Dear Professor Schultz,
The teaching of Psychology listserve, in the process of discussing William
James' use of nitrous oxide, included the following. I'm sure the list
would interested in why the classic poem was deleted as well any other
comments you may have to make.
Al L. Cone, Ph.D. Professor & Chair
Department of Psychology 6019 College Lane
Jamestown College Jamestown, ND 58405
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.jc.edu/users/faculty/cone
(701) 252-3467 X 2604
The Internet is democracy at its ugliest. Apologies to Paddy Chayefsky
who said the same about television
-----Original Message-----
From: John Serafin [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Friday, March 10, 2000 10:20 AM
To: TIPS
Subject: Re: William James and dope
Yesterday, Jim Dougan asked about origins of the following verse, attributed
to William James while under the influence of nitrous oxide:
>
> Higamous Hogamous woman's monogamous
> Hogamous Higamous man is polygamous
>
This bugged me, because I knew I had also heard the story, and was virtually
positive that it was told in the Schultz & Schultz history of psych text.
But when I pulled the current (6th) edition of that text off my shelf this
morning, the story was nowhere to be found.
But, on further exploration, I found that the story was there in previous
editions of the text. The 5th edition has it on pp. 182-183, at the end of
the section that discusses James' views on consciousness (where it's
presented as an attempt by James to improve "his own knowledge of conscious
experience"). Unfortunately, there is no source cited. The disappearance
from the 6th edition makes me wonder about the truth of the story, which is
consistent with other changes that have occurred in this text (e.g., earlier
editions had the Watson sex-research story that's been discussed on tips),
but off-hand I don't know anything else. A quick web search also didn't turn
up anything useful (other than a few sites that quote the verse without any
citation).
John
----------
John Serafin
Professor of Psychology
Saint Vincent College
300 Fraser Purchase Rd.
Latrobe, PA 15650
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
