A little cooling down of animal excitability and instinct, a little loss of animal toughness, a little irritable weakness and descent of the pain-threshold, will bring the worm at the core of all our usual springs of delight into full view, and turn us into melancholy metaphysicians.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that when we experience discomfort or a loss of our usual vitality, we become more introspective and aware of deeper, often melancholic truths about life.
William James reflects on the idea that moments of emotional or physical downturn can lead us to confront the deeper, often hidden aspects of our existence. By experiencing a cooling down of our typical excitement and vitality, we become more aware of the underlying sadness and complexities of life, prompting a philosophical reflection on our nature and existence.
In practice
In a discussion about the importance of self-reflection during tough times, this quote could serve as a poignant reminder.
Many persons nowadays seem to think that any conclusion must be very scientific if the arguments in favor of it are derived from twitching of frogs' legs (especially if the frogs are decapitated) and that, on the other hand, any doctrine chiefly vouched for by the feelings of human beings (with heads on their shoulders) must be benighted and superstitious.
The man who knows governments most completely is he who troubles himself least about a definition which shall give their essence. Enjoying an intimate acquaintance with all their particularities in turn, he would naturally regard an abstract conception in which these were unified as a thing more misleading than enlightening.
All the higher, more penetrating ideals are revolutionary. They present themselves far less in the guise of effects of past experience than in that of probable causes of future experience, factors to which the environment and the lessons it has so far taught us must learn to bend.
The lunatic's visions of horror are all drawn from the material of daily fact. Our civilization is founded on the shambles, and every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.
It is astonishing how many mental operations we can explain when we have once grasped the principles of association
As there is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it, so reasonable arguments, challenges to magnanimity, and appeals to sympathy or justice, are folly when we are dealing with human crocodiles and boa-constrictors.
In prayerful silence you must look into your own heart. No one can tell you better than yourself what comes between you and God. Ask yourself. Then listen!
It is important also to consider, that the surest means of avoiding war is to be prepared for it in peace.
Our actions are like ships which we may watch set out to sea, and not know when or with what cargo they will return to port.
It is wrong for a man to say that he is certain of the objective truth of any proposition unless he can produce evidence which logically justifies that certainty.
Though leaves are many, the root is one; Through all the lying days of my youth I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun Now I may wither into the truth.
Till swollen with cunning, of a self-conceit, His waxen wings did mount above his reach, And, melting, Heavens conspir'd his overthrow.
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