The self-instructor in navigation and practical guide to the examinations of the U.S. government inspectors for masters and mates of ocean g

William James (1842–1910), the older brother of the novelist Henry James, studied painting and then medicine, and after years of depression became a professor at Harvard, where he taught the first course in psychology in America and set up one of the first psychology laboratories.

His Principles of Psychology made the new science readable, his Varieties of Religious Experience studied faith with sympathy, and his philosophy of pragmatism asked what difference an idea makes in practice. He wrote with a warmth and clarity rare among philosophers.