Invites Patterson to dine with him at the Midland Hotel the following day at 7.30pm.
[Sent from Cambridge]:- Regrets that he cannot accept his Aunt [Henrietta?] Croft's invitation as he is engaged every morning from 8 to 2. Hopes to be able to go over to Bedford sometime, but it must be in vacation time. Talks of arrangements for meeting in winter, but announces that he wishes to spend the last month of the vacation in Cambridge learning Hebrew. Reports on Arthur's health and states that he is very cheerful and jolly. Hopes that William is coming to stay with him at the end of term. Comments on the weather, which had turned that day into 'what foreigners call "English weather".' Remarks that he was often taken for a Londoner in Germany. Reports that he is engaged now six hours a day 'in pure talking', and teaches for two hours a week at the Working Men's College; amongst others there, he instructs 'a converted Jew in the rudiments of Latin', who was 'brought by a queer enthusiastic Syrian traveller' whom they have among their fellows. Sends his love to his aunt and uncle [William and Stephana], and sends Arthur's love to his mother.
Expresses his and his wife's 'most heartfelt sympathy' on the death of Henry Sidgwick. Refers to his [Breul's] days as a student in Berlin, where he heard 'Dr Sidgwick's' name often mentioned in relation to the study of ethics. Claims that since then he has looked on him as 'a great scholar and the leading English moral philosopher', and when he came to Cambridge he 'soon learned to admire him equally as a man.' States that he will never forget the great kindness the Sidgwick's have always shown to him and his wife.
Breul, Karl Hermann (1860-1932), Professor of German, Cambridge UniversityMind, volume 10, number 37.
Expresses his pleasure at receiving Sidgwick's letter, and at the news that the latter had joined the Free Christian Union. Reports that the anniversary meeting is that day or the next, but he is unable to attend. Hopes that Sidgwick will go. Expresses his anxiety in relation to the Church of England. Refers to Tyndale [John Tyndall?]'s theory on spiritualism, and observes that the Physical Science men 'seem to leave out of sight the fact that if they have no emotional side to their own nature, it is a very important element in the nature of most people.'
Explains that he has been too busy during the previous two months to read very much material that was not connected with his work. Declares a book by 'Miss Ogle', [Lady Verney] Stone Edge, to be 'a pretty and restful novel'. Refers also to The Lost Love, and to the fact that people say that it was written by a Lady Verney. States that [ ] B[ ] has taken up much of his time, because he has been reviewing him for the Theological Review. Asks Sidgwick if he has read a book called the French Revolution by Heinrich von Sybel [1867] History of the French Revolution].
Announces that he is going abroad with three or four of his pupils, and that Mr Paul is accompanying them; they start on Monday 3 August for the Rhine as far as Constance, and then maybe go by Munich and Prague to Dresden, where they intend to stay a fortnight, and get home about 10 September. Between that date and 12 October he hopes that Sidgwick will be able to visit them, and suggests that it would be nice if he came to Dresden. Tells him to come before 3 August if he is unable to come after their return, but is unsure when they will be able to receive him. Explains that one of his sisters is to be married, and is coming to stay, along with her fiancé. Tells Sidgwick to let him know when he can come.
Typewritten copy of letter dated 31 January 1896. Apologises for not having written to her sooner with reference to her article in Mind on ' Significs'; explains that he has been very busy. Adds that he has delayed to write partly because he does not have any useful suggestions on the question of 'a Paper for the International Congress of Psychology'. Declares that he believes that the question 'is mainly one for logicians rather than psychologists and that it will not be very easy to find a mode of treatment which will make it an altogether appropriate topic for a Psychological Congress'. Suggests ' Interpretation as a psychological process' or some similar phrase as the title of her paper. Observes that she does not include psychology 'on p.25 - among the list of studies that has a peculiar meaning term correlated with it', and remarks that he thinks that there would be 'some interest in working out the characteristics of Interpretation as a psychological process'.
Declining the offer of Public Orator of the University of Cambridge.
Paris (4bis, rue des Ecoles) - Would like to have the second volume of 'The Idea of Immortality', which he has seen announced, and 'The Scapegoat' as well.
Acknowledges receipt of a Newton letter dated 3 July 1684. With later note below, 'Received again by Trinity 20 Mar. 1990. DMcK [David McKitterick, Librarian of Trinity College].
Mansfield House, Canning Town, E.—Sends New Year’s greetings. Describes his visit to Coblenz.
12 Seymour Street, Portman Square. - 'T. E. Page told me that your son had written a paper on the Plough...'
Notes, fragments of writings, mainly in Whewell's hand, placed together in an envelope by Isaac Todhunter. Includes two drawings, including one of a man in profile. Topics include education, language, geology, history, and religious history. Includes a memo of letters used in Whewell's life relating to Thirlwall's resignation of the tutorship in 1834.
Edinburgh - Thanks WW for his last letter. He is sorry that there is a view in the south prevailing, which suggests both he and David Brewster have been at 'dagger's drawing' over their late contest [for Professor of Natural Philosophy at Edinburgh University, see JDF to WW, 31 Mar. 1833 ] - the opposite was the case. JDF still thinks that an abridgement to WW's book on mechanics [The First Principles of Mechanics: With Historical and Practical Illustrations, 1832] 'with some leading propositions for the 3 first sections of Newton (taken from your 'Introduction') and concluded with a comprehensive mathematical theory of Hydrostatics' would be really useful [see JDF to WW, 31 Mar. 1833].
Small black notebook inscribed 'Gekauft 2.9.1936', includes diary entries November 1936-August 1938, with visits to Copenhagen, Sweden, Norway, addresses, notes on correspondents, drawings, calculations on 'Badewanne', etc. Both ends of book used.
Oak Lodge, Exmouth. - Notes Gow's 'kind gift of the bound volume of your Sketch [a memoir of her brother A. E. Housman'; encloses postcard of painting of Humphrey Holden, which 'hung in the Trinity College room of A. E. Housman' and is now owned by Mrs Symons.
E. I. Coll. - Thanks WW for sending him a copy of his paper on the application of mathematics to political economy ['Mathematical Exposition of Some Doctrines of Political Economy', 1829]: 'I have looked over it with great interest; but I am ashamed to say that, never having been very familiar with the present algebraic notation, and for a great many years having been quite unaccustomed to it, I cannot follow you as I could wish, without more attention and application than I can give to the subject in the midst of our College examinations'. Nevertheless TRM thinks WW's conclusions are fairly just, and believes in certain cases mathematical calculations could be applied with advantage to Political Economy - 'particularly with a view to determine the different degrees in which certain objects are affected, under different hypotheses. The grand difficulty however, with a view to practicability, is the getting data to work upon, sufficiently near the truth; and such as can be stated distinctly in mathematical language. In many cases where one should wish to come to definite conclusions I should fear this was quite impracticable. I have long thought that these are many of the results in political economy which have some resemblance to the problems de maximes et minimes, such as the most favourable division of landed property, neither too great nor too small; and the most advantageous proportions, (with a view to the permanent increase of wealth) in which the whole produce of capital should be divided between the capitalists and labourers. But I do not see how such propositions could be put into proper language for a fluxional solution, varying as the result must do with the fertility of soils and the productiveness of capitals'. TRM thinks that the points WW discusses in his paper are more manageable - 'though perhaps all your axioms may not be sufficiently general. Does your third include cases of the saving of labour, where new land may be cultivated without an increase in the value of the produce? And does your fourth include the case of an increased demand with the same supply? I think it might have been difficult to proceed without the supposition of a limiting soil on which the cost of production is determined. And yet this, and all the conclusions in the latter part of Mr P. Thompson's essay belong entirely to the New theory of Rent ['An Exposition of Fallacies on Rent, Tithes,etc...Being in the Form of a Review of the Third Edition of Mr Mill's Elements of Political Economy', 1826], and not to what he calls the True Theory which he at first proposes to substitute for it, namely the kind of monopoly from which the price of Tokay arises. This had indeed been the usual view of the subject; and the particular object of my original pamphlet on R[ent] to which Mr Ricardo refers, was to shew the doctrine [of] ordinary rent, and the rent arising from a common street monopoly, such as a Tokay vineyard. I quite agree with Mr P. Thompson that the productions of soil are not necessary to the exactness of rent, as I repeatedly expressed in print long before he wrote. But as productions of soil do actually take place in all countries, all the practical questions relating to places and tithes must be essentially modified by them. Mr Thompson states most correctly, as I have often stated to Mr Ricardo that taxes on raw produce, or tithes, throw lands of a certain quality out of cultivation, or prevent their being cultivated, and in this way fall on rent, on the other hand if the supply were unaffected by the tax it would, as you partly observe fall on the consumer. But these questions do not apply at all to a Tokay vineyard: The actual value of corn is necessary to its actual supply in the exacting quantity (newly), but the same quantity of Tokay would continue to be supplied at a much lower value. The permanent rise in the value of corn is strictly limited by the circumstance of its being the necessary food of the demanders. The rise in the value of Tokay has no limit but the wealth and caprice of a few consumers. I cannot but think therefore that it was an unfortunate comparison and the essay would have been totally inapplicable to real state of things if he had adhered to it. Can we suppose that the capital employed on good land is 2[,] 3 or 4 times that which is employed on the same quantity of any poor land? Sometimes the revenue is the fact. By the bye, you have inadvertently said that Mr Ricardo maintains that a tax on wages must fall on the labourers. He says it must full on profits. But the error does not affect your illustration of the use of mathematics in Pol. Economy which is a very good one'.