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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    unusual ring, especially considering the circumstance that he was still alive when he was thus honored. In 1904 Osier called James “ one recog¬ nised everywhere as a master in Israel.” 14 He was speaking at Harvard, where most of James’ work was done, and for a moment one might be inclined to take the commendation as a polite bow before Harvard’s great son. But years afterwards, and this time at Yale, he again called James a “ master in Israel.” Still later, in his catholic taste for cultures and races, Osier referred to James as the “ American Socrates.” 15 Surely, an influ¬ ence of James on Osier’s thought as it is embodied in his later addresses is a factor which the interpreter is allowed, even obliged, to take seriously. IV The second group of Osier’s speeches comprises those given between 1904 and 1919. Of them the lecture on Science and Immortality comes first chronologically, and it is perhaps also the most interesting paper on account of its subject matter and on account of the change in Osier’s atti¬ tude which it betrays. For a long time Osier had hesitated to accept the invitation to deliver the Ingersoll Lecture. Did he feel that he was not yet prepared to discuss with assurance so vast an issue? When he at last consented to speak “ before a Boston audience on such an impossible sub¬ ject as Immortality, ” he labored on the address perhaps more than on any other which he had ever given.1 As the title itself indicates, the lecture was to discuss the topic from the point of view of science. In the preface Osier reiterated his intention “ to approach the problem from the standpoint of a man, part at least of whose training has been in the habit and faculty of observation, as Aris¬ totle defines science.” 2 The result arrived at is simple and expressed with clarity and forthrightness: “ Knowing nothing of an immortality of the spirit, science has put on an immortality of the flesh;” the generating substance alone can be considered eternal.3 In 1904 such a statement, regardless of its correctness or falsity, was not without broader implica¬ tions. During the preceding years attempts had been made to prove the immortality of the soul scientifically. The investigations of F. W. FI. Myers and of his Society for Psychical Research were much in vogue; they had received the friendly acclaim of James. Osier dismisses them with a shrug of the shoulders. He also refutes by implication James’ 14 Student Life, 133 f. and note. 16 Ibid., 92, and Cushing, II, 491. 1 Cushing, I, 598, 638. 2 Student Life, 105. 3 Ibid., 127-129.
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