The entire man, who feels all needs by turns, will take nothing as an equivalent for life but the fullness of living itself. William James

The household in which William James grew up was unusual: besides James himself it contained three other exceptionally gifted individuals. Henry James, the father, was a frequent writer on religious topics, a friend of Emerson and Carlyle, and a conversationalist of primary magnitude. Brother Henry turned to England and the novel. And William's sister Alice, whom some felt to be the brightest member of the family, suffered throughout her life from a particularly severe variation of the frailty cum neurasthenia that afflicted her brothers.

The father occupied his time with study, meditation, and writing--he had no recognized profession that took him from his home. Though his children were not especially receptive to his ideas, his son Henry, Jr., declared that the "felt side-wind of their strong composition was that the family became "genially interested in almost nothing but each other." Emerson corroborates this view in one of his notebooks. He records: "Henry James said to me, he wished sometimes the lightning would strike his wife and children out of existence, and he should suffer no more from loving them."

Career Secondary

For Henry James the Elder, man's first calling was to be a man, and he discouraged his sons from making any premature decisions regarding a vocation. The atmosphere of the household was broadly educative, however, even if William later complained of a lack of formal pre-college schooling. Alice recognized and was grateful that her "excellent parents had threshed out all the ignoble superstitions...so that we had not the bore of wasting our energy in raking over and sweeping out the rubbish."

But the family provided far more than these negative advantages. Three times during his childhood and adolescence William James traveled in Europe for prolonged periods. He attended school and was tutored in England, France, Switzerland, and Germany. And, when he thought he might become a professional artist, he was able to study with the renowned painter, W. M. Hunt, in Newport, Rhode Island.

It was at the age of eighteen that William decided to pursue a career in painting. Vainly he had striven to escape the lure of the brush during a restless summer in Germany. He yearned for a decisive test of his mettle. Since early boyhood he had painted, and his skill and interest had long been recognized.

Yet the father could hardly give his approval to such an occupation. Art, he felt, was frivolous and narrow in comparison with religion or scientific studies. Fortunately, Henry James Sr. realized the importance of well-informed personal decision in matters of vocational choice. He readily consented to a proposal that William study with Hunt.

The results of this experiment were unambiguous: the boy decided that his talent was less than his standards demanded and that his standards demanded and that his desire to paint was far from insatiable. Once having rejected a career as an artist, William seldom looked back. His subsequent work always bore the mark of acute sensory perception and aesthetic imagination, but his artistic flair was sub-ordinated to his moral and metaphysical concerns.

Science and Medicine

When William James entered Harvard, he had made up his mind to become a scientist. After two years as an undergraduate, he convinced himself that he was best suited not for science in any strict sense, but rather for the broad scientific concerns of medicine. Doubts continued to assail him, however, during his first year and a half in the Medical School.

In March 1865, James interrupted his studies to embark on a field trip to Brazil. Louis Agassiz, the great biologist, led the expedition, and for one full year the troupe investigated the fauna and flora of South America. A mild case of smallpox made the initial months unpleasant, though it left James with no facial pock-marks. By October his health and spirits had improved considerably. Despite the ill-concealed homesickness of many of his ship-board letters, James seldom regretted the journey in late life.

Returning to Boston in March of 1886, James immediately resumed his work at the Medical School. All was fine for a few months, but the next spring brought another interruption in his schooling. He departed for Europe and remained there nineteen months.

Ill-health was probably the primary reason for the decision to leave Harvard. He had fallen into a state of physical suffering and depression that was to last nearly six years. In this condition James found prolonged work in a laboratory unendurable. A growing interest in experimental physiology led him to select Germany as his country of exile. He intended both to enhance his scientific knowledge and improve his facility in the German language while recuperating.

Physically, James "took the cure" at the baths of Teplitz. Academically, he obtained it in Dresden, Berlin, and Heidelberg where he studied under Du Bois, Reymond, Virchow, and Helmholtz. And for his spiritual malaise he subsituted at moments what he called "a sort of inward serenity and joy in living, derived from reading Goethe and Schiller."