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RJ hopes WW received his sheets [see RJ to WW, 1 March 1845]: 'I find no fault with any of your practical views about poor laws - it is your theory of moral duties as obligatory on states in the same manner as on individuals that I can only take with considerable modifications'. RJ left John Herschel a great deal calmer - 'but no one unacquainted with his peculiar temperament' could imagine how much James South agitates him. Herschel 'had not been able even to look over his fathers papers quietly - we went through them and the result was compleatly satisfactory. The discovery by the 40 feet of the 7th satellite in particular is narrated in the original observation book and all the steps from doubt to certainty to triumph committed to paper in a way which was exceedingly interesting even to me and I hope Herschel will some day or other publish them certainly not however to carry out a battle with such a trumpery opponent as South. The letter to the Times was gone before I arrived'.

RJ has just got a letter from John Herschel 'begging me to come to him at once and I am hurtling to change all arrangements and to be off in 1/2 an hour. I guess it is about South [James South] whom he allows to agitate him and I hope to calm him'. RJ gives some type errors he has spotted in the work WW has sent him ['The Elements of Morality, Including Polity'?] . RJ agrees 'with almost all your poor law practical views - You know I do not agree with you in thinking the state a moral agent unless very careful distinctions are drawn between our sense of moral obligations as members of a state and as individuals and it would be useless to embark in that controversy'. RJ can 'see nothing to find fault with except perhaps that you speak too confidently about the feudal element derived from the manners of the tribes - much of the feudal coloring has been thrown back I suspect by later writers'.

'It is as you say quite a scandal that no ascent has been made for scientific purposes since that of Gay Lussac. Though I hope when you see my paper on Refraction you will admit that this problem is nearly put at rest, for I make observations of steam, vapour of Alcohol and confirm my law of the connexion between pressure and temperature, which is quite different from what has been supposed'. JWL has had a long discussion with the aeronaut Mr Green: 'It would not do to set about the thing with less than £1,500 [to make a balloon to investigate the atmosphere?]. JWL is annoyed at John Herschel for leaving out all notice of his work on lunar theory in his address to the Astronomical Society.

London - WW sends a few more corrections for RJ to make to his preface ['An Essay on the Distribution of Wealth, and on the Sources of Taxation: Part 1. - Rent', 1831]. WW agrees with RJ 'entirely as to the importance of the distinction between the mode of incidence of moral and physical will but I do not see why you should be dissatisfied with the way in which you have expressed it'. WW has been working at his inductive history of chemistry: 'I never spend half an hour on the subject without making out something new and pertinent'. He is 'disposed to be of your opinion with regard to the R.S. [John Herschel losing the election to become President of the Royal Society] and so far as I can make out all Herschel's friends are disposed to give the old lady over...What will come of this I do not exactly see nor much care'.

RS sends WW two pieces of his work: 'The longitude of Brussels contains a better account of personal equation than I think you will find elsewhere'. He is disappointed with his article on the Transit: 'Still I believe it contains more on the subject of an elementary and practical nature than can be found elsewhere'. RS's 'old antagonist Sir James [James South] has issued a placard and an advertisement in the Times of Monday last, which I suppose he intends for a severe blow to the Astronomer Royal and to me'. RS believes this was induced by John W. Lubbock's 'folly in giving him a hearing by the Council of the Royal on the subject of their copies of their Transactions. This kind of notice, was pretty certain to revive his spirits and as no notice will be taken of his placard, I dare say he will feel encouraged to make another attack. It is hard that Lubbock's want of ordinary tact and sense should bring wrong on other people, for if in consequence of this, South should again assail the Society I feel certain that Sir John [John Herschel] will give small aid in quieting Sir James however easily he may be gulled by him'.

Brighton - RJ has only just 'got your pages yesterday as I was starting for this place where I cannot read them attentively' ['On the Fundamental Antithesis of Philosophy', Trans. of the Cambridge Phil. Soc., 1844]. Charlotte Jones is here ill. From what RJ has seen of WW's work he thinks 'the discussion is (at least the greater part of it) rapidly resolving itself into one of phraseology - fundamental belief - or laws of of the activity of the intellect no one objects to. The unlucky word necessary coming after these is the stumbling block necessary [']these beng admitted['] is what we want a phrase to express and to ordinary readers the naked word conveys a further indefinite necessity which staggers them'. The 'ideas suggested by fundamental laws of belief which are at the bottom of and must sustain the various sciences you justly treat as what it must be useful and deeply interesting to study and you do yourself no more than justice in claiming to have made studies here but you will get scant justice on this point from men who are choaking with the bitter necessary you are making them swallow against their will and habits'. They all had a good time at the Herschels - John Herschel is looking better than he has for at least 2 or 3 years.

Edinburgh - Their duty regarding the BAAS is much simpler than WW supposes. There is a thick pamphlet which was circulated at the meeting in Birmingham containing all the recommendations the BAAS have made since the first ever meeting at York, of which, they have to revise all those made concerning the Mathematics and Physics section. 'The Royal Society of Edinburgh has had an official communication from Dr Robinson desiring them to write with other bodies in applying to government (1) to send a Reflector on Irish principles, and an observer (Irish no doubt) to the Cape:-and (2) to publish the British one of the meridian. The first, as was sufficiently plain from Robinson's whole tone at Birmingham, was to put an extinguisher on Herschel's labours at the Cape. I thought it right to consult Sir John - and found him, as I expected, averse to it, and he refused to act in the matter on a committee to apply to govt. So I am glad to say that we have kept clear of this business'. JDF wants to know what 'people say in the South, of Prince Albert's exhibition? I cannot but fancy that Scot Russell has more to do with it than his Royal highness'.

RJ explains why he will not be voting in Cambridge at the forthcoming election [see RJ to WW, 11 November 1822]: 'to come and help turn out whichever you may elect at the next election and to be able to do this with a clear conscience it is surely best to give no vote at all now - with a view to this good purpose I hope Scarlett may get in - it will be easy to turn him out and not so easy any of the others[.] as to Herschel [John Herschel] he votes merely because he thinks Peacock [George Peacock] takes the thing to heart whatever other views he may talk about'. With regard to the Saints [the Saints candidate is Grant] - 'respectable and well meaning as some of the leading ones are if ever it is your lot to witness the hypocrisy and fanaticism exhibited while living and while dying by a set of people almost invariably the converts of some silly man who fortifies himself in doing mischief because he thinks he has the countenance of Mssrs - Wilberforce[,] Baring[,] Stephens etc. etc. you would I am sure scrupulously avoid helping to place in any situation of conspicuous weight an individual of their class and whoever or whatever he might be in himself - I think with you that Grant personally is by far the most eligible of the four but I earnestly hope he may not be successful'.

One of WW's small projects is to get a fair hearing for English hexameters: 'Will you help me?' WW wants to publish 'hexameter poems by several persons respected by the world'; JCH's translations of Goethe, John Herschel's of Schiller, WW's of Hermann and Dorothea and those of several other hexameterists. WW has 'just been reading with great delight Bunsen's [Christian C. J. Bunsen] Church of the Future. I hope it is to be translated. The appearance of such a work at present would, in my opinion, be a great blessing to us Englishmen'. JCH should try and persuade Bunsen to give WW an English edition of the work. Worsley [Thomas Worsley] is printing his Christian Advocates's book [The Province of the Intellect in Religion Deduced from our Lord's Sermon on the Mount, 3 vols., 1845]: 'If he avoids shocking his colder readers by strange imaginations which have grown up in his mind during the long time that he has brooded over his system, he may I hope, carry with him many who like systematized fancies on religious subjects'.

Tithe Commission - RJ has heard that WW has broken one of his ribs. Could WW let him know if this is the case. Edward Ryan is still in good spirits. The Herschels have invited RJ to join them and Maria Edgeworth at their home - 'but my wife will not move just now and I do not like to leave her'.

RS had no idea of the state of Robert Woodhouse: 'I never should have suspected him of getting off the hinges but I dare say the loss of his wife disturbed him more than it would have done a soft tempered and opener mannered man'. John Herschel 'who seems to be the kindest scientific or unscientific soul breathing went down to Worcester where Babbage was indisposed and carried him a tour into Ireland. I have not heard anything of them but it was the wisest and kindest thing a friend could do'. RS congratulates 'our worthy Lucasian [George Airy] upon his promise of success and if he can destroy the influence of Venus entirely (not take a poor tithe of her) he has my best wishes'. Although RS would like the money attached to the office of head lectureship, he will not take it this year. RS thinks WW should plan his university career towards getting the divinity chair.