James

and by other vestiges of intellectualism in both
his doctrine and his style. Hodgson's later re-
jection of pragmatism widened the philosophical
gap between them, though without in the least
chilling the warmth of their friendship. To Re-
nouvier, James was attracted both because, like
Hodgson, he proposed that philosophy should
concern itself with the phenomena of conscious
experience, and because, unlike Hodgson, he
provided for the efficacy and freedom of the will.
It had been characteristic of later British em-
piricism, as exemplified by Hume and J. S. Mill,
to recognize the operation of practical motives
in determining belief. While experience is the
only ground of what can strictly be regarded as
knowledge, this does not wholly satisfy man's
moral and emotional nature and must be supple-
mented by faith, which is legitimate provided it
be recognized as such. Hodgson accepted faith,
in this sense, as affording access to an "unseen
world" beyond matter. Renouvier found in Kant
authority for a similar philosophy of faith, but
gave it a wider extension and more radical inter-
pretation. Even knowledge is not complete with-
out belief, which as definitive acceptance or re-
jection is an act of will; and is always, in the
last analysis, governed by subjective motives.
Experience provides the content of knowledge,
logic excludes contradictory impossibilities, but
will seals and delivers it. The first step, there-
fore, in the cognitive as well as in the moral
life, is'to affirm one's own freedom. It was to
this inspiriting challenge that James had re-
sponded in 1870. But Renouvier went further in
his provision for freedom. Rejecting the notion
of a completed infinite (or innumerable quan-
tity), he concluded that natural processes really
begin and end discontinuously. He was, in other
words, a pluralist in his conception of nature;
and nature so conceived was consistent with the
novelty and creativity implied in that doctrine
of free will which he had adopted on other
grounds. It was this prospect of a philosophy
that should be at once empirical, metaphysical,
coherent, and auspicious which saved James
from his doubts and convinced him that he had
something to say to his day and generation. In
the course of time he became more and more
alienated by Renouvier's "scholastic manner and
apparatus," and by what seemed to be his apos-
tasy to the professions of his earlier years; nev-
ertheless, the last systematic work which he
composed (Some Problems of Philosophy) was
dedicated to Renouvier's memory, and testified
to the "decisive impression" which that philoso-
phy had made upon him in the crucial period
between 1870 and 1880.

James

^ James's philosophy w'as thus a union of em-
piricism and voluntarism. It differed from ear-
lier empiricisms and voluntarisms in being more
radical: he found experience to be a richer and
more adequate source of knowledge, and he found
the will to be its more fundamental and per-
vasive condition. It was the radical voluntarism,
which was first developed, in The Will to Be-
lieve and Other Essays, published intermittently
from 1879, and collected in a single volume in
1897. The radical empiricism had been antici-
pated in the Principles, and it was formally an-
nounced in the Preface of The Will to Believe.
Of this volume it affords, however, the back-
ground and frame rather than the subject-matter.
It was elaborated and freshly emphasized some
years later.

Of the essays represented in The Will to Be-
lieve the most significant for the understanding
of James's philosophy as a whole is "The Senti-
ment of Rationality," which was made up of
two of his earliest philosophical publications, an
article of the same name which appeared in
Mind in July 1879, and an article entitled "Ra-
tionality, Activity and Faith," which had also
been written in 1879 but did not appear until
1882 (Princeton Review). These two articles,
together with "Reflex Action and Theism" (Uni-
tarian Review), which had appeared in Novem-
ber 1881, and w'as also republished in The Will
to Believe t were parts of a work that was never
completed in systematic form, a work "on the
motives which lead men to philosophize." The
"Sentiment of Rationality" dealt with "the pure-
ly theoretical or logical impulse,"—comprising
the "passion for simplification" and the opposite
passion for making distinctions. The remaining
chapters of the work were to treat of "practical
and emotional motives," and of the comparative
"soundness of different philosophies," as judged
by all of the philosophical motives, theoretical,
practical, and emotional, taken together. This
was announced as a purely psychological project.
But the titular essay, "The Will to Believe," took
the more advanced position that philosophies
might legitimately be adopted from such motives.
James afterwards regretted the title because it
suggested a wilful credulity which was far from
his intention, and said that his central idea would
have been better expressed by a title such as
"The Right to Believe." When, as in the case
of philosophy and religion, men go beyond the
evident facts, they not only will, but rightly may,
allow their "passional nature" to decide. The
only alternative is to avoid decision and adopt
a timid and non-committal attitude; which is,
however, equivalent to a negative belief having

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