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.
Interpretation
The quote critiques the overly scientific mindset that disregards human feelings and intuition.
William James highlights the dangers of valuing purely scientific conclusions over human experiences and emotions. He suggests that the modern tendency to trust scientific claims based solely on mechanical or experimental evidence, like the twitching of a decapitated frog's leg, undermines the validity of human feelings, which should be considered essential in understanding truth. This thought-provoking statement invites a reexamination of how we weigh different forms of knowledge and the value of subjective human experience.
In practice
In a debate on the role of emotions in decision making, this quote could be used to emphasize the importance of feelings.
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.
It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome.
It is the root of all religion that a man knows that he is nothing in order to thank God that he is something.
I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
Beware the horns of a bull, the heels of the horse, and the smile of an Englishman.
I have seen the rise of fascism and communism. Both philosophies glorify the arbitrary power of the state... But both theories fail. Both deny those God-given liberties that are the inalienable right of each person on this planet, indeed, they deny the existence of God.
The State, on the other hand, both in its genesis and by its primary intention, is purely anti-social. It is not based on the idea of natural rights, but on the idea that the individual has no rights except those that the State may provisionally grant him. It has always made justice costly and difficult of access, and has invariably held itself above justice and common morality whenever it could advantage itself by so doing.
Religion is like a map. The route isn't important. It's the destination that matters.
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