William Osler's philosophy / by Ludwig Edelstein.

  • Ludwig Edelstein
Date:
1946
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: William Osler's philosophy / by Ludwig Edelstein. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    a start—to have the desire, at least, but in its fulness this culture—for that word best expresses it—has to be wrought out by each one for him¬ self.” And it is through books that the aim is attained. One should read Job and David, Isaiah and St. Paul, Shakespeare, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, Plato, Montaigne and many other “ literary heroes.” Thus, and thus alone can one hope to acquire “ wisdom in life.” 16 If Osier’s assumptions concerning the nature of man, his possibilities and aims, may be related at all to any of the philosophical or psycho¬ logical doctrines of Osier’s time, then it is, as far as I can judge, the doctrine of his great contemporary William James to which one must make reference. In his Psychology, James has refuted Huxley’s autom¬ aton theory as he has also opposed the view of Clifford for whom the mind is an epiphenomenon of the body. Instead, he has tried to show that the brain, the instrument of possibilities, is endowed with causal efficacy, that it is a conscious fighter for ends. Judgments of the “ should-be ” he holds to be as real as judgments of fact.17 Moreover, James has proved against the natural view, as he calls it, that in emotions, in the coarser ones no less than in the more subtle ones, it is the sounding board of the body that is at work. Bodily changes, not mental perceptions, are the cause of passions. Head and heart are then two powers, independent of each other, yet of equal importance for man’s actions.18 Finally, James is convinced of the immutability of the human heart. The progress of society, in his opinion, is limited by this very fact, although he admits that improvement of evil conditions is bound to be achieved.19 And he pleads that man should not dig the grave of his “ higher possibilities ” by neg¬ lecting poetry, spiritual reading, meditation, music, pictures or philosophy. In confirmation of the necessity of reading, he quotes a passage from Darwin’s autobiography—a passage “ which has often been quoted ”—in which Darwin suggests that “ the loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.”20 16 Ibid., 383-5, and note on 475; cf. also Alabama Student, 276 f. 17 W. James, The Principles of Psychology, I, 1896 [1890], 129 ff.; for Huxley and Clifford, ibid., 131 f. Cf. also Collected Essays and Reviews, 1920, 66 f. [1878]. 18 Ibid., II, 449 ff.; especially 470-472 ; also 578. 19 Cf. below p. 289. 20 Talks to Teachers on Psychology, 1901 [1889], 71 f. That Osier knew this book is certain, cf. below p. 282. For the importance of emulation to which Osier refers, cf. ibid., 49 ff., and Psychology, II, 579: “But just as our courage is so often a reflex of another’s courage, so our faith is apt to be, as Max Muller somewhere says, a faith in someone else’s faith. We draw new life from the heroic example.”
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