Volume Ii Part 35 (1/2)
W. J.
_To John Jay Chapman._
Cambridge, _Apr. 30, 1909_.
DEAR JACK C.,--I'm not expecting you to _read_ my book, but only to ”give me a thought” when you look at the cover. A certain witness at a poisoning case was asked how the corpse looked. ”Pleasant-like and foaming at the mouth,” was the reply. A good description of you, describing philosophy, in your letter. All that you say is true, and yet the conspiracy has to be carried on by us professors. Reality has to be _returned to_, after this long circ.u.mbendibus, though _Gavroche_ has it already. There _are_ concepts, anyhow. I am glad you lost the volume.
It makes one less in existence and ought to send up the price of the remainder.
Blessed spring! blessed spring! Love to you both from yours,
Wm. James.
The next post-card was written in acknowledgment of Professor Palmer's comments on ”A Pluralistic Universe.”
_To G. H. Palmer._
[Post-card]
Cambridge, _May 13, 1909_.
”The finest critical mind of our time!” No one can mix the honey and the gall as you do! My conceit appropriates the honey--for the gall it makes indulgent allowance, as the inevitable watering of a pair of aged rationalist eyes at the effulgent sunrise of a new philosophic day!
Thanks! thanks! for the honey.
W. J.
TO THEODORE FLOURNOY.
CHOCORUA, JUNE 18, 1909.
MY DEAR FLOURNOY,--You must have been wondering during all these weeks what has been the explanation of my silence. It has had two simple causes; 1st, laziness; and 2nd, uncertainty, until within a couple of days, about whether or not I was myself going to Geneva for the University Jubilee. I have been strongly tempted, not only by the ”doctorate of theology,” which you confidentially told me of (and which would have been a fertile subject of triumph over my dear friend Royce on my part, and of sarcasm on his part about academic distinctions, as well as a diverting episode generally among my friends,--I being so essentially profane a character), but by the hope of seeing you, and by the prospect of a few weeks in dear old Switzerland again. But the economical, hygienic and domestic reasons were all against the journey; so a few days ago I ceased coquetting with the idea of it, and have finally given it up. This postpones any possible meeting with you till next summer, when I think it pretty certain that Alice and I and Peggy will go to Europe again, and probably stay there for two years....
What with the Jubilee and the Congress, dear Flournoy, I fear that your own summer will not yield much healing repose. ”Go through it like an automaton” is the best advice I can give you. I find that it is possible, on occasions of great strain, to get relief by ceasing all voluntary control. _Do_ nothing, and I find that something will do itself! and not so stupidly in the eyes of outsiders as in one's own.
Claparede will, I suppose, be the chief executive officer at the Congress. It is a pleasure to see how he is rising to the top among psychologists, how large a field he covers, and with both originality and ”humanity” (in the sense of the omission of the superfluous and technical, and preference for the probable). When will the Germans learn that part? I have just been reading Driesch's Gifford lectures, Volume II. Very exact and careful, and the work of a most powerful intellect.
But why lug in, as he does, all that Kantian apparatus, when the questions he treats of are real enough and important enough to be handled directly and not smothered in that opaque and artificial veil? I find the book extremely suggestive, and should like to believe in its thesis, but I can't help suspecting that Driesch is unjust to the possibilities of purely mechanical action. Candle-flames, waterfalls, eddies in streams, to say nothing of ”vortex atoms,” seem to perpetuate themselves and repair their injuries. You ought to receive very soon my report on Mrs. Piper's Hodgson control. Some theoretic remarks I make at the end may interest you. I rejoice in the triumph of Eusapia all along the line--also in Ochorowicz's young Polish medium, whom you have seen.
It looks at last as if something definitive and positive were in sight.
I am correcting the proofs of a collection of what I have written on the subject of ”truth”--it will appear in September under the t.i.tle of ”The Meaning of Truth, a Sequel to Pragmatism.” It is already evident from the letters I am getting about the ”Pluralistic Universe” that that book will 1st, be _read_; 2nd, be _rejected_ almost unanimously at first, and for very diverse reasons; but, 3rd, will continue to be bought and referred to, and will end by strongly influencing English philosophy.
And now, dear Flournoy, good-bye! and believe me with sincerest affection for Mrs. Flournoy and the young people as well as for yourself, yours faithfully,