by ,case ,western ,reserve ,university ,preservation ,department ,digital ,library47 ,,professor ,,royce',s ,,libel4 99 99 99 99 99 ,a ,,public ,,appeal ,,for ,,redress ,,to ,,the ,,corporation ,,and ,,overseers ,,of ,,harvard ,,university4 ,,by ,,francis ,,ellingwood ,,abbot1 ,,ph4,d4 ,,cambridge1 ,,mass4 99 99 99 99 99 ,,boston1 ,,mass4 ,,geo4 ,h4 ,,ellis1 #ada ,,franklin ,,street1 #ahia4 ,,public ,,appeal4 ,,to ,,the ,,president ,,and ,,fellows ,,and ,,board ,,of ,,overseers ,,of ,,harvard ,,university3 ,gentlemen1--,believing it to be a necessary part of good citizenship to defend one's reputation against unjustifiable attacks1 and believing you to have been unwarrantably1 but not remotely1 implicated in an unjustifiable attack upon my own reputation by ,assistant ,professor ,josiah ,royce1 since his attack is made publicly1 explicitly1 and emphatically on the authority of his professional position as one of your agents and appointees1 ,i respectfully apply to you for redress of the wrong1 leaving it wholly to your own wisdom and sense of justice to decide what form such redress should take4 ,if ,dr4 ,royce had not1 by clear and undeniable implication1 appealed to your high sanction to sustain him in his attack1--if he had not undeniably sought to create a widespread but false public impression that1 in making this attack1 he spoke1 and had a right to speak1 with all the prestige and authority of ,harvard ,university itself1--,i should not have deemed it either necessary or becoming to appeal to you in self-defence1 or1 indeed1 to take any public notice whatever of an attack otherwise unworthy of it4 ,but under the circumstances ,i am confident that you will at once recognize the inevitableness and unquestionable propriety of my appeal from the employee to the employer1 from the agent to the principal2 and it would be disrespectful to you to doubt for a moment that1 disapproving of an attack made impliedly and yet unwarrantably in your name1 you will express your disapprobation in some just and appropriate manner4 ,my action in thus laying the matter publicly before you can inflict no possible injury upon our honored and revered ,alma ,mater3 injury to her is not even conceivable1 except on the wildly improbable supposition of your being indifferent to a scandalous abuse of his position by one of your assistant professors1 who1 with no imaginable motive other than mere professional jealousy or rivalry of authorship1 has gone to the unheard-of length of professionally warning the public against a peaceable and inoffensive private scholar1 whose published arguments he has twice tried1 but twice signally failed1 to meet in an intellectual way4 ,if the public at large should have reason to believe that conduct so scandalous as this in a ,harvard professor will not be condemned by you1 as incompatible with the dignity and the decencies of his office and with the rights of private citizens in general1 ,harvard ,university would indeed suffer1 and ought to suffer2 but it is wholly within your power to prevent the growth of so injurious a belief4 ,i beg leave1 therefore1 to submit to you the following statement1 and to solicit for it the patient and impartial consideration which the gravity of the case requires4 ,i4 ,the first number of a new quarterly periodical1 the ,international ,journal of ,ethics1 published at ,philadelphia in ,october1 #ahij1 contained an ostensible review by ,dr4 ,royce of my last book1 ,the ,way out of ,agnosticism4 ,i advisedly use the word ostensible1 because the main purport and intention of the article were not at all to criticise a philosophy1 but to sully the reputation of the philosopher1 deprive him of public confidence1 ridicule and misrepresent his labors1 hold him up by name to public obloquy and contempt1 destroy or lessen the circulation of his books1 and1 in general1 to blacken and break down his literary reputation by any and every means1 even to the extent of aspersing his personal reputation1 although there had never been the slightest personal collision4 ,its bitter and invidious spirit was not in the least disguised by a few exaggerated compliments adroitly inserted here and there3 these merely furnish the foil needed to give greater potency and efficiency to the personal insinuations1 and1 like ,mark ,antony's compliments to ,csar's assassins1 subserved quite too many politic purposes to be accepted as sincere4 ,only a native of ,boeotia could be imposed upon by them1 when the actual character of the book in question was carefully misrepresented1 and when the self-evident trend1 tenor1 and aim of the ostensible review were to excite public prejudice against the author on grounds wholly irrespective of the truth or untruth of his expressed opinions4 ,of course1 the very largest liberty must be and should be conceded to legitimate criticism4 ,from this1 as is well known1 ,i never shrank in the least2 on the contrary1 ,i court it1 and desire nothing better for my books1 provided only that the criticism be pertinent1 intelligent1 and fair4 ,but misrepresentation for the purpose of detraction is not criticism at all2 and 7notwithstanding numerous quotations perverted by unfair and misleading glosses1 including two misquotations quite too useful to be accidental7 this ostensible review is1 from beginning to end1 nothing but misrepresentation for the purpose of detraction4 ,passing over numerous minor instances1 permit me to invite your attention to three gross instances of such misrepresentation4 ,,ii4 ,the book under review had taken the utmost pains 7pages #af-ci1 especially page #ci7 to distinguish realism from idealism1 and to argue for the former in opposition to the latter1 on the ground of the absolute incompatibility of the latter with the scientific method of investigation4 ,it had taken the utmost pains to make the contrast broad and deep1 and to point out its far-reaching consequences by explicitly opposing 7#a7 scientific realism to philosophical idealism in general1 and in particular 7#b7 constructive realism to constructive idealism1 7#c7 critical realism to critical idealism1 7#d7 ethical realism to ethical idealism1 and 7#e7 religious realism to religious idealism4 ,any fair or honorable critic would recognize this contrast and opposition between realism and idealism as the very foundation of the work he was criticising1 and would at least state it candidly1 as the foundation of his own favorable or unfavorable comments4 ,how did ,dr4 ,royce treat it8 ,he not only absolutely ignored it1 not only said nothing whatever about it1 but actually took pains to put the reader on a false scent at the start1 by assuring him 7without the least discussion of this all-important point7 that my philosophical conclusions are essentially idealistic6 ,so gross a misrepresentation as this might be charitably attributed to critical incapacity of some sort1 if it did not so very conveniently pave the way for the second gross misrepresentation which was to follow3 namely1 that the theory actually propounded in my book had been1 in fact1 appropriated and borrowed from an idealist6 ,the immense utility of misrepresenting my system at the start as essentially idealistic lay in the fact that1 by adopting this stratagem1 ,dr4 ,royce could escape altogether the formidable necessity of first arguing the main question of idealism versus realism4 ,secretly conscious of his own inability to handle that question1 to refute my ,soliloquy of the ,self-,consistent ,idealist1 or to overthrow my demonstration that consistent idealism leads logically to hopeless absurdity at last1 ,dr4 ,royce found it infinitely easier to deceive his uninformed readers by a bold assertion that ,i myself am an idealist at bottom4 ,this assertion1 swallowed without suspicion of its absolute untruth1 would render it plausible and quite credible to assert1 next1 that ,i had actually appropriated my philosophy from a greater idealist than myself4 ,for the only substantial criticism of the book made by ,dr4 ,royce is that ,i borrowed my whole theory of universals from ,hegel--unconsciously1 he has the caution to say2 but that qualification does not in the least mitigate the mischievous intention and effect of his accusation as a glaring falsification of fact and artful misdescription of my work4 ,it would be inopportune and discourteous to weary you with philosophical discussions4 ,i exposed the amazing absurdity of ,dr4 ,royce's accusation of plagiarism in the reply to his article which1 as appears below1 ,dr4 ,royce himself anxiously suppressed1 and which ,i should now submit to you1 if he had not at last taken fright and served upon me a legal protest against its circulation4 ,but1 to any well-educated man1 such an accusation as this refutes itself4 ,it would be just as reasonable1 just as plausible1 to accuse ,darwin of having borrowed his theory of natural selection from ,agassiz1 or ,daniel ,webster of having borrowed his theory of the inseparable ,union from ,john ,c4 ,calhoun1 or ex-,president ,cleveland of having borrowed his message on tariff reform from the ,home ,market ,club1 as to accuse me of having borrowed my theory of universals from ,hegel4 ,hegel's theory of universals is divided from mine by the whole vast chasm between realism and idealism4 ,the two theories contradict each other absolutely1 uncompromisingly1 irreconcilably3 ,hegel's is a theory of absolute idealism or pure thought 7reines ,denken71 that is1 of thought absolutely independent of experience1 while mine is a theory of scientific realism1 that is1 of thought absolutely dependent upon experience4 ,it is quite immaterial here which theory is the true one2 the only point involved at present is that the two theories flatly contradict each other1 and that it is self-evidently impossible that either could be borrowed1 consciously or unconsciously1 from the other4 ,if ,dr4 ,royce had ever done any hard thinking on the theory of universals1 or if he had the slightest comprehension of the problems it involves1 he would never have been so rash as to charge me with borrowing my theory from ,hegel1 and thus to commit himself irrevocably to a defence of the absurd2 but eagerness to accuse another has betrayed him into a position whence it is impossible for him to escape with honor4 ,solely by misdescribing my philosophy as essentially idealistic when it openly and constantly and emphatically avows itself to be essentially realistic1 could ,dr4 ,royce give the faintest color of plausibility to his monstrous and supremely ridiculous accusation of plagiarism2 solely by presuming upon the public ignorance both of ,hegel and of my own work could he dare to publish such an accusation to the world4 ,these gross misrepresentations1 however1 he did not hesitate to make1 since they were necessary in order to pave the way to a third and still grosser misrepresentation on which he apparently had set his heart3 namely1 that1 after borrowing the whole substance of my philosophy from ,hegel1 ,i have been guilty of making vast and extravagant pretensions as to my own novelty1 originality1 and profundity1 not only with regard to my published books1 but also with regard to my still unpublished system of philosophy4 ,his words are these3-- ,of novelty1 good or bad1 the book contains1 indeed1 despite its vast pretensions1 hardly a sign4 ,it is due also to the extravagant pretensions which he frequently makes of late as to the originality and profundity of his still unpublished system of philosophy1 to give the reader some hint of what so far appears to be the nature of our author's contributions to philosophical reflection4 ,precisely what have been these alleged pretensions8 ,dr4 ,royce cites only three instances4 ,i4 ,he first garbles a sentence in the prefatory ,note to ,the ,way out of ,agnosticism1 by quoting only one phrase from it4 ,the sentence in full is this3 ,by a wholly new line of reasoning1 drawn exclusively from those sources science and philosophy1 this book aims to show that1 in order to refute agnosticism and establish enlightened theism1 nothing is now necessary but to philosophize that very scientific method which agnosticism barbarously misunderstands and misuses4 ,there is no pretension whatever in these words1 except that the general line of reasoning set forth in the book is1 as a whole1 different from that of other books4 ,if not1 why publish it8 ,or1 without the same cause1 why publish any book8 ,i see no reason to recall or to modify this perfectly true statement2 ,dr4 ,royce1 at least1 has shown none4 ,the novelty of the book lies in its very attempt to evolve philosophy as a whole out of the scientific method itself1 as observation1 hypothesis1 and experimental verification1 by developing the theory of universals which is implicit in that purely experiential method2 and ,dr4 ,royce does not even try to prove that ,hegel1 or anybody else1 has ever made just such an attempt as that4 ,unless there can be shown somewhere a parallel attempt1 the statement is as undeniably true as it is certainly unpretentious4 ,,ii4 ,next1 ,dr4 ,royce extracts these sentences from the body of the book 7,i supply in brackets words which he omitted73 ,the first great task of philosophy is to lay deep and solid foundations for the expansion and ideal perfection of human knowledge in a bold1 new1 and true theory of universals4 ,for so-called modern philosophy rests complacently in a theory of universals which is thoroughly medival or antiquated4 ,what personal pretension1 even of the mildest sort1 can be conceived to lurk in these innocent words8 ,i did not say that ,i have succeeded in performing that task2 ,i repeat now what ,i have often said and what ,i meant then2 namely1 that modern science has unawares performed it already1 that ,i have faithfully tried to formulate and further apply what science has done1 and that ,i respectfully submit the result 7so far as already published71 not to such critics as ,dr4 ,royce1 but to able1 learned1 and magnanimous students of philosophy everywhere4 ,,iii4 ,lastly1 though employing quotation marks so as to evade a charge of formal misquotation1 he perverts and effectually misquotes a sentence of the book in a way which makes it appear exactly what it is not1--pretentious4 ,i had said at the end of my own book 7page #ge73 ,its aim has been to show the way out of agnosticism into the sunlight of the predestined philosophy of science4 ,this expression is perfectly in harmony with the prefatory ,note1 which says that this book aims to show that1 in order to refute agnosticism and establish enlightened theism1 nothing is now necessary but to philosophize that very scientific method which agnosticism barbarously misunderstands and misuses1 and which immediately adds3 ,of the success of the perhaps unwise attempt to show this in so small a compass1 the educated public must be the judge4 ,most certainly1 there is no pretension in this modest and carefully guarded avowal of the simple aim of my book4 ,but ,dr4 ,royce twists this modest avowal into a barefaced boast1 and injuriously misquotes me to his own readers thus3 ,at the conclusion of the book1 we learn that we have been shown 'the way out of agnosticism into the sunlight of the predestined philosophy of science4' ,gentlemen1 ,i request you to compare thoughtfully the expressions which ,i have here italicized1 and then decide for yourselves whether this injurious misquotation is purely accidental1 or1 in view of ,dr4 ,royce's purpose of proving me guilty of vast pretensions1 quite too useful to be purely accidental4 ,,iv4 ,but ,dr4 ,royce does not content himself with quoting or misquoting what ,i have published1 for the self-evident reason that what ,i have published is not sufficiently pretentious for his purpose4 ,disinterested anxiety for the public welfare1 and tender sorrow over the harm to careful inquiry which my book is doing by getting influence over immature or imperfectly trained minds1 constrain him to accuse me of frequently making of late extravagant pretensions as to the originality and profundity of my still unpublished system of philosophy4 ,precisely what have been these extravagant pretensions8 ,simply these3-- ,in the preface to ,scientific ,theism1 ,i said of that book3 ,it is a mere rsum of a small portion of a comprehensive philosophical system1 so far as ,i have been able to work it out under most distracting1 discouraging1 and unpropitious circumstances of many years2 and for this reason ,i must beg some indulgence for the unavoidable incompleteness of my work4 ,enumerating some reasons why ,i hesitated to begin the series of papers afterwards published as ,the ,way out of ,agnosticism1 ,i said1 in the first of these papers3 ,first and foremost1 perhaps1 is the fact that1 although the ground-plan of this theory is already thoroughly matured1 the literary execution of it is as yet scarcely even begun1 and from want of opportunity may never be completed2 and it seems almost absurd to present the abridgment of a work which does not yet exist to be abridged4 ,finally1 in an address printed in the ,unitarian ,review for ,december1 #ahhi1 ,i said3 ,without advancing any personal claim whatever1 permit me to take advantage of your indulgent kindness1 and to make here the first public confession of certain painfully matured results of thirty years' thinking1 which1 in the momentous and arduous enterprise of developing a scientific theology out of the scientific method itself1 appear to be principles of cosmical import4444 ,perhaps ,i can make them intelligible1 as a contribution to that ',unitary ,science' which the great ,agassiz foresaw and foretold4 ,in a postscript to this address ,i added3 ,for fuller support of the position taken above1 ,i am constrained to refer 444 to a large treatise1 now in process of preparation1 which aims to rethink philosophy as a whole in the light of modern science and under the form of a natural development of the scientific method itself4 ,what remotest allusion to my own originality is contained in these passages1 or what remotest allusion to my own profundity8 ,what pretension of any sort is here made1 whether extravagant or moderate8 ,yet this is the only actual evidence1 and the whole of it1 on which ,dr4 ,royce dares to accuse me of frequently making of late extravagant pretensions as to the originality and profundity of my still unpublished system of philosophy6 ,the pure absurdity of such an accusation reveals itself in the very statement of it4 ,dr4 ,royce is referring here1 be it understood1 not to my published books1 but to my unpublished system of philosophy4 ,how does he know anything about it8 ,i certainly have never shown him my unpublished manuscript1 and beyond those published allusions to it he possesses absolutely no means whatever of knowing anything about its contents4 ,nothing1 surely1 except full and exact knowledge1 derived from careful and patient personal examination of that manuscript1 could possibly be a ground of just judgment of its character4 ,how1 then1 in absolute ignorance of its character and contents1 could any fair man hazard any public verdict upon it8 ,yet ,dr4 ,royce not only accuses me of making pretensions about it which ,i never made1 but dares to characterize them as extravagant1 when1 for all he knows1 they might 7if made7 fall far short of the truth4 ,whether in this case the evidence supports the accusation1 and whether the conscience which permits the making of such an accusation on such evidence is itself such a conscience as you expect to find in your appointees1--these1 gentlemen1 are questions for you yourselves to decide4 ,,iii4 ,these three connected and logically affiliated misstatements of fact--namely1 7#a7 that my philosophy is essentially idealistic1 7#b7 that it has been appropriated and unconsciously borrowed from the idealist ,hegel1 and 7#c7 that ,i have frequently made extravagant pretensions as to the originality and profundity of this merely borrowed and appropriated philosophy--constitute in their totality a regular system of gross and studied misrepresentation1 as methodical and coherent as it is unscrupulous4 ,it is not fair criticism2 it is not criticism at all2 and ,i do not hesitate to characterize it deliberately as a disgrace both to ,harvard ,university and to ,american scholarship4 ,yet1 gross and studied and systematic as this misrepresentation is1 ,i should have passed it over in silence1 precisely as ,i did pass over a similar attack by ,dr4 ,royce on my earlier book in ,science for ,april #i1 #ahhf1 were it not that1 perhaps emboldened by former impunity1 he now makes his misrepresentations culminate in the perpetration of a literary outrage1 to which1 ,i am persuaded1 no parallel can be found in the history of polite literature4 ,it is clear that forbearance must have somewhere its limit4 ,the commands of self-respect and of civic conscience1 the duty which every citizen owes to his fellow-citizens not to permit the fundamental rights of all to be unlimitedly violated in his own person1 must at last set a bound to forbearance itself1 and compel to self-defence4 ,these are the reasons which1 after patient exhaustion of every milder means of redress1 have moved me to this public appeal4 ,dr4 ,royce's misstatements of fact1 so elaborately fashioned and so ingeniously mortised together1 were merely his foundation for a deliberate and formal professional warning to the liberal-minded public against my alleged philosophical pretensions4 ,the device of attributing to me extravagant but groundless pretensions to originality and profundity--since he is unable to cite a single passage in which ,i ever used such expressions of myself--was probably suggested to him by the ,press ,notices of ',scientific ,theism1' printed as a publishers' advertisement of my former book at the end of the book which lay before him4 ,these ,press ,notices1 as usual1 contain numerous extracts from eulogistic reviews1 in which1 curiously enough1 these very words1 original and profound1 or their equivalents1 occur with sufficient frequency to explain ,dr4 ,royce's choleric unhappiness4 ,for instance1 ,dr4 ,james ,freeman ,clarke wrote in the ,unitarian ,review3 ,if every position taken by ,dr4 ,abbot cannot be maintained1 his book remains an original contribution to philosophy of a high order and of great value2 ,m4 ,renouvier1 in ,la ,critique ,philosophique1 classed the book among de remarquables efforts de construction mtaphysique et morale dus des penseurs indpendants et profonds2 and ,m4 ,carrau1 in explaining why he added to his critical history of ,religious ,philosophy in ,england a chapter of twenty pages on my own system1 actually introduced both of the words which1 when thus applied1 jar so painfully on ,dr4 ,royce's nerves3 ,la pense de ,m4 ,abbot m'a paru assez profonde et assez originale pour mriter d'tre reproduite littralement4 7,la ,philosophie ,religieuse en ,angleterre4 ,par ,ludovic ,carrau1 ,directeur des ,confrences de philosophie la ,facult des lettres de ,paris4 ,paris1 #ahhh47 ,these extracts1 be it remembered1 were all printed at the end of the book which ,dr4 ,royce was reviewing4 ,now he had an undoubted right to think and to say that such encomiums as these on my work were silly1 extravagant1 preposterous1 and totally undeserved2 but to take them out of the mouth of others and put them into mine was wilful and deliberate calumny4 ,systematic and calumnious misrepresentation is the sole foundation of the professional warning in which ,dr4 ,royce's ostensible review culminates1 and which is too extraordinary not to be quoted here in full3-- ,and so1 finally1 after this somewhat detailed study of ,dr4 ,abbot's little book1 ,i feel constrained to repeat my judgment as above4 ,results in philosophy are one thing2 a careful way of thinking is another4 ,babes and sucklings often get very magnificent results4 ,it is not the office of philosophy to outdo the babes and sucklings at their own business of receiving revelations4 ,it is the office of philosophy to undertake a serious scrutiny of the presuppositions of human belief4 ,hence the importance of the careful way of thinking in philosophy4 ,but ,dr4 ,abbot's way is not careful1 is not novel1 and1 when thus set forth to the people as new and bold and ,american1 it is likely to do precisely as much harm to careful inquiry as it gets influence over immature or imperfectly trained minds4 ,i venture1 therefore1 to speak plainly1 by way of a professional warning to the liberal-minded public concerning ,dr4 ,abbot's philosophical pretensions4 ,and my warning takes the form of saying that1 if people are to think in this confused way1 unconsciously borrowing from a great speculator like ,hegel1 and then depriving the borrowed conception of the peculiar subtlety of statement that made it useful in its place1--and if we readers are for our part to accept such scholasticism as is found in ,dr4 ,abbot's concluding sections as at all resembling philosophy1--then it were far better for the world that no reflective thinking whatever should be done4 ,if we can't improve on what ,god has already put into the mouth of the babes and sucklings1 let us at all events make some other use of our wisdom and prudence than in setting forth the ,american theory of what has been in large part hidden from us4 ,gentlemen1 ,i deny sweepingly the whole groundwork of cunning and amazing misrepresentation on which this unparalleled tirade is founded4 ,i4 ,i deny that my philosophy is essentially idealistic1 or that any careful or conscientious scholar could possibly affirm it to be such4 ,,ii4 ,i deny that ,i borrowed my realistic theory of universals from the idealist1 ,hegel1 whether consciously or unconsciously4 ,the charge is unspeakably silly4 ,realism and idealism contradict each other more absolutely than protectionism and free-trade4 ,,iii4 ,i deny that ,i ever made the philosophical pretensions which ,dr4 ,royce calumniously imputes to me4 ,but1 if ,i had made pretensions as high as the ,himalayas1 ,i deny his authority to post me publicly--to act as policeman in the republic of letters and to collar me on that account4 ,a college professor who thus mistakes his academic gown for the policeman's uniform1 and dares to use his private walking-stick for the policeman's bludgeon1 is likely to find himself suddenly prostrated by a return blow1 arrested for assault and battery1 and unceremoniously hustled off into a cell1 by the officer whose function he has injudiciously aped without waiting for the tiresome but quite indispensable little preliminary of first securing a regular commission4 ,,iv4 ,most of all1 ,i deny ,dr4 ,royce's self-assumed right to club every philosopher whose reasoning he can neither refute nor understand4 ,i deny1 in general1 that any ,harvard professor has the right to fulminate a professional warning against anybody2 and1 in particular1 that you1 gentlemen1 ever voted or intended to invest ,dr4 ,royce with that right4 ,he himself now publicly puts forth a worse than extravagant pretension when he arrogates to himself this right of literary outrage4 ,he was not appointed professor by you for any such unseemly purpose4 ,to arrogate to himself a senseless professional superiority over all non-professional authors1 to the insufferable extent of publicly posting and placarding them for a mere difference of opinion1 is1 from a moral point of view1 scandalously to abuse his academical position1 to compromise the dignity of ,harvard ,university1 to draw down universal contempt upon the profession which he prostitutes to the uses of mere professional jealousy or literary rivalry1 and to degrade the honorable office of professor in the eyes of all who understand that a weak argument is not strengthened1 and a false accusation is not justified1 by throwing professional warnings as a make-weight into the scales of reason4 ,i affirm emphatically that no professor has a moral right to treat anybody with this undisguised insolence of office1 or to use any weapon but reason in order to put down what he conceives to be errors in philosophy4 ,in the present case1 ,i deny that ,dr4 ,royce has any better or stronger claim than myself to speak professionally on philosophical questions4 ,the very book against which he presumes to warn the public professionally is founded upon lectures which ,i myself professionally delivered1 not only from ,dr4 ,royce's own desk and to ,dr4 ,royce's own college class1 but as a substitute for ,dr4 ,royce himself1 at the request and by the appointment of his own superiors1 the ,corporation and ,overseers of his own ,university2 and the singular impropriety 7to use no stronger word7 of his professional warning will be apparent to every one in the light of that fact4 ,,iv4 ,so far ,i have treated ,dr4 ,royce's attack solely from the literary and ethical points of view4 ,the legal point of view must now be considered4 ,plagiarism1 conscious or unconscious1 is a very grave and serious charge to bring against an author1 and one which may entail upon him1 not only great damage to his literary reputation1 but also social disgrace and pecuniary loss4 ,if proved1 or even if widely believed without proof1 it cannot but ruin his literary career and destroy the marketable value of his books2 and it matters little1 so far as these practical results are concerned1 whether the plagiarism attributed to him is conscious or unconscious4 ,in an able editorial article on ,law and ,theft1 published in the ,new ,york ,nation of ,feb4 #ab1 #ahia1 it is forcibly said3 ,authors or writers who do this borrowing other men's ideas a good deal1 undoubtedly incur discredit by it with their fellows and the general public4 ,it greatly damages a writer's fame to be rightfully accused of want of originality1 or of imitation1 or of getting materials at second hand4 ,but no one has ever proposed to punish or restrain this sort of misappropriation by law4 ,no one has ever contended for the infliction on the purloiners of other men's ideas of any penalty but ridicule or disgrace4 ,whoever wrongfully accuses an author of plagiarism1 then1 holds him up undeservedly to discredit1 ridicule1 or disgrace1 and slanders his title to the product of his own brain4 ,this is contrary to the law4 ,yet this is precisely what ,dr4 ,royce has done in accusing me falsely1 and as a certain matter of fact1 of borrowing my theory of universals from ,hegel4 ,his accusation is made with as many sneers and as much insult as could well be compressed into the space3-- ,dr4 ,abbot is hopelessly unhistorical in his consciousness4 ,his ',american theory of universals' is so far from being either his own or a product of ,america that in this book he continually has to use1 in expounding it1 one of the most characteristic and familiar of ,hegel's technical terms1 namely1 'concrete1' in that sense in which it is applied to the objective and universal 'genus4' ,dr4 ,abbot's appropriation of ,hegel's peculiar terminology comes ill indeed from one who talks1 etc4 ,this ,i say not to defend ,hegel1 for whose elaborate theory of universals ,i hold in no wise a brief1 but simply in the cause of literary property-rights4 ,when we plough with another man's heifer1 however unconscious we are of our appropriation1 however sincerely we seem to remember that we alone raised her from her earliest calfhood1 it is yet in vain1 after all1 that we put our brand on her1 or call her ',american4'444 ,now ,hegel's whole theory may be false2 but what is certain is that ,dr4 ,abbot1 who has all his life been working in an atmosphere where ,hegelian ideas were more or less infectious1 has derived his whole theory of universals1 so far as he has yet revealed it with any coherency1 from ,hegelian sources1 and even now cannot suggest any better terminology than ,hegel's for an important portion of the doctrine4 ,yet in the volume before us we find all this pretentious speech of an ',american' theory1 and discover our author wholly unaware that he is sinning against the most obvious demands of literary property-rights4 ,passing over the self-evident point that whoever is unaware that he is sinning cannot be sinning at all1 since sinning consists in being aware of the wrong we do1--and1 consequently1 that ,dr4 ,royce comes here as near as he dares to a direct insinuation that my plagiarism is conscious1 and not unconscious1--let me call your attention to the more important point1 that ,dr4 ,royce affirms my conscious or unconscious theft from ,hegel as a matter of certain fact1 not merely as a matter of probable inference4 ,yet the only evidence he has to offer in support of this certainty is 7#a7 that ,i use the word concrete in the same sense as ,hegel1 and 7#b7 that ,i have worked all my life in a ,hegelian atmosphere4 ,these two points cover all the grounds of his accusation4 ,permit me very briefly to examine them4 7#a7 ,the word concrete is not in the least a technical term copyrighted by ,hegel1 nor is it his trademark4 ,it is one of the commonest of words1 and free to all4 ,but what sort of a reasoner is he who infers the identity of two whole complex theories from their coincidence in the use of only a single word8 ,even this poor and solitary little premise slips out of ,dr4 ,royce's clutch1 for ,hegel's use of the word is contradictory to mine6 ,hegel has to put upon the word concrete a very unusual1 strained1 and artificial sense1 in order to cover up the weakest point of his idealistic system4 ,he explains it1 however1 frankly1 clearly1 and unambiguously3 ,the ,concept or ,notion 7,begriff7 may be always called 'abstract1' if the term 'concrete' must be limited to the mere concrete of sensation and immediate perception2 the ,notion as such cannot be grasped by the hands1 and1 when we deal with it1 eyes and ears are out of the question4 ,yet1 as was said before1 the ,notion is the only true concrete4 7,encyklopdie1 ,werke1 ,,vi4 #caf47 ,again3 ,just as little is the sensuous-concrete of ,intuition a rational-concrete of the ,idea4 7,ibid41 ,werke1 ,,vi4 #djd47 ,a score of similar passages can easily be cited4 ,that is to say1 ,hegel avowedly excludes from his idealistic theory of universals the concrete of sensation1 perception1 intuition1 or real experience1 and admits into it only the concrete of pure or non-empirical thought2 while ,i avowedly exclude from my realistic theory of universals the concrete of pure thought1 and admit into it only the concrete of real experience4 ,hegel's concrete cannot be seen1 heard1 or touched2 while to me nothing which cannot be seen1 heard1 or touched is concrete at all4 ,a mere common school education is quite sufficient for comprehension of the contradictoriness of these two uses of the word4 ,yet1 in order to found a malicious charge of plagiarism1 ,dr4 ,royce has the hardihood to assure the uninformed general public that ,hegel and ,i use the word concrete in one and the same sense6 7#b7 ,the assertion that ,i have lived all my life in a ,hegelian atmosphere ,i can only meet with a short1 sharp1 and indignant denial4 ,i know of no such atmosphere in all ,america2 if it anywhere exists1 ,i certainly never lived1 moved1 or worked in it4 ,the statement is a gratuitous1 impertinent1 and totally false allegation of fact1 wholly outside of my book and its contents1 and is used in this connection solely to feather an arrow shot at my reputation2 it is a pure invention1 a manufactured assertion which is absolutely without foundation1 and1 when thus artfully thrown out with apparent artlessness 7ars celare artem7 as itself foundation for a false and malicious charge of plagiarism1 it becomes fabrication of evidence for the purpose of defamation4 ,the less said about such an offence as that1 the better for ,dr4 ,royce1 and ,i spare him the comment it deserves4 ,now1 while it might be fair criticism to infer my plagiarism from ,hegel1 if there were only some reasonable or even merely plausible evidence to support the inference 7which ,i have just proved not to be the case71 it is incontestable that to affirm this plagiarism1 as a certain matter of fact1 without any reasonable evidence at all1 is not that fair criticism which the law justly allows1 but1 on the contrary1 a totally unjustifiable libel4 ,in accusing me personally of plagiarism on no reasonable grounds whatever1 as ,i have just unanswerably proved him to have done1 and in making the certainty of the plagiarism depend upon an allegation of fact wholly independent of the book which he professed to be criticising 7namely1 the false allegation that ,i have worked all my life in a ,hegelian atmosphere71 ,dr4 ,royce has beyond all controversy transgressed the legally defined limits of fair criticism1 and become a libeller4 ,but this is by no means all4 ,if the bat-like accusation of an unconscious1 yet sinning 7or sinful7 plagiarism hovers ambiguously between attacking my literary reputation and attacking my moral character1 there is no such ambiguity hanging about the accusation of extravagant pretensions as to the originality and profundity of my still unpublished system of philosophy4 ,a decent modesty1 a self-respectful reserve1 a manly humility in presence of the unattainable ideal of either moral or intellectual perfection1 a speechless reverence in the presence of either infinite goodness or infinite truth1--these are virtues which belong to the very warp and woof of all noble1 elevated1 and justly estimable character2 and wherever their absence is conspicuously shown1 there is just ground for moral condemnation and the contempt of mankind4 ,dr4 ,royce has not scrupled to accuse me of making1 not only pretensions1 but even extravagant pretensions1 which are absolutely incompatible with the possession of these beautiful and essential virtues1 and thereby to hold me up to universal contempt and derision4 ,he has done this1 by the very terms of his accusation1 absolutely and confessedly without cause2 for the system of philosophy which is unpublished to others is no less unpublished to him1 and an accusation thus made confessedly without any knowledge of its truth is1 on the very face of it1 an accusation which is as malicious as it is groundless4 ,to make such a self-proved and self-condemned accusation as this is1 ,i submit1 to be guilty of libel with no ordinary degree of culpability4 ,but the libel of which ,i have greatest cause to complain is not confined to exceptional or isolated expressions4 ,these might charitably be explained as mere momentary ebullitions of pettishness or spleen1 and pardonable as merely faults of temper in a criticism which was in the main conscientious and fair4 ,but the libel of which ,i complain most of all is one that constitutes the entire ground and framework of the article as a whole4 ,every part of it is methodically spun and interwoven with every other part1 in such a way as to make it one seamless tissue of libel from beginning to end4 ,this ,i say in full consciousness of the interspersed occasional compliments1 since these have only the effect of disguising the libellous intent of the whole from a simple-minded or careless reader1 and since they subserve the purpose of furnishing to the writer a plausible and ready-made defence of his libel against a foreseen protest4 ,compliments to eke out a libel are merely insults in masquerade4 ,the libellous plan of the article as a whole is shown in the regular system of gross and studied misrepresentation1 of logically connected and nicely dovetailed misstatements of facts1 which ,i exposed at the outset4 ,every intelligent reader of my two books is perfectly aware that they are both devoted to an exposition of the fundamental and irreconcilable conflict between philosophical idealism and scientific realism1 and to a defence of the latter against the former1 as the only possible method by which a spiritual theism can be intellectually1 and therefore successfully1 defended in this age of science4 ,only one who has read and digested the two books can fully appreciate the enormity and the unscrupulousness of the initial misrepresentation1 slipped in1 as it were1 quite casually1 and without any argument1 in the apparently incidental and matter-of-course statement that my conclusion is essentially idealistic4 ,it is not idealistic at all1 but as radically realistic as the premises themselves2 and no professor of philosophy could ever have called it idealistic by a mere slip of the tongue or pen4 ,the intelligent origin of this misrepresentation is clearly enough suggested in the use to which it is at once put3 namely1 to render plausible the otherwise ridiculous charge that my theory of universals was borrowed from an idealist4 ,next1 the same origin is more than suggested by the use to which these two misrepresentations together are put3 namely1 to show that any claim of novelty for a merely borrowed philosophy is a vast and extravagant pretension4 ,lastly1 the same origin is inductively and conclusively proved1 when these three inter-linked misrepresentations1 as a whole1 are made the general foundation for a brutal professional warning to the public at large against my philosophical pretensions in general4 ,not one of these fundamental positions of ,dr4 ,royce's article is a fact1--least of all1 an admitted fact2 on the contrary1 each of them is energetically and indignantly denied4 ,but the libel of which ,i complain above all is the regular system of gross and studied misrepresentation by which the most essential facts are first misstated and falsified1 and then used to the injury of my literary and personal reputation4 ,it may1 ,i trust1 be permitted to me here to show clearly what the law is1 as applicable to the case in hand1 by a few pertinent citations4 ,the critic must confine himself to criticism1 and not make it the veil for personal censure1 nor allow himself to run into reckless and unfair attacks1 merely from the love of exercising his power of denunciation4 ,criticism and comment on well-known and admitted facts are very different things from the assertion of unsubstantiated facts4 ,a fair and bona fide comment on a matter of public interest is an excuse of what would otherwise be a defamatory publication4 ,the statement of this rule assumes the matters of fact commented on to be somehow ascertained4 ,it does not mean that a man may invent facts1 and comment on the facts so invented in what would be a fair and bona fide manner1 on the supposition that the facts were true4 ,if the facts as a comment upon which the publication is sought to be excused do not exist1 the foundation fails4444 ,the distinction cannot be too clearly borne in mind between comment or criticism and allegations of fact4444 ,to state matters which are libellous is not comment or criticism4 7,newell on ,defamation1 ,slander1 and ,libel1 p4 #efh47 ,applying this to the case in hand3 the admitted facts are these3 7#a7 my philosophy is realistic from beginning to end2 7#b7 ,i have not worked all my life1 nor any part of my life1 in a ,hegelian atmosphere2 7#c7 ,i did not borrow my theory of universals from ,hegel2 7#d7 ,i have made no vast or extravagant pretensions whatever as to my own philosophy4 ,but ,dr4 ,royce invents and states the exact opposite of all these facts1 and then bases on these purely invented facts most undeserved personal censure and most reckless and unfair attacks4 ,therefore1 his article is a libel in its whole groundwork and essential spirit4 ,if a person1 under pretence of criticising a literary work1 defames the private character of the author1 and1 instead of writing in the spirit and for the purpose of fair and candid discussion1 travels into collateral matter1 and introduces facts not stated in the work1 accompanied with injurious comment upon them1 such person is a libeller1 and liable to an action4 7,broom's ,legal ,maxims1 p4 #cbj47 ,applying this to the case in hand3 ,dr4 ,royce defames my private character1 when he accuses me of frequently indulging in extravagant pretensions2 he travels into collateral matter1 when he alludes at all to my unpublished manuscript2 he introduces facts not stated in the work1 accompanied with injurious comment upon them1 when he alludes to this unpublished manuscript for the sole purpose of saying 7untruthfully7 that ,i frequently make1 of late1 extravagant pretensions as to its originality and profundity1 and again when he says that ,i have worked all my life in a ,hegelian atmosphere1 for the sole purpose of founding upon this false statement a false charge of plagiarism4 ,in the ,griffith ,gaunt case1 ,judge ,clerke said in his charge to the jury3 ,the interests of literature and science require that the productions of authors shall be subject to fair criticism1--that even some animadversion may be permitted1 unless it appears that the critic1 under the pretext of reviewing his book1 takes an opportunity of attacking the character of the author1 and of holding him up as an object of ridicule1 hatred1 or contempt4 ,in other words1 the critic may say what he pleases of the literary merits or demerits of the published production of an author2 but1 with respect to his personal rights relating to his reputation1 the critic has no more privilege than any other person not assuming the business of criticism4 7,abbott's ,practice ,reports1 ,new ,series1 ,,vi4 #ah47 ,applying this to the case in hand3 ,dr4 ,royce1 under the pretext of reviewing my book1 takes an opportunity of attacking the author1 and of holding him up as an object of ridicule and contempt1 if ridicule and contempt are the deservedly universal punishment of the plagiarist and the braggart4 ,to so unprecedented a length has he carried this attack1 as deliberately and formally1 in the name of his profession1 and therefore1 by necessary implication1 in the name of ,harvard ,university itself1 to warn the liberal-minded public against me1 precisely as one warns the general public against an impostor soliciting alms under false pretences6 ,this is a flagrant violation of my personal rights relating to my reputation2 and1 therefore1 according to the above judicial ruling of an ,american court1 ,dr4 ,royce is guilty of wanton and unprovoked libel against one who never injured him in the slightest degree4 ,in the case of ,strauss versus ,francis1 ,chief ,justice ,cockburn said3 ,the question is as to the article as a whole4444 ,the verdict must be upon the article as a whole1 and whether1 as a whole1 it is to be deemed malicious and libellous4 7,foster and ,finlason's ,reports1 ,,iv4 #aajg47 ,applying this to the case in hand3 ,dr4 ,royce's ostensible review presents its darkest1 most odious1 and most libellous aspect to him who most thoroughly1 penetratingly1 and comprehensively studies out the inner structure of its argument as a whole1 and who most intelligently compares it with the book which it falsely professes to criticise fairly4 ,allow me to quote here a passage from page #ci of the ,way out of ,agnosticism in order simply to show you how uncompromisingly this passage1 which sums up the entire results of the first half of the book and luminously forecasts the entire conclusion of the whole1 plants my system on the side of ,realism3-- ,the scientific1 modern1 or ,american theory of universals1 which results necessarily from analysis of the scientific method1 is ,scientific ,realism1 as opposed to ,philosophical ,idealism2 and it determines the subdivision of scientific philosophy into its three great departments1 the theories of ,being1 of ,knowing1 and of ,doing4 ,the scientific theory of ,being results from analysis of the ,genus-in-itself1 and constitutes ontology or ,constructive ,realism1 as opposed to all forms of ,constructive ,idealism4 ,the scientific theory of ,knowledge results from analysis of the ,concept1 and constitutes psychology or ,critical ,realism1 as opposed to all forms of transcendental or ,critical ,idealism4 ,the scientific theory of ,conduct results from analysis of the ,word1 and constitutes anthroponomy 7including ethics1 politics1 and art in its widest sense71 sociology1 or ,ethical ,realism1 as opposed to all forms of ,ethical ,idealism4 ,the scientific theory of the universe1 as the absolute union of ,being1 ,knowing1 and ,doing in the ,one and ,all1 results from comprehension of these three theories in complete organic unity1 and constitutes organic philosophy1 scientific theology1 or ,religious ,realism1 as opposed to all forms of ,religious ,idealism4 ,i submit this long extract to you1 gentlemen1 not to bore you with metaphysical speculations1 but simply to enable you1 as educated men who understand the meaning of plain and straightforward ,english on any subject1 to follow the twistings and turnings of an extraordinarily sinuous and disingenuous intellect1 and intelligently to decide a question which needs here to be settled clearly in your own minds3 could any competent professor of philosophy1 undertaking to give1 as a fair critic1 a truthful account to the public of the contents of my book1 read that passage1 and then1 omitting all reference to the contrast there and everywhere made between realism and idealism1 honestly tell that public1 without any further information at all on the subject1 that the conclusion of my philosophy is essentially idealistic8 ,yet that is the conscienceless misrepresentation with which ,dr4 ,royce prepares the way for all that is to follow1 deceives the reader at the very outset1 predisposes him to believe the preposterous charge that ,i appropriated my main theory from the great idealist ,hegel1 arouses his indignation or mirth1 as the case may be1 at my alleged strutting about in borrowed plumes1 and so leads him at last to applaud the righteous castigation of the professional warning1 by which the peacock-feathers are made to fly in all directions and ,i myself am scourged back among my brother-jackdaws1 the impostors1 charlatans1 and quacks of myriad kinds4 ,this is the purport and the spirit of ,dr4 ,royce's ostensible review1 as a whole4 ,is it the fair criticism which the law allows8 ,or is it the libel which the law condemns8 ,is it the fair and critical judgment which your silence shall sanction1 as ,harvard's official verdict on my work8 ,or is it the libellous and vulgar abuse which your speech shall rebuke1 as shaming ,harvard more than me by bringing the ethics and manners of the literary ,bedouin into the professor's chair8 ,v4 ,but1 gentlemen1 the gravest aspect of ,dr4 ,royce's ostensible review remains still to be considered4 ,is libel--vulgar1 violent1 and brutal libel--the means by which ,harvard ,university1 represented by one of her professors of philosophy who openly claims to address the general public in the name of his office and of her1 proposes to realize the lofty ideal of her ,president1 and make herself the philosophical pioneer for each new generation in the pursuit of truth8 ,is this the welcome which she accords to serious1 dignified1 and not unscholarly works1 giving the results1 however partially and imperfectly wrought out1 of patient and independent reflection for more than thirty years on the highest problems of human life and thought8 ,is this the best sympathy and encouragement she has to offer to her own sons when they take up in earnest the task of helping her to realize her own ideal8 ,is this the attitude in which she confronts the great questions of the age1 and the spirit which she aims to foster in her young men8 ,i do not believe it2 but you alone1 gentlemen1 can give the authoritative answer to such queries4 ,when civil service reformers plead the urgent necessity of political reform1 they are irrelevantly charged by the adherents of the spoils system with being hypocrites and pharisees4 ,precisely so1 when ,i plead the urgent necessity of philosophical reform1 ,i am irrelevantly charged by ,dr4 ,royce1 in effect1 with being a false pretender1 a plagiarist1 and an impostor4 ,the charge is just as true in one case as in the other4 ,but1 be the charge true or untrue1 the attention of keen and candid minds is not to be diverted by this perfectly transparent device from the main point of reform4 ,what is this needed philosophical reform8 ,briefly1 to substitute the scientific method for the idealistic method in philosophy1 as the only possible means1 in this critical and sceptical age1 of making ethics and religion so reasonable as to command the continued allegiance of reasonable minds4 ,unphilosophized science conceives the universe as nothing but a ,machine-,world2 and in this conception there is no room for any ,ethical ,ideal4 ,unscientific philosophy conceives the universe as nothing but a ,thought-,world2 and in this conception there is no room for any ,mechanical ,real4 ,on the possibility of developing a scientific philosophy out of the scientific method itself must depend at last the only possibility1 for reasonable men1 of believing equally in the real principles of mechanical science and in the ideal principles of ethical science4 ,to-day the greatest obstacle to such a reasonable belief is the philosophical idealism which directly contradicts it2 and the greatest reform needed in modern thought1 above all in the theory of ethics1 is the substitution of the scientific method for the idealistic method in philosophy itself4 ,the cause of philosophical reform1 indeed1 cannot be long delayed by any ,philistinism in those who1 by their professional position1 ought to be its most ardent friends4 ,the method of science is destined to revolutionize philosophy--to modernize it by founding it anew upon a thoroughly realistic and scientific theory of universals4 ,the net result of all the physical sciences thus far1 the one fixed result to which all their other results steadily point with increasingly evident convergence1 is that the already known constitution of the real universe is that of the ,machine4 ,this universal fixed result1 and not mere individual self-consciousness1 is the necessary and only beginning-point of a constructive philosophy of ,nature2 for1 where the special sciences end1 there universal philosophy must begin4 ,it is the task of philosophy to-day to show that the unquestionably mechanical constitution of the universe1 instead of being the ultimate boundary of scientific investigation1 is merely the starting-point in a new series of investigations1 no less scientific than those of physical science1 but far more profound2 and to show that the mechanical constitution itself1 when deeply studied and comprehended1 necessarily involves the organic and the personal constitutions4 ,in this way1 and ,i believe in no other way1 can it be proved to the satisfaction of the modern intelligence that the ,mechanical ,real itself1 at bottom1 includes the ,ethical ,ideal--that the ,moral ,law1 the ,divine ,ideal itself1 is the innermost ,fact of ,nature4 ,i have made1 and make now1 not the slightest personal pretension2 but1 finding in all my reading no outline of any such argument as this1 and believing it to be fruitful of the very noblest results1 ,i have done my best to point out its possibilities to other earnest searchers after truth4 ,not until this new field has been faithfully examined and explored and proved to be sterile1 shall ,i cease to recommend it to the attention of all who would fain see reason to believe that the ,ethical ,ideal is no ,unreality1 but rather the innermost ,reality of the real universe itself4 ,i speak only to those who have souls to hear and to respond2 let the rest listen to ,dr4 ,royce1 and be dupes of his professional warning4 ,but the cause of philosophical reform will not be stayed by him or by them3 the world's heart is hungry for higher truth than idealism can discover1 and will be grateful in the end to any philosophy which shall show what mighty moral conviction1 what unspeakable spiritual invigoration1 must needs grow out of comprehension of the despised ,real4 ,these thoughts are not remote abstractions1 up in the air1 out of reach1 of no practical value or application2 they touch the very life and soul of ,harvard ,university4 ,for want of such thoughts1 many of the brightest and most intellectual of her students1 graduates from the philosophical courses1 go out year after year disbelieving totally in the possibility of arriving at any fundamental truth whatever1 even in ethics4 ,several years ago1 the then ,president of the ,harvard ,philosophical ,club said in my hearing that he saw no ground of moral obligation anywhere in the universe2 and this declaration was apparently assented to by every one of the fifteen or twenty members present4 ,this very last summer1 a recent graduate told me that he left college bewildered1 depressed1 and disheartened1 because he saw nowhere any ground of rational conviction about anything2 and that it was just the same with all the other fellows--that is1 all his companions in the study of philosophy4 ,it is time1 high time1 that this state of things should be searchingly investigated in the interest of ,harvard ,university itself1 the facts determined1 their causes ascertained4 ,while such a state of things prevails1 ,harvard conspicuously fails to be a philosophical pioneer except in a distinctly retrograde direction--conspicuously fails to discharge the highest service which she owes to the world3 namely1 to send out her young graduates well armed beforehand for the battle of life with clear1 strong1 and lofty moral convictions4 ,whatever other causes may exist for the failure1 one cause at least is certain--the self-proved and amazing inability of one of her professors of philosophy to give an honest or intelligent reception to a thoughtful1 closely reasoned1 and earnest plea for philosophical reform in this very direction1 or to criticise it with anything better than irrelevant and unparliamentary personalities1 studied and systematic misrepresentation both of the plea and of the pleader1 and a demoralizing example of libel1 so bitter and so extreme as to furnish abundant ground for prosecution4 ,,vi4 ,here1 gentlemen1 you may very properly inquire3 ,why do you not1 then1 prosecute ,dr4 ,royce in the courts1 instead of bringing the case before us8 ,briefly1 because ,i have not yet exhausted those milder means of obtaining redress which it befits a peaceable and non-litigious citizen to employ before resorting to legal measures4 ,you would have had just cause to complain of me1 if ,i had precipitately prosecuted one of your professors for a professional attack without giving you previously an opportunity to discipline him in your own way1 and in dignified recognition of your own ultimate responsibility4 ,a prosecution may not1 ,i trust will not1 prove necessary2 for ,i have neither malice nor vindictiveness to gratify1 but only a resolute purpose to defend my reputation effectually against a malicious libel1 and not to permit the libeller to set up a plausible claim that1 by silence and passive submission1 ,i tacitly confess the justice of an official condemnation by ,harvard ,university of my 'philosophical pretensions4' ,except for that one phrase1 professional warning1 in ,dr4 ,royce's attack1 this appeal would never have been written1 or the least notice taken of his intrinsically puerile criticisms4 ,when ,mr4 ,herbert ,spencer1 whom ,i have more than once publicly criticised1 can yet magnanimously write to me of this very book1 ,i do not see any probability that it will change my beliefs1 yet ,i rejoice that the subject should be so well discussed1--and ,mr4 ,william ,ewart ,gladstone1 ,i am very conscious of the force with which you handle the subject1--and ex-,president ,noah ,porter1 ,i thank you very sincerely for sending me a copy of your last book2 ,i had already read it nearly twice1 and found much in it very admirable and timely1--,i could very well afford to pass over ,dr4 ,royce's ineffectual criticisms with indifference4 ,but when he insinuates to the uninformed public that these same criticisms have the weighty sanction of ,harvard ,university1 it is quite another matter4 ,that calls upon me to defend myself against so atrocious a calumny4 ,but even self-defence has its proprieties1 and to these ,i scrupulously submit4 ,the first step was to send a reply to the periodical which published the attack4 ,this was sent4 ,at first1 ,dr4 ,royce effusively agreed to its publication1 and wrote a rejoinder to be published simultaneously with it4 ,later1 in alarm1 he procured its rejection1 and1 through legal counsel1 served a formal notice upon me not to publish or to circulate it at all4 ,the second step was to demand from ,dr4 ,royce a specific retraction and apology2 this he contemptuously refused4 ,the third step was to appeal from the recalcitrant employee to the responsible employer1 and to lay the case respectfully before the supreme representatives of ,harvard ,university itself4 ,this ,i now do1 and it is entirely unnecessary to look any farther4 ,but1 in order to lay the case before you fully1 it is incumbent upon me to state the details of these proceedings with some minuteness1 and ,i now proceed to unfold the extraordinary tale4 ,,vii4 ,dr4 ,royce wound up his ostensible review with these words of bravado and of challenge3 ,we must show no mercy1--as we ask none4 ,this fierce flourish of trumpets ,i understood to be1 at least1 a fearless public pledge of a fair hearing in the ,journal of ,ethics of which he was one of the editors4 ,moreover1 ,i conceived that a magazine expressly devoted to ethics would be ashamed not to practise the ethics which it preached--ashamed not to grant to the accused a freedom scrupulously made equal to that which it had already granted to the accuser4 ,lastly1 ,i was averse to litigation1 and desired to use no coarser weapon1 even against a calumniator and libeller1 than the sharp edge of reason itself4 ,accordingly1 ,i sought redress in the first instance from the ,international ,journal of ,ethics4 ,on ,january #ba1 ,i mailed to ,mr4 ,s4 ,burns ,weston1 the office editor1 an article in reply to ,dr4 ,royce's ostensible review1 together with a letter in which ,i wrote3 ,i do not at all complain of your publishing ,dr4 ,royce's original article1 although it was a most malicious and slanderous one1 and undertook 7not to put too fine a point upon it7 to post me publicly as a quack4 ,if you do not deny my indefeasible right to be heard in self-defence in the same columns1 ,i shall feel that ,i have no cause whatever to regard you or your committee as a party to the outrage1 and shall entertain no feelings towards you or towards them other than such as are perfectly friendly4 ,let even slander and malice be heard1 if truth shall be as free to reply4 ,pressing engagements had prevented me from writing the article in season for the ,january number of the ,journal of ,ethics1 but it was in ample season for the ,april number4 ,i sent it at last because ,i had full confidence in the soundness of what ,thomas ,jefferson said so well3 ,truth and reason can maintain themselves without the aid of coercion1 if left free to defend themselves4 ,but then they must defend themselves4 ,eternal lies and sophisms on one side1 and silence on the other1 are too unequal4 ,the ,international ,journal of ,ethics is under the control of an editorial committee of eight1 ,dr4 ,felix ,adler at the head and ,dr4 ,royce at the end2 the other six members live in ,europe and have no share in the home management4 ,mr4 ,weston is not a member of the committee1 has little editorial authority1 and1 in case of disagreement between the two ,american members1 would1 as he himself expressly and frankly informed me in answer to a direct question1 obey implicitly the directions of ,dr4 ,adler4 ,to ,dr4 ,adler1 therefore1 belongs the general and ultimate editorial responsibility1 whether legal or moral1 since1 according to ,mr4 ,western's just quoted declaration1 ,dr4 ,adler alone has actual power either to procure or to prevent publication2 while to ,dr4 ,royce is assigned merely the special department of theoretical ethics4 ,hence ,dr4 ,adler and ,dr4 ,royce were jointly responsible for the original libel1 the latter for writing it1 the former for publishing it2 but ,dr4 ,adler alone was editorially responsible for publishing or refusing to publish my reply to it4 ,it was to ,dr4 ,adler alone1 as responsible editor-in-chief of the ,journal of ,ethics1 that ,i looked for publication of my defence1 as the best possible reparation for the wrong done in publishing the libellous attack2 and ,i looked to him with confidence for this partial and inadequate reparation1 believing that1 as head of the ethical culture movement1 he would be anxious to conduct the ,journal of ,ethics in accordance with the highest principles of justice1 honor1 and fair play4 ,to my astonishment and indignation1 however1 my manuscript1 instead of being considered and finally passed upon by ,dr4 ,adler1 was forwarded by him or by his direction to ,dr4 ,royce6 ,the latter1 getting wind of it1 had insisted that it belonged to his department of theoretical ethics1 and claimed the right to edit it with a rejoinder in the same issue4 ,nothing could be conceived more unfair or more absurd4 ,a libel had been published by ,dr4 ,adler1 and ,dr4 ,adler sent the defence against this libel to be edited by the libeller himself6 ,protest was in vain4 ,dr ,adler denied his own moral responsibility1 washed his hands of the whole affair1 and even refused to enlighten himself as to his own duty 7notwithstanding my urgent request that he should do so7 by taking counsel of some wise and able lawyer of his own acquaintance4 ,instead of doing this1 he affected to consider my self-defence against a libel as merely a reply to an ordinary book-criticism1 made a few inquiries as to the usual practice of journals with reference to book-criticisms alone1 turned my article over to ,dr4 ,royce as one on theoretical ethics1 and permitted him to attach to it a rejoinder which reiterated the original libel with additions and improvements1 but in which he took pains to say of my reply3 ,i may add that even now it does not occur to me to feel personally wounded1 nor yet uneasy at ,dr4 ,abbot's present warmth4 ,these words have a peculiar interest with reference to his later legal notice against all publication or circulation of this very reply3 his assumed or genuine pachydermatousness soon gave way to fearful apprehension of its effect upon the public mind4 ,in no sense whatever was my reply an article on theoretical ethics4 ,to what part of the theory of ethics belongs ,dr4 ,royce's false personal accusation of extravagant pretensions8 ,to what part of the theory of ethics belongs ,dr4 ,royce's false personal accusation of sinning against the most obvious demands of literary property-rights8 ,to what part of the theory of ethics belongs ,dr4 ,royce's professional warning against pretensions which were never made8 ,his false accusations and their false grounds were the main theme of my article1 and they had nothing to do with theoretical ethics1 ,dr ,adler and ,dr4 ,royce to the contrary notwithstanding4 ,dr4 ,royce had no shadow of right to set up so preposterous a claim1 and ,dr4 ,adler had no shadow of right to yield to it1 as he weakly did1 thereby violating his own undeniable obligation1 as editor-in-chief1 to do his utmost to repair the wrong which he himself had done in publishing a libel4 ,my article was avowedly nothing but a defence against this libel1 and1 as such1 was necessarily addressed to the responsible editor of the ,journal of ,ethics1 not to the sub-editor of one of its special departments--most assuredly not to the libeller himself4 ,the only fair and just course was to publish this defence alone by itself1 precisely as the libel had been published alone by itself1 and afterwards to allow ,dr4 ,royce to follow it1 if he pleased1 with a rejoinder in the succeeding number4 ,i made not the slightest objection to one rejoinder or a dozen rejoinders from him1 provided the responsible editor held the balance true1 accorded as fair a hearing to the accused as he had accorded to the accuser1 and granted to each in turn an opportunity to plead his cause without interruption by the other4 ,i asked no more than what ,dr4 ,royce had already received--an opportunity to enjoy the undivided and undistracted attention of the audience for a limited time4 ,he had had the ear of the public for six months4 ,could ,i not have it for three8 ,but ,i regret to say that considerations of equal justice seemed to have no weight whatever with ,dr4 ,adler4 ,dr4 ,royce1 despite his public pledge1 was asking for mercy1 after all1 and got from ,dr4 ,adler all he asked for2 ,i asked ,dr4 ,adler for equity alone1 and could not get even that4 ,the sole concession made was that ,i might follow ,dr4 ,royce's rejoinder with a second reply in the same number1 thus closing the case with a last word for the defence4 ,to this last proposal1 in order not to refuse a meagre measure of justice1 ,i consented under protest4 ,but the proof-sheets of ,dr4 ,royce's rejoinder1 to which ,i was to reply1 did not reach me till ,march #ah1 and were accompanied with a notice from the ,journal of ,ethics that my reply must be mailed within ten hours after receiving ,royce's proof4 ,this notice ,i answered as follows3-- ,the proof of ,royce's rejoinder1 with your notes of the #afth and #agth1 arrived this morning at #i ,a4,m4 ,as ,i have had to be at my teaching till #c ,p4,m41 it was obviously impossible to mail a reply by #g ,p4,m4 ,hence ,i telegraphed to you at once3 ',i protest against the gross injustice of postponing my article1 or of publishing this new attack without the last word you promised me4 ,it is impossible to write this now i4 e41 within the ten hours stipulated4 ,if you have any love of justice1 publish my article now1 and postpone the rejoinders to next issue4' ,nothing stands in the way of this1 the only fair course1 except ,royce's insistence on his right to deprive me of the equality of treatment which ,i supposed he himself guaranteed in his--'as we ask none4' ,to hold back my reply to his libel for three months longer1 merely because he is afraid to let it go forth without an attempt to break its force in the same number1 would be disgracefully unjust in him and in the ',journal4' ,his rejoinder is simply a fresh libel2 there is nothing in it to which ,i cannot easily and effectually reply4 ,but what right is there in refusing to me the opportunity of answering one libel at a time8 ,or in compelling me to be silent nine months from ,october to ,july1 in order to save him from being silent three months from ,april to ,july8 ,it will be a bitter comment on the sincerity of the 'ethical culture movement' to make so unethical a judgment in so grave a case as this4 ,but the ,april number of the ,journal of ,ethics1 nevertheless1 was published without my article4 ,the latter was all in type1 and the proof-sheets had been corrected2 nothing prevented its publication in ,april except 7#a7 ,dr4 ,royce's insistence that my reply to his first libel should not be published at all without his second libel1 and 7#b7 ,dr4 ,adler's weak submission to this unjust and pusillanimous demand of his associate4 ,the whole matter was thus most inequitably postponed to the ,july number1 primarily at ,dr4 ,royce's instigation4 ,but ,i now found that ,i was to be refused the freedom necessary to self-defence against the second libel--the same freedom already yielded in replying to the first4 ,now to answer a libel effectively requires the freedom1 not of the parliament1 but of the courts4 ,a mere literary discussion admits of parliamentary freedom alone1 and properly excludes all reflections upon personal character4 ,but ,dr4 ,royce had most unparliamentarily turned his ostensible review into a libel1 and1 contrary to all canons of literary discussion1 had indulged himself in reflections upon my personal character as malicious as they were false4 ,now the only possible disproof of a libel is the proof that it is a libel1--that it is either untruthful1 or malicious1 or both2 and1 since a libel is both a civil injury and a criminal offence1 the proof of its libellous character cannot be established without reflecting upon the personal character of the libeller4 ,hence ,dr4 ,royce himself1 by writing a libel1 had self-evidently raised the question of his own personal character1 and bound himself beforehand1 by his own act1 to submit with what grace he could to the necessary consequences of that act2 and to seek to shield himself from these consequences1 which he should have foreseen clearly and nerved himself to bear bravely1 was only to incur the ridicule invited by a timorous man who first strikes another and then runs away4 ,dr4 ,adler1 moreover1 as the responsible editor of the ,journal of ,ethics1 had laid himself1 by publishing ,dr4 ,royce's libel1 under the clear moral obligation of according to the accused the same freedom of the courts which he had already accorded to the accuser2 and to seek to escape this moral obligation was to incur the censure invited by any one who assumes the editorial function without properly informing himself of the duties which it imposes with reference to third parties4 ,both the one and the other had estopped themselves from denying to the accused in self-defence the same freedom of the courts which they had granted to themselves as accusers in attack4 ,notwithstanding these plain facts1 ,dr4 ,royce and ,dr4 ,adler united in denying to me the necessary freedom of self-defence against the attack which they had united in making4 ,at first1 ,dr4 ,royce undertook to dictate to me beforehand the nature of my reply to his rejoinder1 and sought to restrict it to the parliamentary freedom of a purely literary discussion4 ,ignoring the fact that he had himself rendered a purely literary discussion impossible by his own reflections upon personal character1 he endeavored now to restrict my defence to a purely literary discussion of what1 with amusing deficiency in the sense of humor1 he considered to be his criticisms2 whereas these pointless and ignorant criticisms had no importance whatever except as leading up to his professional warning4 ,the only object of a reply to his rejoinder was to expose its true character as a second libel1 and thereby make plain to the dullest mind the outrage of his professional warning4 ,evidently fearing this1 and being anxious to prevent the exposure1 he sent to me through ,mr4 ,weston1 who called upon me for the purpose on ,april #ae1 the following unspeakable document1 apparently without a suspicion that it pricked the bubble of his previous iridescent pledge to ask no mercy3-- ,,memorandum ,,of ,,apr4 #ac1 #ahia4 #a4 ,dr4 ,abbot's article must be in ,mr4 ,weston's hands in ,,ms4 by ,june #a1 for issue in the ,july ,no41 if possible4 #b4 ,this article must not exceed1 in actual number of words1 ,prof4 ,royce's last rejoinder4 #c4 ,prof4 ,royce is not to reply to the above article of ,dr4 ,abbot before or simultaneously with its publication in the ,journal of ,ethics2 and the controversy is thus to be closed in the ,journal by ,dr4 ,abbot4 #d4 ,dr4 ,abbot's article is to be strictly a rejoinder1 is not to raise essentially new issues1 is not to assault any further his opponent's personal character1 is to be parliamentary in form1 and free from personally abusive language4 ,otherwise it is perfectly free as to plainness of speech4 #e4 ,prof4 ,royce is to see this article at once1 and before it goes to the printer4 #f4 ,should ,prof4 ,royce1 after seeing the paper1 object to the article as not in conformity with the conditions of ,no4 #d 7above71 then1 but only then1 the article is to be submitted1 before publication1 to the judgment of some impartial friend or friends of both the disputants1 such friend or friends to be chosen as promptly as possible1 and by agreement1 and to arbitrate the question1 ,whether ,dr4 ,abbot's final rejoinder is in conformity with the conditions of this present memorandum8 ,the arbitrator or arbitrators may be any person or persons agreable sic to the wishes of both the disputants1 as determined in case the mentioned objection of ,prof4 ,royce should be made1 but not otherwise4 #g4 ,should ,prof4 ,royce not object to the article1 or should he not formally object on the grounds mentioned1 then the article of ,dr4 ,abbot is to close the controversy in the ,journal of ,ethics4 #h4 ,should ,dr4 ,abbot not accept the conditions of the present memorandum1 he is at liberty to withdraw his paper1 or else to let both the papers now in type appear as they are1 at his pleasure4 ,signed ,j4 ,r4 ,it is difficult to conceive the state of mind in which so extraordinary a document as this could have originated4 ,my answer to ,dr4 ,royce's officious interference was a short and dry rejection in toto4 ,dr4 ,royce was not the responsible editor of the ,journal of ,ethics1 and had no power to dictate any conditions of publication whatever4 ,that a libeller should actually presume to dictate to the libelled the terms of his defence1 to demand that this defence should be submitted to himself in advance of publication for approval or disapproval1 and1 in case of disapproval1 to invoke a board of referees for the sole purpose of enforcing his own arbitrary and preposterous conditions1--this was too exquisitely absurd4 ,but there was method in the madness4 ,the central aim of the ,memorandum is clear on its face3 namely1 to refuse the forensic freedom necessary to self-defence against a libel1 and to concede only the parliamentary freedom proper to a purely literary discussion4 ,since1 however1 the only object of my writing at all was to expose his rejoinder as a second libel1 and since the central aim of the ,memorandum was to defeat this very object1 nothing could be plainer than this3 that ,dr4 ,royce1 having been guilty of two unprovoked and malicious libels1 now sought to prevent the exposure of his guilt by suppressing the necessary freedom of self-defence4 ,for1 ,i repeat1 the only possible defence against a libel is to prove that it is a libel1 and this cannot be done without reflecting upon the personal character of the libeller4 ,it was no fault of mine that he had himself rendered a parliamentary discussion impossible2 it was no fault of mine that he had made his own personal character the real point at issue2 it was no fault of mine that he now betrayed his secret alarm1 uttered a cry for mercy1 and convicted himself out of his own mouth1 in his extraordinary and indescribable ,memorandum4 ,that ,memorandum tells the whole story4 ,on the failure of ,dr4 ,royce's very injudicious attempt at dictation1 ,dr4 ,adler found himself compelled to assume the editorial power and responsibility1 which he ought to have assumed and exercised in the first instance by refusing publication to ,dr4 ,royce's original libel4 ,but1 yielding to ,dr4 ,royce's influence1 he took the same position1 and still tried to shield the libeller from the just and lawful consequences of his libel4 ,no principle is more firmly established in the public conscience1 as interpreted by the common law1 than that the fact of an attack by ,a involves the right of self-defence by ,b4 ,whoever1 therefore1 has permitted an attack which he might have prevented is bound to permit the self-defence1 also2 and ,dr4 ,adler1 having granted to ,dr4 ,royce the freedom of libelling me1 was bound to grant to me the equal freedom of defending myself against the libel4 ,but this equal freedom ,dr4 ,adler denied4 ,after some fruitless correspondence1 ,i wrote to him on ,may #d as follows3 ,i require the freedom1 not of 'parliament1' but of the courts--freedom to present my 'facts1' and no less to draw my 'inferences'--freedom to array my evidence1 and no less to make my pleading4 ,by publishing his new libel1 you estop yourself from denying me this freedom4 ,if you do deny it1 ,i withdraw altogether and seek justice and redress elsewhere4 ,i ask only what is self-evidently fair3 7#a7 equal space with ,dr4 ,royce1 7#b7 equal freedom with ,dr4 ,royce1 7#c7 no further rejoinders by ,dr4 ,royce1 and 7#d7 no editorial mention of the matter at all from the ',journal' itself4 ,to this letter ,dr4 ,adler merely telegraphed his final reply on ,may #f in these brief terms3 ,regret your insistence on freedom of courts--parliamentary freedom open to you4 ,this ended the matter1 so far as the ,journal of ,ethics was concerned1 in ,dr4 ,adler's explicit denial of a full and fair hearing in its columns to a party calumniated and libelled by one of his own contributors and a member of his own editorial committee4 ,negotiations1 it is true1 for the publication of my reply in the ,july number were a little later re-opened by ,dr4 ,adler1 on receiving advice from a legal friend of his own that to publish it would be his wisest course2 but he himself broke them off on a trivial pretext1 after receiving contrary advice from ,dr4 ,royce's counsel1 together with a copy of the legal protest sent to me personally4 ,thus ,dr4 ,royce himself1 recalling his original consent1 procured the final rejection by the ,journal of ,ethics of my reply to his own attack4 ,on ,june #ai1 ,i was notified that the ,july number had been made up without it4 ,but already1 on ,june #i1 ,i had received from ,mr4 ,j4 ,b4 ,warner1 acting as ,dr4 ,royce's counsel1 this formal protest against any other use whatever of my reply3 ,on ,dr4 ,royce's behalf1 ,i must warn you that he protests against the publication or any circulation of it1 in its present shape1 and must point out to you that it may1 if circulated1 entail a serious legal responsibility4 ,to this strangely impolitic and utterly futile attempt to intimidate me in the defence of my own reputation1 ,i chose to offer not the slightest resistance4 ,the protest only facilitated that defence4 ,how could a libeller more conspicuously put himself in the wrong1 or more effectually ruin his own evil cause in all eyes1 than by trying to gag the man he had injured8 ,first1 to prevent publication in the ,journal of ,ethics of the very reply he had publicly and defiantly challenged1 and then to suppress all circulation of a few privately printed copies of it by means of legal threats3 if ,dr4 ,royce could afford to commit such blunders1 why should ,i shield him from himself8 ,whom the gods destroy1 they first make mad4 ,before proceeding to any more energetic measures1 however1 in order to vindicate my reputation1 ,i was anxious to offer to ,dr4 ,royce an opportunity of doing me justice in a manner which should be consistent with full vindication1 yet should involve the least possible publicity and the least possible mortification to himself4 ,accordingly1 on ,june #bj1 ,i wrote to ,mr4 ,warner thus3 ,i beg leave to enclose a ,card1 which1 if returned to me within a week from to-day1 unchanged1 dated1 and signed by ,dr4 ,royce1 and if actually published in the ,october number of the ',journal1' will render unnecessary further measures of self-vindication as now contemplated4 ,i send this because you assured me that ,dr4 ,royce disclaims all malice in the publication of the original article ,i complain of1 and because ,i am willing to test the sincerity of his disclaimer before resorting to other measures for my self-protection4 ,i expect you1 who came to me in the character of a pacificator1 and who expressed a creditable desire1 in which ,i fully join1 for the settlement of this trouble in some way which shall occasion no scandal to ,harvard ,college1 to exert your utmost influence with ,dr4 ,royce to persuade him to perform this act of manifest justice to me4 ,a frank retraction and apology1 when unjust charges have been made as now1 is not dishonorable and ought not to be humiliating2 and ,i shall consider ,dr4 ,royce's action in this matter as showing the sincerity or insincerity of his disclaimer of all malice in his original article4 ,the enclosed paper above mentioned was this3-- ,a ,,card4 ,,cambridge1 ,june --1 #ahia4 ,i4 ,i admit that ,i have no knowledge whatever of any extravagant pretensions made by ,dr4 ,abbot as to the originality and profundity of his still unpublished system of philosophy4 ,,ii4 ,i admit that ,dr4 ,abbot did not1 consciously or unconsciously1 borrow his theory of universals from ,hegel1 or sin against the most obvious demands of literary property-rights4 ,,iii4 ,i unconditionally retract my professional warning to the liberal-minded public against ,dr4 ,abbot's philosophical pretensions1 acknowledge that it was groundless and unjustifiable1 and apologize to ,dr4 ,abbot for having published it in the ,international ,journal of ,ethics4 ,,iv4 ,i authorize the publication of this retraction and apology in the next number of the ,international ,journal of ,ethics without note or comment4 ,in his answer of ,june #bd1 ,mr4 ,warner informed me that ,dr4 ,royce had gone to ,denver1 and wrote3 ,as for the ,card which you propose1 ,i will leave ,dr4 ,royce to make his own answer after he has seen it4 ,i will say1 however1 for my own part1 that1 while he has always been ready to disclaim any desire to injure you personally1 ,i think that his opinions concerning your philosophical system and its origin are unchanged1 and he is not likely to retract them4 ,i must say1 too1 that you have put your ,card in a form in which you could not have expected ,dr4 ,royce to sign it1 and ,i do not regard it as any step1 on your part1 toward a pacific settlement1 nor think your demand a reasonable one to make of a self-respecting man4 ,the next day1 ,june #be1 ,i wrote to ,mr4 ,warner3 ,i ought distinctly to deny that my rejected article is 'a libellous paper4' ,its statements are true2 its motive is not malice1 but a self-evident purpose to defend myself against ,dr4 ,royce's libel2 and1 even if it should be concluded to come under any legal definition of 'libel1' ,i maintain that it is self-evidently a 'justifiable libel4' ,if ,i pay any heed to your notice1 it is merely because your notice strengthens my case4--,you do not mention when ,dr4 ,royce will return from ,denver2 but1 because my purpose in enclosing to you that ,card is in good faith a pacific one1 ,i will wait a reasonable time for his return beyond the date ,i mentioned4 ,you will not judge the character of that ,card accurately1 and you cannot give sound or salutary advice to your client1 if you ignore the libellous character of his original article4 ,i do not see how 'a self-respecting man' could ever have written such a paper2 but1 if he did it inadvertently and not maliciously1 he would certainly do one of two things3 7#a7 either submit courageously1 unflinchingly1 and without legal protest1 to the reply it challenged and evoked1 or 7#b7 manfully retract charges demonstrated1 as these have been1 to be false4 ,have you really a different idea of 'self-respect'8 ,certainly not1 for you are an honorable gentleman4 ,be this as it may1 ,i warn you not to persist in considering that ,card as other than a pacific step on my part1 if you desire to counsel your client to his own good1 or to prove yourself a real friend to ,harvard ,college4 ,i say this in good faith4 ,to this1 on ,july #b1 ,mr4 ,warner replied3 ,dr4 ,royce has returned1 and ,i have submitted to him the ,card which you have prepared4 ,as ,i anticipated1 ,dr4 ,royce says that he cannot sign it1 nor can ,i advise him to do so4 ,it goes far beyond any disavowal of malice or personal hostility1 and it amounts to a retraction of the opinions which he actually holds about your philosophical system1 and that retraction you surely cannot expect him to make4 ,dr4 ,royce has again expressed to me his regret that the form of his article should have wounded you1 and he is entirely ready to disavow any intention of wounding you4 ,on ,july #aa1 ,i wrote in answer3 ,most certainly ,i do not expect1 or wish1 that ,dr4 ,royce should disavow any philosophical 'opinions' he may hold4 ,what ,i complain of is a misstatement of fact1 demonstrated to be such1 which ,i believe to have had its origin in a spirit of malicious detraction1 and to be now persevered in from no other cause4 ,in my reply to his article1 which he himself challenged and then pusillanimously suppressed1 he has had abundant means of information4 ,if he now refuses to correct a misstatement which grossly injures me1 after he has been informed of the truth1 the refusal admits of but one interpretation1 and throws a satirical light on the merely private 'regret' he professes4 ,inasmuch1 however1 as you have objected 7quite unnecessarily1 as ,i think7 to the 'form' of the ,card ,i sent you1 and inasmuch as ,i intend to leave no room for doubt as to ,dr4 ,royce's real animus in this affair1 ,i propose now that he send me such a retraction and apology as you yourself shall deem adequate1 fitting1 and due4 ,in your letter of ,june #i1 you admitted that ,dr4 ,royce had 'transgressed the limits of courteous discussion' and that you 'do not defend in all respects the tone of the review4' ,it is plain enough that you1 ,dr4 ,royce's own counsel1 perceive at least something improper1 something that ought to be retracted and apologized for4 ,you are1 then1 ,i submit1 bound to do what you can to right the wrong1 which is not at all done by ,dr4 ,royce's profuse1 but private1 disclaimers4 ,he professes to bear no malice4 ,very well1 then3 let him make reparation for the wrong he has committed4 ,he owes it to himself1 if he considers himself a gentleman1 certainly to his position in ,harvard ,college1 to send me some paper1 specifying what he himself regrets in his own article1 with authority to publish this paper in the ',journal of ,ethics4' ,the ,card ,i sent sufficiently indicates what ,i think is due to me2 if ,dr4 ,royce1 in other language1 covers the same ground1 it will be accepted as satisfactory4 ,that is the very least that a gentleman would do under the circumstances4 ,you cannot object to this proposal on account of its 'form'2 if either you or he objects to it at all1 it must be on account of its substance4 ,certainly you cannot affect to consider it as other than 'pacific4' ,i shall await your answer to it as to the only 'pacific step on my part' which remains possible to me4 ,in reply to this letter1 on ,july #bd1 ,mr4 ,warner wrote3 ,i forwarded your letter of ,july #aa to ,dr4 ,royce1 and he has written a reply to me which ,i think it best to enclose as he wrote it4 ,in this enclosed letter1 dated ,july #ad1 ,dr4 ,royce first re-affirmed1 in substance1 the truth of his false and ridiculous accusation of plagiarism from ,hegel1 and then wrote as follows3 ,now as to my feeling concerning what was regrettable in my article4 ,i repeat once more--regrettable1 in my eyes1 was the manner of the article in so far as it actually gave unnecessary pain to ,dr4 ,abbot4 ,and ,i regard any pain as unnecessary that may have been due1 not to my objectively justified opinion of ,dr4 ,abbot's work 7an opinion which ,i cannot alter in the least71 but to any severity of expression that may not have been absolutely needful to give form to this opinion itself4 ,dr4 ,abbot's reply has shown him to be not merely alive to the strong difference of opinion that separates us1 but personally offended by an attack that was intended to be indeed severe1 but directed wholly to matters of professional1 but not of personal concern4 ,this attitude of ,dr4 ,abbot's ,i regret1 and1 in so far as ,i am to blame for it1 ,i am willing to express my regret publicly4 ,this letter of ,dr4 ,royce is1 in effect1 a deliberate and unqualified re-affirmation of every fact as alleged1 and every inference as drawn1 in his original libel--a deliberate and contemptuous re-affirmation of the whole system of elaborate misrepresentation which constitutes it one tissue of libel from beginning to end4 ,nothing whatever in the substance of his article is retracted or regretted2 nothing is regrettable even in its form1 except vaguely1 hypothetically1 and conditionally2 the only thing ,dr4 ,royce regrets1 as a fact1 is that his objectively justified and intentionally severe attack should have given needless personal offence and unnecessary pain to its object6 ,this deliberate and contemptuous refusal to recall1 to modify1 or to apologize for any of the false accusations he has made against me is1 ,i submit1 demonstration of the malice which originally prompted them1 and now moves him to maintain them2 nothing further is needed to make their malicious character perfectly plain1 and to prove the insincerity of his disclaimers of malice4 ,but ,dr4 ,royce seriously mistakes the nature of the effect produced by his attack1 when he affects to consider it as the quite needless excitation of excessive sensitiveness4 ,if a gentleman in a crowd discovers his nearest neighbor engaged in filching his pocket-book1 and at once hands the culprit over to the police1 it would hardly be graphic to describe his frame of mind as needless personal offence or unnecessary pain2 and the expressions are no more graphic as to my own frame of mind1 when ,i discover ,dr4 ,royce endeavoring to filch from me my reputation in the name of ,harvard ,university4 ,it is not always safe to reckon on the absence1 in parties confessedly attacked1 of all capacity for moral indignation1 or all capacity for moral self-defence4 ,in reply to ,mr4 ,warner1 ,august #d1 ,i wrote as follows3 ,permit me further to say1 with regard to ,dr4 ,royce's letter1 that ,i can only interpret it as a distinct refusal to retract his accusation that ,i have made 'extravagant pretensions as to the originality and profundity of my still unpublished system of philosophy'--a distinct refusal to retract his accusation that ,i have 'borrowed my theory of universals from ,hegel'--a distinct refusal to retract his 'professional warning' based upon these accusations4 ,these were the chief points of my ,card1 and ,i note the refusal implied by ,dr4 ,royce's evasive letter4 ,but ,i decline to accept his plea of 'conscientiousness' in maintaining the accusation as to ,hegel4 ,i might as well plead 'conscientiousness' in maintaining an accusation that ,dr4 ,royce assassinated ,abraham ,lincoln1 in face of the evidence that ,john ,wilkes ,booth was the assassin4 ,here the correspondence closed4 ,my apology for inflicting it upon you1 gentlemen1 must be the necessity of showing to you that1 as ,i was plainly bound to do1 ,i first exhausted every means of private redress before laying the matter before you publicly4 ,not till ,i had failed to obtain a fair hearing in the same periodical which published ,dr4 ,royce's libel1 and not till ,i had failed to obtain from ,dr4 ,royce himself a retraction of this libel1 did ,i find myself reduced to the alternatives of either acquiescing in your own unwarrantably insinuated condemnation1 or else of clearing my assailed reputation through direct and open appeal to you4 ,i am no lover of strife1 and least of all do ,i now seek revenge4 ,i seek only such a vindication of my good name from unmerited calumny as you1 in your own good judgment and in your own chosen way1 are now1 ,i most respectfully submit1 bound in justice to give4 ,,viii4 ,to you1 therefore1 gentlemen of the ,corporation and ,board of ,overseers of ,harvard ,university1 ,i make with all due deference this public appeal for redress of a wrong done to me by one of your appointees--a wrong done1 not in his private capacity as an individual 7for which1 of course1 you would not be justly held responsible71 but publicly and explicitly and emphatically in the name of his profession1 that is1 of his position as a professor in ,harvard ,college4 ,this position is an official one1 due to your appointment2 and his scandalous abuse of it renders him amenable to discipline by you to whom he owes it4 ,therefore1 ,i now formally appeal to you for redress of these specific wrongs1 committed by ,assistant ,professor ,josiah ,royce in flagrant violation of my rights as a citizen and as a man3-- ,i4 ,he has published against me1 in the ,international ,journal of ,ethics1 a libel which is as wanton and unprovoked as it is malicious and false1 and for which no motive is even conceivable except mere professional jealousy or rivalry in authorship4 ,,ii4 ,he has sought to give credibility and respectability to this false and libellous publication by invoking the authority1 not of reason or truth1 but of his mere professional position as professor in ,harvard ,university1 thereby artfully suggesting and insinuating to the uninformed public that ,harvard ,university sustains him in his attack2 whereas1 in conferring upon me the degree of doctor of philosophy and in committing to me formerly the conduct of an advanced course of philosophical instruction1 ,harvard ,university has given emphatic testimony to the contrary4 ,,iii4 ,repudiating his bold promise to ask no mercy1 he has sought1 with incredible cowardice and meanness1 to deprive me of all opportunity of being heard in self-defence1 first1 by excluding from the ,international ,journal of ,ethics my perfectly reasonable reply to what he himself confesses to have been an intentionally severe attack1 and1 secondly1 by threatening me through his counsel with legal prosecution1 if ,i publish it anywhere else or circulate it at all4 ,,iv4 ,lastly1 when1 after all this1 in order to spare him the mortification and disgrace of a public exposure1 and in order to prevent ,harvard ,university from incurring any possible discredit on account of his personal misconduct1 ,i proposed to him a pacific settlement of the whole affair through a simple retraction of his calumnious accusations1 and that1 too1 in words of his own choosing1 he made no answer but a stubborn and contumelious re-affirmation of the original libel4 ,i submit that these acts of wrong constitute conduct unbecoming a gentleman1 a man of honor1 or a professor in ,harvard ,university1 and justly entitle me to redress at your hands4 ,this appeal has not been made hastily or without a patient and long-protracted effort to secure justice in other ways4 ,dr4 ,royce has succeeded hitherto1 during many months1 in defeating that effort2 but now the appeal lies to those whom he cannot control1 and now he must abide your judgment4 ,asking neither less nor more than justice1 and believing that you will recognize justice as ,harvard's highest law1 ,i have the honor to remain1 gentlemen1 in devoted loyalty to our ,alma ,mater1 ,your obedient servant1 ,,francis ,e4 ,,abbot4 ,,cambridge1 ,oct4 #a1 #ahia4 99 99 99 99 99 ,,transcriber',s ,,note3 ,on page #e1 in the word ,boeotia1 the oe ligature has been expanded to the two characters1 oe4 ,the sentence begins3 ,only a native of ,boeotia could be imposed upon by them1 when the actual character4444