The New York herald., 1921-01-09
BOOK REVIEWS
The Philosophers Letters Show Him
A Typical American in His Thinking

A Typical Ameri
THE LETTERS OF WILLIAM JAMES
Edited by his son. Henry James. Two
volumes. The Atlantic Monthly Press.
LINCOLN. THE WORLD EMANCIPATOR-
BY John Drnkwater. Houghton Mfflin
Company.
Reviewed by
ROBERT J. COLE.
TN France it was inevitable that one
should think of Joan Of Arc and Lincoln
= together Indeed, when the great Amer
ican was offered to the French as the best
example of our national traits they spoke
of his kinship in spirit with the Maid OF
Orleans. And our soldiers reverently visited
her birthplace when they were stationed at
Neufchauteau. Sometimes l saw them read
ing Mark Twain's Joan of Arc'' on the
train. 1 used to tell the French that the
contrasting elements of our character were
typically expressed in the passionately seri-
Gus and ideaistic word-portrait of their
noblest figure, drawn by our chief humorist,
who first published the work anonymously.
lest the public should laugh.
Though she found him at Vaucouleurs, 1t
was Baudricourt's lord to whom Joan first
went to ask equipment for her mission to
the Dauphin. To-day Baudricourt is little
half town that shares the railroad station
with Rouvres. On second visit 1 found
there the same extraordinary commandant
who had once told me how the war enabled
him to justify by observation the views he
had formed in peaceful studies of the psy
chology of fear.
So when / had the good fortune to sit
with him and the surgeon and the parish
priest at the hospital I went back to psy-
choogy. I remembered that the first ade-
ouate study of William James was written
in French and had to wait seven years, as
Roosevelt remarked scornfully before 1t was
translated into our own language. I asked
the commandant If he knew James Upon
which he gave better analysis of our great
est philosopher than most Americans could
give.
"And what do you think of his phil
osophy?"
I'm the realm of absolute truth, of thought
removed from experience, his reasoning does
not satisfy me. But he has added something
to our knowledge of that area where expert
ence and reason meet"
It was after this talk with the command
ant that the conception Of a close relation
ship between Lincoln and James began to
enlarge itself in my mind; it has deepened
into the conviction that these two in a
peculiar sense express what America means
to the world. America stands for applica-
ton for the working out into freer, wider
use Of the ideas and principles of science
and philosophy.
It is very difficult so to state this as not
to give the impression of something merely
external. But as Woodberry says, descrip
ton Is inferior to utterance. And Abraham
Lincoln and William James did not merely
describe the American idea, they uttered 1t
with such complete eloquence as comes only
from the whole man. Read their letters,
addresses and other works together and this
characteristic passion in both to find the
realization Of principle in practice becomes
evident
Neither man was a materialist. Neither
admitted for a moment that living is mere
scramble for advantage. On the other hand
both insisted that life might and should
result in advantage, not to one man at the
expense of another, but to each in the
process of aiding ALL
James's pragmatism has been curtly de-
fined as the theory that nothing is good
sunless it works. 1t seems to me truer to
say that he distrusted the conclusions, even
from the absolute point Of view of mind
that tries to think its way alone to the
undiscovered pole of truth. Such a mind is
like one who walks over untrodden snow
with no familiar landmarks. He believes
that he is walking straight but presently
finds himself again at the starting point.
The doctrine of James and Lincoln Is
that truth may be absolute but man has no
absolute method of approach to her. At
each step he must find place for his foot
to rest. Lincoln believed in ideals of liberty
as profoundly as did the abolitionists. But
he sought to build a highway over which
the whole nations feet might walk James
was no less concerned with ideas than other
philosophers. But he said one day to a pupil
and friend:
well, Miller. that theory's not O warm
reality to me yet-still a cold conception"
And in a letter to Palmer he breaks out:
when you come down to the facts. what
do your harmonious and integral ideal sys-
TENS prove to be? In the concrete? Always
things burst by the growing contact of expert
ence. The barbarians are in the line
Of mental growth, and those who do insist
that the ideal and the real are dynamically
continuous are those by whom the world
is to be saved" Note that he does not deny
the IDEAL he simply demands that it be not
divorced from our actual experience. He does
not ask that violet be made into salad or
that musician dig bitches. He asks fulfil
ment. but he finds IL no less in pure beauty
than in what Is more commonly called USE
full" In q letter from Greece. he said,