Showing 17 results

7 Camden Street & Town - He has found some very queer things about the Aristotelian syllogism - deficiencies and redundancies which he will publish in a treatise of technical logic. He would like 'the mathematical world to see how necessary mathematical considerations are to common logic'. He has a logical paper ready on the 'mode of balancing the joint effect of testimonies and arguments for and against'; diagrees with [Richard] Whately's formulas and shows his own.

Trinity College - When WW last wrote he had not seen the article on RJ in the Quarterly Review: 'I think you have great good luck in escaping out of my hands for I had not ventured to say so broadly what I supposed your plan to be though I expected to leave nearly the same impression, and I certainly never dreamt of quoting you to the extent to which Lockhart's [John Lockhart] established reviewer has done...I am quite sure both from what he says to me and still more from the inscrutable manner in which the whole business of the Review is carried on that he is very far from absolute, and that there is some greater power behind his editorial throne'. WW thinks that RJ's success among the existing political economists, will depend greatly 'on its being explained to them what you are supposed to have different from their doctrine'. If RJ wants 'candid and thinking readers you must go to Germany'. The master of Trinity - Christopher Wordsworth - 'is delighted' with RJ's book ['An Essay on the Distribution of Wealth, and on the Sources of Taxation: Part 1. - Rent', 1831] and impatient for the next volume on wages. WW gives his comments on the review of Whately [Richard Whately].

WW met Senior [Nassau Senior] at the Athenaeum Club, 'and asked him if he answered to his friend Whately's [Richard Whately] name of catallactician. He said that he did not mean to adopt it but that he thought it a proper account of the matter: and when I reminded him that more than half the wealth of the world is never exchanged, he declared very frankly, that in that case he had no business with it'.

Trinity College - WW is sorry RJ ever got involved with the Professorship in Political Economy at King's College: 'it is now very clear that it will either never come at all, or will come in such a way as to be no great advantage or comfort to you'. WW is more concerned at 'the danger of your publication of your next volume being retarded by it'. WW does not see a chance 'of any one doing what you would do for the science, soon, or I could almost say, ever. To bring the facts of the historical and economical condition of nations under general laws, when once done will never be forgotten, and the effects of such a view will be forthwith and forever operative...It is the only way too, to bring common practice and common sympathy within sight of sound theory'. If he does not continue he will be remembered as a young author extinguished by J. R. McCulloch. As for 'Whately [Richard Whately] and his logic you may neglect him or kick hm as you like. You will of course soon be as completely out of his reach as a man who walks forwards is of a man who stands still and prances'. WW has finished his Bridgewater treatise ['Astronomy and General Physics Considered with Reference to Natural Theology', 1833] and sent it to the Bishop of London and the President of the Royal Society to examine.

WW finds RJ's word admirable [another word[?] for Richard Whately's term 'catallactics', see WW to RJ, 20 Jan. 1833]: 'Except you could make more of the ridicule of Whately turn upon the ugliness of the word Calallactics' ['Review of Whately'?]. RJ should reduce his 3 glasses of wine to 2. WW has enclosed an unpublished sonnet by 'Hamilton [William Rowan Hamilton] the Dublin astronomer about which I want your advice. It takes my fancy extremely...I should like to print it at the beginning of my Bridgewater book ['Astronomy and General Physics Considered with Reference to Natural Theology', 1833]...In doing so I should say in the preface that the statements in one of my chapters concerning the tendency of mathematics to lead men's minds from religious views must be held to apply to some cause only, as was clear by such an example as the author of these lines, one of the first analysts of the age. This would be no more than justice, for he is a superb analyst and a noble fellow'. What does RJ think?

Brasted - RJ wants WW to look at the third edition of Whately's [Richard Whately] 'Logic' [first published 1826] - 'turn to p.3 20 you will find some observations on terms by Senior [Nassau William Senior] beginning The foundations of political economy being a few general propositions deduced from observation or from consciousness and generally admitted as soon as stated[,] it might have been expected that there would be as little difference of opinion among political economists as among mathematicians and then read on'. RJ states 'that when he comes to rent he gets from consciousness and such observation as he deemed sufficient a notion that rent is always the secret of some advantage which enables unequal profits to be made and proposes to extend the term to all the gains made in consequence of any extraordinary powers of body or mind any processes in manufacture which are protected by secrecy or by law any peculiar advantages from situation or connexion a pretty hash he was likely to make of it'. RJ does not think there is much they should object to in the body of Whately's work, 'except a strange notion that the inference made by the mind when its inductive processes are completed is an inference which belongs to deductive reasoning and may be called logical ascending to his own strict definition of logic which I hold to be utterly wrong (the notion that is not the definition) see p.235 and another foolish sneer at those who think that inductive reasoning can ever be reduced to scientific form - page 243'. RJ had not seen 'Senior's nonsense till lately as I could hardly have kept my hands off him'. RJ has an idea 'that some popular views of inductive reasoning such as I shall sketch would be a good thing to publish, when you see them decide whether you will keep them and use them yourself or send them back for me to enlarge. If either of us do it it must not be with a reference to natural philosophy exclusively or I think mainly - But mind if you insist on german phraseology or any thing like it I wash my hands of the job'.

Brasted - RJ transcribes part of William Jacob's positive speculations on the distribution of RJ's book ['An Essay on the Distribution of Wealth and on the Sources of Taxation', 1831]. RJ is 'more and more in love with my intended sketch of inductive logic. I think it is just possible you may think it touches on your domain - never mind - I think in that case it will be useful to you - because it proceeds on a sort of comparison with the purposes and methods of deductive logic which I do not think it ever occurred to you to make so fully, and if it is useful to you and through you to the world I shall be content - I want only to help to spread the faith and have all the disinterested zeal of a knight errant in the great cause'. RJ will 'prove even to Whately [Richard Whately] that the outline of an art of reasoning (for I do not mean to give him that word to put in irons) inductively on almost all subjects is to be got from Bacon and nature as compleat in all that is useful and really natural as their art of deductive reasoning and also what men must do to compleat the outline and what a darling thing it will be when done'.

RJ does 'heartily agree with you as to Aristotle - to whom it is childish to do scant or reluctant justice - but still it is nonetheless true that he was himself fascinated and misled by the demonstrating powers of his syllogistic art, and while wielding it or scratching at general propositions which were to enable him to wield his brilliant weapon he forgot sometimes what his precepts and example had done to shew and promote the true work of investigation. That his followers quite forgot what his mightier mind occasionally overlooked is not so wonderful but really Copleston [Edward Copleston] and Whately [Richard Whately] are a little too bold - having themselves the first of their caste come to perceive the true scope and limits of the deductive art, they set about abusing in good set terms all who had overrated its pretensions - as if that overrating did not begin or end with logicians and especially Oxford itself'. RJ believes that he has 'traced induction from the works of the logicians into the mind of Bacon - very successfully I think'. Although he finds some confusion in the way Bacon uses induction.

RJ had not seen or heard of Richard Whately's book ['Introductory Lectures on Political Economy, being Part of a Course Delivered in Easter term', 1831] and thinks WW suspicions might be right - 'I hope not for if so it will come to a fight'. Does WW think a few pages prefixed to his proposed volume on wages a good idea? - 'in the use and abuse of definitions shewing first that we do know something of their use and taking them a goodly variety of instances of abuse and all from Whately's own books - you saw those adopted from Senior [Nassau Senior] in his logic [see RJ to WW, 24 February 1831] and now behold do look at his book and see page 6 man may be defined an animal that makes exchanges. And it is in this point of view alone that man is contemplated by political economy and then at page 10 with reference to this Having settled then what it is that political economy is concerned about'. Whately should look around, about and behind him: 'see nations subsisting principally on what they raise and consume from the soil and sovereigns with huge domains cultivated on their account by slaves or serfs and observe that here and indeed in all agricultural communities the greater part of the wealth produced is never exchanged at all and yet that its production and consumption and a variety of changes which take place relative to these influence the wealth of the state the habits character and social relations and mutual dependence of its various orders...in confirming political economy to treating of exchanges of one thing for another thing you overlooked states of society very widely spread and ordinarily the foundation from which all others are raised'.

The Quarterly Review is out - 'from the internal evidence of the article and the more direct testimony of old Jacob [William Jacob] I learn that it is not yours but another which Lockhart [John G. Lockhart] has permitted the same person to write who has done their political economy lately and has done Whately in this - now I know that we shall both feel exactly alike on this occasion - indignation at L's gratuitous impertinence mixed with thankfulness that our child has got this lift from any hand so opportunely in its hour of need' ['Review of An Essay on the Distribution of Wealth and the Sources of Taxation By Rev. Richard Jones, Quarterly Review, 1831]. RJ suggests ways of responding to J. R. McCulloch's adverse review ['Review of An Essay on the Distribution of Wealth and on the Sources of Taxation By the Rev. Richard Jones', Edinburgh Review, 1831]: 'I shall send you my papers on Macs article which I shall lay aside for the present - I have analysed it now pretty compleatly and desire no better weapon to belabor him with. It abounds with instances of misrepresentation and ignorance so glaring that they must be striking and what surprises me more, with more than one proof that he is often honestly (if I may complement a term with any thing belonging to him but honesty[)] incapable of understanding much of my reasoning deductive as well as inductive - how the devil did he understand Ricardo? or am I really more abstruse than I meant to be? - Mac's willful sins however predominate of which I hope he will live to repent'. The review of Whately is good in design but indifferent in execution [The Quarterly Review, 1832]. RJ expects a great piece of work from John Herschel 'if he lives and does not let astronomy engross him at last, about which I have my fears, for I can see nothing likely to come of it in either hemisphere which I think worthy of him.

RJ will come to Cambridge to vote for Joseph Romilly on Thursday. RJ hopes WW is mistaken regarding the reasons Nassau Senior resigned the professorship at King's: 'D'Oyly assures me that Mr Senior resigns because he has been appointed to the commission on the poor laws which will take up all his time. He is appointed as the head of that commission with I understand a considerable salary and considering that he is too a conveyancer in full practice this reason seems sufficient. - Neither King's College or myself should get any credit by its being supposed I was put there as an ecclesiastical puppet to fight tithe haters - I need not tell you I would act no such part but I cannot pretend that I should be insensible to the charge of doing so, while at the same time my own views would necessarily lead me to oppose Whately [Richard Whately] and Senior's [Nassau Senior] projects about tithes if I was forced to grapple with the subject inasmuch as with the needless dogmatism which disfigures all they say or do they have got a new fangled system of their own ready cut and dried which they would like to force down the throats of England and Ireland on their authority and without the slightest regard to local difficulties reasonable modifications or any ones views or experience but their own'.

RJ is at work on his first lecture as Professor of Political Economy at King's College, and should have a copy to show WW in ten days time: 'In the mean time I find I cannot limit my subject without a definition of wealth, which however I shall declare to be merely arbitrary and meant to convey no knowledge but a knowledge of what wealth I meant to treat of and what to neglect or exclude . Malthus's is The material objects necessary, useful or agreeable to man, which have required some portion of human exertion to appropriate or produce. MacCulloch's [J.R. McCulloch] those articles or products which have exchangeable value, and are either necessary, useful or agreeable to man'. McCulloch 'takes in immaterial wealth[,] skill[,] wisdom etc. service of menials etc. and limits, by the phrase exchangeable value. If he had kept the word material I would not have quarrelled with his exchangeable value which Malthus admits in the Quarterly'. However, 'it has misled Mac. himself to call Political economy the science of values and Whately [Richard Whately] into arguing that Political economists have nought to do with wealth save so far forth as it has exchangeable value'. RJ would like 'to stick wherever I can to Malthus but he has abandoned his own definition and it is clear exchangeable value is a dangerous attribute to define from where logicians or Scotch systematizers are to be found'. RJ proposes: 'The material objects which are appropriated by man previous to being used by him (I like used best) to their consumption. This shuts out light, air, water, (not appropriated) and skill[,] menial services etc. avoids the necessity of the words necessary[,] useful or agreeable because no one takes the trouble to appropriate what is none of these - includes the idea of exchangeable value since whatever is appropriated may be exchanged and shuts out all temptation to talk nonsense about the science being a science of values - confined to exchanges etc'. RJ re-phrases his definition of wealth - 'The material objects which man appropriates, before he uses them avoiding both the participles on which are appropriated by man before he uses them I like the last best'.

Collingwood - RJ is full of things to say to WW as he continues to read John S. Mill's book on Logic. John Herschel has not yet got through Mill's section on dialectics [see RJ to WW, 6 April 1843] - 'he likes them but thinks as you do of Comte - or more meanly still. Mill obviously struggles against light and would willingly like Whately [Richard Whately] first shew the real value of the syllogism and then represent the use of it as the best means of getting at new truths for inconsistent as this is what else can he mean by talking of a deductive method which is opposed to and better than and which is to supplant induction - on which induction it is after all to rest. Practically he prefers I presume the smallest possible quantity of induction and the greatest possible of ratiocination. It would serve him right to take some of the social science in the probable progress of which he discards induction and shew where ratiocination led in other days his Papa and himself. How moderate an induction would have been their observation and how little when reasoning had led them by the nose into a slough they were in any plight to save themselves by a verification of facts. There is not only the case but a little army of cases in which they might be shewn floundering and lost and their path traced back through this miserable logic. I must read the second vol. over again after I have finished it once. I find much of it very obscure'.

Trinity College - WW is angry with Lockhart [John G. Lockhart] for having published his review of John Herschel ['Modern Science: Inductive Philosophy', Quarterly Review 45, 1831] but suppressing his one of RJ: 'I cannot say that I much like the review of Herschel now that I look at it in cold blood, and I have a strong persuasion that all the philosophical part will repel most and puzzle the rest'. WW is amused by RJ's encounters with Whately [Richard Whately]: 'I am quite ready to fight and very confident of getting the better' - but to do so effectively they need more examples - 'in short if you would get your wages published. The feeling on which Whately grounds his opinions, that principles of action are known by consciousness and do not require detailed observation...is plain and generally assumed and it will take some trouble to eradicate. The analogy between physical and political or economical science is yet to be shewn. There is no want of abundant means of shewing the actual folly and essential baseness of their method, but if this be made the permissible nature of the dispute people will ask you to reckon your points: so vindicate as fast as you can'.