To H. G. Wells

CAMBRIDGE, Nov. 28, 1908.

Dear Wells,—"First and Last Things" is a great achievement. The first two "books" should be entitled "philosophy without humbug" and used as a textbook in all the colleges of the world. You have put your finger accurately on the true emphases, and—in the main—on what seem to me the true solutions (you are more monistic in your faith than I should be, but as long as you only call it "faith," that's your right and privilege), and the simplicity of your statements ought to make us "professionals" blush. I have been 35 years on the way to similar conclusions—simply because I started as a professional and had to débrouiller them from all the traditional school rubbish.

The other two books exhibit you in the character of the Tolstoy of the English world. A sunny and healthy-minded Tolstoy, as he is a pessimistic and morbid-minded Wells. Where the "higher synthesis" will be born, who shall combine the pair of you, Heaven only knows. But you are carrying on the same function, not only in that neither of your minds is boxed and boarded up like the mind of an ordinary human being, but all the contents down to the very bottom come out freely and unreservedly and simply, but in that you both have the power of contagious speech, and set the similar mood vibrating in the reader. Be happy in that such power has been put into your hands! This book is worth any 100 volumes on Metaphysics and any 200 of Ethics, of the ordinary sort.

Yours, with friendliest regards to Mrs. Wells, most sincerely,

WM. JAMES.