Henry James Sr. 1811 – 1882
Henry James Sr. was an American philosopher and religious thinker and the father of the novelist Henry James and the philosopher William James. Wealthy enough to devote his entire life to thought and writing, he was for many years one of the most engaged American interpreters of the religious philosophy of Emanuel Swedenborg. His Substance and Shadow, The Secret of Swedenborg, and Society the Redeemed Form of Man articulated a distinctive philosophy in which the natural and the spiritual are progressive expressions of a single divine life. He moved in the literary circles of mid-nineteenth-century New England and Europe and shaped the religious imagination of his children.
Key facts
- Nationality
- American
- Era
- Modern
- Movements
- Transcendentalism
Selected quotes
-
Attributed to Henry James Sr.:
“All true thought is the discovery of God's life within our own.”
-
Attributed to Henry James Sr.:
“The natural is one half of the spiritual; the spiritual is the completion of the natural.”
-
Attributed to Henry James Sr.:
“Conventional respectability is the enemy of true spiritual freedom.”
-
Attributed to Henry James Sr.:
“Society itself is the destined incarnation of the divine.”
-
Attributed to Henry James Sr.:
“Each soul is the unique angle from which heaven looks at itself.”