Free will may strike some neuroscientists as an implausible hypothesis, but for young William James it was a lifesaver -- an act of thought that freed him from the dead-end of self-doubting introspection. "Life shall [be built in] * doing and suffering and creating."
"WILLIAM JAMES April 30, 1870† "I think that yesterday was a crisis in my life. I finished the first part of Renouvier's second "Essais" and see no reason why his definition of
Free Will—" the sustaining of a thought because I choose to when I might have other thoughts"—need be the definition of an illusion. At any rate, I will assume for the present—until next year—that it is no illusion.
My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will. For the remainder of the year, I will abstain from the mere speculation and contemplative Grüblei [unproductive introspective rumination] in which my nature takes most delight, and
voluntarily cultivate the feeling of moral freedom, by reading books favorable to it, as well as
by acting. After the first of January, my callow skin being somewhat fledged, I may perhaps
return to metaphysical study and skepticism without danger to my powers of action. For the present then remember: care little for speculation; much for the form of my action; recollect that only when
habits of order are formed can we advance to really interesting fields of action—and consequently accumulate grain on grain of
willful choice like a very miser; never forgetting how one link dropped undoes an indefinite number. Principiis obsta [resist at the beginnings · nip in the bud]— Today has furnished the exceptionally
passionate initiative which Bain posits as needful for the acquisition of habits. I will see to the sequel. Not in maxims, not in Anschauungen [intuitions], but in accumulated
acts of thought lies salvation. Passer outer. [Carry on.] Hitherto, when I have felt like taking a free initiative, like
daring to act originally, without carefully waiting for contemplation of the external world to determine all for me,
suicide seemed the most manly form to put my daring into; now, I will
go a step further with my will, not only act with it, but believe as well;
believe in my individual reality and creative power. My belief, to be sure, can't be optimistic—but I will
posit life (the real, the good) in the self-governing resistance of the ego to the world. Life shall [be built in] * doing and suffering and
creating.""
— The Writings of William James by John J. McDermott
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