Hear William James:
Your great organising geniuses are men with habitually vast fields of mental vision, in which a whole program of future operations will appear dotted out at once, the rays shooting far ahead into definite directions of advance. In common people there is never this magnificent inclusive view of a topic. They stumble along, feeling their way, as it were, from point to point, and often stop entirely. In certain diseased conditions consciousness is a mere spark, without memory of the past or thought of the future, and the present narrowed down to some one simple emotion or sensation of the body.
(Quoted from page 189 of The Variety of Religious Experience, by William James. Harvard University Press, 1985.)
For a brief biography of William James, click here. For images of or relating to William James, click here.
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