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lar tremor and impairment of utterance, and Dr. P. Dewees became his assistant. At last, ten years later, he had also to curtail his practice after twenty- five }-ears valuable service to the Penn- sylvania Hospital.
' He died on the fifth of July, 1835.
II. L. H.
Amer. Jour. Med. Sci., Phila., 1S43, u. s., vol. vi life of W. P. Dewees, (H. L. Hodge). Lives of Eminent Amer. Phya., Phila., S. D. Gross. 1861
Hist, of Med. Depart, of the Univ. of Penn., J. Carson, 1869, Phila.
James, William (1842-1910).
Born in New York, on January 11, 1S42, of devout and independent par- entage, throughout life his studies were much disturbed by ill health. In his youth he attended a Lycee in France and afterwards the University of Geneva, there gaining an unusual command of French. His German he acquired a few j'ears later at the University of Berlin. In 1862-64 he was in the Lawrence Scientific School; then for four years in the Harvard Medical School, from which, two years later, he receiv'ed the degree of M. D. He also studied with Agassiz in the Cambridge Museum.
The progress of his mind can be traced in the successive topics of his teaching. In 1873 he became an in- structor in anatomy at Harvard; but soon, finding greater interest in physiol- ogj', he accepted an assistant professor- ship in that subject, in 1876. For the next three years, in addition to teach- ing physiology, he offered a course on the theory of Evolution in the Depart- ment of Philosophy. In 1880 he aband- oned physiology altogether, becoming in that year assistant professor, and in 1SS5 professor, of philosophy. He now gave himself enthusiastically to psychology, and under his energetic guidance a psychological laboratory was estabUshed here. But after the pubHcation of his treatise on psychology, in 1890, his interest in it dechned, and he turned more towards the history
JAMES
of philosophy and the theory of knowl- edge. In 1892 he resigned the direct- orship of the laboratory, and after 1897 was never willing to offer a psy- chologic course. Religion and meta- physics claimed him, and his last years were devoted to the elaboration of a comprehensive philosophy in which the portion known as "Pragmatism" has occasioned wide discussion. His scien- tific equipment lent him authority, while his remarkable literary gifts se- cured for him a wader hearing than that accorded to any other living philoso- pher. His name has been chiefly as- sociated with his persuasive exposition of the doctrine of "Pragmatism," by which the value of any assertion that claims to be true is tested by its conse- quences, i.e., its practical bearing upon human interests and purposes — a doc- trine which he derived from C. S. Peirce at Cambridge (Massachusetts) in the early "seventies." Of the per- manent value of this doctrine it is diflBcult to speak. But there can be no question of the impetus which he lent to the study of psychology by a combination of qualities which placed him among the foremost thinkers of his time.
'WTiether readers agreed with his books or dissented, aU perceived that they vitalized their subjects. Several obliged a kind of new departure of human thought in their respective fields, the most notable being "The Principles of Psychology," 1890; "Talks to Teachers on Psychology," 1899; "The Varieties of Religious Experience," 1902; and "Pragmatism," 1907. Per- haps four short papers should also be mentioned: "The FeeHng of Efforts," 1880; "The Dilemma of Determinism," 1884; "Is Life Worth Living?" 1895; "The WiU to Believe," 1896.
The honors received by Prof. James were many and great. He was a mem- ber of the National Academy in America, France, Italy, Prussia, and Denmark; was a doctor of letters at Padua and Durham, of laws at Harvard,
