William James

[Menschen U. Hupokrinesthai]

James refuses to rationalize its brute contingencies into an agreeable 
order; he rejects the pretense of a transformation of evil into good, and of 
conflict and alliance into inwardness and harmony, by means of dialectic.


Horace M. Kallen's Introduction to William James


In a word, the believer is continuous, to his own consciousness, at any 
rate, with a wider self from which saving experiences flow…Fechner, with his 
distinct earth-soul functioning as our guardian angel, seems to me clearly 
polytheistic; but the word "polytheism" usually gives offense, so perhaps it 
is best not to use it…I mean by religion for a man anything that for him is 
a live hypothesis in that line, although it may be a dead one for anyone 
else. And what I try to show is that whether the man believes, disbelieves, 
or doubts his hypothesis, the moment he does either, on principle and 
methodically, he runs a risk of one sort or the other from his own point of 
view. There is no escaping that risk; why not than admit that one's human 
function is to run it?

--W. James

You may want to read his letters to Henry Adams.




_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com