Item 31 - Richard Jones to William Whewell

4 pp.

Brasted - RJ no longer has an appetite for Aristotle: 'His notions of the mode in which the mind gets the idea of the lowest species appear to me absurd enough but very decided' [see RJ to WW, 15 March 1831]. What does WW 'think of my crotchet that Bacon took up the word induction from the logicians and in the narrow sense to which they had reduced it and then finding it came nearest to his wants rendered it with its pristine generality and majesty of purpose without being aware of the sense in which Aristotle had previously used it - curious if true and I strongly incline to think it so'. RJ hopes WW reads the Bolingbroke he pointed out - 'it is I think the perfection of philosophical style'. He hopes WW does not let the opportunity to review his book for the British Critic pass ['Review of An Essay on the Distribution of Wealth and the Sources of Taxation by the Revd Richard Jones', The British Critic, Quarterly Theological Review and Ecclesiastical Record, 1831]. RJ is worried that his book will get 'into the hands of the Hertford College people [East India College] and I hardly know whether to consider Papa [Thomas Malthus] neutral or inclined to shew fight - by the bye you have not told me what you think of my defence that is about the relative importance of the different rents'.