Deep Melancholy
In November 1868, James once again took up his medical studies and worked with sufficient tenacity to earn an M.D. degree the following spring. Although his excellent performance on the examinations was a temporary boon to his spirits, by autumn he had begun to decline rapidly. The next three years were to be his worst; a sense of moral impotence constantly plagued him. While suicide seldom seemed like a "live" option, thoughts of taking his life never wholly departed from his mind.
On February 1, 1870, James recorded in his diary: "Today I about touched bottom, and perceive plainly that I must face the choice with open eyes: shall I Frankly throw the moral business overboard, as one unsuited to my innate aptitudes, or shall I follow it and it alone, making everything else merely stuff for it? I will give the latter alternative a fair trial. Who knows but the moral interest may become developed."
The problem of determinism and free will proved most troubling to James. On April 30, 1870, he recorded: "I think that yesterday was a crisis in my life. I finished the first part of Renouvier's second Essais and see no reason why his definition of free will--the sustaining of a thought because I choose to when I might have other thoughts'--need be the definition of an illusion. At any rate, I will assume for the present--until next year--that it is no illusion. My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will." Renouvier had provided James with an efficacious remedy, but the cure was by no means instantancous. Only very slowly did enthusiasm and buoyancy become dominant.
Marriage and Harvard
Two events of the 1870's contributed mightily to the therapeutic treatment begun by Renouvier: James started teaching at Harvard and he married Alice Howe Gibbens. He viewed the offer of employment from Harvard as a "godsend," welcoming the stabilizing influence of a regular vocation.
His first appointment was to an instructorship in physiology, but from the outset he refused to treat physiology, psychology, and phiosophy as distinct and separate disciplines. In his lectures, as in his writings, he sought a synthesis comprising insights and factual contributions from each of the fields.
Also a stabilizing influence--and herself a remarkable synthesis--was Miss Gibbens. After James married her in 1878 his physical and emotional health improved markedly, and he launched into his significant work in psychology. Though her intelligence, beauty, and wit were highly regarded, she is surely remembered primarily for the composure, devotion, and sympathetic loyalty with which she watched over he highstrung husband.
During the first dozen years of his marriage James labored on the Principles of Psychology, a two volume compendium of old wisdom and stunning new insights. It was in this phase of life that he acquired world renown. But his fame continued to increase in the succeeding decades as he came to focus his attention upon philosophy and religious experience.
And, in the last years of his life, James penetrated into the citadels of Old World learning. His immensely successful lectures at Oxford and Edinburgh, perhaps more than anything else, demonstrated that America had come of age intellectually. Europe and America, the sciences and the humanities, nineteenth century and twentieth century--in James they all blend, in James they seem to find their finest mediator.
(This is the second in a series of articles on William James.