William James Makes a Lesson Plan for Himself

Before he could help others, he needed to find his own direction.

he lure of the ancients suggested to William James some ways to use his education, but where would that education lead—what particular intellectual stances, what line of work, and what fate for his personal life, his physical and mental health, and even prospects for marriage? He hoped his eighteen months in Europe from 1867 to 1868 would bring him out of his vocational and intellectual doldrums. Europe, however, was not the panacea that James hoped it would be. The baths did not cure him, and exposure to German science did not deliver him from his uncertainties—and neither could save him from a depression so deep it paralyzed his will to work and occasionally even his will to live. He returned from Germany at age...

Before he could help others, he needed to find his own direction.

he lure of the ancients suggested to William James some ways to use his education, but where would that education lead—what particular intellectual stances, what line of work, and what fate for his personal life, his physical and mental health, and even prospects for marriage? He hoped his eighteen months in Europe from 1867 to 1868 would bring him out of his vocational and intellectual doldrums. Europe, however, was not the panacea that James hoped it would be. The baths did not cure him, and exposure to German science did not deliver him from his uncertainties—and neither could save him from a depression so deep it paralyzed his will to work and occasionally even his will to live. He returned from Germany at age twenty-six with good command of the German language but with little fluency in his own art of living. His intersecting and confusing burdens kept him in the same unsettled state until at least 1873. Through it all, he kept a constant drive to heal his mental and physical health, solve his dilemmas, and gain some personal and intellectual direction, especially through his ravenous appetite for learning...