<P> Our natural way of thinking about...emotions is that the mental perception of some fact excites the mental affection called emotion, and that this latter state of mind gives rise to the bodily expression . My theory, on the contrary, is that the bodily changes follow directly the perception of the exciting fact, and that our feeling of the same changes as they occur IS the emotion (called' feeling' by Damasio). </P> <P> One of the long - standing schisms in the philosophy of history concerns the role of individuals in social change . </P> <P> One faction sees individuals (as seen in Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities and Thomas Carlyle's The French Revolution, A History) as the motive power of history, and the broader society as the page on which they write their acts . The other sees society as moving according to holistic principles or laws, and sees individuals as its more - or-less willing pawns . In 1880, James waded into this controversy with "Great Men, Great Thoughts, and the Environment," an essay published in the Atlantic Monthly . He took Carlyle's side, but without Carlyle's one - sided emphasis on the political / military sphere, upon heroes as the founders or overthrowers of states and empires . </P> <P> A philosopher, according to James, must accept geniuses as a given entity the same way as a biologist accepts as an entity Darwin's' spontaneous variations .' The role of an individual will depend on the degree of its conformity with the social environment, epoch, moment, etc . </P>

Who wrote the first textbook for psychology why might this be important