Abstract

Traditional views of the “French … correspondent” reporting panic fear in the Varieties portray the anonymous William James in crisis followed by a Charles Renouvier-inspired commitment to free will, as a first step in his philosophical career. Revisionists propose that the intellectual path was less important than his personal troubles, and that the incident did not even happen prior to the philosophical commitment. There is, however, no evidence of the incident’s timing at all. Instead, the stylized and religious tone of the writing suggests that it is a composite and mannered memory drawn from a lifetime of experience and learning from moods of weakness and despair, which James enlisted to display the attractions of redemption for the “sick soul” temperament. In telling the story, James drew on both his personal difficulties and his intellectual development to create a potent teachable moment in his book on religious experience