Cosmopolite Cosmologist: The Life of William James

The entire man, who feels all needs by turns, will take nothing as an equivalent for life but the fullness of living itself. William James

The household in which William James grew up was unusual: besides James himself it contained three other exceptionally gifted individuals. Henry James, the father, was a frequent writer on religious topics, a friend of Emerson and Carlyle, and a conversationalist of primary magnitude. Brother Henry turned to England and the novel. And William's sister Alice, whom some felt to be the brightest member of the family, suffered throughout her life from a particularly severe variation of the frailty cum neurasthenia that afflicted her brothers.

The father occupied his time with study, meditation, and writing--he had no recognized profession that took him from his home. Though his children were not especially receptive to his ideas, his son Henry, Jr., declared that the "felt side-wind of their strong composition was that the family became "genially interested in almost nothing but each other." Emerson corroborates this view in one of his notebooks. He records: "Henry James said to me, he wished sometimes the lightning would strike his wife and children out of existence, and he should suffer no more from loving them."

Career Secondary

For Henry James the Elder, man's first calling was to be a man, and he discouraged his sons from making any premature decisions regarding a vocation. The atmosphere of the household was broadly educative, however, even if William later complained of a lack of formal pre-college schooling. Alice recognized and was grateful that her "excellent parents had threshed out all the ignoble superstitions...so that we had not the bore of wasting our energy in raking over and sweeping out the rubbish."

But the family provided far more than these negative advantages. Three times during his childhood and adolescence William James traveled in Europe for prolonged periods. He attended school and was tutored in England, France, Switzerland, and Germany. And, when he thought he might become a professional artist, he was able to study with the renowned painter, W. M. Hunt, in Newport, Rhode Island.

It was at the age of eighteen that William decided to pursue a career in painting. Vainly he had striven to escape the lure of the brush during a restless summer in Germany. He yearned for a decisive test of his mettle. Since early boyhood he had painted, and his skill and interest had long been recognized.

Yet the father could hardly give his approval to such an occupation. Art, he felt, was frivolous and narrow in comparison with religion or scientific studies. Fortunately, Henry James Sr. realized the importance of well-informed personal decision in matters of vocational choice. He readily consented to a proposal that William study with Hunt.

The results of this experiment were unambiguous: the boy decided that his talent was less than his standards demanded and that his standards demanded and that his desire to paint was far from insatiable. Once having rejected a career as an artist, William seldom looked back. His subsequent work always bore the mark of acute sensory perception and aesthetic imagination, but his artistic flair was sub-ordinated to his moral and metaphysical concerns.

Science and Medicine

When William James entered Harvard, he had made up his mind to become a scientist. After two years as an undergraduate, he convinced himself that he was best suited not for science in any strict sense, but rather for the broad scientific concerns of medicine. Doubts continued to assail him, however, during his first year and a half in the Medical School.

In March 1865, James interrupted his studies to embark on a field trip to Brazil. Louis Agassiz, the great biologist, led the expedition, and for one full year the troupe investigated the fauna and flora of South America. A mild case of smallpox made the initial months unpleasant, though it left James with no facial pock-marks. By October his health and spirits had improved considerably. Despite the ill-concealed homesickness of many of his ship-board letters, James seldom regretted the journey in late life.

Returning to Boston in March of 1886, James immediately resumed his work at the Medical School. All was fine for a few months, but the next spring brought another interruption in his schooling. He departed for Europe and remained there nineteen months.

Ill-health was probably the primary reason for the decision to leave Harvard. He had fallen into a state of physical suffering and depression that was to last nearly six years. In this condition James found prolonged work in a laboratory unendurable. A growing interest in experimental physiology led him to select Germany as his country of exile. He intended both to enhance his scientific knowledge and improve his facility in the German language while recuperating.

Physically, James "took the cure" at the baths of Teplitz. Academically, he obtained it in Dresden, Berlin, and Heidelberg where he studied under Du Bois, Reymond, Virchow, and Helmholtz. And for his spiritual malaise he subsituted at moments what he called "a sort of inward serenity and joy in living, derived from reading Goethe and Schiller."

Deep Melancholy

In November 1868, James once again took up his medical studies and worked with sufficient tenacity to earn an M.D. degree the following spring. Although his excellent performance on the examinations was a temporary boon to his spirits, by autumn he had begun to decline rapidly. The next three years were to be his worst; a sense of moral impotence constantly plagued him. While suicide seldom seemed like a "live" option, thoughts of taking his life never wholly departed from his mind.

On February 1, 1870, James recorded in his diary: "Today I about touched bottom, and perceive plainly that I must face the choice with open eyes: shall I Frankly throw the moral business overboard, as one unsuited to my innate aptitudes, or shall I follow it and it alone, making everything else merely stuff for it? I will give the latter alternative a fair trial. Who knows but the moral interest may become developed."

The problem of determinism and free will proved most troubling to James. On April 30, 1870, he recorded: "I think that yesterday was a crisis in my life. I finished the first part of Renouvier's second Essais and see no reason why his definition of free will--the sustaining of a thought because I choose to when I might have other thoughts'--need be the definition of an illusion. At any rate, I will assume for the present--until next year--that it is no illusion. My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will." Renouvier had provided James with an efficacious remedy, but the cure was by no means instantancous. Only very slowly did enthusiasm and buoyancy become dominant.

Marriage and Harvard

Two events of the 1870's contributed mightily to the therapeutic treatment begun by Renouvier: James started teaching at Harvard and he married Alice Howe Gibbens. He viewed the offer of employment from Harvard as a "godsend," welcoming the stabilizing influence of a regular vocation.

His first appointment was to an instructorship in physiology, but from the outset he refused to treat physiology, psychology, and phiosophy as distinct and separate disciplines. In his lectures, as in his writings, he sought a synthesis comprising insights and factual contributions from each of the fields.

Also a stabilizing influence--and herself a remarkable synthesis--was Miss Gibbens. After James married her in 1878 his physical and emotional health improved markedly, and he launched into his significant work in psychology. Though her intelligence, beauty, and wit were highly regarded, she is surely remembered primarily for the composure, devotion, and sympathetic loyalty with which she watched over he highstrung husband.

During the first dozen years of his marriage James labored on the Principles of Psychology, a two volume compendium of old wisdom and stunning new insights. It was in this phase of life that he acquired world renown. But his fame continued to increase in the succeeding decades as he came to focus his attention upon philosophy and religious experience.

And, in the last years of his life, James penetrated into the citadels of Old World learning. His immensely successful lectures at Oxford and Edinburgh, perhaps more than anything else, demonstrated that America had come of age intellectually. Europe and America, the sciences and the humanities, nineteenth century and twentieth century--in James they all blend, in James they seem to find their finest mediator.

(This is the second in a series of articles on William James.