I am no lover of disorder and doubt as such. Rather do I fear to lose truth by this pretension to possess it already wholly.
William JamesKnowledge about life is one thing; effective occupation of a place in life, with its dynamic currents passing through your being, is another.
William JamesBut it is the bane of psychology to suppose that where results are similar, processes must be the same. Psychologists are too apt to reason as geometers would, if the latter were to say that the diameter of a circle is the same thing as its semi-circumference, because, forsooth, they terminate in the same two points.
William JamesIn all this process of acquiring conceptions, a certain instinctive order is followed. There is a native tendency to assimilate certain kinds of conception at one age, and other kinds of conception at a later age.
William James