Buddhist Romanticism

As a result, James divorced the psychological aspect of the religious
experience—a feeling of unification—from its original metaphysical context
in a unified universe. He further argued that even if the experience told us
nothing about the actual nature of the universe, it could—and often did—
function as an important step in promoting the psychological health of the
human organism. As such, it was a fitting subject for scientific inquiry.
To separate psychology from metaphysics—and, in so doing, to give
psychology priority over metaphysics—was, for James, a deliberate and
momentous act. In part, he was simply following a general trend in the
study of psychology during his time. Instead of being the province of
novelists, psychology had become a scientific field in its own right—even
though, as we will see, it continued to frame some of its issues in terms that
had originated in the Romantic novel. In fact, what we have termed the
novelist’s view of reality—in which truth is a matter not of metaphysical
statements, but of the psychological processes leading a person to make such
statements—continued to provide the dominant paradigm within the field.
In addition, psychology as a field of study was also beginning to divorce
itself from the field of philosophy, particularly as it developed its own
methodology for experimentation. Here again, though, there was still some
overlap between the two fields, a fact that James himself was able to use to
great advantage in his professional career.
However, the act of giving psychology priority over metaphysics also
had great personal meaning for James. As a young man, he had suffered a
prolonged and sometimes severe depression, which his biographers have
diagnosed as both personal and philosophical in origin. The personal origin
lay in his relationship to his family. Thwarted by a domineering father in
his early career choices, James came to be troubled by the idea he might not
have free will. The philosophical origin for James’ depression lay in his
growing conviction that the question of free will was not merely his own
problem; it was a problem for all beings in a materialist universe. His
doubts about free will were further exacerbated by the scientific education
he had received in medicine and biology.
Here it’s useful to take stock of what had happened in the physical
sciences between the early- and the mid-19th century. Remember that, for
the Romantics, biology, geology, and astronomy taught mutually
reinforcing messages in which all aspects of the universe had an organic
purpose. Schelling, in particular, had recommended a course of research for
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