Showing 32 results

25 Brook Street. - The inscription Milnes has sent [for the Hallam memorial in St Paul's] is 'excellent; & obtains my entire vote in its favour'. Offers as his only suggestion that 'his own people' should be replaced by 'his own people'.

Asks Milnes to make a correction in his own Essays [on Scientific and other subjects contributed to the "Edinburgh" and "Quarterly" Reviews] - on page 289 'smiles' should read 'similes', 'an awkward erratum to have escaped my notice'.

Two letters concerning Magnusson, a candidate for the office of Sub-Librarian at the University Library.

Text on base of memorial statue of Hallam by Theed in St Paul's cathedral (birth and death dates not completed). Initials belong to members of the Hallam Memorial Fund committee: S [Lord Stanhope?] W. E. G[ladstone]; H.H. [Henry Holland]; R. M. M[ilnes]; H. H. M[ilman].

First copy has MS additions, one of which, 'June 6. H.H.M.' is adopted in the second, the other, 'The constant benevolence of his disposition', is not.

Refers to the news of Prince Albert's death, and her father Sir Henry Holland's description of the Queen and the household's reaction.

Written after the death of his wife, Saba.

17: Addressed to Annabella Hungerford Milnes.

Two small undated cuttings, of unknown source; obituary from The TImes, 31 Oct. 1873.

25 Brook Street - HH has hardly any spare time to read WW's proof sheets [Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Founded upon their History?] but will do his best.

HH returns three proof sheets to WW with his comments [presumably WW's 'Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Founded upon their History', 2 vols., 1840]. He would like to see more English names in physiology and less foriegn ones. HH will supply WW with the names of more English physiologists of a modern date if required.

2 Brook Street - HH returns a proof sheet with his comments [to WW's Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Founded upon their History?]. He is glad WW uses Kant's definition of organization: 'It is decidedly the best we have, both in the great truth it conveys, and in its application to ulterior research'. However, HH differs with WW over what is meant by the idea of organization as conducive to the ideas of space, time and resemblance [see HH to WW, 26 March 1840].

'Its perusal [WW's Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Founded upon their History?] gives me to understand better what you mean by the Idea of Organization, though I confess I still do not quite like the phrase, as standing in close column with the Ideas of Space, Time and Resemblance, - the instant and inevitable product of sensation - but probably there are reasons for it given in the first volume, which have not at first occurred to me. You will understand that it is chiefly the word organization which I object to in this use, as most apparently expressing the most radical form of the idea, which I presume you to have in view'.

2 Brook Street - Thanks WW for a copy of his Bridgewater Treatise [Astronomy and General Physics Considered with Reference to Natural Theology, 1833]: 'Even praise is sometimes presumptuous in him who gives it; and yet you will, I hope, allow me to say something of the admiration I felt throughout for the spirit, earnestness, sound reasoning and beautiful illustrations which you have given to this subject'. HH gives his corrections, criticisms and suggestions on how to improve the text.

2 Brook Street - HH returns the [MS] to the first volume of WW's 'History of the Inductive Sciences': 'Two thirds of the volume I have read with thorough satisfaction; and much admiration both of the plan and execution of the work'. HH doubts whether a better plan could have been conceived, particularly since the philosophy of Inductive Science is intended for a future work'. HH gives two or three suggestions concerning figures WW has neglected or given too much weight to.

Thanks WW for the copy of his work [possibly WW's The Elements of Morality, Including Polity, 2 vols., 1845].

Brook Street - Thanks WW for the 3rd volume of his Platonic Dialogues. HH thinks WW should undertake a similar project for Aristotle: 'The fame of his logic etc, in the scholastic ages obscured the higher merits of his writings, - and hardly until Cuvier's appeal to his books...did we know any thing in this country of his marvellous prowess in Natural History'. Obviously WW knows a great deal about these things as he frequently displays in his works on the Inductive Sciences: 'But I feel desirous to press the suggestion I have ventured to offer; finding from intercourse even with men of science, that they are far less aware than they might to be of those remarkable anticipations of the knowledge of our time'.

Brook Street - Thanks WW for a copy of his Platonic Dialogues - 'you have succeeded in seizing their exact spirit'. He hopes WW will be encouraged to go on with the work.

25 Brook Street - Thanks WW for the copy of his college sermons: 'The first and second sermons I read yesterday, and with strong feeling of their excellence'.

25 Brook Street - Thanks WW for his commentary on Hegel's criticism [On Hegel's Criticism of Newton's Principia, 1849]: 'The temporary fame of Hegel's teaching required perhaps this castigation at the time; especially on a point of this nature; otherwise I doubt not that a short time would obliviate all his accounts upon the Principia'.

2 Brook Street - Thanks WW for sending him the preface to the 2nd edition of his Indications [Indications of the Creator, 2nd edn., 1846]. It effectively answers the argument of the Vestiges of Creation [Robert Chambers, Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, 1844] than do most long articles bestowed on this work: 'with all fitting veneration for Cambridge, I must say that we needed something from there to compensate for the lengthy inefficiency of one article, which bore an University name almost openly on its back'. It surprises HH 'that the argument from immiscibility of species; - and from the adaptation of separate several parts to each other, should have been so little dwelt upon in the various answers to this book'.

2 Brook Street - HH is extremely glad WW is to publicly support John Couch Adams's claim to have discovered the new planet [Neptune] - as opposed to Urbain Jean Le Verrier: 'It is clear to me after reading the three papers produced at the astronomical society, that Adams would be precisely where Leverrier's now is, had the observations early in August ripened into actual discovery of the nature of the body, actually seen then by the guidance of Adam's calculations. Arago [Francois Arago] is moving heaven and earth (the phrase is not inappropriate here) to fix Leverrier's name upon it'. The planet's name should be taken from mythology.

2 Brook Street - HH has read 'with entire acquiescence the volume on University Education you have been good enough to send me' [Of a Liberal Education in General, and with Particular Reference to the Leading Studies of the University of Cambridge, 1845]. HH agrees with all of the book: 'About the preference to be given to geometry as an education of the mind I can entertain no doubt whatsoever'. However, he thinks more should have been said on experimental philosophy as a pedagogical tool. WW has 'rightly commented on Lyell [Travels in North America, 2 vols., 1845]. It was neither natural nor national to insert in a book upon America, the remarks you have so justly considered'. HH stayed with their good friend Everett [Edward Everett] while he was in the USA, who is currently debating whether to accept the place of President of the Harvard College at Cambridge - 'I trust he may decide in the affirmative'.

2 Brook Street - Thanks WW for his book [Indications of the Creator, 1845]: 'I had been expressing my wish that the last two or three chapters in your Bridgewater Treatise [Astronomy and General Physics Considered with Reference to Natural Theology, 1833] could be republished in relation to those very topics. What you have printed has in considerable degree fulfilled this object'. HH cannot think who the author of the Vestiges of Creation can be - 'though from his familiarity with modern science...it seems as if he were a person that must be known. I think him not to be a medical man...The 3rd edition, which is the one I have, is improved in many respects; but the essential faults remain'

2 Brook Street - Congratulates WW on his forthcoming marriage to Cordelia Marshall. He has read WW's paper on the weight of matter ['Demonstration that All Matter is Heavy', 1841] - 'with great satisfaction you enunciate most distinctly in the last two pages the true doctrine (or that which I apprehended as such) regarding fundamental ideas; and the fit separation of this term, from the equivocal one of innate ideas. There are are some phrases in these pages which better perhaps elucidate your views than any in the Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, though the great influence from both must be the same'.

2 Brook Street - HH has received another of WW's proof sheets [The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Founded upon their History, 2 vols., 1840]: 'I still think there is a little too much of foreign cast given to the subject [Physiology]'. He agrees with WW that Muller's [Johann Muller] physiology is the best work, but in drawing exclusively from foreign writers WW will 'weaken the repute and claims of the English physiological school, especially with those who are fresh to the subject'.