ABSTRACT
About a year and a half before his death, William James was referred to by Lightner Witmer (1909) as
[a] philosopher-psychologist, temperamentally interested in mysticism, professionally engaged in philosophy and temporarily assuming the role of a psychologist … the spoiled child of American psychology, exempt from all serious criticism and the beau ideal of a large and cultured circle … [who] since the publication of his Principles of Psychology, has apparently relaxed the intellectual tradition which every man should exert over his desires.
