by Paul J Croce
religious taste for mystery that contributed to his impatience with scientific
claims to certainty.
Due to the cosmic orientation that the ancients and his father fostered in
James, and his mingling of other material and immaterial realms, he did
not abandon either pole of his education in science and religion. While his
philosophizing would take him beneath and beyond each, he worked with
both science and religion throughout his career, finding their methods
and insights useful. This explains how he construed his pragmatism as a
“method only,” an application of scientific method to speculative inquiry,
with openness to natu ral facts, readiness to verify hypotheses on the basis
of genuine experiences and their consequences, and the search for explana-
tory relations of disparate data; he would also apply those methods to reli-
gion. In his “science of religions,” he gathered personal information about
184 Young William James Thinking
religious experiences, including his own, as the empirical data of inquiry.
He insisted that his thorough study of religious experience would be “my
religious act”; he was dedicated to understanding the role of religion in the
life of mankind, by enlisting both scientific inquisitiveness and sympathy
with flights of religious abandon, even when he encountered ele ments of
science and religion he disagreed with. 82
Nondualist evaluation of religion in terms of psychological depths
opened the possibility for James to regard such passionate personal com-
mitment as religious in character, even though not connected to a tradi-
tional religion. As historian James Turner points out, James’s attention to
noninstitutionalized convictions “redrew the map” of the emerging field of
religious studies and promoted public appreciation of religion through per-
sonal rather than only through institutional experiences. Historian of religion
Catherine Albanese uses the terms “spirituality” and “nature religion” to de-
scribe this sensibility, with the relation of religious impulse to nature rang-
ing from a sense of “mystical spirituality” within nature itself to views of
the “material world as conduit . . . of spiritual power” from beyond nature.
In other words, the spiritual impulse appears on a spectrum from worldly
spirituality without transcendence in defiance of Western religion to natu-
ral experiences serving as vehicles for bringing the transcendent to human-
ity within religious traditions. These trends toward spirituality since
James’s time have continued to thrive both outside and within churches,
with focus on psychological depths and openness to science, even as
contrasting forms of religion have also grown, including traditionalist com-
mitments, which James acknowledged with curiosity and sympathy. In its
treatment of worldly life in religious terms, spirituality has both challenged
traditional religion and offered an expansion of religion into wider spheres
of life. This is much as James anticipated in his youthful explorations and in
his mature explanations about the mysteries of religion deep within human
nature. 83 As a founding figure both of this spiritual trend and of scientific
psy chol ogy, and as a student of beliefs even when not adopting them, James
has offered the per sis tent reminder that any human claim, religious or anti-
religious, scientific or philosophical, must itself remain humble.
Q
When William James was twenty- seven, ancient wisdom served as a bea-
con through his puzzlements about the relation of science and religion, and
the material and immaterial makeup of human nature and the natu ral
The Ancient Art of Natu ral Grace 185
world. Stoicism portrayed reason pervading the world, with the human
share of that power animating every person with awareness, will, and the
capacity to think. In 1869 James contrasted this with the dualist views that
“we are all nature but [with] some point which is reason” that he detected
in the divorce of religious meanings from the material world and in the psy-
chophysical separation of mind and body of his scientific studies. Life and
consciousness, much less any religious beliefs, according to this view, oper-
ate parallel to our material nature to be ignored because they are beyond
scientific comprehension or to be reduced to those material forces. These
outlooks suggested for James a stark choice between reliance on transcen-
dent absolutes or meaningless despair, still the menu of options for many
since his time. Religious apol o getics in support of traditional absolutes con-
stitute “defensive tactics,” but these will “never do anything,” he sharply
warned, but “fight . . . a steady retreat before materialism.” Instead, he
wanted to believe, as did the Stoics, that “we are en rapport with reason, . . .
that all is Nature and all is reason too,” with nature and reason in relation, as
he blurted out hopefully in 1869 even during a season when he was finishing
his medical degree, feeling unclear about his vocational direction, and slid-
ing into discouragement. 84 Nature and reason hooped together would en-
able both his respectful views of religious beliefs and his commitment to
scientific study— and create opportunities for still more relations of mate-
rial and immaterial dimensions of life.
In the late 1860s and for the next few years, those compelling ideas often
felt out of reach. The synthetic understanding of nature and reason among
the ancients, and a similar relation of science and religion in his own world,
could address his uncertainties and ambivalence—in theory. And, indeed,
freedom from determination by material circumstances and avoidance of
absolute and fixed answers would eventually support and even strengthen
his will, promoting his search for meaning and purposeful work in the
world. However, when he was still immersed in science and searching for
professional and personal direction, he was stalked by the proposition that
perhaps we are only “all Nature . . . through and through”— all material na-
ture, that is. This view amplified his trou bles because it would reduce the
will and other sparks of human life and mind to material mechanism or
pres ent them as the worldly objects of religious impatience while waiting
for another and better world. With such views of nature as presented by
mainstream science and religion, even the inspirations of the ancients could
186 Young William James Thinking
not keep William James from the tormenting lack of motivation that was
making him feel more passive, more indecisive, and more unhealthy in body
and spirit as he reached the end of his formal scientific education and sought
his path of work in the world. But even as he spiraled down, he kept searching
for ways out of his dilemmas: “We shall see, damn it,” he declared in
March 1869 when studying for his medical examinations, “we shall see. ”85
Chapter Four
Crises and Construction
For the past week, to be sure I have been laid up, . . . but I have come to
regard that as a periodical
neccessity [ sic]. . . . I think I at last see a
certain order in the state I’m in.
William James, 1870
On the 9th of July 1868, William James declared that he was in “crisis.” After
more than a year in Eu rope learning the German language and physiological
psy chol ogy, he had traveled to Heidelberg hoping to hear lectures by Herman
von Helmholtz, whose researches on nerve impulses and sensory perception
James hoped to study for deepening his understanding of physiological psy-
chol ogy. But the “scientific genius” he hoped to meet was not lecturing that
season; he had planned poorly, and he was frustrated. James was so disappointed
with his “fiasco” that he “fled . . . under the influence of a blue despair” because
Heidelberg now reminded him of the work he was not yet accomplishing. This was
not his first crisis, and it wouldn’t be his last. Four years before, at age twenty-
two and about to begin classes at Harvard Medical School in the fall of
1864, he shocked himself with the intensity of his first major feeling of “desola-
tion.” In the next few years, a convergence of his health prob lems, his tenden-
cies to ambivalence about the Civil War, his social relations with family and
friends, his vocational uncertainties, and even bleak winter weather plunged
him into repeated crises. For example, he reported a “slough of despond” when
aboard the steamer Colorado destined for Brazil in April 1865; “a sort of cri-
sis” in 1868 on listening to music performed so well that it generated “hor-
ror” about his own “waste[d] life”; and a feeling that he had “about touched
bottom” in 1870 triggered by a simultaneous sore back and a sinking realiza-
tion that materially determined choices would undercut moral effort, starting
with his own philanthropic goals. His falls into despair were so bleak that sui-
cide sometimes seemed his only recourse. His trou bles were so frequent that his
“condish” became almost routine as he per sis tently kept trying for improvement
188 Young William James Thinking
and searching for reasons to keep motivated. 1 Moreover, he found constructive possibilities in the heart of the crises themselves. They trained his fighting
spirit for willful effort; they even seemed to be necessary stages toward im-
provement and growth, as the sectarian health- care providers argued; and he
noticed that wisdom might emerge from struggling with his trou bles.
James did not have one single moment of crisis from depression and indeci-
sion all at once and then become done with them. His first letters and note-
books give early hints of his dilemmas in choosing among vari ous vocations
and philosophies of life, and he was nagged by per sis tent health prob lems and
frustration from living at home while remaining remote from marriage. All
these factors conspired to make the years when he was in his twenties, from
1862 to 1873, a period punctuated by many bouts of utter discouragement.
The latter half de cade after 1868 was particularly severe, especially because
of the compounding effect of old prob lems still unresolved and grown more
severe. Throughout these years, James himself used the term crisis and related
words many times. He was burdened with a set of vexing interwoven dilem-
mas throughout his young adulthood—in effect, a series of crises that blended
into the fabric of his whole development. 2
Although young James’s immediate prospects seemed bleak, his determina-
tion for improvement made this a seedtime for future development. His father
supported the theological view of the “fortunate fall,” with benefits that bloom
in times of trou ble. Young James coined his own slang words, “the winding up
crisis,” to describe the expectation among medical sectarians that healing would
come after some worsening symptoms. James’s young adulthood, with its var-
ied crises, was a time of both depression and development, indecision and ini-
tial attempts to enlist the will, uncertainty of vocational choice and increased
readiness to accept life without guarantees. His trou bles and constructive
responses were in domains of life at once physical and mental, social and
intellectual— with these intermingled material and immaterial domains echo-
ing the intersection of scientific and religious factors that he was learning from
his family, from his wide reading of works ancient and modern, and from his
circles of teachers and peers. Even his often- lamented reduced time for reading
because of physical and psychological trou bles did not bring a dramatic reduc-
tion in learning; in fact, the reduced quantity at any one time amplified his in-
tensity. As he said with hope in 1874, when he was still on the healing cusp of
his worst period, “If [a person] is reduced from any cause, say, bad eyesight, to
one hour of daily study instead of six, he nevertheless learns much more than
one sixth of his former allowance.” This explanation from young physiologist
Crises and Construction 189
James about stages of learning for readers of the Atlantic Monthly would also
include strategies for coping with prob lems: “What is taken in during the one
hour settles distinctly and thoroughly into the mind during the following
twenty- three hours. ” 3 The trou bles themselves prompted deeper stirrings.
Q
The lure of the ancients suggested to William James some ways to use
his education, but where would that education lead— what par tic u lar intel-
lectual stances, what line of work, and what fate for his personal life, his
physical and mental health, and even prospects for marriage? He hoped
his eigh teen months in Eu rope from 1867 to 1868 would bring him out of his
vocational and intellectual doldrums. Eu rope, however, was not the pana-
cea that James hoped it would be. The baths did not cure him, and exposure
to German science did not deliver him from his uncertainties— and neither
could save him from a depression so deep it para lyzed his will to work and
occasionally even his will to live. He returned from Germany at age twenty-
six with good command of the German language but with little fluency in
his own art of living. His intersecting and confusing burdens kept him in
the same unsettled state until at least 1873. Through it all, he kept a con-
stant drive to heal his mental and physical health, solve his dilemmas, and
gain some personal and intellectual direction, especially through his raven-
ous appetite for learning.
James’s relentless curiosity, abundant reading, and intellectual reflections
gave him a capacity to reach outside of his own discouragements. When de-
pressed, he did not become inert, but searching; as he said to his brother
Henry even in 1870, being “idle” would for him be “no easy work as you
know.” His long book lists display his intellectual ambitions. In addition to
his scientific texts, he set out to read not only Homer and Marcus Aurelius
but also portions of Cicero, Tacitus, and St. Augustine; Voltaire, Auguste
Comte, and Ernest Renan; works on ancient religion and modern Bud-
dhism, including Émile- Louis Burnouf’s La Science des Religions, Étienne
Vacherot’s La Religion, Henry Alabaster and Chao Phya Thipakon’s The
Modern Buddhist, and Karl Friedrich’s Die Religion des Buddha; Immanuel
Kant and Charles Renouvier; Hippolyte Taine and George Sand; Herbert
Spencer and John Tyndall; Oliver Wendell Holmes, Se nior, Nathaniel Haw-
thorne, and Margaret Fuller Ossoli; Benjamin Franklin and Captain John
Smith; Horace Bushnell and John Fiske; Thomas De Quincey and Thomas
Carlyle; E. B. Tylor and John Henry Newman; Emanuel Swedenborg and
his own father. In the late 1860s to early 1870s, the very years of his worst
190 Young William James Thinking
discouragement, he turned to these works for “the relaxation of the mind
[away] from that high- strung attitude of vigilance . . . and suspended judg-
ment . . . [of the scientific] investigator.” Anticipating his impatience with
such scientific caution when faced with genuine and ambiguous options in
“The Will to Believe,” young James already found that this avocational in-
terest, like any one of his water- cure visits, also “reinvigorates and disposes
for future exertions.” 4
Through crises and constructions, James learned to manage his need for
both effort and rest, with reading for work and for enjoyment. The full
fruits of both kinds of learning would not come all at once, as he alternated
between bleak feelings and genuine vigor. The whole pro cess took a pain-
fully long time; his own pace of maturation provided a personal version of
the significance of long- term thinking that he had been learning from his
friend Charles Peirce. The delays in James’s coming of age suggest a long
gestation period in the development of his talents, as psychologist David
Galenson observes about “late bloomers” who search, experiment, and de-
spair many times on their path to achievement. 5 A biographical perspective
on James’s theories suggests that these were postponements with a pur-
pose, even if he could not detect the purpose at the time— paraphrasing his
later thinking, these purposes were still in the making.
The Burden of Choosing Direction
A general account of James’s childhood would give little indication of the
impending dark moods of his young adulthood. As the oldest child, bright