From the editor’s desk:

We live in an age in which far too many people live lives of anguish because they lack meaning or are searching for it in the wrong places. In Be not Afraid of Life: In the Words of William James (Princeton, $24.99, 377 pages), John Kaag and Jonathan Van Belle say that seekers looking for meaning could do much worse than reading psychologist and philosopher William James. They have collected 15 speeches, essays, or excerpts from James’s other writing to help readers navigate some of his most enduring thoughts on the philosophically and psychologically vital question of whether one’s life has meaning. At one point, James seemingly flippantly suggests the answer is it depends on whose life? He doesn’t really mean it.

The 15 pieces are collected in six thematic chapters: “Determinism and despair,” “Freedom and life,” “Psychology and the healthy mind,” “Consciousness and transcendence,” “Truth and consequences,” and “Wonder and hope.” The book’s introduction and the smaller introductions to each chapter are worth the price of the book alone. They are excellent summaries of James’s thought. But they pale in comparison to James himself.

James is a wonderful stylist, perceptive observer of human behaviour, brilliant analyst of psychological phenomenon, and thoughtful distiller of the wisdom handed down in the best of tradition and what is written by others. So, it is hoped that those seeking meaning, those hampered by feelings of negativity, ennui, or, worst, existential dread, will find their way to James’s thought.

James said “to escape pessimism … is no easy task.” Indeed, he struggled with depression and suicidal thoughts himself. Yet his struggles fueled his seeking meaning in this life, but also what an afterlife would bring to man’s inner peace. While he was spiritual and sympathetic to religious belief (there is an excellent speech reprinted in Be Not Afraid of Life on the right to believe, inveighing against the anti-religious sentiment of his age), he could not bring himself to believe in God or the claims of certain elements of Christianity. And yet so much of what he wrote is compatible with Christianity, noting of free will, for example, it is “not in the least incompatible with the belief in Providence.”

The editors write that ultimately James finds “human value is derived from effort – and in most cases struggle – directed toward a particular end.” Time and again, James argues that strenuous work, including intellectual work (philosophizing) has an essentially sacralizing effect on the doer and his deeds. He states, in a speech “Is Life Worth Living,” about suicide, delivered after a spate of suicides at Harvard, it is “a remarkable fact that sufferings and hardships do not, as a rule, abate the love of life; they seem, on the contrary, usually to give it a keener zest.”

James writes in “The Dilemma of Determinism,” that according to the deterministic worldview, man’s actions are preordained by other events thus robbing mankind of his agency and depriving him of both morality and heroism. Reducing mankind to a mere cog in the machinery of the universe strips him of meaningful action and thus meaning.

In his speech on suicide, James says “If this life be not a real fight, in which something is eternally gained for the universe by success, it is no better than a game of private theatricals from which one may withdraw at will.” To the religiously minded, the “eternally gained” thing would be salvation. As noted above, much of what James writes is compatible with religion, specifically Christianity.

James advises, “Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create that fact.” At the very least, he counsels “we can always stand it for twenty-four more hours,” regardless of how difficult the ordeal might be.

– Paul Tuns