Mental Healing and the Emmanuel Movement
(Conclusion) REVIEWS AND CRITICISM. 4. As a System of Psychology and Philosophy.
We are prone to judge men by the company they keep. The fact that reputable psychologists are contributors to Psychotherapy will be accepted by many as a guarantee of the psychological foundation of the system. Three American psychologists appear in the list of contributors to this publication, Professor Angell of Chicago, Professor Jastrow of Wisconsin, and Adjunct Professor Woodworth of Columbia. The contributions of Professors Angell and Woodworth have already made their appearance. Neither of these articles affords the slightest support for the principles which underlie the psychotherapeutic work of Worcester and his associates. The unreflecting public, however, without even reading these articles, will assume that these professional psychologists have lent the force of their academic position and personal authority to promote the Emmanuel Movement. Why should reputable men of science be represented in a publication which permits the president and founder of the English Society of Emmanuel to make the following statement:
“The Society of Emmanuel has now a secure position. Its work has gained public and authoritative recognition. During the last year, for example, 1,086 treatments have been given to the suffering. The results have been most encouraging. Among the cases successfully treated may be mentioned one of cancer, in which case the specialist called in had given the sufferer only three months to live. By means of the laying on of hands in prayer a complete cure was effected.
“Again, there are cases of rupture, rheumatoid arthritis, locomotor ataxia, colitis, and numerous cases affecting more directly the mental, moral and spiritual nature, in all of which a complete cure was brought about by the same means. In all these cases there is complete evidence as to the disease, and subsequently as to the recovered health of the patient. And these are but a fraction of the actual number of cures.”1 1Psychotherapy, Vol. I, No. 2, p. 89.
We recall that some years ago an institution in the state of New York, calling itself the American School of Science, published a work on “Hypnotism, the World’s Greatest Power.” This work contained articles by a number of well-known psychologists. The articles were scientific and conservative statements of fact and theory, but their employment in this publication was intended to give a false reputation to an institution whose object was the instruction of the general public in the art of hypnotism. “When,” says the prospectus, “a few traveling hypnotists more or less deft in the art but ignorant of the science, were the only votaries of hypnotism, there was room for doubt as to its genuineness, but when the leading universities of the civilized world speak through their professors of psychology and philosophy to an intelligent public, all doubts must be dispelled. When our universities recognize this branch as a part of their curriculum, hypnotism takes its place as a branch of education.”2 It appeared later that the authors of these articles had been induced to write them through misrepresentation, and subsequently they made a formal protest against the use to which their contributions had been put. Do Professors Angell and Woodworth fully appreciate the interpretation which may be given to the association of their personal authority and academic position with the active exploitation of this Boston system of psychotherapy? Sometimes without warrant a great name may be used to support a weak cause.3 Thus the claim is made that Dr Worcester is a trained psychologist and a student of Wundt’s. This means a great deal, when we consider that for years students of psychology have gone to Wundt’s laboratory at Leipzig to complete their professional training. It therefore becomes necessary for us to inquire in what sense Dr Worcester is a psychologist and a student of Wundt’s. It appears from “Who’s Who in America” that he took a doctor’s degree in philosophy at the Univer2In answer to a letter from an applicant, the president of this institution writes, “I asked my secretary to send you our new treatise on personal magnetism, hypnotism, magnetic healing, suggestive therapeutics, and allied phenomena. I am now writing to ask if it reached you safely. I know you will find this booklet interesting; it tells of the marvelous possibilities which can be attained through a knowledge of these sciences. If you have read it you will then understand why progressive business and professional men are absorbed in the study of personal magnetism and hypnotism, why our instruction is endorsed by scientists of world-wide reputation as the most practical, thorough, and comprehensive course ever given to the public.
‘’For the first time the leading colleges and universities of the world have through their specialists made all the secrets of these wonderful sciences public. Men like Professor of Yale, of Harvard, of Princeton, of the University of Berlin, and others equally noted, thirty in all, tell you just how you can develop and use the most mysterious power known to man. How well their efforts have been appreciated may be judged by the chorus of grateful praise which is coming from thousands of successful students in every quarter of the globe. It matters not what you business is, you can use this secret knowledge to your advantage.”
3As, for example, Dr S. Weir Mitchell’s in connection with the Emmanuel Movement. sity of Leipzig, but this would not necessarily mean that he had received instruction in psychology. It is also true that Dr Worcester taught philosophy and psychology while acting as chaplain at Lehigh University. This likewise has little 01* no bearing on the question, because certain institutions of learning assign the task of teaching philosophy and psychology to anyone they please, ix-respective of previous training and professional equipment. Since Worcester taught psychology at Lehigh, our standards of professional training in psychology have been raised. In the world of science, fitness to teach psychology rests upon adequate training in experimental method and upon the possession of scientific capacity as shown in original contributions to the science. When we hear, therefore, that Worcester was a student of Wundt’s at the University of Leipzig, we naturally infer that he was entered as a student in the laboratory of psychology and partook, to some extent at least, of laboratory training in methods of experimentation. A careful reading of “Religion and Medicine,” however, does not reveal the slightest trace of the influence of the psychological genius to whom we owe before all others the development of modern psychology in its many diverse aspects. An examination of the catalogue of Lehigh University for the year 1893-4 discloses the probable explanation of this failure of Wundt to leave an impress upon his pupil’s thought. In the announcement of a course entitled “Outlines of Physiological Psychology,” Dr Worcester states, “These lectures are founded principally on Wundt’s lectures 011 the same subject given at the University of Leipzig in the summer of 1888,” after which he cites eight different standard works which together with Wundt’s lectures served as the basis for his course. The sources from which Dr Worcester’s lectures were drawn have been so freely cited that there is little reason to doubt that if he had done any work in Wundt’s laboratory, he would have mentioned it. It is perhaps unnecessary to say that no psychologist would feel justified in claiming that he was a student of Wundt’s, if his work had been limited to attending a course of lectures given during a single term. The psychology of the Emmanuel Movement is not the psychology of Wundt, nor indeed of any psychological laboratory. It is the psychology of Hudson, Bramwell, and Myers. It is from Hudson that Dr Worcester gets his notion of the subconscious mind, which he commends as an explanation of double personality. It is from Bramwell that he takes over, among other absurdities, the opinion that in the hypnotic state a subject cannot be induced to commit an act which is contrary to his moral sense. It is from Myers, who has given expression to an ancient theory under the modern concept of subconsciousness, that he derives his belief in a hypnotism which brings us in direct contact with a larger, purer, and nobler consciousness.
As a matter of fact the psychology which underlies Hudson’s, Myer’s and Worcester’s thought is as old as human thought itself. It appears variously as neoplatonism, animism, psychism, anthropomorphism, occultism, mysticism. This type of psychology, moreover, has always manifested a special interest in mental healing. Mr. Myers, apparently ignorant of the history of thought, has simply labored to give a new expression to an ancient doctrine. It is in fact a very primitive conception that we find underlying Worcester’s psychotherapy and Myers’ theory of subconsciousness. Our primeval ancestor, when he saw the moon shining upon him in a friendly manner, felt that he was beholding a personality like his own. Not only the moon, the stars, and every stick and stone, but each organ of the body was supposed to be animated by a separate spirit. Between these spirits there was supposed to exist a subtle sympathy by virtue of which one was capable of acting upon another. Thus, Descartes found it necessary to explain that when the magnet attracted iron filings, it was not because of any sympathy between the magnet and the filings, but through the operation of certain mechanical forces. The notion that the stars exert an influence upon human destiny dies hard, and in medicine the efficacy of mystical signatures and the doctrine of essences and potencies still continue to play a popular role beyond the pale of science. While the psychology of “Religion and Medicine” is the psychology of Myers, Hudson, and Bramwell, the driving force which has brought conviction to Worcester and his associates is Professor William James. “This distinguished writer,” says Dr Worcester,4 “goes on to show how levels of new energy which have remained unutilized may be tapped by the will set to work by various suggestive methods. Thus modern psychology puts its imprimature on a very ancient doctrine.” Without questioning for the present the propriety of identifying in this manner Professor James and modern psychology, we proceed to inquire whether Dr Worcester is justified in thus bringing to his support a distinguished authority.
That James has not been misrepresented, clearly appears from his appraisement of Myers’ contributions to psychology.5 James considers Myers’ investigations and his theory of the subliminal consciousness a contribution of great value. He says, “Looking back from Frederic Myers’ vision of vastness in the field of psychological research upon the programme as most academic psychologists frame it, one must confess that its limitation at their hands seems not only unplausible but in truth a little ridiculous.” He adds, “Myers’ conception of the extensiveness of the Subliminal Self quite overturns the classic notion of what the human mind consists in.” “The outlying Subliminal represents according to him more fully our central and abiding being.” And again he says, “In one shape or another the Subliminal has come to stay with us.” Although Professor James accuses “official” science of refusing to attend to subconscious phenomena, as a matter of fact, science lias concerned itself with subliminal phenomena since the days of Descartes^ to whom we owe the theory of automatic and reflex functions of the nervous system, which made possible the development first of modern physiology and then of psychology. Every few seconds the eyelid sweeps over the eyeball, removing dust and keeping moist its anterior surface. Is this the work of a beneficent consciousness or merely reflex action ? Where are we to draw the line in ascribing consciousness to the lower nerve elements? For example, the heart muscle through its nervous ganglia shows remarkable powers of spontaneous automatism, keeping up its ceaseless rhythm with but slight modifications throughout a life-time. Should we not then recognize within the heart a soul which does its duty nobly without personal interest or gratification? Some one has said that the first cry of the newborn child is the wail of a pure soul thrust into a world of sin. Shall we permit theories of subconsciousness to revive fanciful speculations of this kind, or shall we continue to follow the development of physiological and psychological science, and ascribe the cry of the child to purely mechanical processes? If we are to accept Myers’ theory of subconsciousness, Descartes labored in vain, and the sciences of psychology and physiology have been erected upon an insecure foundation.6
In this issue, therefore, it is William James versus science. To uphold his side of the contention, James is compelled to attack current psychology just as Worcester is compelled to attack current medicine. Like Worcester, also, he proceeds to the attack by accusing psychology of narrowness. “I record my bare opinion here,” he says in another place, “unsupported by the evidence, not, of course, in order to convert anyone to my view, but because I am persuaded that a serious study of these trance phenomena is one of the greatest needs of psychology, and think that my personal confession may possibly draw a reader or two into a field which the soi-disant ‘scientist’ usually refuses to explore.”7 And all this from an acquaintance with the trances of one medium, Mrs. Piper, whom Professor James calls “my own white crow,” who upsets for him the general law that all crows are black, meaning all mediums are frauds.8 It is not our intention to show that Professor James wilfully misrepresents the attitude of scientific men toward these phenomena. Men of science have explored this field, and some have had their fingers badly burned by playing with the fire of charlantary and deceit. Almost all of them have gained enough acquaintance with the methods of James, Hodgson, and Myers, to feel that these men utterly fail to appreciate BTo appreciate the scientific conceptions which have but recently been outgrown and to which Myers and James would have us return, consult “A Sketch of the History of Reflex Action,” by G. Stanley Hall and C. F. Hodge, American Journal of Psychology, Vol. Ill, pp. 71 ff., 149 ff., and 343 ff. ‘“Principles of Psychology,” Vol. I, p. 39G. 8”The Will to Believe,” p. 319.
the first principles of scientific experimentation.9 Our purpose is not to answer James, but to define his position. He does this best himself in an article entitled, “What Psychical Research Has Accomplished,” published in the Forum for August, 1892. In this article, James makes “Nevius gives frank expression to the conditions which are usually insisted upon in these experiments. “Any experiment to be successful must conform to all the conditions of the case. An experiment with spirits can never be like one made in chemistry or physics. A spirit is an intelligent and moral being who may be supposed to have some choice as to where and how to exhibit its presence and power. A spirit must be sensitive to the moral conditions and atmosphere that surround it, and must be governed by moral affinities and antipathies. Things that a spirit will do in one company it cannot or will not do in another. If spirits have anything to do with these phenomena they have some purpose in what they do, and are seeking to accomplish some end. They will naturally do most where the conditions are most favorable to this end… . Yet in the presence of persons in whom there may be recognized a sufficiently pronounced moral antagonism, the medium or spirit may be utterly helpless, or so guarded that nothing is done.” (“Demon Possession and Allied Themes,” pp. 317318.) Dr Horace Howard Furness found that Professor James considered “unfair to the medium,” questions involving an alternative, where the alternative lay between very strong contrasts. Spirits always prefer the remote to the near, the extraordinary to the ordinary. For example, a spirit is announced; Dr Furness asks, “Is it the spirit of a white man or an Indian?” The answer will invariably be, “An Indian.” A spirit informs the sitter through the medium that when in this life he was always interested in books. “Are they ordinary sized books or large books?” The answer will be, “Large books.” “Are they books to read, or books to write in, like keeping accounts.” The answer will be, “They are books to keep accounts in.” “Are the accounts kept in dollars and cents, or in pounds, shillings, and pence.” The answer will be, “In pounds, shillings, and pence.”
I had an opportunity personally to ascertain Hodgson’s temper and attitude. On one occasion he travelled from Boston to Philadelphia to examine a medium who had been discovered by my colleague, Professor Newbold. My method with mediums is passively to await developments, and, wishing neither to interfere nor give suggestions, I took no part in the proceedings until Professor Newbold announced that the writing hand of the medium was calling for me. I then went to the medium from the corner of the room where I was otherwise occupied, and saw that the medium had written words that looked like “my boy.” I took special care not to read these words myself, and forced the medium to write them several times. Professor Newbold announced from the appearance of these words and of a word that looked like “father,” “It’s your father speaking to you; ask him what he wants.” I then asked, “Is this my father who wants to speak to me?” and the answer came, “Yes.” I then said to the hand, “What do you want to say?” In reply to this and other questions the hand gave me a lengthy communication involving a watch, a dog, my brothers and sister. Throughout, I asked no leading question whatever, but took simply what the hand gave, without suggestion. At the end of the seance, which thoroughly disposed of this medium, for my father was still living, Mr. Hodgson was extremely indignant, contending that I had treated the medium unfairly. I claimed that in the presence of a communication from a supposed spirit, I must receive in utter ignorance the information given me, no matter how startling it might appear. I must not be supposed even to know that my reputed father was my real father. Moreover, I knew so little about the behavior of spirits, that I was just as ready to receive a communication through the medium’s hand from a living father as from a dead relative. This single experience of Hodgson’s attitude toward what I believe to have been a sound scientific procedure, was sufficient to destroy any confidence I may previously have had in his methods of experimentation.?Editor. his confession of faith, and announces himself the leader of an antiscientific revolt. We quote the crucial statements of this article as they are given by the author of a book on “Demon Possession and Allied Themes/’10 who seized upon them to support a belief in the existence of demons, in much the same way that James’ general attitude toward science is used by Worcester to sound the key-note of “Religion and Medicine.”
“We believe in all sorts of laws of nature which we cannot ourselves understand, merely because men whom we admire and trust vouch for them.
“If Messrs. Helmholtz, Huxley, Pasteur, and Edison were simultaneously to announce themselves as converts to clairvoyance, thought-transference and ghosts, who can doubt that there would be a popular stampede in that direction? We should have as great a slush of ‘telepathy’ in the scientific press as we now have of ‘suggestion’ in the medical press. We should hasten to invoke mystical explanations without winking, and fear to be identified with a bygone regime if we held back. In society we should eagerly let it be known that we had always thought there was a basis of truth in haunted houses, and had, as far back as we could remember, had faith in demoniacal possession.
“Now, it is certain that if the cat ever does jump this way the cautious methods of the S. P. R. (Society for Psychical Research) will give it a position of extraordinary influence.
10Nevius, “Demon Possession and Allied Themes,” p. 431. The general conclusion of this book is,?”It would seem that every age and country present phenomena which exhibit, in some variety of form, the reality of demon intercourse with men, and of demon-possession. The demoniac is an involuntary victim of possession. The willing subject becomes a medium.” P. 332. James says of this work: “This interesting contribution to mental pathology would probably fifteen years ago have gained for its author a reputation for nothing but mendacity or childish credulity in scientific circles; but now, thanks to the ‘apperceiving mass’ which recent investigations into trance conditions have prepared, probably few readers of this journal [The Psychological Review, September, 1895] will be seriously tempted to doubt its being a trustworthy report of facts… . Epidemics of possession like those recorded in Savoy by Constans and Chiap e Franzolini are not related by Dr Nevius. The phenomena are among the most constant in history, and it is most extraordinary that ‘science’ should ever have become blind to them. The form which they take in our community is the benign one of mediumship. Dr Nevius is a believer in the reality of the alleged demons, and in the objectivity of their driving out in the name of Christ, etc. Such questions cannot be fairly discussed, however, till the phenomena have been more adequately studied. Dr Nevius gives a large amount of collateral material and bibliographical information; and we have to thank him for an extremely good contribution to a really important subject.”
The writer of a supplement to the third edition of “Demon Possession and Allied Themes” says, “And so its use to psychology has been highly approved in the Psychological Review by Dr William “James of Harvard University, a physician whose eminence in psychology is international, whose writings are the most fascinating and the most read in his field.” “Now, the present writer (not wholly insensible to the ill consequences of putting himself on record as a false prophet) must candidly express his own suspicion that sooner or later the cat must jump this way.
“The special means of his conversion have been the trances of the medium whose case in the ‘Proceedings’ was alluded to above. “I find myself also suspecting that the thought-transference experiments, the veridical hallucinations, the crystal vision, yea, even the ghosts, are sorts of things, which with the years will tend to establish themselves. All of us live more or less on some inclined plane of credulity. The plane tips one way in one man, another way in another; and may he whose plane tips in no way be the first to cast a stone!
“But whether the other things establish themselves more and more or grow less and less probable, the trances I speak of have broken down for my own mind the limits of the admitted order of nature. Science, so far as science denies such exceptional facts, lies prostrate in the dust for me; and the most urgent intellectual need which I feel at present is that science be built up again in a form in which such facts shall have a positive place.”
In these words, William James deliberately opens a campaign for occultism. He essays, alone, what he predicts will let loose a flood of scientific “slush,”?the task which he asserts Helmholtz, Huxley, Pasteur, and Edison might have accomplished. In one respect at least, James is undoubtedly right. Most men are incapable of independent thought, because sound logical conclusions follow only upon a right method of thinking, and the necessary training in right method requires experience and painstaking effort. It is therefore highly creditable to the thinking portion of the American people that so few converts have been made to these new superstitions on James’ authority. Seventeen years have elapsed since James opened his campaign, and we still await the announcement that the first American scientist has jumped with the cat after Mrs. Piper, thought-transference, veridical hallucinations, crystal vision, and ghosts.
Thus far we have shown Professor James in the attitude of an individual authority versus the science of psychology, but we shall see that he has called to his aid an even higher authority than his own. In the year 1898 he appeared before the joint committee of the Massachusetts legislature on Public Health. He is reported to have said, “I am here having no axes to grind except the axe of truth, that ‘Truth’ for which Harvard University, of which I am an officer, professes to exist. I am a doctor of medicine, and count some of the advocates of this proposed law among my dearest friends, and well do I know how I shall stand in their eyes hereafter for standing to-day in my present position. But I cannot look on passively, and I must urge my point. That point is this: that the commonwealth of Massachusetts is not a medical body, has no right to a medical opinion, and should not dare to take side in a medical controversy.”11
Professor James’ appearance before the legislature was for the purpose of opposing a bill which was intended, according to the secretary of the Board of Registration in Medicine, to protect the citizens of the commonwealth of Massachusetts from the Christian Science practitioner and other charlatans. It must be left to those more nearly concerned to determine whether an officer of an institution of learning is justified in using the name of his institution in such an adventure. But we feel at liberty to take exception to Professor James’ right to speak in the name of Truth spelled with a capital T, and in the name of the profession of medicine. Obtaining his medical degree from Harvard University in 1870, Dr James, so far as we know, never engaged in the active practice of medicine. He taught from 1872 to 1880 in the Harvard Medical School as instructor and assistant in comparative anatomy and physiology. Since 1880 his path has widely diverged from that of the medical practitioner. Professor James had scarcely more right than any recent medical graduate, to speak before the state legislature of Massachusetts as a doctor of medicine, which doubtless meant to his auditors a practitioner of medicine.
The recognition which Professor James has obtained as a psychologist is also used at times to support his individual opinions. In the article on Frederic Myers, Professor James says, “As for years I occupied the chair of Professor of Psychology, the suggestion has been made and by me gladly welcomed, that I should spend my portion of this hour in defining the exact place and rank which we must accord to him as a cultivator and promotor of the science of the mind.” Using as he does in this passage, the academic position of professor of psychology, it is quite in place for The Psychological Clinic to examine the basis of Professor James’ claim to speak in this authoritative way as a representative of the science of psychology. Is William James a psychologist, is he a scientist? The son of a Swedenborgian mystic and writer,12 William James was born in the year 1842. He attended the Lawrence Scientific School but took no degree, and subsequently graduated from the Harvard Medical School in 1870, where he taught from 1872 until 1880 as instructor and assistant in comparative anatomy and physiology. Professor James may therefore be said to have had at least the training of a man of “From “Hearings on Proposed Medical Bills in Massachusetts and New York,” reprinted from the Christian Science Journal, April, 1908. “William James’ mysticism and intellectual nonconformity may be attributed to his Swedenborgian parentage. Henry James, the father, “studied law for a time and then, in 1833, entered Princeton Theological Seminary, though he no longer assented to some of the articles of the Calvinistic Creed. The effect of his unorthodox opinions upon the other students being objected to, he withdrew in 1835, and, going to England, there pursued the study of theology and of philosophy. In that country he science. In 1880 he became assistant professor of philosophy and in 1885 professor of philosophy. In 1889 he assumed the chair of psychology which he held until 1897, when he again returned to the chair of philosophy. Alone of the larger universities of this country, Harvard still fails to make a definite distinction between the departments of philosophy and psychology. Their philosophers teach and write psychology, and their psychologist teaches and writes philosophy. A philosopher-psychologist, temperamentally interested in mysticism, professionally engaged in philosophy, and temporarily assuming the role of a psychologist, Professor James represents to-day the survival of an academic tradition. In addition to his eight years occupancy of the chair of psychology at Harvard, his claim to recognition as a psychologist is based upon the publication in 1890 of a work entitled “The Principles of Psychology.” Gifted with a charming literary style, a keen sense for the dramatic in presentation, and a love of speculation without any positive determination to arrive at a solution, James has produced the most popular text book in psychology. This book is accepted by many as a standard work on the subject. As a matter of fact, it represents a transition between old and new psychology, and partakes more of the spirit and methods of the old than of the new.
We turn now to a characteristic attitude of James towards distinctly scientific problems. Modern psychology is distinguished by the experimental method. James certainly is not an experimentalist in the sense that he has conducted experimental investigations of any importance. It is possible, however, to call a writer scientific, if he systematizes experimental results obtained by others, and, with a sympathetic appreciation of what has been accomplished, presents views serviceable for the further development of the science. At the time when James’ book on psychology was written, there was one problem which held the center of interest. This was the problem of Weber’s law, which became of great importance after Fechner’s researches and theoretic formulations, and which really served as the starting point for the definite development of experimental psychology. Worcester takes cognizance of this position of Fechner and Weber in the following words: “We believe with Professor James that the subconscious powers of the mind really exist and that the recognition of them forms the most important advance which psychology has made since the days of Fechner and Weber.” While James would accept this statement so far as the subconscious powers of the mind are became acquainted with the sect of the Sandemanians, and after his return (1839) he published an edition of Sandeman’s ‘Letters on Theron and Aspasia.’ In 1840 he put out a pamphlet, ‘Remarks on the Apostolic Gospel,’ in which he affirmed the divinity of Christ, though denying the doctrine of the Trinity. Revisiting Europe in 1843, Mr. James became a convert to the doctrines of Swedenborg. He objected, however, to the ecclesiasticism of the New Jerusalem church, and formulated his opposition in a lecture delivered in Albany, ‘What is the State?’ (1846) and in a ‘Letter to a Swedenborgian’ (1847).” (National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Vol. XIII, p. 66.) concerned, Worcester scarcely expresses James’ opinion of Fechner and Weber. For the work of these men, James himself has nothing but half-liumorous contempt. “Those who desire this dreadful literature,” he says, “can find it; it has a ‘disciplinary value’; but I will not even enumerate it in a foot note.”13 Professor Titchener, to whom we owe not only the newest but also the most exhaustive work in the English language on experimental psychology, replies that it depends on the measure of interest one takes in the subject matter, whether or not a literature appears dreadful. Titchener finds it necessary to devote two volumes to the presentation of this literature, and after analyzing James’ views in detail, comes to the conclusion that they “have done real harm to the cause of experimental psychology in America.”14 While the truth of this statement is doubtless realized by other psychologists, it has not elsewhere been so frankly acknowledged. In the early nineties of the last century some of the most important investigations connected with the problem of Weber’s law and the psycho-physical methods, made their appearance in this country, and for a brief moment American science led in the development of the psycho-physical theory. This lead could easily have been maintained, but after these early publications, nothing of any importance appeared until Titchener’s, an Englishman’s, book. It may be a mere coincidence that interest in these problems was suddenly lost at the time of the appearance of the “Principles of Psychology,” but it is more likely to have been due to this book, since American students would naturally be unwilling to waste their time upon problems known to them only through the contemptuous remarks of an authority whom they consider competent, because he. holds a professor’s chair and has published the most popular text book in the science.
James’ attitude, even toward more general problems of psychology, is one of utter weariness at the difficult task of investigation on a scientific basis. It looks like intellectual asthenia, but it is really the boredom of an emotional and mystical temperament forced to dig when it would like to fly. Naturally, therefore, he gives expression to such debilitating opinions as the following:?”Perhaps you will ask me what are the practical benefits conferred on the world by this interesting science. So far as I am able to discern, absolutely none.”15 Thus might a poet feel toward the progress that has been made in the science of electricity from Faraday to Edison. The poet’s opinion would scarcely influence the course of science or the feelings of the practical man as he turns on the electric light. But a clever writer with a poet’s make-up, backed by an academic position, is capable of arresting to an “”Principles of Psychology,” Vol. I. p. 549. “”Experimental Psychology,” Vol. II, Introduction, p. cxvi. Titchener adds, “Young students must be urged to ‘plough through the difficulties’ of Fechner’s books, if they are presently to become psychologists: and James’ criticism, which is mainly a criticism of temperament and not of reason, gives them an excuse to shirk these difficulties.” 15R. and M., p. 15.
appreciable extent the progress of a science which has still its place to win in the world.
While James contributes neither in fact nor in spirit to the results and methods of modern experimental psychology, the science might yet owe him much for the development of its theory. James’ contributions to the theories of the science appear to be important. A theory of the emotions goes by the name of the James-Lange theory, but the difference between James’ method and that of Lange is well known in this connection. James has contributed a phrase, a paradox, and literary expression, whereas Lange has contributed results which, whether they be accepted or ultimately rejected, have played a determining part in the development of the analysis of the emotions. James’ exposition of the theory is chiefly useful to arouse to a newer point of view those in whom reflection is moribund. Throughout the “Principles of Psychology,” the dramatic, the sensational, and the unusual, have played the leading roles. For this reason the work is a stimulus rather than a treatise?a book for the beginner, and not for the scholar. That it has had a tremendous influence in arousing an interest in psychological questions and has assisted in the development of the science is only an evidence of the low level of scientific work in this country. Wundt’s Grundzuge der physiologischen Psycliologie is still the great compendium of information in modern psychology. The last edition of this work appeared in 1903. To make it an authoritative record, the entire literature of psychology has been scanned for worthy contributions to the science. In this encyclopaedic work not a statement of fact nor an acceptable theory is reported on the authority of James, unless we except the statement that deaf mutes whose labyrinth is destroyed do not seem to be exposed to dizziness.16
18Wundt refers to James nine times in the course of three volumes:? I, 357. In a footnote, James is cited as an opponent of the analytic method, who is yet compelled to resort to a partial analysis of the stream of thought, because otherwise a psychological investigation would be impossible; but J. does not carry out the analysis so far as to arrive at the “simple elements,” stopping short at a point which he fixes arbitrarily. II, 26. In a footnote, J. is cited as one of the supporters of a theory which W. calls suspect (psycliologiscli bcdenklich). II, 40. In a footnote, J. is cited as one of the supporters of a view which W. considers to rest upon an obviously insufficient acquaintance with the facts.
II, 307-8. The only reference of any length. After quoting J., “we do not cry, because we are sad, but we are sad, because we cry,” W. says in effect, “Even the paradoxical inversion of the causality of feelings, given by James and Lange, has at least the relative merit of emphasizing the intensifying effect which is exerted upon sensations of strong feeling-tone accompanying the emotions, although this effect was known long ago.” W. then proceeds to discuss the fundamental defect of these and all other physiological theories of feeling. II, 478. In a footnote, J. is cited as one of several authorities for the statement that deaf-mutes whose labyrinth is destroyed do not seem to be subject to dizziness.
We therefore find little warrant in fact for considering James a psychologist,17 in the meaning which must be given to this term since G. Stanley Hall brought “psychology” from Germany and established the first laboratory of the science at Johns Hopkins University. James’ propaganda for occultism forces us reluctantly to question his authority as a psychologist, but we have no desire to detract in any way from his distinction as a litterateur, whose work is characterized by a pronounced interest in psychological subjects. The art of William James resembles that of his brother Henry, although the medium in which they give expression to their thought and feeling differs greatly. William James may be something far better than a psychologist. The science of philology is a very different human product from the drama, and yet both concern themselves with words. In the estimation of the world, the dramatist takes a higher position than the philologian, but this does II, G55. In a footnote, J. is enumerated among the representatives of a certain type of nativistic theories of space, all of which theories W. asserts involve hopeless contradictions.
III, 241. J.’s theory of the emotions is mentioned as a radical expression of the “sensational theory,” emphasizing the mimetic and pantomimic accompaniments. W. calls the sensational theory an entirely arbitrary hypothesis which corresponds neither with the entrance (into consciousness) and course of these acompaniments nor with the facts of introspection. Ill, 298. In a footnote, J. is cited as a representative of one of the theories of the will which are essentially transcendental.
Ill, 568. In a footnote, J. is cited as one of those present-day psychologists who follow Hartley in theorizing on the physiology of sensations. “In discussing some of James’ contributions to the psychology of religion, Hall says: “Although the most brilliant litterateur and stylist in philosophy since Schopenhauer, unless it be Nietzsche, whose diathesis his so resembles, our leading American in this field, a most copious and judicious quoter and such a masterly describer of his own even flitting and evanescent subjective psychic processes, with both person and page invested with such irresistible charm, his method, and many of his positions here, seem to do no less violence to fact than do his dicta concerning sex. Most of the cases and experiences which constitute so large a part of his volume are abnormal and some teratological, from which true religion, I believe, saves its followers. These pathological varieties of religious experience can explain piety itself no more than the mental and physical freaks of hysteria explain true womanhood, the Wiertz museum explain art, or the effects of music on the insane show its real nature. That God is proven by an hallucinatory sense of presence, that the religion of the healthyminded is mind cure, that immortality is demonstrated by ghostly telepathy, and that the lurid experiences of pious Streberthum, saturated by affectation, impressionism, and the passion to be unique and interesting, described in colors laid on with a trowel and all marked by an abandon and superlativeness that throws scientific caution and moderation to the winds, and which, at the best, are only a few of the most superficial phenomena of the adolescent ferment?this seems to me the babel of Babylon or of Walpurgis night, and not the music of the heavenly city. True, the psychopathic temperament has advantages, but they are at best only literary, and it is itself essentially both anti-religious and anti-scientific. Many if not most of these ‘experiences’ are the yellow literature of religious psychology.” “Adolescence,” Vol. II. pp. 292-3.
not warrant the dramatist in using his position, real or assumed, to establish standards of criticism for the philologian. As a matter of fact, James belongs to the list of semi-scientific, semi-imaginative writers of whom Maeterlinck is one of the best examples.18 In biology the place of Burroughs, Maeterlinck, Thompson-Seton, and others is fixed beyond the confines of the science. Full credit may be given to the work which these men do, although its effect upon the science itself may be small. Psychology, however, is not yet so far advanced that the natural history attitude and method may be clearly distinguished from the strictly scientific phases of development. James himself commends the natural history method, which he so conspicuously exemplifies. He says, “Behind the minute anatomists and the physiologists with their metallic instruments, there have always stood the outdoor naturalists with their eyes and love of concrete nature. The former call the latter superficial, but there is something wrong with your laboratory biologist who has no sympathy with living animals. In psychology there is a similar distinction. Some psychologists are fascinated by the varieties of mind in living action, others by the dissecting out, whether by logical analysis or by brass instruments, of whatever elementary mental processes may be there.”19 We cannot eat our cake and have it too, nor can we dissect the human mind and at the same moment palpitate with emotion over its fascinating varieties. It is as foolish to attack the psychologist upon this score as it would be to assert that the physiological chemist who analyzes the contents of the stomach ignores the fact that there is such a human sensation as hunger. Tiddledewinks and picture puzzles differ essentially from the game of chess. Perhaps they are better games. Certainly they make a wider appeal and are socially more useful, but none the less when one is playing chess it is desirable to play the game according to its rules and for all there is in it. Professor James’ criticism of science, if allowed to stand, would brush aside the logical and experimental methods which the human intellect has developed as rules of the game.
With unusual charm of manner and literary style, with an outspoken sympathy for every human interest, William James has won recognition as our leading American psychologist through sheer force of personality. Nothing but a realization of the danger to the public and of the injury to psychology, which result from his using his professional authority to build up a modern occultism, would justify us in questioning this authority. The spoiled child of American psychology, exempt from all serious criticism, and the beau ideal of a large and cultured circle, Professor James, since the publication of his “Principles of Psychology,” has apparently relaxed the intellectual inhibition which every man should exert over his desires. The wish, from being father to the thought, becomes father to the fact as well.20 Characterized throughout a long life by an unusual fairness of mind, we find him at last becoming so tolerant of all beliefs that he is willing to exalt the value of systems which to the common-sense judgment contain but very few grains of truth. “Our scientific respectability keeps us from exercising the mystical potrions of our nature freely. If we are doctors, our mind-cure sympathies, if we are mind-curists, our medical sympathies are tied up.21 The “Will to Believe” throws down the ordinary canons of truth and offers emotional value as a substitute. “Faith in a fact can help create the fact.”22 In “Pragmatism” James practically asserts that a principle is true because it appears to work. Pragmatism affords a good philosophic basis for Christian Science, but a very insecure foundation for real science.23 It says in effect that the difficulties of arriving at truth are too great, and that scientific methods carry us forward too short a distance. Therefore a short cut is made, which does not solve the difficulties, but like Christian Science, sidesteps the issue and refuses to acknowledge their existence. Dr Worcester is a follower of James into this field of philosophic speculation. “In spite of John Stuart Mill, the most powerful motive of religion will ever be the Practical Motive, and by the Practical Motive we mean believing because it is good and useful to believe, believing what is good and useful to believe. We are never at a loss to find reasons for what we wish to believe.24 Flammarion also exhibits an hypertrophied “will to believe.” In discussing 20As for example in.?”As regards prayers for the sick, if any medical fact can be considered to stand firm, it -is that in certain environments prayer may contribute to recovery and should be encouraged as a therapeutic measure.” (Quoted in R. and M., p. 309.) Surely we may believe in the therapeutic efficacy of prayer without believing it to be a medical fact as well established as the physiological action of castor oil. James himself says,?”All depends on the character of the personal contribution x. Wherever the facts to be formulated contain such a contribution, we may logically, legitimately, and inexpugnably believe what we desire. The belief creates its verification. The thought becomes literally father to the fact, as the wish was father to the thought.” (“The Will to Believe,” pp. 102-103.)
21”The Energies of Men,” Philosophical Reviciv, Vol. XVI, p. 3. It is curious to find James accepted by people of orthodox religious belief. For example, this opinion is widely and favorably quoted, “It is quite obvious that a wave of religious activity, analogous in some respects to the spread of early Christianity, Buddhism, and Mohammedanism, is passing over our American world.’’ To understand the significance of this passage it is necessary to take it in connection with the context, which is as follows, “We are just now witnessing?but our scientific education has unfitted most of us for comprehending the phenomenon?a very copious unlocking of energies by ideas, in the persons of those converts to ‘New Thought,’ ‘Christian Science,’ ‘Metaphysical Healing,’ or other forms of spiritual philosophy, who are too numerous among us to-day. The ideas here are healthy-minded and optimistic; and it is quite obvious that a wave of religious activity, analogous in many respects to the spread of early Christianity, Buddhism, and Mohammedanism is passing over our American world.” (“The Energies of Men,” The Psilosophical Review, Vol. XVI, pp. 16-17.) 22”Tlie Will to Believe,” p. 25. 2Tliis refers only to the James variety of pragmatism. 24R. and M., p. 11.
the disclosures of fraud on the part of the medium, Eusapia Paladino, he says, “When one has the conviction that something real exists, one always returns, in spite of incessant trickery.”25 Philosophy may be, as James believes, “more a matter of passionate vision than of logic,20 but usually, pasionate vision has been the sphere of the poet and prophet, while philosophy has concerned itself with the logical foundation of whatever visions, true or false, may come to man. We pause to consider one more instance of the scientific “slush”27 whose source is to be found in James’ example and teaching. A fervid imagination, unrestrained by logical method, has swept a physician out of his clinic into the philosopher’s chair.28 It is remarkable that it does not seem to have crossed Dr Putnam’s mental horizon that for him to give birth to a system of philosophy which antagonizes the current trend of scientific thought is analogous to a clergyman’s picking up a theory like the similia similibus curantur and building thereon a complete system of therapeutics. We marvel at the naivete of such statements as the following: “Philosophic doctrines leaning toward ‘idealism’ of some sort have indeed made of late much progress, and many men who might deny them verbally are ready to die, if need be, in behalf of the truths for which such doctrines stand?the reality of love and justice and freedom of the will.”29 Idealism, as a matter of fact, has made not a little continuous progress since the time of Descartes. An outspoken determinism like Huxley’s may rest upon an idealistic foundation. Whether Huxley, or anybody else, has ever been ready to die for the reality of love, we are unable to say. A mother may show her willingness to die for the concrete love of her child, but to die for love in the abstract, even for justice in the abstract, and above all to die for such an abstraction as the freedom of the will, would seem to require a very unusual measure of the instinct of useless self-destruction. The substitution of emotion for thought so characteristic of the philosophy of James, appears in the following gem: “At first sight the students of the exact sciences seem safe guides. But in fact the worlds conceived of by biology and physics are but fictitious and conventional figments. The materials for their construction are but heaps of atoms, piles of stones, with nothing between them but blind ‘forces,’ really another set of ‘facts,’ a poor substitute for the human consciousness heav?H. Addington Bruce. “The Progress of Psychical Research.” The Forum, Vol. XL, p. 579.
26Hil)J)ert Journal, Vol. VII, No. 2, p. 294. 27In addition to current periodicals, which are full of it, see Baker, Ray Stannard, “New Ideals in HealingFallows, the Rt. Rev. Samuel, “Health and Happiness, or, Religious Therapeutics and Right Living;” McGomb, S., “Healing Ministry of the ChurchMacDonald, R., “Mind, Religion and HealthSanford, Dr A. E., and Drum, Rev. Walter, “Pastoral Medicine.” -sJames J. Putnam, M.D., “The Philosophy of Psychotherapy.” Psychotherapy, Vol. I, No. 1, p. 17 ff. 29Psychotherapy, Vol. I, No. 1, p. 19. ing with emotion.”30 We try our best to imagine the process of construction when between the piles of stones, instead of the customary mortar, we place a human consciousness heaving with emotion. When arguments fail Dr Putnam, poetry helps him out. He incorporates a poem of Schiller’s which advises us to get into our boat, and, without a pilot, but with inspiration as our guide, sail on, just believing and daring, for thus only through a marvel can we reach the land of marvels.
Thus inspired, Dr Putnam finds that the world which the physicist considers “heaps of atoms and of forces” is really “a world of ‘persons,’ and the streams of atoms and of forces are signs and symbols of the constructive, purposeful activity of some unifying consciousness, partaking, like all symbols, of the actual nature of the thing they stand for. This cataract of waves, assumed to be but particles of inert matter, reveals itself as human voices instinct with reason and emotion. In lieu of ‘sequences’ we find causality and creation actually at work.” We need Dr Putnam’s assurance that this is “a world of ‘values,’ and one in great part approved by common sense.” We rejoice with him that this world in a measure satisfies his longings, and we learn with real regret that “When we strive to live wholly and permanently in this newfound, timeless world of ‘values,’ we find that it is impossible.” After all, “we must accept the physicist’s devices as admirable and indispensable, even when we cast aside their claim to represent reality.” Even though Dr Putnam is confident that he has found a better and surer way to grasp the “inner meaning of the universe,” he admits what the perusal of his philosophy has already led us to suppose,?that the task is “too difficult for reason, difficult even for faith.”
While this cosmology of Putnam’s is a museum specimen, we note throughout its exposition the reverberation of obscurantist elements from Professor Royce’s philosophy. We are therefore not surprised to find that Professor Royce is one of the “well certified authorities,” whom he “principally” followed in piecing together this travesty on metaphysics. In Worcester also, we find an obscurantism of similar origin. “We often hear men say, ‘Faith belongs to religion; knowledge is the mark of science; the weakness of religion is its uncertainty; the strength of science it its firm standing on the bed-rock of observation and experiment.’ Yet as Professor Eoyce has abundantly shown, the whole structure of science rests upon a body of great faiths, of beliefs which must be trusted but cannot be proved… . Such a faith which lies behind all the great scientific advances and discoveries of the modern world must be first accepted and relied on, and in proportion as it is accepted and relied on it evinces its genuineness.”31 30Psychotherapy, Vol. I, No. 1, p. 34. 81R. and M., p. 290; referring to Royce, “The Religious Aspects of Philosophy,” pp. 291-324.
Professor Royce has been more guarded in indicating the popular implications of his obscurantist attitude than James has been in exploiting the occult and mystical elements of his psycho-philosophical theories, or than Miinsterberg in the application of psychological methods and results to law, medicine, and everyday affairs.32 Royce’s work, moreover, has been thought out in more deliberate fashion, and presents a point of view and a system of philosophy which would require, in order to do them justice, an exhaustive treatment not suitable to this journal. Nevertheless, in these pragmatic times we may justly judge a tree by its fruits, and in the work of Worcester and Putnam, we discover Royce’s obscurantism performing its appointed task. In the preface to the “Philosophy of Loyalty,” Royce mentions Dr Cabot and Dr Putnam among the friends to whom he is indebted for “direct and indirect aid” in preparing the book, and for “criticisms and other suggestions.”33 However Royce may feel toward Putnam’s perspicuous display of philosophic absurdities, there has been an admitted interchange of intellectual inspiration. Moreover, Royce is announced and pictured as a contributor to Psychotherapy, and promises an article on “Idealism and Spiritual Health.” The gifts which the three wise men of our most venerable institution of learning lay at the feet of the infant science in this country are obscurantism, occultism, and bluff. If any supporter of the scientific “slush” whose outpouring Professor James predicted, flings at us such stones of rhetoric and false logic as “materialism” and “soulless psychology,” we appeal, in reply, to the practical outcome of our psychology,?the social forces with which we believe ourselves to be aligned. Many shades of opinion are represented in the multiplicity of current movements toward social and individual betterment. To the aid of these diverse movements, The Psychological Clinic wishes to bring the best that modern psychology can offer. They include the Emmanuel Movement itself, so far as its spiritual, moral, and social elements are concerned; the Y. M. C. A., which for so many years has proved a healthful influence in the lives of adolescents; the combination of religious, social, and economic forces represented by modern philanthropic work, by church labor organizations, prison reform work, public hygiene, the anti-tuberculosis campaign, the Juvenile Court, special schools, the agitation for child labor legislation, play-grounds, and social settlements. In other words, The Psychological Clinic stands for everything that the Emmanuelists appear to advocate, except the unbridling of our intellectual inhibitions, the depreciation of science and of the human intellect, the 32For a complete disposal of Miinsterberg’s pretensions, so far as the law is concerned, see “Professor Miinsterberg and the Psychology of Evidence,” by John H. Wigmore, in the Illinois Law Revietc, Vol. Ill (No. 7, February, 1909), pp. 399-444. ^”The Philosophy of Loyalty,” preface, p. xi.
recrudescence of occultism, the popularization of hypnotism, and the practical developments of the theory of subconsciousness, represented by Worcesterism and the thousand and one cults which revive primitive animistic beliefs.
If Dr Worcester’s book and the periodical called Psychotherapy had been isolated phenomena, if they had not made pretensions to represent the science of psychology, and if these pretensions had not been apparently justified, no attention would have been paid to them. They have been subjected to a critical examination, because they are typical examples of the intellectual flotsam borne along on a rising tide of occultism, and because the force of lunar attraction which is lifting this tide to its present high water mark radiates from the philosophical department of our leading American university. The tide which is now at flood will presently ebb. The moonbeams of “anti-science” will fade in the full light of frank discussion. In contributing to this discussion, the purpose of The Psychological Clinic has been to shift the burden of adverse criticism from psychology to those who misrepresent its ideals, methods, and practical results.
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