If Ma-Man is still with JCH on the 6th, WW will try to come to them for a day. He gave Mrs Augustus Hare a copy of his short critique of Hegel's vagaries to pass to JCH [On Hegel's Criticism of Newton's Principia, 1849]: 'There is nothing which so entirely deprives men of all respect for German heads in the matter of reasoning as the way in which they have allowed Hegel to dominate over them. It appears to me that on every subject he is equally fanciful and shallow though he may not be so demonstratively wrong as in the matter of Newton. Sedgwick [Adam Sedgwick] is mightily delighted and entertained with my paper'.
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'.
Herstmonceux - They are all looking forward to WW's visit. JCH gives instructions on how best to reach them in Hurstmonceux. 'What a beautiful poem Evangeline is. It seems to me to have definitively naturalized the metre: at least it will do so in America. The story is evidently suggested by Hermann & Dorothea; yet the poem is thoroughly original, very like, yet totally different'. JCH longs to hear how the new system is working at the University - 'The new Professors, I suppose, have not downed their harness yet'. What does Sir James Stephen mean by Hazlitt's Life of Luther? Is the article on 'Faith and Reason' in the Edinburgh Review by Stephen? - 'the style has not the same ponderous Gibbonian rhetoric; and though parts are well & forcibly put, I think I wd hardly confound faith so entirely with belief, or join so entirely the thaumalurgie school of reasoners on the evidences'. JCH has read WW's piece on Hegel [On Hegel's Criticism of Newton's "Principia", 1849]: 'Hegel has never been one of my favorites, but the contrary. Still it seems to me that you treat him somewhat over-scurvily, as if he were a mere ass; whereas, with all my repugnance to many of his notions, I have never read twenty pages of him, without feeling that he was a very great thinker and writer'. Hegel is difficult to read in German let alone after he has been translated, and WW seems to have missed the sense of a couple of the sentences JCH checked with the original text.
Thanks HS for sending him his book The Methods of Ethics, and says that he will 'take it up and read it from time to time'. Refers to the attitude of Hume and Hegel to ethics, and also refers to Begriff and [Alt]. States that he fears that he shall not be able to take the same interest 'in these Mills and Bains and Spencers, etc.' as Sidgwick does. Has no doubt, however, that he will gain much from the matter and form of his book.
Stirling, James Hutchison (1820-1909) philosopherThanks WW for his Memoir on Hegel's Criticism of Newton's Principia: 'he is, to say the least, one of the most impudent of all literary quacks and I feel sure that there is no part of his so-called philosophy which, if carefully examined by a competent and impartial judge, would not lead him to a like conclusion'. CT 'has so much faith in the force of truth, as to believe that sooner or later Hegel's name will only be redeemed from universal contempt by the recollection of the immense mischief he has done. It is certainly a very remarkable phenomenon, and one which will deserve to occupy a large place in a future history of European philosophy and literature in the 19th century, that such a man should have exercised so great an influence over the mind of Germany'. CT would be surprised if this high opinion of Hegel is shared by a German whom WW would recognize as a competent judge of a scientific question.
Thanks WW for his work on Induction and the second Memoir: 'The former brought back to my mind several passages by which I had been much perplexed and dissatisfied in the midst of the pleasure and admiration with which I had gone through Mill's [John S. Mill] book some three years ago ['A System of Logic Ratiocinative and Inductive: Being a Connected View of the Principles of Evidence and the Methods of Scientific Investigation', 1843, second edition (1846)]. It is not for me to pronounce between two such thinkers, at least until I have seen a rejoinder to the reply: but I certainly have a very strong impression that your main position cannot be shaken'. As to WW's'Additional Note to the two Memoirs' CT thinks it certainly puts Hegel's place in the history of German philosophy: 'The master thought of his philosophy is Schelling, all that is his own is the rashness and violence with which he has carried it out into detail, by a perpetual perversion of facts and juggle of words'. CT finds it 'an inestimable blessing to live in an an intellectual atmosphere in which such monstrosities either could never come to light or most instantly die, even though it may not be quite so genial as that in which they flourish'.
Asks Sidgwick if he has mastered Hegelian philosophy. Reminds him that they are all looking to him or John Mozley or both to tell them what he [Hegel] means. Remarks that [Septimus?] Hansard once said that 'he conceived his 'mission' was to translate Maurice to the people. Refers to W.D. Rawlin's 'funny voyage to America with Tom Hughes; remarks that '[w]hatever else it does for him it will probably deliver him from the [ ] represented by The Kiss of Peace.' Asks Sidgwick if he knows who wrote G[ ] Balz. Suspects that it might be Trevelyan, 'if it is not too good for the writer of C[ ].' Hopes to see Sidgwick at Christmas. Reports that he took Louis back to Eton, mainly in order that he may see Cornish, who, he reports, is quite well, and has not yet learnt the Gospel according to Matthew. Claims that it is not easy to have too many Cornishes, 'if they all take after their father.' [incomplete]
London - Thanks WW for the copy of his defence of Newton [On Hegel's Criticism of Newton, 1849]: 'From the very little I can pretend to know of philosophical students on this country, I should guess that Hegel's influence is waning'. Further to WW's second memoir on the Fundamental Antithesis: 'No doubt your, most active, intellectual life has produced more important results than that distinction between man's progress as a scientific inquirer and as a moral agent, I certainly never read any thing in my life which struck me as being at once so new, and so suggestive.'
Encloses a postal order [not included], admitting that he forgot to repay him. Asks him to inform him how the interview [Myers adds: 'with Miss Drew'] concludes. Liked what Myers recited 'just before parting'; [Myers notes that this was from his own 'piece called The Passing of Youth ']. Believes that Myers receives letters from Sidgwick 'with a certain dread.' States that he seems to himself 'like some statesman Macaulay speaks of whom neither etc nor etc nor etc (say study of Hegel and Vice-Presidency of F[ree] C[hristian] U[nion]) had altered from the dreaming schoolboy that he was at 16'. Writes in verse, beginning with the lines 'What am I An infant crying for the moon...', which, he claims is inspired by Tennyson. Claims that one advantage of being a philosopher by profession is that 'one has very drastic remedies for egotism very ready to hand'.
Direction: 'An die Mohr u- Wintersche, Buchhandlung'.
Writes in relation to Sidgwick's review of his last book in Mind that month. Clarifies the audience at whom it is aimed, and declares that he would have no hesitation in recommending the book to candidates reading for the two examinations with which he has 'most acquaintance', i.e., 'Lit. Hum. and Mod. Hist. at Oxford.' Laments the fact that the subject of Political Science is not recognised in Scotland. Explains that the book grew out of a popular lecture, but that it is based on many years' study of the American and French Declarations of Rights. Claims that '[i]n treating the idea of "natural rights" as "an element of current thought"' he believed that it was as important to deal with popular writers, such as Henry George, as with 'an exposition of Les Naturalis like Father Rickaby or of the doctrine of Naturrecht like Prof Lorimer [or] of his own special views like [W.] Spencer.' In relation to the latter refers to his criticism of his fundamental formula of justice in the book, and claims that he has written much about him in a book called Principles of State-Interferences. With reference to two examples of Ritchie's 'inaccuracy' in his historical statements given by Sidgwick, he does not acknowledge any error, but does concede that the statements 'might certainly be improved and made fuller and less ambiguous.' Refers to the passage 'from [Filmer]', and to the theory of natural rights, which he traces to the Protestant revolt against authority. Admits that it can be traced further back, to medieval writers 'on the ecclesiastical side' who asserted the sovereignty of the people and the right of resistance to tyrants 'when the Church (or the Pope) declared them such.' Claims that Protestantism is 'the logical parent of the French Revolution', but emphasises that he does not assert this claim because Hegel said so. Refers to Locke and Rousseau, and their theories on the sovereignty of the people. Claims not to have ignored the differences between the two, and that he referred to the matter more fully in 'Darwin and Hegel etc. [Essays on 'Social Contract' and 'Sovereignty']', in Principles of State-Interference, and in the translation of [Bluntschli's] Theory of the State. Assures Sidgwick that he does not ask for a reply to his letter, but asks that he or any of his pupils or his friends who have read his book could send him notes on passages that contain inaccuracies or are in need of revision.
Ritchie, David George (1853-1903) philosophercontaining notes from Ross Aristotle's Ethics (cont), Stephen Psychoanalysis of Medicine, Bergson The Two sources of Morality and Religion, Price Review of the Principle Questions and Difficulties in Morals, Hutcheson Enquiry concerning moral good and evil, Williams Concept of Justice in British Moralists, Rickaby Moral Philosophy, Carritt Moral Positivism and Moral Aestheticism, Ewing Paradoxes of Kant's Ethics, Taylor The Ethical Doctrine of Hobbes, Freedom and Personality and Freedom and Personality Again, Campbell Psychology of Effort of Will, L J Russell Ought implies Can, A K Stuart Free Will and Responsibility, Hobart Free Will as involving Determinism, Stevenson Ethical Judgements and Avoidability, Emotive Meaning and Ethical Terms and Persuasive Definities and Carritt Hegel's Sittlickheit
Nürenbergerstrasse 65 II, Berlin W.50 - Is pleased to see that part I of the third edition of the 'The Golden Bough' has appeared; found the meeting [about?] Hegel very interesting; a 'New Hegelianism' is spreading here; is about to go travelling and wonders where Frazer will be.
Thanks Mayor for returning his MS. Claims that if he had been confident enough in his memory to serve Mayor's or Nora Sidgwick's purpose regarding 'the philosophical discussions at Trumpington' he would have answered him before. Is confused about dates, but states that he has little doubt that he first went to Professor Grote's house to listen to, and occasionally read, philosophical papers in the October term of 1863. States that the only other people who attended these meetings at this time were Henry Sidgwick, 'John Venn of Caius, and Pearson of St John's'. Describes the attributes of each of those who attended, and remarks that Sidgwick obviously preferred ethics to metaphysics, and recalls [Professor] Alfred Marshall emphasising his admiration of this side of Sidgwick very soon after he made his acquaintance. Refers to Sidgwick's opinion of Kant and Hegel, and to the intuitionalism 'which in the end he united with his utilitarianism'. Is uncertain as to whether he gave any measure of assent to the first fundametal proposition of 'Ferrier's Institutes of Metaphysics'
Wishes that he could remember more of the actual papers that Sidgwick read to the Philosophical Society, which was, after Grote's death, called the Grote Society, but has the impression that 'they were tentatives towards the kind of line which he afterwards took in the Methods of Ethics'. Refers also to Sidgwick's attitude to metaphysics. Believes that J.S. Mill was the philosopher whom he always admired and trusted the most. Holds, however, that he changed his view of Mill between 1863 and 1873, citing his reaction to Mill's Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, and to Fitzjames Stephen's attack on Mill in Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.
Refers to Grote's view of ethics and metaphysics, and to his Treatise on the Moral Ideals, and to the similarities between him and Sidgwick. Refers also to other members of the society, such as Henry Jackson and Maurice. Recalls Sidgwick's good opinion of Venn, who was a great admirer of Mill, and names other members of the society, such as W. K. Clifford and T. W. Levin. Recalls also that when he [Mozley] went to Clifton in September 1864, Sidgwick wrote to somebody, referring to him as 'the first original a priori philosopher that has trod the streets of Cambridge for many a day'. Does not think that Herbert Spencer was ever a great favourite in the society, but had himself a great respect for him 'as the founder of the theory of evolution.' Adds that when 'the old crow, who could count up to five, but not beyond, once came before the Grote Society', Sidgwick 'was unkind enough to doubt his existence' and none of the rest of them could give evidence for him.
Mozley, John Rickards (1840-1931), educator and mathematicianCollingwood - Thanks WW for his two papers. JH did not think Hegel 'had been quite so shallow and conceited'. There are quite a few people who set up Kepler in Newton's place who have never heard of Hegel: they need to be taught 'what is meant by science'. JH gives a problem suggested by a method calculating double star orbits which requires an intrinsic equation.
Clifton - Thanks WW for his three works: 'One is above me, but I have read your remarks on Hegel [On Hegel's Criticism of Newton's Principia, 1849] and Mill [Of Induction, 1849] with much pleasure. The former you have well demolished; and I concur in much the greater part of your criticism of the latter, though not having his system of logic by me, I cannot go fully into it'. HH gives his comments on some of WW's remarks in his Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences (1840): 'I have no right to object to your definition of Induction, though it seems to me more limited than ever the modern use of the word'. HH's remark is primarily directed at what WW says of the ancient induction. HH situates his understanding of Aristotle in the debate.