To Henri Bergson

Lamb House, July 28, 1908.

Dear Bergson,—(can't we cease "Professor"-ing each other?—that title establishes a "disjunctive relation" between man and man, and our relation should be "endosmotic" socially as well as intellectually, I think),—

Jacta est alea, I am not to go to Switzerland! I find, after a week or more here, that the monotony and simplification is doing my nervous centres so much good, that my wife has decided to go off with our daughter to Geneva, and to leave me alone with my brother here, for repairs. It is a great disappointment in other ways than in not seeing you, but I know that it is best. Perhaps later in the season the Zusammenkunft may take place, for nothing is decided beyond the next three weeks.

Meanwhile let me say how rarely delighted your letter made me. There are many points in your philosophy which I don't yet grasp, but I have seemed to myself to understand your anti-intellectualistic campaign very clearly, and that I have really done it so well in your opinion makes me proud. I am sending your letter to Strong, partly out of vanity, partly because of your reference to him. It does seem to me that philosophy is turning towards a new orientation. Are you a reader of Fechner? I wish that you would read his "Zend-Avesta," which in the second edition (1904, I think) is better printed and much easier to read than it looks at the first glance. He seems to me of the real race of prophets, and I cannot help thinking that you, in particular, if not already acquainted with this book, would find it very stimulating and suggestive. His day, I fancy, is yet to come. I will write no more now, but merely express my regret (and hope) and sign myself, yours most warmly and sincerely,

WM. JAMES.

The subject of the next letter was a volume of "Essays Philosophical and Psychological, in Honor of William James," by nineteen contributors, which had been issued by Columbia University in the spring of 1908. A note at the beginning of the book said: "This volume is intended to mark in some degree its authors' sense of Professor James's memorable services in philosophy and psychology, the vitality he has added to those studies, and the encouragement that has flowed from him to colleagues without number. Early in 1907, at the invitation of Columbia University, he delivered a course of lectures there, and met the members of the Philosophical and Psychological Departments on several occasions for social discussion. They have an added motive for the present work in the recollections of this visit."