William James and Other Essays on the Philosophy of Life.

First edition. 8vo. xi, [1], 301, [1], [6, publisher's advertisements] pp. Original green cloth, spine and front cover lettered in gilt, fore and bottom edges untrimmed (some trivial wear to corners, white marking to foot spine, otherwise a very good copy). New York, The Macmillan Company.

A collection of five essays including 'William James and the Philosophy of Life', Royce's tribute to his friend and Harvard colleague who had died the previous year. The essay stands as one of the most insightful treatments of James's thought, characterising James as one of three Americans who, together with Jonathan Edwards and Ralph Waldo Emerson, had made distinctive and original contributions to philosophy, with Royce describing his friend as 'a prophet of the nation that is to be.'

'Josiah Royce (1855–1916) was the leading American proponent of absolute idealism, the metaphysical view (also maintained by Hegel and F.H. Bradley) that all aspects of reality, including those we experience as disconnected or contradictory, are ultimately unified in the thought of a single all-encompassing consciousness. Royce also made original contributions in ethics, philosophy of community, philosophy of religion and logic' (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

Stock Code: 247085