Tolstoy, Leo - William James (essay date 1902)

William James (essay date 1902)

SOURCE: "The Sick Soul," in The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature, Longmans, Green and Co., 1902, pp. 149-57.

[James was an American philosopher best known for his philosophy of pragmatism. In the following essay, he examines the emotional crisis that led to Tolstoy's revelations as recounted in his Confession.]

Tolstoy has left us, in his book called My Confession, a wonderful account of the attack of melancholy which led him to his own religious conclusions. The latter in some respects are peculiar; but the melancholy presents two characters which make it a typical document for our present purpose. First it is a well-marked case of anhedonia, of passive loss of appetite for all life's values; and second, it shows how the altered and estranged aspect which the world assumed in consequence of this stimulated Tolstoy's intellect to a gnawing, carking questioning and effort for...

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