly to poets and intellectuals espe-

  cially since the romantic era. While James’s trip to the theater would seem

  a diversion from his questions about ancients and moderns, viewing the

  play brought him right back to his per sis tent concerns: “ Here again is the

  prob lem which I have had before me for the last few days.” James’s par tic u-

  lar attraction was to the Danish prince himself, who provides “about as big

  an example as can be found” of a modern character with intense longing for

  something beyond the limits of our material life. The play “groans & aches

  so with the mystery of things, with the ineffable,” the same word suggesting

  religious longing, now applied to Shakespeare’s work, that he had applied to

  modern artists Rietschel, Raphael, and Michelangelo, each working in dif-

  fer ent media. Seeing the play amplified his inquiries. “But the Piece, Good

  God!” he blurted out about Hamlet; “It bursts & cracks at every seam.” He

  admitted that “I may feel it the more for having been thinking of classical

  things lately— I was in the Cast collection again yesterday.” And the play

  sharpened his sense that outlooks ancient and modern presented stark per-

  sonal and intellectual choices: “[T]he question what is the difference be-

  tween the Classical conception of life & art & that of wh[ich] Hamlet is an

  158  Young William James Thinking

  example besets me more & more.” 43 In the ambivalent prince, James found

  a leading man for his own intellectual drama about cultural losses since an-

  cient times.

  When viewing art, James thought of ancient serenity in contrast with

  modern craving for absolutes; when viewing Hamlet, he detected the effects

  of these modern outlooks on the ability to act with decisiveness. Prince

  Hamlet’s trou bles gave him a “fullness of emotion”; as with the modern turn

  to eagerness for absolutes, this produced an inability to explain with words,

  so “the attempt to express . . . adequately is abandoned” with disappointed

  despair. In addition, “action of any sort seem[s] to Hamlet inadequate and ir-

  relevant to his feeling,” which leaves the prince frozen in indecision. In sharp

  contrast with ancient calm serenity, the prince’s feelings reach toward elu-

  sive goals, which James compares with the modern craving for absolutes,

  because in both cases, the hopes for expression or action remain ever out of

  reach. A public critic of James’s private writings could fault him for strain-

  ing to make connections among disparate topics; however, his task was nei-

  ther scholarly precision nor public persuasion but personal wrestling. He

  was particularly intrigued with Hamlet and modern outlooks because of

  deep uncertainties about his own directions in life. Questions about Ham-

  let’s mental health reignited his “doubt[s] about my sanity.” Analyzing the

  great play and vast swaths of history would not solve his indecision, but it

  did help explain how the modern context of constant craving for something

  ultimate would make decisive articulation and action difficult. Consigned

  to life in modern times, but full of admiration for the graceful composure of

  the Greeks, James wondered if “the mode of looking on life of wh[ich] Ham-

  let is the expression [is] a final one or only a mid stage on the way to a new &

  fuller classical one.” James’s interpretation of ancients and moderns, from

  museum visits to theatergoing was not for academic analy sis but was part of

  his hope to revive “the classical idea of man’s harmony with nature” in his

  own time.44 That classical mode could not be completely replicated, but

  maybe there could be a modern way to get more comfortable with earthly

  existence, which would also allow for more decisive beliefs and actions in

  the world. Now he saw these issues in himself, and he set out to change his

  ambivalent ways. The indecisive but searching James was hoping to be less

  like Hamlet and more like the Greeks— but what could enable this decisive

  turn?

  The Ancient Art of Natu ral Grace  159

  Enlisting the Will and Letting Results Float Up

  In the late 1860s when James was reflecting deeply on Hamlet and the

  Greeks, he had second thoughts about the value of reflection itself. Philo-

  sophical reflection, after all, especially the weighing of diff er ent choices,

  would undercut the will, and this was the crucial ingredient for acting

  decisively. He is famous for reading French phi los o pher Charles Renouvier

  and applying his defense of free will in 1870; but even before this influence,

  the significance of the will had already been an issue in his personal experi-

  ences. Encouraged by the absence of longing in ancient cultures and by

  sectarian medical approaches for managing ill health, he had for years

  given moral counsel to friends and family— and to himself—to deal with

  health prob lems by struggling through the temporary setbacks and aggra-

  vations that would lead to later improvement. No matter how bad, prob lems

  would not overwhelm as long as one maintained a resolute will, with expecta-

  tions for managing the issues rather than seeking their absolute solution. Even

  earlier, he had used that same outlook when contemplating the difficulties of

  finding a vocation. Early during his stay in Germany, he exchanged uncer-

  tainties about careers with discussion partner Oliver Wendell Holmes,

  Ju nior, and he encouraged the budding lawyer by asserting, “I am firmly

  convinced that by going straight in almost any direction you can get out of

  the woods in which the young mind grows up.” His own case was relevant

  since, even with his doubts, he was working “quite well . . . on the line of

  practical medicine.” 45

  Near the end of his Eu ro pean trip, James gave his Brazil travel compan-

  ion Tom Ward an account of his own minor accomplishments before advo-

&nb
sp; cating the importance of courage and firmness of will even during such

  small steps: “All I have done in the last six months is to keep up the drib-

  bling I recommend to you and little as each day seems the sum total is not

  disrespectful.” Then he urged with brittle insistence: “[D]on’t give up the

  fight even if you are getting licked.” The key was per sis tence in pursuit of

  vocational goals, and so a little at a time would add up; “1 hour, 2 hours a day

  if kept up” would carry him far, he added with a hopefulness that also ap-

  plied to himself. And in another letter where James reported his own dis-

  couragement, he again urged Ward to “persevere as you have been doing for

  the past year and all will go well.” 46 His reasons for relying on per sis tence

  paralleled his objections to idealism: long- term results, like glistening

  ideals, are elusive and unknowable; more impor tant is the experience of the

  160  Young William James Thinking

  pro cess on the way toward those goals, with each step a slow- motion part of

  the probabilistic long- term trend, and as correctable as his own work of sci-

  entific inquiry. He was making choices based on thinking that would shape

  his later theories.

  James continued to lace his career advice with propositions that would

  contribute to his philosophizing. Toward elusive vocational goals, he in-

  sisted, “Results shd. not be too voluntarily aimed at or too busily thought

  of.” Meanwhile, he had to take it on faith that “from a long enough daily

  work at a given matter,” some decent results— with particulars unforeseen—

  would be “sure to float up of their own accord.” His point was to urge that

  “the work as a mere occupation ought to be the primary interest.” Admiring

  the German science he was studying, he suspected that this policy of per sis-

  tence was “the secret of [G]erman prowess.” As he continued to read physi-

  ology and hope for work in psy chol ogy, he came to expect setbacks, but he

  tried to build up his confidence without waiting on par tic u lar accomplish-

  ments, in the same spirit as his later theory of “precursive faith” in “The

  Will to Believe.” The germ of his concise theoretical statement in that 1896

  essay, “faith in a fact can help create the fact,” was already pres ent in the