by Paul J Croce
“ground” or resting place for building up strength “to advance to new phil-
anthropic action,” the prime concern of his struggling side. He did not welcome
resignation as a final answer that would say “it is good” to his prob lems,
much less to the evils in the world. The coldness of such a position would
mean treating trou bles as “none of my business,” which would be essentially
a posture of indifference that left James frustrated and eager for action and
philanthropic uplift. Instead, he could accept resignation only as a temporary
mea sure, adopted briefly while he would say to himself, “I’m willing to
stand it for the pres ent”; and then the contrasting position was also tempo-
rary because it needed the recharging support that ac cep tance could pro-
vide. He concluded this paper resolution with a realization of its practical
difficulties. While personal dilemmas swirled around him, draining his
force of will— and tempting him to resignation—he wondered “how much
pain I’ll stand” and, with an echo of his vow not to marry, “how much oth-
er’s pain I’ll inflict (by existing).” And he realized that “resignation [would
mean] none of my business.” He was doing his best to avoid resigning to the
prob lems, giving up on strug gle, on the effort to overcome prob lems, but for
all his willing effort, his will was about to be tested even more severely. 50
222 Young William James Thinking
During these years of trou ble and lack of direction, James was often not
able to maintain a firm balance between his strong, willful impulses and his
turn to ac cep tance with resignation to more power ful forces. In the early
1870s, he vacillated with increased urgency between these outlooks, which
were at once ways to cope with his own prob lems and philosophical stances
on the world. The deeper his trou bles and weakness, the more he doubted
his voluntarist faith; but he kept returning to reliance on his will as his
strength allowed. The winter of 1869–70 was a particularly bleak season for
him. He suggested the mind- body interaction that he had surmised for
himself when he forecast to his brother Bob that “your mental state is con-
tingent upon the break down in your back.” He tried to be encouraging— for
both of them— but by December he was reporting that “my health . . . has
deteriorated more and more” so that “my back permits me” very little
“work[,] muscular and digestive.” Adding sharper philosophical terminol-
ogy, he identified his turns away from willful striving as moments when he
was “content [with mere] being,” and this impulse contrasted with the “fury
of becoming” during times of strenuous effort. Daily life still intruded on
his reflections and his efforts to rally his energies: in December, he became
so “ ‘stuffed up’ with a cold so that one idea is about as indistinguishable as
one odor or taste, from another.” 51 The inevitable passing prob lems com-
pounded his general trou bles.
By early January 1870, James was thrilled to report to Bob “good news . . .
of my condish.” No doubt, he admitted with understatement, “it has per-
plexed and disheartened me of late a good deal,” but he added with confi-
dence in the benefits of crises, “all this may be but the transition to a [new]
stage.” Contemplating the physical version of his philosophical choices, he
had deci ded that “exercise is better than rest.” He was trying a “lifting
cure” which was bringing his back “into its second stage . . . [of] improve-
ment.” He excitedly referred to his book lists, marking the new year’s date
with resolve, and reported the books he planned to read next, including
renewed attention to physiology and psy chol ogy, philosophy, and also
“finish[ing] father’s works.” In the next few weeks, he happily reported that
“my exercise has been steadily increasing,” and at least it was doing “more
good than harm”; but he soon felt worse, with symptoms including “inflam-
mation of the eyelids” and “pain in the shoulders.” The physical prob lems
compounded his bleak personal and social situation, and the drab weather
made every thing feel worse. By the spring, he was looking back at the con-
clusion of the gloomiest New England season with relief, noting starkly to
Crises and Construction 223
his brother Henry that “the winter is man’s enemy,” and particularly “hate-
ful to a sick man,” who, he added starkly, “must exert himself against it to
live, or it will squeeze him in one night out of existence. ”52 At these mo-
ments, willful effort seemed pointless.
While still in the dead of winter, on February 1, 1870, James reported to
his diary “ Today I about touched bottom.” He explained that with this cri-
sis he had had “a great dorsal collapse . . . [and] with it a moral one.” His
general reflections were taking more philosophical shape; in par tic u lar, he
identified his urge to cultivate his will in strug gles to improve his situation
as an explic itly moral effort. And his own case served as a test for the viabil-
ity of any willful moral improvement: “I must face the choice with open
eyes: shall I frankly throw the moral business overboard, as one unsuited to
my aptitudes, or shall I follow it, and it alone, making every thing else merely
stuff for it?” He was not sure he could sustain the moral striving he craved.
He even kicked himself for “using it in real ity only to patch out the gaps”
between stretches of dark resignation. He had periodically “tried to fire
myself with the moral interest, as an aid in the accomplishing of certain
utilitarian ends,” such as his hope to study science for philanthropic purposes.
He had tried to cultivate his moral interests through “salutary habits,” calling
any feeling that fell short a “moral degradation,” but that careful monitor-
ing broke down with all his changes in “health & sickness &c,” as he deli-
cately described his trou bles of the last few years. Even worse, “in all this I
was cultivating the moral int[erest] only as a means & more or less humbug-
ging myself.” He vowed to turn over a new leaf by finding “useful ends” that
could become deliberate “occasions for my moral life to become active.”
This, he vowed, would be “my duty,” once again to “give the latter alterna-
tive a fair trial,” and then, mustering some optimism, he added, “[W]ho knows
but the moral interest may become developed. ”53 The crises had become a
basis for exploring the plausibility of willful strug gle in support of moralist
goals.
James’s deep reflections reminded him of the inspirations of the an-
cients, because they were able “to sympathize with the total pro cess of the
universe,” including coping with “the evil that seems inherent in its details,”
without seeking broader meaning outside nature. He again contrasted their
harmonious outlook with the modern impulse “imperiously [to] crave a rec-
onciliation or unity of some sort.” Between the two, he preferred, “as in
Homer,” to “have vigor of will enough to look the universal death
in the face
without blinking.” Then he too could “lead the life of moralism.” This would
224 Young William James Thinking
be “a militant existence, in which the ego is posited with the good as its
end.” Fired with his moral faith, he was ready to say of his own trou bles and
the world’s prob lems in general, “though evil slay me, she can’t subdue me,
or make me worship her.” His will was at the center of this faith, and so,
despite the burden of “brute force[s]” weighing on him, “the final protest of
my soul . . . gives me still in a certain sense the superiority.” As with the Sto-
ics, and as reinforced by his Metaphysical Club discussions, simple asser-
tion of will would make even the most overwhelming forces of destiny “fun-
damentally powerless” within his own inner citadel. These notes from 1873,
recorded on “a memorandum pad on which I used to try to define moral
things to clear up my befogged brain,” were so impor tant to James that he
retrieved them in 1877 to send to Alice Gibbens, the woman he was then
awkwardly courting. With his sense of romance once again soaked in reflec-
tive wrestling, he warned her, “This you see was written many years ago
when I was going through the pessimistic crisis.” It became part of the
courtship of an intellectual seeker reaching toward a deeply spiritual
woman; on the back of the 1877 letter, he wrote apologetically, “Prithee,
don’t force yourself to read all that memorandum stuff now. Anytime before
next fall, if ever, will do. I’m ashamed of setting you such a task.” He seemed
aware that notes reporting moral theory and personal trou bles might not be
the best way to win a woman’s heart, and he realized their intellectual dif-
ferences: “My tho’ts have a broader scope than yours,” he said in indirect
reference to his intellectual inquisitiveness, and he admitted that, in com-
parison to her calm convictions, he carried “a certain aridity & bleakness
of mind.” In another reminder of his per sis tent personal trou bles, he gasped,
“I am so awkward. ”54
While James strug gled, his beloved cousin Minny Temple had it worse,
since she suffered from tuberculosis. In early 1870, he had an idea for help-
ing her. Also with curiosity about his own mood and mental condition, he
pursued an unorthodox feature of his physiological studies: he took “an
overdose of chloral,” short for chloral hydrate, a hypnotic whose sedative
properties had just been identified in 1869. It might relieve her pain, but also
he thought to try it “for the fun of it as an experiment.” True to her Stoic
commitment, Temple was not very interested in such chemical crutches,
but he was fascinated by the drug’s mental effects. So he took a break from
his medical thesis research in May 1869 to explore the psychological impli-
cations of his physiological study; he had already read Jacques Moreau’s Du
Haschisch et de l’aliénation mentale, which made connections among alter-
Crises and Construction 225
native states of consciousness, what James then called the “state[s] of mind
in wh. ideas are dissociated.” James’s study introduced him to the emerging
psychological work on layers of consciousness, with increased understand-
ing of the “peculiar character” of phenomena outside of waking conscious-
ness. James credited the French investigator with being “the first author
who claimed that insanity in its diff er ent forms was literally a dreaming”;
and that drugs provided an artificial route to still more “tumultuous states
of the mind.” Pierre Janet and Frederick Myers would do still more work on
“subliminal” realms of mind, which James used to explain the psychologi-
cal components of the Va ri e ties of Religious Experience, and Sigmund Freud,
whose research James was the first American to review, would work from
within these contexts to develop his theory of the unconscious. 55 These al-
ternative states of consciousness could provide a rich way to mediate his
dilemmas about ac cep tance versus strug gle: depths of awareness to render
ac cep tance more plausible, or mind at the depths with more resources for
personal energy.
Despite his hopes to ease Temple’s pain, and his enthusiasm for broader
reflections, James’s mood took a decisive blow just a few weeks later: Minny
Temple’s tuberculosis was too far advanced, and she died. He could not
even find words at first for his sorrow, as he simply marked his diary:
March 9
M + T
1870
His brother Henry was also devastated, but he responded to his grief with
words, his mind “so full of poor Minny’s death” that he wrote William long
eulogizing letters. Remembering his older brother’s fascination with her, at-
tempts to heal her pain, and profound religious discussions with her, Henry
sympathized that “you must have suffered keenly from the knowledge of her
suffer[ing].” He added that “she seems a sort of experiment of nature—an
attempt, a specimen or example,” and “what a vast amount of truth” she
spoke. His words seemed to speak for both of them, and William responded
with great thanks: “You don’t know what a good inspiration it was for you to
write those letters about Minny to me— I can’t say— they were a solid gift. ”56
William did have his say about Temple’s death, but his words were pri-
vate and sometimes even desperate. In his diary entry for March 22, he
poured out his mingled grief and philosophical reflections, at first with
bitter preference for resignation to fate rather than a willful fight against it.
226 Young William James Thinking
He cried out to her with a directness worthy of Homer: “By that big part of
me that’s in the tomb with you, may I realize and believe in the immediacy
of death!” He realized that “time is long[, and] one human life is an instant,”
and he hoped to learn “that every torment suffered here passes and is as a
breath of wind— and every plea sure too.” In this light, he confessed, “Minny,
your death makes me feel the nothingness of all our egotistic fury.” He now
felt little capacity for voluntarist strug gle, but even when in this mood of
resignation, he sought to “ascend to some sort of partnership with fate.” He
was no longer tempted by suicide, but he was painfully aware of death: “[S]ince
tragedy is at the heart of us, go to meet it, work it in to our ends, instead of
dodging it all our days, and being run down by it at last.” His brave words
raced ahead of his feelings since he still felt overwhelmed, but even then he
had hope that he might be able to strengthen his inner citadel, aligning his
efforts with fate rather than only be smothered by its vicissitudes. His
cousin herself was part of his inspiration: her “acts & examples stay”; her
life of forceful will was “one instant snatched out of the endless age.” Minny
Temple offered a model, albeit a tragic one, for voluntarist commitment de-
spite the winds of fate, but James could not fully separate the commitment
to strug gle that he prized from the very desperation and
resignation that
her death revealed. As with his self- assessment about ac cep tance and strug-
gle of a year earlier and his urge to combine them, he was both eager to “use
[Minny’s] death” to steel his capacity for effort and, at the same time, aware
that such strug gles were petty urgencies in the whole flow of life; consider-
ing even Minny’s brief and glowing presence, he contemplated “your death
(or your life, it’s all one meaning),” and he concluded with ancient Vedic
words, “tat twam asi,” the advice of a father as his son came of age: “you are
that”; in other words, every individual identity, including every personal
effort, is embedded in a cosmic whole, the Vedic “Being,” akin to the Stoic
“Reason.” James did not cease his striving, even as he realized, as the Vedic
father advised, that he would indeed sometimes grow “tired of wandering
about / Hither and thither,” and therefore need to “ settle . . . down at last,”
to rest his own “egotistic fury.” Minny’s death was an intense soul school
for applying his urge to combine ac cep tance and strug gle. James honored
the cosmic insight but could not remain a permanent resident and endorser
of its absolute and mystical vision; at the same time, even with his more de-
liberate moral efforts, he never abandoned his mystical awareness. But in
1870 he could still only hope for such “partnership . . . with fate.” 57
Crises and Construction 227
Temple’s death brought sharp relief to the tensions James felt between
his hopes for willful action, as exemplified by his cousin, and his dark feelings;
“Minny had bigger ele ments in her character than anyone I know,” but her
death made him feel “so entirely demoralized in mind & body.” Yet he found
hope even in his discouragement, as he detected that the very acts of somber
reflections were rekindling his speculative interests: “I find myself getting
deucedly interested in philosophy.” Even with these interests fired up, he
doubled down on his vocational work in science; for example, in the same
month when Temple died, he also read a recent book opposed to Darwinism
and wrote a spirited critique. The French scientist Henri Milne- Edwards
had made great contributions to zoological classification, but his opposition