William James and the Art of Popular Statement

Chapter Five. Religious Experience and the Appealsof Intellectual Populism

149 chapter five Religious Experience and the Appeals of Intellectual Populism x W illiam James was agitated in May 1898. Confrontations over psychical research were fresh in his mind, prompting him to tell James McKeen Cattell just how he felt: “I must say that the ‘Scientist’ mind seems to me to be characterized by as sectarian a spirit as any. . . . It suggests to me the priggish sectarian view of science, as something against religion, against sentiment, etc.” He was particularly upset with the priggish Scientists who “proceeded to demolish psychical researchers.”1 Cattell’s response to the letter is not known, but James’s agitation did not abate. A mere four days later, he shot off another letter: Your state of prejudice is so absolute, that quite naively and unconsciously you perpetrate acts of insolence quite as remarkable as your lapses of logic, 150 Chapter Five as if I were some minor or child making a nuisance in the psychological neighborhood. You surely would not adopt that tone in regard to any other difference of scientific opinion, least of all where the adversary had 15 years firsthand acquaintance with the facts and you had never seen them. No! my dear fellow, it is as I say, all the virtues have to be drilled into us afresh in each special matter, and the day for psychical research has not yet come.2 James was perturbed with Cattell, but the real focus of his agitation was the system of knowledge Cattell affirmed as exclusively legitimate. Psychical research, according to Cattell and other prominent psychologists of the era, simply did not fit within the strictures of professionalism. Real knowledge would never emerge from trifling in the vagaries and fraudulence of supposed paranormal phenomena. For James, this unwavering opposition was maddening. The professional mind had become too narrow, too confining, perpetrating acts of intellectual insolence against more open-minded inquirers. Scientists, the capitalized version, had become blind to the mysteries, novelties, and possibilities of experience. Dedication to professionalism had gone too far. This was not a wholly new realization for James. The intensity was new, but he had been concerned for decades about the direction in which intellectual culture was moving. While academic professionalism was not all bad—after all, it had helped him become one of the most prominent American psychologists and philosophers—it often led to unnecessary antagonism in the pursuit of knowledge. When studying at Harvard in the 1860s, he had seen how a lack of pluralism could lead to vicious scientific battles, even to the proposal of a duel. When speaking in Boston and Baltimore in 1878, he had lamented that disciplinary boundaries often created territorial disputes—hence James’s metaphor of the farmers and the fence dividing their properties—which discouraged collaboration and the sharing of ideas. When talking to teachers during the 1890s, he had berated scientific mystification and its imposition on people struggling to find their place in modern society. Hostility to psychical research was, then, yet another example of the problems plaguing intellectual culture. These problems were especially noteworthy when juxtaposed to the relationships James had forged with popular audiences. By the end of the nineteenth century, he stood at the forefront of American thought, and generally educated middle- and upper-class audiences recognized him as doing so. Publishers wanted to publish his books, editors wanted The Appeals of Intellectual Populism 151 to share his writing with their readers, and lecture planners worked hard to bring him to their venues. Every year his reputation as an engaging speaker became more formidable. In announcing his arrival in town to lecture, for example, one newspaper displayed a prominent photo of James and described him as a psychologist and philosopher of “international fame” whose work had the merit, unlike that of other scholars, of communicating “in brilliant, entertaining style.”3 Had James wanted to, he could have made a living solely from the lecture circuit. By the end of the nineteenth century, he received hundreds of offers to lecture every year. In 1899, his wife estimated that at least one offer arrived in the mail every day.4 As a result, he could have quit his job at Harvard and traveled the country addressing packed houses. But travel was hard on him, the social obligations associated with lecturing were often annoying, and he relished his time at home in Cambridge and at his summer house in New...