Explains that he put off writing to Young until it had been decided whether or not Everett should be elected to 'the [Apostles] Society'. Announces that he had been accepted, and refers to him as 'a very clever man.' Refers to his declaration as 'very extravagant and Americans' and reports that 'old Martin was astonished.' States that now Trevelyan, Thompson and Jebb are gone down, a new and rather striking element is needed. Reports on recent discussions, including Trevelyan's speech criticising young men who give up their early ambitions and become schoolmasters. The latter being 'all for the edification of Fisher'. Remarks that Heathcote is 'still rather below the average of an Apostle but still he is improving.' Reports that there has been nothing heretical so far. Declares that he wishes to relieve himself of the charge of having recommended Goldwin Smith as a heretical work. States that it always gives him indigestion to read the Quarterly Review. Refers to the controversy between G. Smith and Mansel, which 'is rather metaphysical than theological'. Agrees with Young that illness has the effect of clearing away doubts. Declares that '[t]he Union is falling again rather'. [Incomplete]
Reports that he only heard a week ago that Young 'had found it advisable (and also feasible) to degrade.' Claims that he was very glad to hear the news, since even if he had been able 'to go in by "making an effort" ', it would have been a very unsatisfactory [culmination] to three years work. Sympathises with him that he will have to work a year more at the old curriculum. Hopes that he is progressing. Reports that he met Cowell in London on Saturday, and he was wondering whether Young would go abroad with him.
Recounts that he found Arthur [Sidgwick] 'only just able to work' when he arrived in Cambridge on Saturday, as he had played fives, which brought on his irregular circulation. Believes that 'it is just about an even chance whether he gets the Craven or not'. Reports that they were quite surprised at having the senior after all in Trinity. Hopes that Barker will conform, and states that Jebb was in good spirits and reading hard. Recounts that [Richard Shilleto?] 'reports favourably of his freshness', but is not very strong in health.
Refers to the fact that Young was at Eton with [Smijth?] Windham, and asks if he thinks he is 'MAD, or only mad.' Declares that 'Wilson is convinced he was a lunatic', but every other Eton man Sidgwick has seen states the idea to be ludicrous.
Relates a conversation he had while dining at Merton College, Oxford. States that he thinks the speeches, especially Coleridge's 'disgraceful'. Wishes that he were at Oxford, because 'they are always having exciting controversies which keep them alive.' Relates that Jowett and his foes divide the [attention] of the common rooms with Mansel and Goldwin Smith. Reports that he has just read 'G. S.' "Rational Religion" ', which, he claims, 'seems smashing', but over-controversial. States that '[p]eople consider Mansel's chance of a bishopric as lessened.' Remarks that in his view the tutors at Oxford work harder and the men less than those at Cambridge. Asks Young whether he read W.S. Clarke's Latin Oration.
Reports that he went up to Cambridge 'to have a quiet study of Auguste Comte', with whose he has rather less sympathy than before. States that he 'tried to fancy being a Positivist and adoring Guttemberg [sic], the inventor of printing, but...found the conception impossible.' Intends to go up [to Cambridge] on Saturday. States that he thinks better of Horace than most men; discerns in his works 'a good deal of a peculiar fresh humour that [ ]', but sees that it is calculated to disgust many men, and wishes Trevelyan could know it.
St Johns Coll Oxford - Thanks him for the papers on Plato; discusses Plato's concept of 'hypothesis', universal postulates, refers to the theories of Mill and Spencer.
91 Adelaide Road NW - Multipresence is placed on a basis of unintelligibility 'if we only envisage a quality acting through space as memory acts through time'. The analogies of space and time are 'the two indismissible extensions'. An annihilated star can be said to act when it is not, like matter 'can be said to act where it is not'. However 'presence is a very ill used notion. If a particle really do attract all others, it is present through out the universe...the presence of matter is the presence of all its qualities'. Henry Mansel is like the old logicians in the sense that he cannot separate the mathematical notion from infinite in quality and in everything. He would be glad to see anything of [Robert] Ellis's: during his illness he gained an 'enormous boon' from thinking about maths. without pen and paper; his preface to Bacon should be published.
7 Camden St, N.W. - Thanks him 'for the Bacon which you found in the Barrow - It all amounts to wondrous little'. If Whewell is right that Bacon was well known with Cambridge men how could he be so little quoted? When he has time he intends to work out the thesis 'That Newton was more indebted to the schoolmen than to Bacon, and probably better associated with them'. He has received Mansel's Bampton lectures: 'I tell him by this post that it is the best argument I have seen against subscription at matriculation'. Discusses Earnshaw's integration of the equation of sound, his own method from 1848 and that of Jacques Charles.