I think if you had me on the spot you would find me a less impractical kind of an anti-imperialist than you have supposed me to be. I think that the manner in which the McKinley administration railroaded the country into its policy of conquest was abominable, and the way the country pucked up its ancient soul at the first touch of temptation, and followed, was sickening. But with the establishment of the civil commission McKinley did what he could to redeem things and now what the Islands want is CONTINUITY OF ADMINISTRATION to form new habits that may to some degree be hoped to last when we, as controllers, are gone. WHEN? that is the question. And much difference of opinion may be fair as to the answer. That we can't stay forever seems to follow from the fact that the educated Philippinos differ from all previous colonials in having been inoculated before our occupation with the ideas of the French Revolution; and that is a virus to which history shows as yet no anti-toxine. As I am at present influenced, I think that the U. S. ought to solemnly proclaim a date for our going (or at least for a plebiscitum as to whether we should go) and stand by all the risks. _Some_ date, rather than indefinitely drift. And shape the whole interval towards securing things in view of the change. As to this, I may be wrong, and am always willing to be convinced. I wish I could go, and see you all at work. Heaven knows I admire the spirit with which you are animated--a new thing in colonial work. It must have been a great pleasure to you to see so many of the family at once. I have seen none of them since their return, but hope to do so ere the summer speeds. The only dark spot was poor F----'s death. Believe me, with affectionate regards, yours truly, Wm. James. I am ordering a little book of mine, just out, to be sent to you. Some one of your circle may find entertainment in it. _To F. C. S. Schiller._ [Post-card] CHOCORUA, _June_ 13, 1907. Yours of the 27th ult. received and highly appreciated. I'm glad you relish my book so well. You go on playing the Boreas and I shedding the sunbeams, and between us we'll get the cloak off the philosophic traveler! But _have_ you read Bergson's new book?[80]It seems to me that nothing is important in comparison with that divine apparition. All _our_ positions, real time, a growing world, asserted magisterially, and the beast intellectualism killed absolutely _dead_! The whole flowed round by a style incomparable as it seems to me. Read it, and digest it if you can. Much of it I can't yet assimilate. [_No signature._] _To Henri Bergson._ CHOCORUA, _June 13, 1907_.