New-York tribune., 1885-01-25
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
uENpy JAMES.


rup LITERARY REMAINS OF THE LATE HENRY
JAMEs Edited with an Introduction ny WHdiAH " ~
J,yrs l0mo, PIP. All. James X osgood " 20
rho sl;a, task performed by Mr. James in the In
@roduction to this volume will be highly appreciated
i,v those who are interested in his fathers phllo-
sonbical system. 1t is not mere piece OF per
functory work but it is q striking and ntelglDle
expositon of the ideas Of a thinker who certainly
needs sympathetic interpreter. III the eioei
Henry James IS greatly msunderstood-or, per
haps we should say, is not under rtood-the reaSon
is not in his literary STYLE for that Is singuiary
lucid and easy but in the pecusiarIties both OIL his
fundamental thought and Of his method ol aTgu-
ment Mr. James begins with the conception oi
God the Creator, primary fact, not 10 DO u'S-
cussed but to be accepted as unquestonabie. FROM
the Iea of the Creator he proceeds to remarkable
viov of creation as q process forced upon the
Creator by the character of that positively yawnhg
emptiness which is the opposite of himself, ana
with which he has to deal" This process does not
take place bv direct fat exploding the universal
absolutely out of what was previously pure oiaiiA'
but the Creator is obliged TO produce hist al
illusorv stage which by decaying unto itseh oe-
comes surface of rebound for another movement,
tho result of which is real. In some respects thiS
seems to be an echo of Hegel, but MI James eiaoor
ates the idea in his own way. Inc hrst' OF lusor!
nrccess Mr. James calls formation. and the result is
'N"N~
peculiar to himself The second he calls redemption
and the result is Society, not society as we now
have it, but regeneTate social order which we are
to attain at some future time. This will be the
real creation the finished spiritual Work OF Uod
Conscience and religion are faculties belonging W
the illusory stage which have no other function
than that of weaving humanity from the " fallacous
selfhood" which constitutes the distinctive lie oI
unredeemed and unreal natu,e; and being mere
transitory shams they have no worth in thmeseves.
To make full statement OF Mr. Jamess system
would be to write philosophical essay, and for
that thereis occasion. He never founded sehooi
and he has had very few disciples. Nor is 1t likely
that many will ever be attracted toward philoso-
phy which requires many abstruse qualihcatlohs
and unusual definitions that IL is almost lmpoSsioie
to state it without misleading That IL Is
pantheistc the editor hardly denies although Mr..
James himself denounced pantheism 1hat IL re-
pudiates the moral law and derides the religious
sentiment is quite clear and it is of course directly
opposed to the teachings of the Scripture, Tor Which,
nevertheless the author avows a sort of respect.
"We have been additionally taught that good and
evil heaven and hell, objective realities, hav
ing an absolute ground of being in the creative per
fecticn But this is the baldest, most bewlldering
nonsense They have not grain of objective reality
in them and are no way vitazed by the absOlu'e
Divine perfection They are purely subjective ap-
pearances, yitazed exclusively by the created I'M
perfection. or the they subserve to our pro
yisional moral and rational consciousness. when
accordingly this consciOusneSs-haylng more thah
fulfilled its legitimate office and become as II now
is a mere stumbling block rock of offence to the
reeenerate mind of the raee-fnaly expires in its
own STENCIL OF else frankly allows itself to be taken
up and disappear in Ovr advancing social and
aesthetic consciousness, good and evil, heaven and
hell. will cease to be appearances even' note on
page los gives curious illustration of the difficulty
of stating precisely Mr.. JaIness attitude toward
ouestions even so great as the inspiration of the
Bible and the historical truth of the GOSPELS. But
it is plain that out of his writings it would be easy
to deduce lessons of the most radical skeptclsn ana
the most dangerous practical antnomlansm al |
though he himself would have declared such deduc-
tions un varrantable His manner. which is often
vehement to the point of vituperation, might con-
firm the erroneous impression created by super |
fetal study of his theory, for he bestOvs upon what
he regards as philosophical errors great deal OF
that passionate rhetoric which abounds mostly IN
the blatant dlscourses of the lowest order OF nide
lectures: so that we have to pull ourselves to-
cether before we realize that this adversary OF the
churches is q philosopher who builds everything
unon An intense belief in God. 1t must be carefully
observed, however, that what Mr. William james
calls his fathers " somewhat reckless invectlve
bumorp was entirely free from both vulgarity and
intellectual pride.
The Remains now gFen to the public include an
essay on Spiritual Creation" in which the system
family outlined above is set forth in vigorous ana
fascinating English Some Personal Recoections
of Carlyle" reprinted from The atlantic Monthly;
and the fragment of an Autobiography under the
pseudonym of Stephen Dewhurstl, which recently
appeared in the same periodical. With the light
thrown upon it by the Introduction this last piece
becomes much more interesting than it was IN the