I should say right away that my purpose in this book is not to construct an argument about hermeneutics as a general theory, but rather to give an account of James's hermeneutics in his own terms. To this extent, then, my goal throughout has been to try as much as I can to foreground James's own language while making secondary criticism an important “secondary” partner. My focus has been to try and clarify what is perhaps the most elusive concept in James's writings – his idea of experience. I will argue that James's hermeneutics is a hermeneutics of experience, but “experience” in what sense? If we consult James's Prefaces, we find a heterogeneous array of usages: experience as a general term, a formative concept in art, as something from which we are disconnected, as a fine flower, a germ, something which we lack, or which comprises “human communities,” or as something by which we are assaulted.