The Letters of William James, Vol. 2James, William
Philosophy
The Letters of William James, Vol. 2
James, William
Intellectuals -- United States; James, William, 1842-1910; Philosophers -- United States; Psychologists -- United States
O my Bergson, you are a magician, and your book is a marvel, a real
wonder in the history of philosophy, making, if I mistake not, an
entirely new era in respect of matter, but unlike the works of genius of
the "transcendentalist" movement (which are so obscurely and abominably
and inaccessibly written), a pure classic in point of form. You may be
amused at the comparison, but in finishing it I found the same
after-taste remaining as after finishing "Madame Bovary," such a flavor
of persistent _euphony_, as of a rich river that never foamed or ran
thin, but steadily and firmly proceeded with its banks full to the brim.
Then the aptness of your illustrations, that never scratch or stand out
at right angles, but invariably simplify the thought and help to pour it
along! Oh, indeed you are a magician! And if your next book proves to be
as great an advance on this one as this is on its two predecessors, your
name will surely go down as one of the great creative names in
philosophy.
There! have I praised you enough? What every genuine philosopher (every
genuine man, in fact) craves most is _praise_--although the philosophers
generally call it "recognition"! If you want still more praise, let me
know, and I will send it, for my features have been on a broad smile
from the first page to the last, at the chain of felicities that never
stopped. I feel rejuvenated.
As to the content of it, I am not in a mood at present to make any
definite reaction. There is so much that is absolutely new that it will
take a long time for your contemporaries to assimilate it, and I imagine
that much of the development of detail will have to be performed by
younger men whom your ideas will stimulate to coruscate in manners
unexpected by yourself. To me at present the vital achievement of the
book is that it inflicts an irrecoverable death-wound upon
Intellectualism. It can never resuscitate! But it will die hard, for all
the inertia of the past is in it, and the spirit of professionalism and
pedantry as well as the æsthetic-intellectual delight of dealing with
categories logically distinct yet logically connected, will rally for a
desperate defense. The _élan vital_, all contentless and vague as you
are obliged to leave it, will be an easy substitute to make fun of. But
the beast _has_ its death-wound now, and the manner in which you have
inflicted it (interval _versus_ temps d'arrêt, etc.) is masterly in the
extreme. I don't know why this later _rédaction_ of your critique of the
mathematics of movement has seemed to me so much more telling than the
early statement--I suppose it is because of the wider _use_ made of the
principle in the book. You will be receiving my own little "pragmatism"
book simultaneously with this letter. How jejune and inconsiderable it
seems in comparison with your great system! But it is so congruent with
parts of your system, fits so well into interstices thereof, that you
will easily understand why I am so enthusiastic.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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