"Sanguine [religious] healthy-mindedness..."

Let sanguine healthy-mindedness do its best with its strange power of living in the moment and ignoring and forgetting, still the evil background is really there to be thought of, and the skull will grin in at the banguet.

Psychologist and philosopher William James wrote that, in his masterpiece in the psychology of religion, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902).

James (1842-1910) identified two religious mentalities: "the religion of healthy-mindedness" and the religion of "the sick soul." Both mentalities seemed to be present in James himself, for I doubt that he could have had the insight quoted above in any way other than by introspection.

In my own way, I've had the same experience. I've had numerous moments in my life of feeling so fulfilled and joyous that I've actually voiced the opinion that "I could die this moment and in perfect happiness have no regrets whatsoever." But I've also faced the "skull grinning in at the banquet." This life is (or may be) all there is, and may not be enough. It hasn't been enough, anyway, for me to have read all of William James's brother Henry's novels yet!