A Pluralistic Universe: Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the Present Situation in PhilosophyJames, William
Philosophy
A Pluralistic Universe: Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the Present Situation in Philosophy
James, William
Philosophy, Modern
or the _fundirte inhalt_ (or as whatever else you may please to call
the conjunctive form) which the content falls into when we experience
it in the ways which the describers set forth. Those factors in those
relations are what we _mean_ by activity-situations; and to the
possible enumeration and accumulation of their circumstances and
ingredients there would seem to be no natural bound. Every hour of
human life could contribute to the picture gallery; and this is the
only fault that one can find with such descriptive industry--where is
it going to stop? Ought we to listen forever to verbal pictures of
what we have already in concrete form in our own breasts?[1]
They never take us off the superficial plane. We knew the facts
already--less spread out and separated, to be sure--but we knew them
still. We always felt our own activity, for example, as 'the expansion
of an idea with which our Self is identified, against an obstacle';
and the following out of such a definition through a multitude of
cases elaborates the obvious so as to be little more than an exercise
in synonymic speech.
All the descriptions have to trace familiar outlines, and to use
familiar terms. The activity is, for example,
[Footnote 1: I ought myself to cry _peccavi_, having been a voluminous
sinner in my own chapter on the will.]
attributed either to a physical or to a mental agent, and is either
aimless or directed. If directed, it shows tendency. The tendency may
or may not be resisted. If not, we call the activity immanent, as when
a body moves in empty space by its momentum, or our thoughts wander at
their own sweet will. If resistance is met, _its_ agent complicates
the situation. If now, in spite of resistance, the original tendency
continues, effort makes its appearance, and along with effort, strain
or squeeze. Will, in the narrower sense of the word, then comes upon
the scene, whenever, along with the tendency, the strain and squeeze
are sustained. But the resistance may be great enough to check the
tendency, or even to reverse its path. In that case, we (if 'we' were
the original agents or subjects of the tendency) are overpowered.
The phenomenon turns into one of tension simply, or of necessity
succumbed--to, according as the opposing power is only equal, or is
superior to ourselves.
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