Human Immortality: Two Supposed Objections to the Doctrine.

JAMES, William.

Verlag: Houghton Mifflin and Company, Cambridge, 1898

Beschreibung

1 blank leaf + 1 leaf with publisher's advertisements on the verso + TP + [i] = the Ingersoll Lectureship + [1]-70 + [71] = Publisher's information + 1 blank leaf, small Octavo. First Edition. The Ingersoll Lectureship was established by a bequest from Caroline Haskell Ingersoll (who died in 1893) leaving $5,000 to Harvard for a series of lectures to be read annually in memory of her father, George Goldthwait Ingersoll. The lectures were to take place at Harvard University and the subject of each was to be "the immortality of man". The lectures were initiated by Harvard president Charles W. Eliot in 1896 when the first lecture was, "Immortality and the New Theodicy", was given by George A. Gordon. William James was invited to give the second lecture and he did so using the title: "Human Immortality: Two Supposed Objection to the Doctrine." James begins by stating categorically that he has not been chosen to deliver this lecture because he is known as an enthusiastic messenger of the future life… but apparently because he is a [Harvard] university official. Thinking in this way, I felt at first as if I ought to decline the appointment. The whole subject of immortal life has its prime roots in personal feeling. I have to confess that my own personal feeling about immortality has never been of the keenest order, and that, among the problems that give my mind solicitude, this one does not take a very foremost place. Given this initial confession, he question whether or not "the remarks of a mere professional psychologist like myself" could ever satisfy the founder's supposed wish to have lectures delivered "inspired with emotional messages on the subject". Still, he proceeded to address the topic - from a psychologist's point of view - by investigating his two objections; namely (1) the difficulty of the "relative to absolute dependence of our spiritual life, as we know it here, upon the brain and (2) "the incredible and intolerable number of beings which, with our modern imagination, we must believe to be immortal, if immorality be true." The first point was addressed from a purely psychological perspective and the second from a very American, democratic perspective. Over the years, Ingersoll lectures were also given by Josiah Royce and Alfred North Whitehead among many others. Finally, it must be noted that James delivered this lecture just at the time that he was beginning to collect material which would find its culmination in the publication of "The Varieties of Religious Experience" four years later in 1902. Houghton Mifflin published this book Yale - Dec 1900" in ink to the top of the front free endpaper. Otherwise, this is a clean, tight and bright copy of this charming piece by James. ADDITIONAL PHOTOS AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 993

Bibliografische Details

Titel: Human Immortality: Two Supposed Objections ...

Verlag: Houghton Mifflin and Company, Cambridge

Erscheinungsdatum: 1898

Auflage: First Edition.