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Young William James Thinking Page 55

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.”

  Bibliogr a ph y

  Archival Sources

  Bunker, Clarence. Class notes of James’s Philosophy 2: Psy chol ogy, Harvard

  University Archives, HUC 8889.3404, 1887–88.

  Burdett, George Albert. “Notes in Philosophy 5,” Harvard University Archives, HUC

  8889.370.4, 1880–81.

  A Cata logue of the Officers and Students of Harvard University for the Academic Year,

  1861–62. Cambridge, MA: Sever and Francis, 1861.

  A Cata logue of the Offices and Students of Harvard University for the Academic Year,

  1863–64. Cambridge, MA: Sever and Francis, 1863.

  A Cata logue of the Offices and Students of Harvard University for the Academic Year,

  1866–67. Cambridge, MA: Sever and Francis, 1866.

  Harper, Robert S. “That Early Laboratory of William James.” Harvard University

  Archives, Pusey Library, HUG 1466.439, 1949.

  Hocking, William Ernest. Class Notes of James’s Philosophy 6: Psy chol ogy of Religion

  Hocking Collection, Harvard University Archives, box 105, 1901–2.

  James, William. William James papers, Houghton Library, Harvard University, bMS

  Am 1092.2:

  (28): drawing, “Die Kalt Wasser Cur zu Divonne”

  (63): William James, drawing of “Garth Wilkinson James’s Return to Charleston

  Harbor.”

  (1185), #9: Walter Hunnewell, photograph of William James in Brazil after attack

  of small-pox, 1865.

  (4448): [Notes on Immanuel Kant], c. 1860s– early 1870s.

  (4473]: [Miscellaneous Notes], Oct[ober] 21, 1872.

  (4474): Questionnaire [James’s responses to question on religion from James B.

  Pratt], 1904) [published in LWJ, 2:214].

  (4475) and (4476): Faith, n.d.

  (4495): [Notebook 1], Geneva, Nov[ember] 16, 1859.

  (4496): [Notebook 2], [Joseph] Lovering, Sept[ember] 23, 1862.

  (4497): [Notebook 3]: Reading Notes & Observations; sketches, [1862–63]; the

  notebook is cata logued with the date 1863 based on notes by William James’s son

  Henry James III in which he said “Dad had torn out a lot of pages.”

  316  Bibliography

  (4498): [Notebook 4]: Z Brazilian diary; sketches, 1865.

  (4499): [Notebook 5]: B Microscopic notebook, sketches, 1866.

  (4500): [Notebook 6]: notes made in Florence, 1873.

  (4501): [Notebook 7]: Misc.[ellanea I] 1870+ Sketches Empiricism J. S. Mill [pub-

  lished as “Miscellanea: Mostly Concerning Empiricism,” 1870–73, in MEN, 133–42].

  (4502): [Notebook 8]: “Cause Philosophizing” [published in TCJ, 2:450, “soon after

  1875,” and published as [Note on Empiricism], 1876–77 [in MEN, 160–61].

  (4503): [Notebook 9]: S 1870+ Idealism, etc. [published as Idealism, etc., 1870–73, in

  MEN, 142–50].

  (4520): [Notebook 26]: no title, but the cover page includes these printed words:

  “Index of Subjects, Intended as a Manual to Aid the Student and the Professional

  Man in preparing himself for usefulness . . . 1863.” James wrote “William James,

  Boston Nov[ember] 25th 1864,” c. 1864–74.

  (4532): [Notes on Charles Darwin], c. 1868.

  (4533): [Notes on Goethe], c. 1887.

  (4535): [Notes on Emil du Bois- Reymond], c. 1868.

  (4549): Truth, Real ity, etc., c. 1907.

  (4550): [Diary 1], 1868–73.

  (4553): [Diary 4], 1905.

  (4568): “Anthropological Collection,” n.d.

  James Family Papers. Houghton Library, Harvard University, bMS Am 1094 1093.1–95.3.

  Library Charging Lists. Harvard University Archives 50.15.60.

  Temple, Mary. Letters to John Chipman Gray, Houghton Library, Harvard University,

  bMS Am1092.12, 1869–70.

  Whitman, Sarah. “William James,” 1903, HNA29, Harvard University Portrait

  Collection, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, http:// www .harvard artmuse

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  Rutgers University Press, 1988.

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  Anonymous. “Correspondence: What Is the Business of Scientific Men?” Nation 19

  (1874): 420.

  — — —. “Garth Wilkinson James.” Milwaukee Sentinel, whole number 12,843 (November

  17, 1883): 4.

  — — —. “A Graphic Story.” Milwaukee Sentinel, issue number 48 (December 2, 1883): 4.

  Arnold, Matthew. Essays in Criticism. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1866 [1865].

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