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Thanks for this, I had never seen it before. I love William James' writing style - somewhat typically Victorian and ornate, but underneath the style, an incredi

Thanks for this, I had never seen it before. I love William James' writing style - somewhat typically Victorian and ornate, but underneath the style, an incredibly lucid and original mind. From the linked essay: Every one is familiar with the phenomenon of feeling more or less alive on different days. Every one knows on any given day that there are energies slumbering in him which the incitements of that day do not call forth, but which he might display if these were greater. Most of us feel as if we lived habitually with a sort of cloud weighing on us, below our highest notch of clearness in discernment, sureness in reasoning, or firmness in deciding. Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake.

yesenadam 9y ago
That one starts unusually ornately. But that's such a classic sentence: To crown the whole pleasant catalogue, I was worn to a shadow by a constant diarrhœa, and consumed as much opium as would have done credit to my father-in-law. Not bad for the 1907 Philosophical Review. My favourites are On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings (which led me to Stevenson, who's an even greater essayist) and its sequel What Makes a Life Significant?, but there are many great ones. The Ph D Octopus, The Moral Equivalent of War, etc etc or the very funny one On Some Hegelisms about when on nitrous oxide he recognized it as the key to Hegel's thought. And his book on religious experience, textbook on the principles of psychology, and other books are still well worth reading and very enjoyable reads.