public to the work of the French professor. This was an interesting
meeting and we find James' impression of Bergson given in his Letters
under date of October 4, 1908. "So modest and unpretending a man but
such a genius intellectually! I have the strongest suspicions that the
tendency which he has brought to a focus, will end by prevailing, and
that the present epoch will be a sort of turning point in the history of
philosophy."

As in some quarters erroneous ideas prevail regarding both the
historical and intellectual relation between James and Bergson, it may
be useful to call attention to some of the facts here. As early as 1880
James contributed an article in French to the periodical La Critique
philosophique, of Renouvier and Pillon, entitled Le Sentiment de
l'Effort.[Footnote: Cf. his Principles of Psychology, Vol. II., chap
xxvi.] Four years later a couple of articles by him appeared in Mind:
What is an Emotion?[Footnote: Mind, 1884, pp. 188-205.] and On some
Omissions of Introspective Psychology.[Footnote: Mind, 1884, pp. 1-26.]
Of these articles the first two were quoted by Bergson in his work of
1889, Les donnees immediates de la conscience. In the following years
1890-91 appeared the two volumes of James' monumental work, The
Principles of Psychology, in which he refers to a pathological
phenomenon observed by Bergson. Some writers taking merely these dates
into consideration, and overlooking the fact that James' investigations
had been proceeding since 1870, registered from time to time by various
articles which culminated in The Principles, have mistakenly assigned to
Bergson's ideas priority in time.[Footnote: For example A. Chaumeix:
William James (Revue des Deux Mondes, Oct, 1910), and J. Bourdeau:
Nouvelles modes en philosophie, Journal de Debats, Feb., 1907. Cf.
Flournoy: La philosophie de William James. (Eng. Trans. Holt and James,
pp. 198-206).] On the other hand insinuations have been made to the