WM. JAMES.
Love to all the Childs, please, and all the Nortons who may be within reach.
To Theodore Flournoy.
Pensione Villa Maggiore
(Pallanza), Sept. 19, 1892.
My dear Flournoy,—Your most agreeable letter—one of those which one preserves to read in one's old age—came yesterday.... I am much obliged to you for the paper by Sécretan, and (unless you deny me the permission) I propose to keep it, and let you get a new one, which you can do more easily than I. It is much too oracular and brief, but its pregnancy is a good example of what an intellect gains by growing old: one says vast things simply. I read it stretched on the grass of Monte Motterone, the Rigi of this region, just across the Lake, with all the kingdoms of the earth stretched before me, and I realized how exactly a philosophic Weltansicht resembles that from the top of a mountain. You are driven, as you ascend, into a choice of fewer and fewer paths, and at last you end in two or three simple attitudes from each of which we see a great part of the Universe amazingly simplified and summarized, but nowhere the entire view at once. I entirely agree that Renouvier's system fails to satisfy, but it seems to me the classical and consistent expression of one of the great attitudes: that of insisting on logically intelligible formulas. If one goes beyond, one must abandon the hope of formulas altogether, which is what all pious sentimentalists do; and with them M. Sécretan, since he fails to give any articulate substitute for the "Criticism" he finds so unsatisfactory. Most philosophers give formulas, and inadmissible ones, as when Sécretan makes a memoire sans oubli = duratio tota simul = eternity!
I have been reading with much interest the articles on the will by Fouillée, in the "Revue Philosophique" for June and August. There are admirable descriptive pages, though the final philosophy fails to impress me much. I am in good condition now, and must try to do a little methodical work every day in Florence, in spite of the temptations to flânerie of the sort of life.
I did hope to have spent a few days in Geneva before crossing the mountains! But perhaps, for the holidays, you and Madame Flournoy will cross them to see us at Florence. The Vers-chez-les-Blanc days are something that neither she nor I will forget!
You and I are strangely contrasted as regards our professorial responsibilities: you are becoming entangled in laboratory research and demonstration just as I am getting emancipated. As regards demonstrations, I think you will not find much difficulty in concocting a programme of classical observations on the senses, etc., for students to verify; it worked much more easily at Harvard than I supposed it would when we applied it to the whole class, and it improved the spirit of the work very much. As regards research, I advise you not to take that duty too conscientiously, if you find that ideas and projects do not abound. As long as [a] man is working at anything, he must give up other things at which he might be working, and the best thing he can work at is usually the thing he does most spontaneously. You philosophize, according to your own account, more spontaneously than you work in the laboratory. So do I, and I always felt that the occupation of philosophizing was with me a valid excuse for neglecting laboratory work, since there is not time for both. Your work as a philosopher will be more irreplaceable than what results you might get in the laboratory out of the same number of hours. Some day, I feel sure, you will find yourself impelled to publish some of your reflections. Until then, take notes and read, and feel that your true destiny is on the way to its accomplishment! It seems to me that a great thing would be to add a new course to your instruction. Au revoir, my dear friend! My wife sends "a great deal of love" to yours, and says she will write to her as soon as we get settled. I also send my most cordial greetings to Madame Flournoy. Remember me also affectionately to those charming young demoiselles, who will, I am afraid, incontinently proceed to forget me. Always affectionately yours,
WM. JAMES.