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.

    14/30 page 280
    From all that has been said, it seems to me, only one conclusion can be drawn. Osier, in the period between 1889 and 1904, although he was a follower of Huxley in so far as to him the Absolute is the Unknowable, in his outlook on man and on society was a Jamesian rather than a Huxlerian. Ill Before proceeding to Osier’s later writings I must discuss a topic that has some bearing on the characteristic of his point of view given just now, and on the interpretation of his later addresses as well, namely, Osier’s rela¬ tionship to James. I have labelled the Osier of Aequanimvtas a Jamesian. Was he familiar with James’ work, or is the agreement with his ideas accidental? James’ name does not seem to be mentioned in any of the papers written and published before 1904. It is only in this same year, in his Ingersoll Lecture, which is not included in the collection Aequani- mitas, that Osier refers to James. He praises him as the man who has studied, in a singularly lucid way, one of the most important facts in man’s history: the irreconcilable hostility which from the standpoint of science, representing the head, exists in regard to the emotional or cardiac side of life’s problems.1 That Osier was conscious of his agreement with James, then, is certain; he could hardly have spoken about him as he did, had his own essays, which were just coming out of the press, exhibited a contrary opinion. But the question arises whether in his earlier years Osier learned from James, or whether the tribute paid to him is merely the recognition of a spiritual kinship discovered later on. The decision is not an easy one to make. Osier in 1892 gives the impres¬ sion that his understanding of the value of ideals came to him in a moment of inspiration while he was admiring the beauty and splendor of a work of art. Moreover, in 1894 in his interpretation of human passions, he quotes Marion Crawford as “ a student of the heart of man, a depictor of his emotions,” as if he intended to make him his authority.2 I cannot imagine that Osier seriously meant to imply that from this average novelist, re¬ nowned and acclaimed as he was in his day, he learned the nature of the human heart and its relationship to reason. Many another great poet whom he knew could have taught him the same lesson. I find it equally 1 Student Life, 133 f. 2 Aequanimitas, 41 f., 99. For Crawford, cf. V. L. Parrington, Main Currents in American Thought, III, 1930, 171 f., cf. 237; and Dictionary of American Biography, s.v. I have not thought it necessary to peruse the numerous writings of Crawford in order to identify the book and page to which Osier refers.
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