by Paul J Croce
added considerably to the “full accounting” of James’s crises, with his intellectual,
social, personal, medical, and vocational issues (4, 11). Simon, Genuine Real ity, 127;
and Menand, “William James and the Case of the Epileptic Patient,” in American
Studies, 22–23, raise questions about the full authenticity of the story. Paul Croce,
“Mannered Memory,” provides an overview of interpretations about James’s story.
96. VRE, 135; on his early interests in medicine and psy chol ogy, see my chapter 2; Dickenson Miller, Philosophical Analy sis, 50. On James’s pos si ble stay at McLean
Asylum, see Kazin, “William James: To Be Born Again,” 248; Richards, Darwin and
the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories, 415; Townsend, Manhood at Harvard, 43;
Simon, Genuine Real ity, 121–22; and Menand, American Studies, 22–23.
312 Notes to Pages 253–265
97. VRE, 134 (emphasis in original); Simon, Genuine Real ity, offers a contrasting view, based on later medical research, that “epilepsy . . . could not be cured by
strengthening a patient’s will.” James is two steps removed from the epileptic patient:
he invents the character who then imagines the patient. Simon identifies James not
only with the Frenchman but also with the asylum patient he was observing; and she
depicts James, like the epileptic, “at the mercy of his own biology” (125).
98. James, VRE, 134, 135. David Leary emphasizes that this account shows
James’s “deep sympathy for those who find relief and comfort in religion”; Leary,
personal correspondence, December 21, 2015.
99. Dickenson Miller, Philosophical Analy sis, 50; introduction to Literary Remains, ERM, 60–63; and VRE, 135, 136, 400. Fisher, in House of Wits, provides rich accounts
of Mary James; also see James Anderson, “In Search of Mary James.”
100. MT, 123; VRE, 135; to Catherine Walsh, Sept[ember] 13, [18]68; to Robertson
James, Aug[ust] 1, [18]71; Sept[ember] 2, [18]73, CWJ, 4:336 (emphasis in original), 421,
444; “Questionnaire”; [Diary 1], May 1, [1868], 49 (prayer likely based on Friedrich
Schiller’s words). Also see Lang, Sacred Games, 125–31; and Paul Croce, “Spilt
Mysticism.”
In his argument for the importance of these scripture texts for James’s resolution
of his crisis, Leary, in “New Insights into William James’s Personal Crisis in the Early
1870s: Part II. John Bunyan and the Resolution and Consequences of the Crisis,”
points out James’s affection for the Bible (29), but also points out that James admired
religion, including Chris tian ity, especially for its psychological function (29, 34). In
addition, Leary argues that “ these biblical phrases were uttered less in ‘prayer’ of the
usual sort than as a desperate cry for help”; Leary, personal correspondence.
101. VRE, 366, 409; to Alice Howe Gibbens, [October 9, 1876], CWJ, 4:547; and to
Henry Rankin, June 16, 1901, CWJ, 9:502.
102. “Sentiment of Rationality,” EPH, 56; VRE, 7; and see VRE, 25 (James quoting
the Bible, King James version, Matthew, 7:20).
103. CWJ, 9:186; Freud, “Screen Memories,” 307, 308, 322; WB, 6; PRG, 258; and
PU, 145.
104. Kloppenberg, Uncertain Victory, 26, 4, 25; Hughes, Consciousness and Society, 33–66; and Eclipse, 3–17.
105. PRG, 123.
Conclusion. An Earnestly Inquiring State
Epigraph. William to Henry James, Ju nior, Nov[ember] 1, [18]69, CWJ, 1:120.
1. William to Alice Gibbens James, Feb[ruary] 27, [18]83; to Sarah Whitman,
June 17, [18]91; and to Henry Rankin, June 12, 1897, CWJ, 5:429, 7:171, 8:275.
2. Wyman, Mark. Round- Trip to Amer i ca; “The Dilemma of Determinism” (1884), WB 114–15; “One word about Free- will,” lecture at Harvard Divinity School (1884),
WB 334, 383.
3. PU, 84; Palmer, “William James,” in Simon, Remembering William James, 32; and PRG, 92.
4. “The Sentiment of Rationality,” in EPH, 32, 63.
5. Ibid., 64. “Remarks on Spencer’s Definition of Mind”; “Quelques Considérations
sur la method subjective” [Some Reflections on the Subjective Method] (1878), EPH,
Notes to Pages 266–273 313
7–22, 23–31 [331–38]; “Brute and Human Intellect”; “Are We Automata?”; EPS, 1–37,
38–61; “The Sentiment of Rationality,” EPH, 32–64; and Mach, Analy sis of the
Sensations, 151, 156, 164.
6. PPS, 6; Myers, James, 55, 192, 294; O’Donnell, Origins of Behaviorism, 92, 99.
7. WB, 7–8; VRE, 170, 402; “Against Nihilism,” MEN, 154; ERE, 4, 18, 42; [Note-
book 3], 59; PRG, 9, 14, 13; PU, 142; EPR; review of Morgan, ECR, 309; and PU, 153.
8. “Philosophical Conceptions and Practical Results,” PRG, 258; James to Edgar
Van Winkle, March 1, 1858; and to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Ju nior, May 15, 1868, CWJ,
4:14, 298.
9. Wertheimer, A Brief History of Psy chol ogy, 44; Damasio, Self Comes to Mind, 5; and “The Sentiment of Rationality,” EPH, 55, 56. Also see chapter 2, note 22, and
introduction, note 19.
10. “Panpsychism,” MEN, 179; introduction to Literary Remains, ERM, 60–63; Wild, The Radical Empiricism of William James, 89; Fontinell, Self, God, and Immortality,
143–61, especially 261; Ford, William James’s Philosophy, 4; Taylor, William James on
Consciousness beyond the Margin; Barnard, Exploring Unseen Worlds, 251–57,
especially 154; Lamberth, James and the Metaphysics of Experience, 146–202; Ramsey,
Submitting to Freedom, 81; and see kindred evaluations in Bradford, “Practical
Theism”; Gavin, Reinstatement of the Vague, 45; Frankenberry, Religion and Radical
Empiricism, 28, 48; Oliver, James’s “Springs of Delight”; Cooper, The Unity of James’s Thought; Suckiel, Heaven’s Champion, 104–5; Edie, James and Phenomenology;
Wilshire, William James’s Phenomenology; “Introduction,” in William James:
Essential Writings; and The Primal Roots of American Philosophy; Pratt, Native
Pragmatism; Skrbina, Panpsychism in the West, 145–50; and Rasmussen, “James, A
Pluralistic Universe, and the Ancient Quarrel,” Slater, “James’s Critique of Absolute
Idealism,” and Pihlström, “Jamesian Pragmatic Pluralism,” in Halliwell and Rasmus-
sen, William James and the Transatlantic Conversation. Also see my introduction, note
21. Other commentators have been critical or dismissive of James’s spiritual ideas
and theories of mind and body in relation; see Lewis, in The Jameses, who makes
puzzled mention of James’s interest in the Stoic “soul of the world,” which he calls a
“strange mystical Marcus Aurelian entity” (193); Rorty, in “Dewey between Hegel
and Darwin,” in Ross, The Modernist Impulse, charges James’s panpsychic interests
with leading him away from pragmatism, “down the garden path of radical empiri-
cism” (61); and Myers considers James’s radical empiricism at best “visionary”
( James, 321), judging it “a frustrating proj ect” that “fails” to integrate the “subjective
and objective” because they are “incompatible properties” (310). These recent
interpretations echo evaluations in his own time: James received support from
Charles Strong, Why the Mind Has a Body, 123, 155, and criticism from Lightner
Witmer, “ Mental Healing and the Emmanuel Movement,” and “Is the Psy chol ogy
Taught at Harvard a
National Peril?”
11. James to Charles Eliot Norton, Nov[ember] 14, [1864]; PRG, 81; “Confidences
of a ‘Psychical Researcher’ ” (1909), EPR, 375; “The Hidden Self” (1890), EPS, 249
(italics in original); and Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, 163, 166, 309,
393, 394.
12. James to Alice Howe Gibbens, June 7, [18]77, CWJ, 4:571; [Diary 1], April 30,
1870, [90].
314 Notes to Pages 273–278
13. James, review of Lewes, in ECR, 307; PPS, 236; Cooper, The Unity of William James’s Thought, 34; Bordogna, William James at the Bound aries, 4, 7; and Paul Croce,
“Non- Disciplinary William James.” Also see my introduction.
14. James, review of Lewes, in ECR, 307; SPP, 32–33; and VRE, 269, 33.
15. James to Henry Rankin, June 12, 1897; to Sarah Whitman, Sept[ember] 18,
1902; and to Alice Gibbens James, June 28, [18]98, CWJ, 8:275, 10:128, 8:383; and PU,
10. Also see Bjork, William James, 93, 181–82, 193–201; Simon, Genuine Real ity, 156–58; and Graham, The Adirondack Park, 40–43.
16. William James to Alice Gibbens James, July 9, 1898; and to Pauline Goldmark,
August 12, 1899, CWJ, 8:391, 9:22. Croce, in “Spilt Mysticism,” evaluates the Adiron-
dacks experience in relation to James’s mystical ideas and to interpretations about his
religious views; Robert Richardson, in William James, traces the course of his heart
disease, with the first small hints of it appearing in 1893 (330, 337, 375–76, 382, 388,
395, 419, 483, 492, 513, 515, 520–21).
17. William James to Sarah Whitman, July 23, 1900; Dec[ember] 26, 1900; and
June 20, 1904; and to John Jay Chapman, Sept[ember] 26, 1904, CWJ, 9:258, 396;
10:416, 479.
18. ERE 120, 47; William James to Sarah Whitman, Aug[ust] 22, 1903; and
Whitman to James, [June 24, 1902] CWJ, 10:295, 67.
19. William James to Sarah Whitman, Aug[ust] 22, 1903, CWJ, 10:295; PPS, 573–74
(referring to Clay, The Alternative); WB, 6 (also quoting Blood, The Flaw in Suprem-
acy); PRG, 258; and PU, 145; and Whitman, “William James.”
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