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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/19768-8.txt b/19768-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f09bca8 --- /dev/null +++ b/19768-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2097 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Public Appeal for Redress to the +Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University, by Francis Ellingwood Abbot + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University + Professor Royce's Libel + +Author: Francis Ellingwood Abbot + +Release Date: November 12, 2006 [EBook #19768] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PUBLIC APPEAL FOR REDRESS *** + + + + +Produced by Curtis Weyant, Diane Monico, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by Case Western Reserve University Preservation Department +Digital Library.) + + + + + + + + + + +PROFESSOR ROYCE'S LIBEL. + + * * * * * + +A + +PUBLIC APPEAL FOR REDRESS + +TO THE + +CORPORATION AND OVERSEERS + +OF + +HARVARD UNIVERSITY. + +BY + +FRANCIS ELLINGWOOD ABBOT, PH.D. + +CAMBRIDGE, MASS. + + * * * * * + +BOSTON, MASS. + +GEO. H. ELLIS, 141 FRANKLIN STREET, 1891. + + + + +PUBLIC APPEAL. + + +TO THE PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS AND BOARD OF OVERSEERS OF HARVARD +UNIVERSITY: + +_Gentlemen_,--Believing it to be a necessary part of good citizenship +to defend one's reputation against unjustifiable attacks, and +believing you to have been unwarrantably, but not remotely, implicated +in an unjustifiable attack upon my own reputation by Assistant +Professor Josiah Royce, since his attack is made publicly, explicitly, +and emphatically on the authority of his "professional" position as +one of your agents and appointees, I respectfully apply to you for +redress of the wrong, leaving it wholly to your own wisdom and sense +of justice to decide what form such redress should take. If Dr. Royce +had not, by clear and undeniable implication, appealed to your high +sanction to sustain him in his attack,--if he had not undeniably +sought to create a widespread but false public impression that, in +making this attack, he spoke, and had a right to speak, with all the +prestige and authority of Harvard University itself,--I should not +have deemed it either necessary or becoming to appeal to you in +self-defence, or, indeed, to take any public notice whatever of an +attack otherwise unworthy of it. 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 +employer, from the agent to the principal; and it would be +disrespectful to you to doubt for a moment that, disapproving of an +attack made impliedly and yet unwarrantably in your name, you will +express your disapprobation in some just and appropriate manner. My +action in thus laying the matter publicly before you can inflict no +possible injury upon our honored and revered Alma Mater: injury to +her is not even conceivable, except on the wildly improbable +supposition of your being indifferent to a scandalous abuse of his +position by one of your assistant professors, who, with no imaginable +motive other than mere professional jealousy or rivalry of authorship, +has gone to the unheard-of length of "professionally warning the +public" against a peaceable and inoffensive private scholar, whose +published arguments he has twice tried, but twice signally failed, to +meet in an intellectual way. 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 you, as incompatible with the dignity and the +decencies of his office and with the rights of private citizens in +general, Harvard University would indeed suffer, and ought to suffer; +but it is wholly within your power to prevent the growth of so +injurious a belief. I beg leave, therefore, to submit to you the +following statement, and to solicit for it the patient and impartial +consideration which the gravity of the case requires. + + +I. + +The first number of a new quarterly periodical, the "International +Journal of Ethics," published at Philadelphia in October, 1890, +contained an ostensible review by Dr. Royce of my last book, "The Way +out of Agnosticism." I advisedly use the word "ostensible," because +the main purport and intention of the article were not at all to +criticise a philosophy, but to sully the reputation of the +philosopher, deprive him of public confidence, ridicule and +misrepresent his labors, hold him up by name to public obloquy and +contempt, destroy or lessen the circulation of his books, and, in +general, to blacken and break down his literary reputation by any and +every means, even to the extent of aspersing his personal reputation, +although there had never been the slightest personal collision. Its +bitter and invidious spirit was not in the least disguised by a few +exaggerated compliments adroitly inserted here and there: these +merely furnish the foil needed to give greater potency and efficiency +to the personal insinuations, and, like Mark Antony's compliments to +Cæsar's assassins, subserved quite too many politic purposes to be +accepted as sincere. Only a native of Boeotia could be imposed upon by +them, when the actual character of the book in question was carefully +misrepresented, and when the self-evident trend, tenor, 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 opinions. + +Of course, the very largest liberty must be and should be conceded to +legitimate criticism. From this, as is well known, I never shrank in +the least; on the contrary, I court it, and desire nothing better for +my books, provided only that the criticism be pertinent, intelligent, +and fair. But misrepresentation for the purpose of detraction is not +criticism at all; and (notwithstanding numerous quotations perverted +by unfair and misleading glosses, including two misquotations quite +too useful to be accidental) this ostensible review is, from beginning +to end, nothing but misrepresentation for the purpose of detraction. +Passing over numerous minor instances, permit me to invite your +attention to three gross instances of such misrepresentation. + + +II. + +The book under review had taken the utmost pains (pages 16-39, +especially page 39) to distinguish "realism" from "idealism," and to +argue for the former in opposition to the latter, on the ground of the +absolute incompatibility of the latter with the scientific method of +investigation. It had taken the utmost pains to make the contrast +broad and deep, and to point out its far-reaching consequences by +explicitly opposing (1) scientific realism to philosophical idealism +in general, and in particular (2) constructive realism to constructive +idealism, (3) critical realism to critical idealism, (4) ethical +realism to ethical idealism, and (5) religious realism to religious +idealism. Any fair or honorable critic would recognize this contrast +and opposition between realism and idealism as the very foundation of +the work he was criticising, and would at least state it candidly, as +the foundation of his own favorable or unfavorable comments. How did +Dr. Royce treat it? He not only absolutely ignored it, not only said +nothing whatever about it, but actually took pains to put the reader +on a false scent at the start, by assuring him (without the least +discussion of this all-important point) that my philosophical +conclusions are "essentially idealistic"! + +So gross a misrepresentation as this might be charitably attributed to +critical incapacity of some sort, if it did not so very conveniently +pave the way for the second gross misrepresentation which was to +follow: namely, that the theory actually propounded in my book had +been, in fact, "_appropriated" and "borrowed" from an idealist_! The +immense utility of misrepresenting my system at the start as +"essentially idealistic" lay in the fact that, by adopting this +stratagem, Dr. Royce could escape altogether the formidable necessity +of _first arguing the main question of idealism versus realism_. +Secretly conscious of his own inability to handle that question, to +refute my "Soliloquy of the Self-Consistent Idealist," or to overthrow +my demonstration that consistent idealism leads logically to hopeless +absurdity at last, Dr. Royce found it infinitely easier to deceive his +uninformed readers by a bold assertion that I myself am an idealist at +bottom. This assertion, swallowed without suspicion of its absolute +untruth, would render it plausible and quite credible to assert, next, +that I had actually "appropriated" my philosophy from a greater +idealist than myself. + +For the only substantial criticism of the book made by Dr. Royce is +that I "borrowed" my whole theory of universals from +Hegel--"unconsciously," he has the caution to say; 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 work. It would be inopportune and +discourteous to weary you with philosophical discussions. I exposed +the amazing absurdity of Dr. Royce's accusation of plagiarism in the +reply to his article which, as appears below, Dr. Royce himself +anxiously suppressed, and which I should now submit to you, if he had +not at last taken fright and served upon me a legal protest against +its circulation. But, to any well-educated man, such an accusation as +this refutes itself. It would be just as reasonable, just as +plausible, to accuse Darwin of having borrowed his theory of natural +selection from Agassiz, or Daniel Webster of having borrowed his +theory of the inseparable Union from John C. Calhoun, or ex-President +Cleveland of having borrowed his message on tariff reform from the +Home Market Club, as to accuse me of having borrowed my theory of +universals from Hegel. Hegel's theory of universals is divided from +mine by the whole vast chasm between realism and idealism. The two +theories contradict each other absolutely, uncompromisingly, +irreconcilably: Hegel's is a theory of "absolute idealism" or "pure +thought" (_reines Denken_), that is, of _thought absolutely +independent of experience_, while mine is a theory of "scientific +realism," that is, of _thought absolutely dependent upon experience._ +It is quite immaterial here which theory is the true one; the only +point involved at present is that the two theories flatly contradict +each other, and that it is self-evidently impossible that either +_could_ be "borrowed," consciously or unconsciously, from the other. +If Dr. Royce had ever done any hard thinking on the theory of +universals, or if he had the slightest comprehension of the problems +it involves, he would never have been so rash as to charge me with +"borrowing" my theory from Hegel, and thus to commit himself +irrevocably to a defence of the absurd; but eagerness to accuse +another has betrayed him into a position whence it is impossible for +him to escape with honor. Solely by misdescribing my philosophy as +"essentially idealistic" when it openly and constantly and +emphatically avows itself to be essentially realistic, could Dr. Royce +give the faintest color of plausibility to his monstrous and +supremely ridiculous accusation of plagiarism; 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 world. These gross +misrepresentations, however, he did not hesitate to make, since they +were necessary in order to pave the way to a third and still grosser +misrepresentation on which he apparently had set his heart: namely, +that, after borrowing the whole substance of my philosophy from Hegel, +I have been guilty of making "vast and extravagant pretensions" as to +my own "novelty," "originality," and "profundity," not only with +regard to my published books, but also with regard to my "still +unpublished system of philosophy." His words are these:-- + +"Of novelty, good or bad, the book contains, indeed, despite its vast +pretensions, hardly a sign." + +"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 philosophy, to give the reader some hint of what +so far appears to be the nature of our author's contributions to +philosophical reflection." + +Precisely what have been these alleged "pretensions"? Dr. Royce cites +only three instances. + +I. He first garbles a sentence in the prefatory Note to "The Way out +of Agnosticism," by quoting only one phrase from it. The sentence in +full is this: "By a wholly new line of reasoning, drawn exclusively +from those sources [science and philosophy], this book aims to show +that, in order to refute agnosticism and establish enlightened theism, +nothing is now necessary but to philosophize that very scientific +method which agnosticism barbarously misunderstands and misuses." +There is no "pretension" whatever in these words, except that the +general "line of reasoning" set forth in the book is, _as a whole_, +different from that of other books. If not, why publish it? Or, +without the same cause, why publish any book? I see no reason to +recall or to modify this perfectly true statement; Dr. Royce, at +least, has shown none. The "novelty" of the book lies in its very +attempt to evolve philosophy as a whole out of the scientific method +itself, as "observation, hypothesis, and experimental verification," +by developing the theory of universals which is implicit in that +purely experiential method; and Dr. Royce does not even try to prove +that Hegel, or anybody else, has ever made just such an attempt as +that. Unless there can be shown somewhere a _parallel attempt_, the +statement is as undeniably true as it is certainly unpretentious. + +II. Next, Dr. Royce extracts these sentences from the body of the book +(I supply in brackets words which he omitted): "The first great task +of philosophy is to lay deep and solid foundations for the expansion +[and ideal perfection] of human knowledge in a bold, new, and true +theory of universals. For so-called modern philosophy rests +complacently in a theory of universals which is thoroughly mediæval or +antiquated." What personal pretension, even of the mildest sort, can +be conceived to lurk in these innocent words? I did not say that I +have succeeded in performing that "task"; I repeat now what I have +often said and what I meant then; namely, that modern science has +unawares performed it already, that I have faithfully tried to +formulate and further apply what science has done, and that I +respectfully submit the result (so far as already published), not to +such critics as Dr. Royce, but to able, learned, and magnanimous +students of philosophy everywhere. + +III. Lastly, though employing quotation marks so as to evade a charge +of formal misquotation, he perverts and effectually misquotes a +sentence of the book in a way which makes it appear exactly what it is +not,--"pretentious." I had said at the end of my own book (page 75): +"_Its aim has been to show_ the way out of agnosticism into the +sunlight of the predestined philosophy of science." This expression is +perfectly in harmony with the prefatory Note, which says that "_this +book aims to show_ that, in order to refute agnosticism and establish +enlightened theism, nothing is now necessary but to philosophize that +very scientific method which agnosticism barbarously misunderstands +and misuses," and which immediately adds: "_Of the success of the +perhaps unwise attempt to show this in so small a compass, the +educated public must be the judge._" Most certainly, there is no +"pretension" in this modest and carefully guarded avowal of the simple +aim of my book. But Dr. Royce twists this modest avowal into a +barefaced boast, and injuriously misquotes me to his own readers thus: +"At the conclusion of the book, we learn that _we have been shown_ +'the way out of agnosticism into the sunlight of the predestined +philosophy of science.'" Gentlemen, I request you to compare +thoughtfully the expressions which I have here italicized, and then +decide for yourselves whether this injurious misquotation is purely +accidental, or, in view of Dr. Royce's purpose of proving me guilty of +"vast pretensions," quite too useful to be purely accidental. + +IV. But Dr. Royce does not content himself with quoting or misquoting +what I have published, for the self-evident reason that what I have +published is not sufficiently "pretentious" for his purpose. +Disinterested anxiety for the public welfare, and tender sorrow over +the "harm to careful inquiry" which my book is doing by "getting +influence over immature or imperfectly trained minds," constrain him +to accuse me of "frequently making of late extravagant pretensions as +to the originality and profundity" of my "still unpublished system of +philosophy." + +Precisely what have been these "extravagant pretensions"? Simply +these:-- + +In the preface to "Scientific Theism," I said of that book: "It is a +mere _résumé_ of a small portion of a comprehensive philosophical +system, so far as I have been able to work it out under most +distracting, discouraging, and unpropitious circumstances of many +years; and for this reason I must beg some indulgence for the +unavoidable incompleteness of my work." + +Enumerating some reasons why I hesitated to begin the series of papers +afterwards published as "The Way out of Agnosticism," I said, in the +first of these papers: "First and foremost, perhaps, is the fact that, +although the ground-plan of this theory is already thoroughly matured, +the literary execution of it is as yet scarcely even begun, and from +want of opportunity may never be completed; and it seems almost absurd +to present the abridgment of a work which does not yet exist to be +abridged." + +Finally, in an address printed in the "Unitarian Review" for December, +1889, I said: "Without advancing any personal claim whatever, permit +me to take advantage of your indulgent kindness, and to make here the +first public confession of certain painfully matured results of thirty +years' thinking, which, in the momentous and arduous enterprise of +developing a scientific theology out of the scientific method itself, +appear to be principles of cosmical import.... Perhaps I can make them +intelligible, as a contribution to that 'Unitary Science' which the +great Agassiz foresaw and foretold." In a postscript to this address I +added: "For fuller support of the position taken above, I am +constrained to refer ... to a large treatise, now in process of +preparation, 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 itself." + +What remotest allusion to my own "originality" is contained in these +passages, or what remotest allusion to my own "profundity"? What +"pretension" of any sort is here made, whether "extravagant" or +moderate? Yet this is the only actual evidence, _and the whole of it_, +on which Dr. Royce dares to accuse me of "frequently making of late +extravagant pretensions as to the originality and profundity of my +still unpublished system of philosophy"! The pure absurdity of such an +accusation reveals itself in the very statement of it. Dr. Royce is +referring here, be it understood, not to my published books, but to my +"unpublished system of philosophy." _How does he know anything about +it?_ I certainly have never shown him my unpublished manuscript, and +beyond those published allusions to it he possesses absolutely no +means whatever of knowing anything about its contents. Nothing, +surely, except full and exact knowledge, derived from careful and +patient personal examination of that manuscript, could possibly be a +ground of just judgment of its character. How, then, in absolute +ignorance of its character and contents, could any fair man hazard any +public verdict upon it? Yet Dr. Royce not only accuses me of making +"pretensions" about it which I never made, but dares to characterize +them as "extravagant," when, _for all he knows_, they might (if made) +fall far short of the truth. Whether in this case the evidence +supports the accusation, 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 appointees,--these, +gentlemen, are questions for you yourselves to decide. + + +III. + +These three connected and logically affiliated _misstatements of +fact_--namely, (1) that my philosophy is "essentially idealistic," (2) +that it has been "appropriated" and "unconsciously borrowed" from the +idealist Hegel, and (3) 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 misrepresentation, as methodical +and coherent as it is unscrupulous. It is not "fair criticism"; it is +not "criticism" at all; and I do not hesitate to characterize it +deliberately as a disgrace both to Harvard University and to American +scholarship. + +Yet, gross and studied and systematic as this misrepresentation is, I +should have passed it over in silence, precisely as I did pass over a +similar attack by Dr. Royce on my earlier book in "Science" for April +9, 1886, were it not that, perhaps emboldened by former impunity, he +now makes his misrepresentations culminate in the perpetration of a +literary outrage, to which, I am persuaded, no parallel can be found +in the history of polite literature. It is clear that forbearance must +have somewhere its limit. The commands of self-respect and of civic +conscience, 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 person, must at last set a bound to forbearance itself, and +compel to self-defence. These are the reasons which, after patient +exhaustion of every milder means of redress, have moved me to this +public appeal. + +Dr. Royce's misstatements of fact, so elaborately fashioned and so +ingeniously mortised together, were merely his foundation for a +deliberate and formal "professional warning to the liberal-minded +public" against my alleged "philosophical pretensions." 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 Theism,'" +printed as a publishers' advertisement of my former book at the end of +the book which lay before him. These "Press Notices," as usual, +contain numerous extracts from eulogistic reviews, in which, curiously +enough, these very words, "original" and "profound," or their +equivalents, occur with sufficient frequency to explain Dr. Royce's +choleric unhappiness. For instance, Dr. James Freeman Clarke wrote in +the "Unitarian Review": "If every position taken by Dr. Abbot cannot +be maintained, his book remains an original contribution to philosophy +of a high order and of great value"; M. Renouvier, in "La Critique +Philosophique," classed the book among "de remarquables efforts de +construction métaphysique et morale dus à des penseurs indépendants et +profonds"; and M. Carrau, in explaining why he added to his critical +history of "Religious Philosophy in England" a chapter of twenty pages +on my own system, actually introduced both of the words which, when +thus applied, jar so painfully on Dr. Royce's nerves: "La pensée de M. +Abbot m'a paru assez profonde et assez originale pour mériter d'être +reproduite littéralement." (La Philosophie Religieuse en Angleterre. +Par Ludovic Carrau, Directeur des Conférences de philosophie à la +Faculté des lettres de Paris. Paris, 1888.) These extracts, be it +remembered, were all printed at the end of the book which Dr. Royce +was reviewing. Now he had an undoubted right to think and to say that +such encomiums as these on my work were silly, extravagant, +preposterous, and totally undeserved; but _to take them out of the +mouth of others and put them into mine was wilful and deliberate +calumny_. Systematic and calumnious misrepresentation is the sole +foundation of the "professional warning" in which Dr. Royce's +ostensible review culminates, and which is too extraordinary not to be +quoted here in full:-- + +"And so, finally, after this somewhat detailed study of Dr. Abbot's +little book, I feel constrained to repeat my judgment as above. +Results in philosophy are one thing; a careful way of thinking is +another. Babes and sucklings often get very magnificent results. It is +not the office of philosophy to outdo the babes and sucklings at their +own business of receiving revelations. It is the office of philosophy +to undertake a serious scrutiny of the presuppositions of human +belief. Hence the importance of the careful way of thinking in +philosophy. But Dr. Abbot's way is not careful, is not novel, and, +when thus set forth to the people as new and bold and American, it is +likely to do precisely as much harm to careful inquiry as it gets +influence over immature or imperfectly trained minds. I venture, +therefore, to speak plainly, by way of a professional warning to the +liberal-minded public concerning Dr. Abbot's philosophical +pretensions. And my warning takes the form of saying that, if people +are to think in this confused way, unconsciously borrowing from a +great speculator like Hegel, and then depriving the borrowed +conception of the peculiar subtlety of statement that made it useful +in its place,--and if we readers are for our part to accept such +scholasticism as is found in Dr. Abbot's concluding sections as at all +resembling philosophy,--then it were far better for the world that no +reflective thinking whatever should be done. If we can't improve on +what God has already put into the mouth of the babes and sucklings, +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 us." + +Gentlemen, I deny sweepingly the whole groundwork of cunning and +amazing misrepresentation on which this unparalleled tirade is +founded. + +I. I deny that my philosophy is "essentially idealistic," or that any +"careful" or conscientious scholar could possibly affirm it to be +such. + +II. I deny that I "borrowed" my realistic theory of universals from +the idealist, Hegel, whether consciously or unconsciously. The charge +is unspeakably silly. Realism and idealism contradict each other more +absolutely than protectionism and free-trade. + +III. I deny that I ever made the "philosophical pretensions" which Dr. +Royce calumniously imputes to me. But, if I had made pretensions as +high as the Himalayas, I deny his authority to post me publicly--to +act as policeman in the republic of letters and to collar me on that +account. A college professor who thus mistakes his academic gown for +the policeman's uniform, and dares to use his private walking-stick +for the policeman's bludgeon, is likely to find himself suddenly +prostrated by a return blow, arrested for assault and battery, and +unceremoniously hustled off into a cell, by the officer whose function +he has injudiciously aped without waiting for the tiresome but quite +indispensable little preliminary of first securing a regular +commission. + +IV. Most of all, I deny Dr. Royce's self-assumed right to club every +philosopher whose reasoning he can neither refute nor understand. I +deny, in general, that any Harvard professor has the right to +fulminate a "professional warning" _against anybody_; and, in +particular, that you, gentlemen, ever voted or intended to invest Dr. +Royce with that right. He himself now publicly puts forth a worse than +"extravagant pretension" when he arrogates to himself this right of +literary outrage. He was not appointed professor by you for any such +unseemly purpose. To arrogate to himself a senseless "professional" +superiority over all non-"professional" authors, to the insufferable +extent of publicly posting and placarding them for a mere difference +of opinion, is, from a moral point of view, scandalously to abuse his +academical position, to compromise the dignity of Harvard University, +to draw down universal contempt upon the "profession" which he +prostitutes to the uses of mere professional jealousy or literary +rivalry, and to degrade the honorable office of professor in the eyes +of all who understand that a weak argument is not strengthened, and a +false accusation is not justified, by throwing "professional warnings" +as a make-weight into the scales of reason. I affirm emphatically that +no professor has a moral right to treat anybody with this undisguised +"insolence of office," or to use any weapon but reason in order to put +down what he conceives to be errors in philosophy. In the present +case, I deny that Dr. Royce has any better or stronger claim than +myself to speak "professionally" on philosophical questions. The very +book against which he presumes to warn the public "professionally" is +founded upon lectures which I myself "professionally" delivered, not +only from Dr. Royce's own desk and to Dr. Royce's own college class, +but as a substitute for Dr. Royce himself, at the request and by the +appointment of his own superiors, the Corporation and Overseers of his +own University; and the singular impropriety (to use no stronger word) +of his "professional warning" will be apparent to every one in the +light of that fact. + + +IV. + +So far I have treated Dr. Royce's attack solely from the literary and +ethical points of view. The legal point of view must now be +considered. + +Plagiarism, conscious or unconscious, is a very grave and serious +charge to bring against an author, and one which may entail upon him, +not only great damage to his literary reputation, but also social +disgrace and pecuniary loss. If proved, or even if widely believed +without proof, it cannot but ruin his literary career and destroy the +marketable value of his books; and it matters little, so far as these +practical results are concerned, whether the plagiarism attributed to +him is conscious or unconscious. In an able editorial article on "Law +and Theft," published in the New York "Nation" of Feb. 12, 1891, it is +forcibly said: "Authors or writers who do this [borrowing other men's +ideas] a good deal, undoubtedly incur discredit by it with their +fellows and the general public. It greatly damages a writer's fame to +be rightfully accused of want of originality, or of imitation, or of +getting materials at second hand. But no one has ever proposed to +punish or restrain this sort of misappropriation by law. No one has +ever contended for the infliction on the purloiners of other men's +ideas of any penalty but ridicule or disgrace." Whoever _wrongfully_ +accuses an author of plagiarism, then, holds him up _undeservedly_ to +"discredit, ridicule, or disgrace," and "slanders his title" to the +product of his own brain. This is contrary to the law. Yet this is +precisely what Dr. Royce has done in accusing me _falsely_, and as a +_"certain" matter of fact_, of borrowing my theory of universals from +Hegel. His accusation is made with as many sneers and as much insult +as could well be compressed into the space:-- + +"Dr. Abbot is hopelessly unhistorical in his consciousness. 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 use, in +expounding it, one of the most characteristic and familiar of Hegel's +technical terms, namely, 'concrete,' in that sense in which it is +applied to the objective and universal 'genus.' Dr. Abbot's +appropriation of Hegel's peculiar terminology comes ill indeed from +one who talks," _etc._ "This I say not to defend Hegel, for whose +elaborate theory of universals I hold in no wise a brief, but simply +in the cause of literary property-rights. When we plough with another +man's heifer, however unconscious we are of our appropriation, however +sincerely we seem to remember that we alone raised her from her +earliest calfhood, it is yet in vain, after all, that we put our brand +on her, or call her 'American.'... Now Hegel's whole theory may be +false; but what is certain is that Dr. Abbot, who has all his life +been working in an atmosphere where Hegelian ideas were more or less +infectious, has derived his whole theory of universals, so far as he +has yet revealed it with any coherency, from Hegelian sources, and +even now cannot suggest any better terminology than Hegel's for an +important portion of the doctrine. Yet in the volume before us we find +all this pretentious speech of an 'American' theory, and discover our +author wholly unaware that he is sinning against the most obvious +demands of literary property-rights." + +Passing over the self-evident point that whoever is "_unaware_ that he +is sinning" cannot be "sinning" at all, since "sinning" consists in +_being aware_ of the wrong we do,--and, consequently, that Dr. Royce +comes here as near as he dares to a direct insinuation that my +plagiarism is conscious, and not "unconscious,"--let me call your +attention to the more important point, that Dr. Royce affirms my +conscious or unconscious theft from Hegel as a matter of _"certain" +fact_, not merely as a matter of _probable inference_. Yet the only +evidence he has to offer in support of this "certainty" is (1) that I +use the word "concrete" in the same sense as Hegel, and (2) that I +have worked all my life in a Hegelian "atmosphere." These two points +cover all the grounds of his accusation. Permit me very briefly to +examine them. + +(1) The word "concrete" is not in the least a technical term +copyrighted by Hegel, nor is it his trademark. It is one of the +commonest of words, and free to all. 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 word? Even this poor and +solitary little premise slips out of Dr. Royce's clutch, for Hegel's +use of the word is _contradictory to mine_! Hegel has to put upon the +word "concrete" a very unusual, strained, and artificial sense, in +order to cover up the weakest point of his idealistic system. He +explains it, however, frankly, clearly, and unambiguously: "The +Concept or Notion (_Begriff_) may be always called 'abstract,' if the +term 'concrete' must be limited to the mere concrete of sensation and +immediate perception; the Notion as such cannot be grasped by the +hands, and, when we deal with it, eyes and ears are out of the +question. Yet, as was said before, the Notion is the only true +concrete." (_Encyklopädie, Werke_, VI. 316.) Again: "Just as little is +the sensuous-concrete of Intuition a rational-concrete of the Idea." +(_Ibid., Werke_, VI. 404.) A score of similar passages can easily be +cited. That is to say, Hegel avowedly excludes from his _idealistic_ +theory of universals the "concrete" of sensation, perception, +intuition, or _real experience_, and admits into it only the +"concrete" of _pure or non-empirical thought_; while I avowedly +exclude from my _realistic_ theory of universals the "concrete" of +_pure thought_, and admit into it only the "concrete" of _real +experience_. Hegel's "concrete" cannot be seen, heard, or touched; +while to me nothing which cannot be seen, heard, or touched is +"concrete" at all. A mere common school education is quite sufficient +for comprehension of the contradictoriness of these two uses of the +word. Yet, in order to found a malicious charge of plagiarism, Dr. +Royce has the hardihood to assure the uninformed general public that +Hegel and I use the word "concrete" in one and the same sense! + +(2) The assertion that I have lived all my life in a Hegelian +"atmosphere" I can only meet with a short, sharp, and indignant +denial. I know of no such "atmosphere" in all America; if it anywhere +exists, I certainly never lived, moved, or worked in it. The statement +is a gratuitous, impertinent, and _totally false allegation of fact_, +wholly outside of my book and its contents, and is used in this +connection solely to feather an arrow shot at my reputation; it is a +pure invention, a manufactured assertion which is absolutely without +foundation, and, when thus artfully thrown out with apparent +artlessness (_ars celare artem_) as itself foundation for a false and +malicious charge of plagiarism, it becomes fabrication of evidence for +the purpose of defamation. The less said about such an offence as +that, the better for Dr. Royce, and I spare him the comment it +deserves. + +Now, while it might be "fair criticism" _to infer_ my plagiarism from +Hegel, if there were only some reasonable or even merely plausible +evidence to support the inference (which I have just proved not to be +the case), it is incontestable that _to affirm_ this plagiarism, as a +"certain" matter of fact, without any reasonable evidence at all, is +not that "fair criticism" which the law justly allows, but, on the +contrary, a totally unjustifiable libel. In accusing me personally of +plagiarism on no reasonable grounds whatever, as I have just +unanswerably proved him to have done, 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 (namely, the false +allegation that I have worked all my life in a Hegelian "atmosphere"), +Dr. Royce has beyond all controversy transgressed the legally defined +limits of "fair criticism," and become a libeller. + +But this is by no means all. If the bat-like accusation of an +"unconscious", yet "sinning" (or sinful) plagiarism hovers ambiguously +between attacking my literary reputation and attacking my moral +character, there is no such ambiguity hanging about the accusation of +"extravagant pretensions as to the originality and profundity of my +still unpublished system of philosophy." A decent modesty, a +self-respectful reserve, a manly humility in presence of the +unattainable ideal of either moral or intellectual perfection, a +speechless reverence in the presence of either infinite goodness or +infinite truth,--these are virtues which belong to the very warp and +woof of all noble, elevated, and justly estimable character; and +wherever their absence is conspicuously shown, there is just ground +for moral condemnation and the contempt of mankind. Dr. Royce has not +scrupled to accuse me of making, not only "pretensions," but even +"extravagant pretensions," which are absolutely incompatible with the +possession of these beautiful and essential virtues, and thereby to +hold me up to universal contempt and derision. He has done this, by +the very terms of his accusation, absolutely and confessedly _without +cause_; for the system of philosophy which is "unpublished" to others +is no less "unpublished" to him, and an accusation thus made +confessedly without any knowledge of its truth is, on the very face +of it, an accusation which is as malicious as it is groundless. To +make such a self-proved and self-condemned accusation as this is, I +submit, to be guilty of libel with no ordinary degree of culpability. + +But the libel of which I have greatest cause to complain is not +confined to exceptional or isolated expressions. These might +charitably be explained as mere momentary ebullitions of pettishness +or spleen, and pardonable as merely faults of temper in a criticism +which was in the main conscientious and fair. But the libel of which I +complain most of all is one that constitutes the entire ground and +framework of the article _as a whole_. Every part of it is +methodically spun and interwoven with every other part, in such a way +as to make it one seamless tissue of libel from beginning to end. This +I say in full consciousness of the interspersed occasional +compliments, since these have only the effect of disguising the +libellous intent of the whole from a simple-minded or careless reader, +and since they subserve the purpose of furnishing to the writer a +plausible and ready-made defence of his libel against a foreseen +protest. Compliments to eke out a libel are merely insults in +masquerade. The libellous plan of the article as a whole is shown in +the _regular system_ of gross and studied misrepresentation, of +logically connected and nicely dovetailed misstatements of facts, +which I exposed at the outset. 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 realism, and to a defence of the latter +against the former, as the only possible method by which a spiritual +theism can be intellectually, and therefore successfully, defended in +this age of science. Only one who has read and digested the two books +can fully appreciate the enormity and the unscrupulousness of the +initial misrepresentation, slipped in, as it were, quite casually, and +without any argument, in the apparently incidental and +matter-of-course statement that my "conclusion" is "essentially +idealistic." It is _not_ "idealistic" at all, but as radically +realistic as the premises themselves; and no professor of philosophy +could ever have called it "idealistic" by a mere slip of the tongue or +pen. The intelligent origin of this misrepresentation is clearly +enough suggested in the use to which it is at once put: namely, to +render plausible the otherwise ridiculous charge that my theory of +universals was "borrowed" from an idealist. Next, the same origin is +more than suggested by the use to which these two misrepresentations +together are put: namely, to show that any claim of "novelty" for a +merely "borrowed" philosophy is a "vast" and "extravagant pretension." +Lastly, the same origin is inductively and conclusively proved, when +these three inter-linked misrepresentations, as a whole, are made the +general foundation for a brutal "professional warning" to the public +at large against my "philosophical pretensions" in general. Not one of +these fundamental positions of Dr. Royce's article is a fact,--least +of all, an "admitted fact"; on the contrary, each of them is +energetically and indignantly denied. 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 falsified, and then used to the injury of my literary +and personal reputation. + +It may, I trust, be permitted to me here to show clearly what the law +is, as applicable to the case in hand, by a few pertinent citations. + +"The critic must confine himself to criticism, and not make it the +veil for personal censure, nor allow himself to run into reckless and +unfair attacks, merely from the love of exercising his power of +denunciation. Criticism and comment on well-known and admitted facts +are very different things from the assertion of unsubstantiated facts. +A fair and _bona fide_ comment on a matter of public interest is an +excuse of what would otherwise be a defamatory publication. The +statement of this rule assumes the matters of fact commented on to be +somehow ascertained. It does not mean that a man may invent facts, and +comment on the facts so invented in what would be a fair and _bona +fide_ manner, on the supposition that the facts were true. If the +facts as a comment upon which the publication is sought to be excused +do not exist, the foundation fails.... The distinction cannot be too +clearly borne in mind between comment or criticism and allegations of +fact.... To state matters which are libellous is not comment or +criticism." (_Newell on Defamation, Slander, and Libel_, p. 568.) +Applying this to the case in hand: the "admitted facts" are these: (1) +my philosophy is realistic from beginning to end; (2) I have not +worked all my life, nor any part of my life, in a Hegelian +"atmosphere"; (3) I did not borrow my theory of universals from Hegel; +(4) I have made no vast or extravagant pretensions whatever as to my +own philosophy. But Dr. Royce invents and states the exact opposite of +all these facts, and then bases on these purely invented facts most +undeserved "personal censure" and most "reckless and unfair attacks." +Therefore, his article is a libel in its whole groundwork and +essential spirit. + +"If a person, under pretence of criticising a literary work, defames +the private character of the author, and, instead of writing in the +spirit and for the purpose of fair and candid discussion, travels into +collateral matter, and introduces facts not stated in the work, +accompanied with injurious comment upon them, such person is a +libeller, and liable to an action." (_Broom's Legal Maxims_, p. 320.) +Applying this to the case in hand: Dr. Royce "defames" my "private +character," when he accuses me of "frequently" indulging in +"extravagant pretensions"; he "travels into collateral matter," when +he alludes at all to my unpublished manuscript; he "introduces facts +not stated in the work, accompanied with injurious comment upon them," +when he alludes to this unpublished manuscript for the sole purpose of +saying (untruthfully) that I "frequently make, of late, extravagant +pretensions as to its originality and profundity," and again when he +says that I have worked all my life in a Hegelian "atmosphere," for +the sole purpose of founding upon this false statement a false charge +of plagiarism. + +In the "Griffith Gaunt" case, Judge Clerke said in his charge to the +jury: "The interests of literature and science require that the +productions of authors shall be subject to fair criticism,--that even +some animadversion may be permitted, unless it appears that the +critic, under the pretext of reviewing his book, takes an opportunity +of attacking the character of the author, and of holding him up as an +object of ridicule, hatred, or contempt. In other words, the critic +may say what he pleases of the literary merits or demerits of the +published production of an author; but, with respect to his personal +rights relating to his reputation, the critic has no more privilege +than any other person not assuming the business of criticism." +(_Abbott's Practice Reports_, New Series, VI. 18.) Applying this to +the case in hand: Dr. Royce, "under the pretext of reviewing" my +"book, takes an opportunity of attacking the author, and of holding +him up as an object of ridicule and contempt," if ridicule and +contempt are the deservedly universal punishment of the plagiarist and +the braggart. To so unprecedented a length has he carried this attack, +as deliberately and formally, in the name of his "profession," and +therefore, by necessary implication, in the name of Harvard University +itself, to "warn the liberal-minded public" against me, _precisely as +one warns the general public against an impostor soliciting alms under +false pretences_! This is a flagrant violation of my "personal rights +relating to my reputation"; and, therefore, according to the above +judicial ruling of an American court, Dr. Royce is guilty of wanton +and unprovoked libel against one who never injured him in the +slightest degree. + +In the case of Strauss _versus_ Francis, Chief Justice Cockburn said: +"The question is as to the article as a whole.... The verdict must be +upon the article as a whole, and whether, as a whole, it is to be +deemed malicious and libellous." (_Foster and Finlason's Reports_, IV. +1107.) Applying this to the case in hand: Dr. Royce's ostensible +review presents its darkest, most odious, and most libellous aspect to +him who most thoroughly, penetratingly, and comprehensively studies +out the inner structure of its argument _as a whole_, and who most +intelligently compares it with the book which it falsely professes to +criticise fairly. Allow me to quote here a passage from page 39 of +"the Way out of Agnosticism" in order simply to show you how +uncompromisingly this passage, which sums up the entire results of the +first half of the book and luminously forecasts the entire conclusion +of the whole, plants my system on the side of Realism:-- + +"The scientific, modern, or American theory of universals, which +results necessarily from analysis of the scientific method, is +Scientific Realism, as opposed to Philosophical Idealism; and it +determines the subdivision of scientific philosophy into its three +great departments, the theories of Being, of Knowing, and of Doing. +The scientific theory of Being results from analysis of the +Genus-in-itself, and constitutes ontology or Constructive Realism, as +opposed to all forms of Constructive Idealism. The scientific theory +of Knowledge results from analysis of the Concept, and constitutes +psychology or Critical Realism, as opposed to all forms of +transcendental or Critical Idealism. The scientific theory of Conduct +results from analysis of the Word, and constitutes anthroponomy +(including ethics, politics, and art in its widest sense), sociology, +or Ethical Realism, as opposed to all forms of Ethical Idealism. The +scientific theory of the universe, as the absolute union of Being, +Knowing, and Doing in the One and All, results from comprehension of +these three theories in complete organic unity, and constitutes +organic philosophy, scientific theology, or Religious Realism, as +opposed to all forms of Religious Idealism." + +I submit this long extract to you, gentlemen, not to bore you with +metaphysical speculations, but simply to enable you, as educated men +who understand the meaning of plain and straightforward English on any +subject, to follow the twistings and turnings of an extraordinarily +sinuous and disingenuous intellect, and intelligently to decide a +question which needs here to be settled clearly in your own minds: +could any competent professor of philosophy, undertaking to give, as a +fair critic, a truthful account to the public of the contents of my +book, read that passage, and then, omitting all reference to the +contrast there and everywhere made between realism and idealism, +honestly tell that public, without any further information at all on +the subject, that the "conclusion" of my philosophy is "essentially +idealistic"? + +Yet that is the conscienceless misrepresentation with which Dr. Royce +prepares the way for all that is to follow, deceives the reader at the +very outset, predisposes him to believe the preposterous charge that I +"appropriated" my main theory from the great idealist Hegel, arouses +his indignation or mirth, as the case may be, at my alleged strutting +about in borrowed plumes, and so leads him at last to applaud the +righteous castigation of the "professional warning," by which the +peacock-feathers are made to fly in all directions and I myself am +scourged back among my brother-jackdaws, the impostors, charlatans, +and quacks of myriad kinds. This is the purport and the spirit of Dr. +Royce's ostensible review, "_as a whole_." Is it the "fair criticism" +which the law allows? Or is it the "libel" which the law condemns? Is +it the fair and critical judgment which your silence shall sanction, +as Harvard's official verdict on my work? Or is it the libellous and +vulgar abuse which your speech shall rebuke, as shaming Harvard more +than me by bringing the ethics and manners of the literary Bedouin +into the professor's chair? + + +V. + +But, gentlemen, the gravest aspect of Dr. Royce's ostensible review +remains still to be considered. Is libel--vulgar, violent, and brutal +libel--the means by which Harvard University, represented by one of +her professors of philosophy who openly claims to address the general +public in the name of his office and of her, proposes to realize the +lofty ideal of her President, and make herself the "philosophical +pioneer" for each new generation in the pursuit of truth? Is this the +welcome which she accords to serious, dignified, and not unscholarly +works, giving the results, however partially and imperfectly wrought +out, of patient and independent reflection for more than thirty years +on the highest problems of human life and thought? 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 ideal? +Is this the attitude in which she confronts the great questions of the +age, and the spirit which she aims to foster in her young men? I do +not believe it; but you alone, gentlemen, can give the authoritative +answer to such queries. + +When civil service reformers plead the urgent necessity of political +reform, they are irrelevantly charged by the adherents of the spoils +system with being "hypocrites and pharisees." Precisely so, when I +plead the urgent necessity of philosophical reform, I am irrelevantly +charged by Dr. Royce, in effect, with being a false pretender, a +plagiarist, and an impostor. The charge is just as true in one case as +in the other. But, be the charge true or untrue, the attention of keen +and candid minds is not to be diverted by this perfectly transparent +device from the main point of reform. + +What is this needed philosophical reform? + +Briefly, _to substitute the scientific method for the idealistic +method in philosophy_, as the only possible means, in this critical +and sceptical age, of making ethics and religion so reasonable as to +command the continued allegiance of reasonable minds. Unphilosophized +science conceives the universe as nothing but a Machine-World; and in +this conception there is no room for any Ethical Ideal. Unscientific +philosophy conceives the universe as nothing but a Thought-World; and +in this conception there is no room for any Mechanical Real. On the +possibility of developing a scientific philosophy out of the +scientific method itself must depend at last the only possibility, for +reasonable men, of believing equally in the real principles of +mechanical science and in the ideal principles of ethical science. +To-day the greatest obstacle to such a reasonable belief is the +"philosophical idealism" which directly contradicts it; and the +greatest reform needed in modern thought, above all in the theory of +ethics, is the substitution of the scientific method for the +idealistic method in philosophy itself. + +The cause of philosophical reform, indeed, cannot be long delayed by +any Philistinism in those who, by their professional position, ought +to be its most ardent friends. The method of science is destined to +revolutionize philosophy--to modernize it by founding it anew upon a +thoroughly realistic and scientific theory of universals. The net +result of all the physical sciences thus far, the one fixed result to +which all their other results steadily point with increasingly evident +convergence, is that _the already known constitution of the real +universe is that of the Machine_. This universal fixed result, and not +mere individual self-consciousness, is the necessary and only +beginning-point of a constructive philosophy of Nature; for, where the +special sciences end, there universal philosophy must begin. It is the +task of philosophy to-day to show that the unquestionably mechanical +constitution of the universe, instead of being the ultimate boundary +of scientific investigation, is merely the starting-point in a new +series of investigations, no less scientific than those of physical +science, but far more profound; and to show that the mechanical +constitution itself, when deeply studied and comprehended, necessarily +involves the organic and the personal constitutions. In this way, and +I believe in no other way, can it be proved to the satisfaction of the +modern intelligence that the Mechanical Real itself, at bottom, +includes the Ethical Ideal--that the Moral Law, the Divine Ideal +itself, is the innermost Fact of Nature. I have made, and make now, +not the slightest personal "pretension"; but, finding in all my +reading no outline of any such argument as this, and believing it to +be fruitful of the very noblest results, I have done my best to point +out its possibilities to other earnest searchers after truth. Not +until this new field has been faithfully examined and explored and +proved to be sterile, shall I cease to recommend it to the attention +of all who would fain _see reason_ to believe that the Ethical Ideal +is no Unreality, but rather the innermost Reality of the real universe +itself. I speak only to those who have souls to hear and to respond; +let the rest listen to Dr. Royce, and be dupes of his "professional +warning." But the cause of philosophical reform will not be stayed by +him or by them: the world's heart is hungry for higher truth than +idealism can discover, and will be grateful in the end to any +philosophy which shall show what mighty moral conviction, what +unspeakable spiritual invigoration, must needs grow out of +comprehension of the despised Real. + +These thoughts are not remote abstractions, up in the air, out of +reach, of no practical value or application; they touch the very life +and soul of Harvard University. For want of such thoughts, many of the +brightest and most intellectual of her students, graduates from the +philosophical courses, go out year after year disbelieving totally in +the possibility of arriving at any fundamental "truth" whatever, even +in ethics. Several years ago, the then President of the Harvard +"Philosophical Club" said in my hearing that he "saw no ground of +moral obligation anywhere in the universe"; and this declaration was +apparently assented to by every one of the fifteen or twenty members +present. This very last summer, a recent graduate told me that he left +college bewildered, depressed, and "disheartened," because he saw +nowhere any ground of rational "conviction" about anything; and that +it was "just the same with all the other fellows"--that is, all his +companions in the study of philosophy. It is time, high time, that +this state of things should be searchingly investigated in the +interest of Harvard University itself, the facts determined, their +causes ascertained. While such a state of things prevails, 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 world: namely, to send out her +young graduates well armed beforehand for the battle of life with +clear, strong, and lofty _moral convictions_. Whatever other causes +may exist for the failure, 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 thoughtful, +closely reasoned, and earnest plea for philosophical reform in this +very direction, or to criticise it with anything better than +irrelevant and unparliamentary personalities, studied and systematic +misrepresentation both of the plea and of the pleader, and a +demoralizing example of libel, so bitter and so extreme as to furnish +abundant ground for prosecution. + + +VI. + +Here, gentlemen, you may very properly inquire: "Why do you not, then, +prosecute Dr. Royce in the courts, instead of bringing the case before +us?" + +Briefly, 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 measures. You would have +had just cause to complain of me, 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 way, and in +dignified recognition of your own ultimate responsibility. A +prosecution may not, I trust will not, prove necessary; for I have +neither malice nor vindictiveness to gratify, but only a resolute +purpose to defend my reputation effectually against a malicious libel, +and not to permit the libeller to set up a plausible claim that, by +silence and passive submission, I "tacitly confess the justice of an +official condemnation by Harvard University of my 'philosophical +pretensions.'" Except for that one phrase, "professional warning," in +Dr. Royce's attack, this appeal would never have been written, or the +least notice taken of his intrinsically puerile "criticisms." When Mr. +Herbert Spencer, whom I have more than once publicly criticised, can +yet magnanimously write to me of this very book, "I do not see any +probability that it will change my beliefs, yet I rejoice that the +subject should be so well discussed,"--and Mr. William Ewart +Gladstone, "I am very conscious of the force with which you handle the +subject,"--and ex-President Noah Porter, "I thank you very sincerely +for sending me a copy of your last book; I had already read it nearly +twice, and found much in it very admirable and timely,"--I could very +well afford to pass over Dr. Royce's ineffectual "criticisms" with +indifference. But when he insinuates to the uninformed public that +these same "criticisms" have the weighty sanction of Harvard +University, it is quite another matter. That calls upon me to defend +myself against so atrocious a calumny. + +But even self-defence has its proprieties, and to these I scrupulously +submit. The first step was to send a reply to the periodical which +published the attack. This was sent. At first, Dr. Royce effusively +agreed to its publication, and wrote a rejoinder to be published +simultaneously with it. Later, in alarm, he procured its rejection, +and, through legal counsel, served a formal notice upon me not to +publish or to circulate it at all. The second step was to demand from +Dr. Royce a specific retraction and apology; this he contemptuously +refused. The third step was to appeal from the recalcitrant employee +to the responsible employer, and to lay the case respectfully before +the supreme representatives of Harvard University itself. This I now +do, and it is entirely unnecessary to look any farther. But, in order +to lay the case before you fully, it is incumbent upon me to state the +details of these proceedings with some minuteness, and I now proceed +to unfold the extraordinary tale. + + +VII. + +Dr. Royce wound up his ostensible review with these words of bravado +and of challenge: "_We must show no mercy,--as we ask none._" This +fierce flourish of trumpets I understood to be, at least, a fearless +public pledge of a fair hearing in the "Journal of Ethics" of which he +was one of the editors. Moreover, 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 accuser. Lastly, I was averse to litigation, and desired to use +no coarser weapon, even against a calumniator and libeller, than the +sharp edge of reason itself. + +Accordingly, I sought redress in the first instance from the +"International Journal of Ethics." On January 21, I mailed to Mr. S. +Burns Weston, the office editor, an article in reply to Dr. Royce's +ostensible review, together with a letter in which I wrote: "I do not +at all complain of your publishing Dr. Royce's original article, +although it was a most malicious and slanderous one, and undertook +(not to put too fine a point upon it) to post me publicly as a quack. +If you do not deny my indefeasible right to be heard in self-defence +in the same columns, I shall feel that I have no cause whatever to +regard you or your committee as a party to the outrage, and shall +entertain no feelings towards you or towards them other than such as +are perfectly friendly. Let even slander and malice be heard, if truth +shall be as free to reply." Pressing engagements had prevented me from +writing the article in season for the January number of the "Journal +of Ethics," but it was in ample season for the April number. + +I sent it at last because I had full confidence in the soundness of +what Thomas Jefferson said so well: "Truth and reason can maintain +themselves without the aid of coercion, if left free to defend +themselves. But then they must defend themselves. Eternal lies and +sophisms on one side, and silence on the other, are too unequal." + +The "International Journal of Ethics" is under the control of an +"editorial committee" of eight, Dr. Felix Adler at the head and Dr. +Royce at the end; the other six members live in Europe and have no +share in the home management. Mr. Weston is not a member of the +committee, has little editorial authority, and, in case of +disagreement between the two American members, would, as he himself +expressly and frankly informed me in answer to a direct question, obey +implicitly the directions of Dr. Adler. To Dr. Adler, therefore, +belongs the general and ultimate editorial responsibility, whether +legal or moral, since, according to Mr. Western's just quoted +declaration, Dr. Adler alone has actual power either to procure or to +prevent publication; while to Dr. Royce is assigned merely the special +department of "theoretical ethics." Hence Dr. Adler and Dr. Royce were +jointly responsible for the original libel, the latter for writing it, +the former for publishing it; but Dr. Adler alone was editorially +responsible for publishing or refusing to publish my reply to it. It +was to Dr. Adler alone, as responsible editor-in-chief of the "Journal +of Ethics," that I looked for publication of my defence, as the best +possible reparation for the wrong done in publishing the libellous +attack; and I looked to him with confidence for this partial and +inadequate reparation, believing that, as head of the "ethical culture +movement," he would be anxious to conduct the "Journal of Ethics" in +accordance with the highest principles of justice, honor, and fair +play. + +To my astonishment and indignation, however, my manuscript, instead of +being considered and finally passed upon by Dr. Adler, was forwarded +by him or by his direction to Dr. Royce! The latter, getting wind of +it, had "insisted" that it belonged to his department of "theoretical +ethics," and "claimed the right" to _edit it with a rejoinder in the +same issue_. Nothing could be conceived more unfair or more absurd. A +libel had been published by Dr. Adler, and Dr. Adler sent the defence +against this libel to be edited by the libeller himself! Protest was +in vain. Dr Adler denied his own moral responsibility, washed his +hands of the whole affair, and even refused to enlighten himself as to +his own duty (notwithstanding my urgent request that he should do so) +by taking counsel of some wise and able lawyer of his own +acquaintance. Instead of doing this, he affected to consider my +self-defence against a libel as merely a reply to an ordinary +"book-criticism," made a few inquiries as to the "usual practice of +journals" with reference to book-criticisms alone, turned my article +over to Dr. Royce as one on "theoretical ethics," and permitted him to +attach to it a rejoinder which reiterated the original libel with +additions and improvements, but in which he took pains to say of my +reply: "I may add that even now it does not occur to me to feel +personally wounded, nor yet uneasy at Dr. Abbot's present warmth." +These words have a peculiar interest with reference to his later legal +notice against all publication or circulation of this very reply: his +assumed or genuine pachydermatousness soon gave way to fearful +apprehension of its effect upon the public mind. + +In no sense whatever was my reply an article on "theoretical ethics." +To what part of the "theory of ethics" belongs Dr. Royce's false +personal accusation of "extravagant pretensions"? To what part of the +"theory of ethics" belongs Dr. Royce's false personal accusation of +"sinning against the most obvious demands of literary +property-rights"? To what part of the "theory of ethics" belongs Dr. +Royce's "professional warning" against pretensions which were never +made? His false accusations and their false grounds were the main +theme of my article, and they had nothing to do with "theoretical +ethics," Dr Adler and Dr. Royce to the contrary notwithstanding. Dr. +Royce had no shadow of right to set up so preposterous a claim, and +Dr. Adler had no shadow of right to yield to it, as he weakly did, +thereby violating his own undeniable obligation, as editor-in-chief, +to do his utmost to repair the wrong which he himself had done in +publishing a libel. My article was avowedly nothing but a defence +against this libel, and, as such, was necessarily addressed to the +responsible editor of the "Journal of Ethics," not to the sub-editor +of one of its special departments--most assuredly not to the libeller +himself. The only fair and just course was to publish this defence +alone by itself, precisely as the libel had been published alone by +itself, and afterwards to allow Dr. Royce to follow it, if he pleased, +with a rejoinder in the succeeding number. I made not the slightest +objection to one rejoinder or a dozen rejoinders from him, provided +the responsible editor held the balance true, accorded as fair a +hearing to the accused as he had accorded to the accuser, and granted +to each in turn an opportunity to plead his cause without interruption +by the other. I asked no more than what Dr. Royce had already +received--an opportunity to enjoy the undivided and undistracted +attention of the audience for a limited time. He had had the ear of +the public for six months. Could I not have it for three? + +But I regret to say that considerations of equal justice seemed to +have no weight whatever with Dr. Adler. Dr. Royce, despite his public +pledge, was "asking for mercy," after all, and got from Dr. Adler all +he asked for; I asked Dr. Adler for equity alone, and could not get +even that. The sole concession made was that I might follow Dr. +Royce's rejoinder with a second reply in the same number, thus closing +the case with a last word for the defence. + +To this last proposal, in order not to refuse a meagre measure of +justice, I consented under protest. But the proof-sheets of Dr. +Royce's rejoinder, to which I was to reply, did not reach me till +March 18, and were accompanied with a notice from the "Journal of +Ethics" that my reply must be mailed "within ten hours after receiving +Royce's proof." This notice I answered as follows:-- + +"The proof of Royce's rejoinder, with your notes of the 16th and 17th, +arrived this morning at 9 A.M. As I have had to be at my teaching till +3 P.M., it was obviously impossible to mail a reply by 7 P.M. Hence I +telegraphed to you at once: '_I protest against the gross injustice of +postponing my article, or of publishing this new attack without the +last word you promised me. It is impossible to write this now_ [_i. e._, +within the ten hours stipulated]. _If you have any love of justice, +publish my article now, and postpone the rejoinders to next issue._' +Nothing stands in the way of this, the only fair course, 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 +none.' To hold back my reply to his libel for three months longer, +merely because he is afraid to let it go forth without an attempt to +break its force in the same number, would be disgracefully unjust in +him and in the 'Journal.' His rejoinder is simply a fresh libel; there +is nothing in it to which I cannot easily and effectually reply. But +what _right_ is there in refusing to me the opportunity of answering +one libel at a time? Or in compelling me to be silent nine months +[from October to July], in order to save him from being silent three +months [from April to July]? 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 this." + +But the April number of the "Journal of Ethics," nevertheless, was +published without my article. The latter was all in type, and the +proof-sheets had been corrected; nothing prevented its publication in +April except (1) Dr. Royce's insistence that my reply to his first +libel should _not be published at all without his second libel_, and +(2) Dr. Adler's weak submission to this unjust and pusillanimous +demand of his associate. + +The whole matter was thus most inequitably postponed to the July +number, primarily at Dr. Royce's instigation. 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 +first. Now to answer a libel effectively requires the freedom, not of +the parliament, but of the courts. A mere literary discussion admits +of parliamentary freedom alone, and properly excludes all reflections +upon personal character. But Dr. Royce had most unparliamentarily +turned his ostensible review into a libel, and, contrary to all canons +of literary discussion, had indulged himself in reflections upon my +personal character as malicious as they were false. Now the only +possible disproof of a libel is the proof that it _is_ a libel,--that +it is either untruthful, or malicious, or both; and, since a libel is +both a civil injury and a criminal offence, the proof of its libellous +character cannot be established without reflecting upon the personal +character of the libeller. Hence Dr. Royce himself, by writing a +libel, had self-evidently raised the question of his own personal +character, and bound himself beforehand, by his own act, to submit +with what grace he could to the necessary consequences of that act; +and to seek to shield himself from these consequences, which he should +have foreseen clearly and nerved himself to bear bravely, was only to +incur the ridicule invited by a timorous man who first strikes +another and then runs away. Dr. Adler, moreover, as the responsible +editor of the "Journal of Ethics," had laid himself, by publishing Dr. +Royce's libel, under the clear moral obligation of according to the +accused the same freedom of the courts which he had already accorded +to the accuser; 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 parties. 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 attack. + +Notwithstanding these plain facts, Dr. Royce and Dr. Adler united in +denying to me the necessary freedom of self-defence against the attack +which they had united in making. + +At first, Dr. Royce undertook to dictate to me beforehand the nature +of my reply to his rejoinder, and sought to restrict it to the +parliamentary freedom of a purely literary discussion. Ignoring the +fact that he had himself rendered a purely literary discussion +impossible by his own reflections upon personal character, he +endeavored now to restrict my defence to a purely literary discussion +of what, with amusing deficiency in the sense of humor, he considered +to be his "criticisms"; whereas these pointless and ignorant +criticisms had no importance whatever except as leading up to his +"professional warning." The only object of a reply to his rejoinder +was to expose its true character as a second libel, and thereby make +plain to the dullest mind the outrage of his "professional warning." +Evidently fearing this, and being anxious to prevent the exposure, he +sent to me through Mr. Weston, who called upon me for the purpose on +April 15, the following unspeakable document, apparently without a +suspicion that it pricked the bubble of his previous iridescent pledge +to "ask no mercy":-- + + + MEMORANDUM OF APR. 13, 1891. + + 1. Dr. Abbot's article must be in Mr. Weston's hands in MS. + by June 1, for issue in the July No., if possible. + + 2. This article must not exceed, in actual number of words, + Prof. Royce's last rejoinder. + + 3. Prof. Royce is not to reply to the above article of Dr. + Abbot before or simultaneously with its publication in the + "Journal of Ethics"; and the controversy is thus to be + closed in the "Journal" by Dr. Abbot. + + 4. Dr. Abbot's article is to be strictly a rejoinder, is not + to raise essentially new issues, is not to assault any + further his opponent's personal character, is to be + parliamentary in form, and free from personally abusive + language. Otherwise it is perfectly free as to plainness of + speech. + + 5. Prof. Royce is to see this article at once, and before it + goes to the printer. + + 6. Should Prof. Royce, after seeing the paper, object to the + article as "_not in conformity with the conditions of No. 4_ + (_above_)," then, but only then, the article is to be + submitted, before publication, to the judgment of some + impartial friend or friends of both the disputants, such + friend or friends to be chosen as promptly as possible, and + by agreement, and to arbitrate the question, "_Whether Dr. + Abbot's final rejoinder is in conformity with the conditions + of this present memorandum?_" The arbitrator or arbitrators + may be any person or persons agreable [_sic_] to the wishes + of both the disputants, as determined in case the mentioned + objection of Prof. Royce should be made, but not otherwise. + + 7. Should Prof. Royce _not_ object to the article, or should + he not formally object _on the grounds mentioned_, then the + article of Dr. Abbot is to close the controversy in the + "Journal of Ethics." + + 8. Should Dr. Abbot _not_ accept the conditions of the + present memorandum, he is at liberty to withdraw his paper, + or else to let both the papers now in type appear as they + are, at his pleasure. + + [Signed] J. R. + +It is difficult to conceive the state of mind in which so +extraordinary a document as this could have originated. My answer to +Dr. Royce's officious interference was a short and dry rejection _in +toto_. Dr. Royce was not the responsible editor of the "Journal of +Ethics," and had no power to dictate any conditions of publication +whatever. That a libeller should actually presume to dictate to the +libelled the terms of his defence, to demand that this defence should +be submitted to himself in advance of publication for approval or +disapproval, and, in case of disapproval, to invoke a board of +referees for the sole purpose of enforcing his own arbitrary and +preposterous "conditions,"--this was too exquisitely absurd. But there +was method in the madness. The central aim of the "Memorandum" is +clear on its face: namely, _to refuse the forensic freedom necessary +to self-defence against a libel, and to concede only the parliamentary +freedom proper to a purely literary discussion_. Since, however, the +only object of my writing at all was to expose his rejoinder as a +second libel, and since the central aim of the "Memorandum" was to +defeat this very object, nothing could be plainer than this: that Dr. +Royce, having been guilty of two unprovoked and malicious libels, now +sought to prevent the exposure of his guilt by suppressing the +necessary freedom of self-defence. For, I repeat, the only possible +defence against a libel is to prove that it _is_ a libel, and this +cannot be done without reflecting upon the "personal character" of the +libeller. It was no fault of mine that he had himself rendered a +"parliamentary" discussion impossible; it was no fault of mine that he +had made his own "personal character" the real point at issue; it was +no fault of mine that he now betrayed his secret alarm, uttered a cry +for "mercy," and convicted himself out of his own mouth, in his +extraordinary and indescribable "Memorandum." That "Memorandum" tells +the whole story. + +On the failure of Dr. Royce's very injudicious attempt at dictation, +Dr. Adler found himself compelled to assume the editorial power and +responsibility, which he ought to have assumed and exercised in the +first instance by refusing publication to Dr. Royce's original libel. +But, yielding to Dr. Royce's influence, he took the same position, and +still tried to shield the libeller from the just and lawful +consequences of his libel. No principle is more firmly established in +the public conscience, as interpreted by the common law, than that the +fact of an attack by A involves the right of self-defence by B. +Whoever, therefore, has permitted an attack which he might have +prevented is bound to permit the self-defence, also; and Dr. Adler, +having granted to Dr. Royce the freedom of libelling me, was bound to +grant to me the equal freedom of defending myself against the libel. +But this equal freedom Dr. Adler denied. After some fruitless +correspondence, I wrote to him on May 4 as follows: "I require the +freedom, not of 'parliament,' but of the courts--freedom to present my +'facts,' and no less to draw my 'inferences'--freedom to array my +evidence, and no less to make my pleading. By publishing his new +libel, you estop yourself from denying me this freedom. If you do deny +it, I withdraw altogether and seek justice and redress elsewhere. I +ask only what is self-evidently fair: (1) equal space with Dr. Royce, +(2) equal freedom with Dr. Royce, (3) no further rejoinders by Dr. +Royce, and (4) no editorial mention of the matter at all from the +'Journal' itself." To this letter Dr. Adler merely telegraphed his +final reply on May 6 in these brief terms: "Regret your insistence on +freedom of courts--parliamentary freedom open to you." This ended the +matter, so far as the "Journal of Ethics" was concerned, in Dr. +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 committee." + +Negotiations, it is true, for the publication of my reply in the July +number were a little later re-opened by Dr. Adler, on receiving advice +from a legal friend of his own that to publish it would be his wisest +course; but he himself broke them off on a trivial pretext, after +receiving contrary advice from Dr. Royce's counsel, together with a +copy of the legal protest sent to me personally. Thus Dr. Royce +himself, recalling his original consent, procured the final rejection +by the "Journal of Ethics" of my reply to his own attack. On June 19, +I was notified that the July number had been made up without it. + +But already, on June 9, I had received from Mr. J. B. Warner, acting +as Dr. Royce's counsel, this formal protest against any other use +whatever of my reply: "On Dr. Royce's behalf, I must warn you that he +protests against the publication or any circulation of it, in its +present shape, and must point out to you that it may, if circulated, +entail a serious legal responsibility." To this strangely impolitic +and utterly futile attempt to intimidate me in the defence of my own +reputation, I chose to offer not the slightest resistance. The protest +only facilitated that defence. How could a libeller more conspicuously +put himself in the wrong, or more effectually ruin his own evil cause +in all eyes, than by _trying to gag the man he had injured_? First, to +prevent publication in the "Journal of Ethics" of the very reply he +had publicly and defiantly challenged, and then to suppress all +circulation of a few privately printed copies of it by means of legal +threats: if Dr. Royce could afford to commit such blunders, why should +I shield him from himself? "Whom the gods destroy, they first make +mad." + +Before proceeding to any more energetic measures, however, in order to +vindicate my reputation, I was anxious to offer to Dr. Royce an +opportunity of doing me justice in a manner which should be consistent +with full vindication, yet should involve the least possible publicity +and the least possible mortification to himself. Accordingly, on June +20, I wrote to Mr. Warner thus: "I beg leave to enclose a Card, which, +if returned to me within a week from to-day, unchanged, dated, and +signed by Dr. Royce, and if actually published in the October number +of the 'Journal,' will render unnecessary further measures of +self-vindication as now contemplated. I send this because you assured +me that Dr. Royce disclaims all malice in the publication of the +original article I complain of, and because I am willing to test the +sincerity of his disclaimer before resorting to other measures for my +self-protection. I expect you, who came to me in the character of a +pacificator, and who expressed a creditable desire, in which I fully +join, for the settlement of this trouble in some way which shall +occasion no scandal to Harvard College, to exert your utmost +influence with Dr. Royce to persuade him to perform this act of +manifest justice to me. A frank retraction and apology, when unjust +charges have been made as now, is not dishonorable and ought not to be +humiliating; and I shall consider Dr. Royce's action in this matter as +showing the sincerity or insincerity of his disclaimer of all malice +in his original article." The enclosed paper above mentioned was +this:-- + + + A CARD. + + CAMBRIDGE, June --, 1891. + + I. I admit that I have no knowledge whatever of any + "extravagant pretensions" made by Dr. Abbot "as to the + originality and profundity of his still unpublished system + of philosophy." + + II. I admit that Dr. Abbot did not, consciously or + unconsciously, "borrow his theory of universals from Hegel," + or "sin against the most obvious demands of literary + property-rights." + + III. I unconditionally retract my "professional warning to + the liberal-minded public against Dr. Abbot's philosophical + pretensions," acknowledge that it was groundless and + unjustifiable, and apologize to Dr. Abbot for having + published it in the "International Journal of Ethics." + + IV. I authorize the publication of this retraction and + apology in the next number of the "International Journal of + Ethics" without note or comment. + +In his answer of June 24, Mr. Warner informed me that Dr. Royce had +gone to Denver, and wrote: "As for the Card which you propose, I will +leave Dr. Royce to make his own answer after he has seen it. I will +say, however, for my own part, that, while he has always been ready to +disclaim any desire to injure you personally, I think that his +opinions concerning your philosophical system and its origin are +unchanged, and he is not likely to retract them. I must say, too, that +you have put your Card in a form in which you could not have expected +Dr. Royce to sign it, and I do not regard it as any step, on your +part, toward a pacific settlement, nor think your demand a reasonable +one to make of a self-respecting man." + +The next day, June 25, I wrote to Mr. Warner: "I ought distinctly to +deny that my rejected article is 'a libellous paper.' Its statements +are true; its motive is not malice, but a self-evident purpose to +defend myself against Dr. Royce's libel; and, even if it should be +concluded to come under any legal definition of 'libel,' I maintain +that it is self-evidently a 'justifiable libel.' If I pay any heed to +your notice, it is merely because your notice strengthens my +case.--You do not mention when Dr. Royce will return from Denver; but, +because my purpose in enclosing to you that Card is in good faith a +pacific one, I will wait a reasonable time for his return beyond the +date I mentioned. You will not judge the character of that Card +accurately, and you cannot give sound or salutary advice to your +client, if you ignore the libellous character of his original article. +I do not see how 'a self-respecting man' could ever have written such +a paper; but, if he did it inadvertently and not maliciously, he would +certainly do one of two things: (1) either submit courageously, +unflinchingly, and without legal protest, to the reply it challenged +and evoked, or (2) manfully retract charges demonstrated, as these +have been, to be false. Have you really a different idea of +'self-respect'? Certainly not, for you are an honorable gentleman. Be +this as it may, I warn you not to persist in considering that Card as +other than a pacific step on my part, if you desire to counsel your +client to his own good, or to prove yourself a real friend to Harvard +College. I say this in good faith." + +To this, on July 2, Mr. Warner replied: "Dr. Royce has returned, and I +have submitted to him the Card which you have prepared. As I +anticipated, Dr. Royce says that he cannot sign it, nor can I advise +him to do so. It goes far beyond any disavowal of malice or personal +hostility, and it amounts to a retraction of the opinions which he +actually holds about your philosophical system, and that retraction +you surely cannot expect him to make. Dr. Royce has again expressed to +me his regret that the form of his article should have wounded you, +and he is entirely ready to disavow any intention of wounding you." + +On July 11, I wrote in answer: "Most certainly I do not expect, or +wish, that Dr. Royce should disavow any philosophical 'opinions' he +may hold. What I complain of is a _misstatement of fact_, demonstrated +to be such, which I believe to have had its origin in a spirit of +malicious detraction, and to be now persevered in from no other cause. +In my reply to his article, which he himself challenged and then +pusillanimously suppressed, he has had abundant means of information. +If he now refuses to correct a misstatement which grossly injures me, +after he has been informed of the truth, the refusal admits of but one +interpretation, and throws a satirical light on the merely private +'regret' he professes. Inasmuch, however, as you have objected (quite +unnecessarily, as I think) to the 'form' of the Card I sent you, and +inasmuch as I intend to leave no room for doubt as to Dr. Royce's real +animus in this affair, I propose now that he send me such a retraction +and apology as you yourself shall deem adequate, fitting, and due. In +your letter of June 9, you admitted that Dr. Royce had 'transgressed +the limits of courteous discussion' and that you 'do not defend in all +respects the tone of the review.' It is plain enough that you, Dr. +Royce's own counsel, perceive at least something improper, something +that ought to be retracted and apologized for. You are, then, I +submit, bound to do what you can to right the wrong, which is not at +all done by Dr. Royce's profuse, _but private_, disclaimers. He +professes to bear no malice. Very well, then: let him make reparation +for the wrong he has committed. He owes it to himself, if he considers +himself a gentleman, certainly to his position in Harvard College, to +send me some paper, specifying what he himself regrets in his own +article, with authority to publish this paper in the 'Journal of +Ethics.' The Card I sent sufficiently indicates what I think is due to +me; if Dr. Royce, in other language, covers the same ground, it will +be accepted as satisfactory. That is the very least that a gentleman +would do under the circumstances. You cannot object to this proposal +on account of its 'form'; if either you or he objects to it at all, +it must be on account of its substance. Certainly you cannot affect to +consider it as other than 'pacific.' I shall await your answer to it +as to the only 'pacific step on my part' which remains possible to +me." + +In reply to this letter, on July 24, Mr. Warner wrote: "I forwarded +your letter of July 11 to Dr. Royce, and he has written a reply to me +which I think it best to enclose as he wrote it." In this enclosed +letter, dated July 14, Dr. Royce first re-affirmed, in substance, the +truth of his false and ridiculous accusation of plagiarism from Hegel, +and then wrote as follows: "Now as to my feeling concerning what was +regrettable in my article. I repeat once more--regrettable, in my +eyes, was the manner of the article in so far as it actually gave +unnecessary pain to Dr. Abbot. And I regard any pain as unnecessary +that may have been due, _not_ to my objectively justified opinion of +Dr. Abbot's work (an opinion which I cannot alter in the least), but +to any severity of expression that may not have been absolutely +needful to give form to this opinion itself. Dr. Abbot's reply has +shown him to be not merely alive to the strong difference of opinion +that separates us, but personally offended by an attack that was +intended to be indeed severe, but directed wholly to matters of +professional, but not of personal concern. This attitude of Dr. +Abbot's I regret, and, in so far as I am to blame for it, I am willing +to express my regret publicly." + +This letter of Dr. Royce is, in effect, a deliberate and unqualified +re-affirmation of every fact as alleged, and every inference as drawn, +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 end. Nothing whatever in the +substance of his article is retracted or regretted; nothing is +"regrettable" even in its form, except vaguely, hypothetically, and +conditionally; the only thing Dr. Royce "regrets," as a fact, is that +his "objectively justified" and "intentionally severe attack" should +have given needless "personal offence" and "unnecessary pain" to its +object! This deliberate and contemptuous refusal to recall, to modify, +or to apologize for any of the false accusations he has made against +me is, I submit, demonstration of the malice which originally prompted +them, and now moves him to maintain them; nothing further is needed to +make their malicious character perfectly plain, and to prove the +insincerity of his disclaimers of malice. But Dr. Royce seriously +mistakes the nature of the effect produced by his "attack," when he +affects to consider it as the quite needless excitation of excessive +sensitiveness. If a gentleman in a crowd discovers his nearest +neighbor engaged in filching his pocket-book, and at once hands the +culprit over to the police, it would hardly be graphic to describe his +frame of mind as needless "personal offence" or "unnecessary pain"; +and the expressions are no more graphic as to my own frame of mind, +when I discover Dr. Royce endeavoring to filch from me my reputation +in the name of Harvard University. It is not always safe to reckon on +the absence, in parties confessedly "attacked," of all capacity for +_moral indignation_, or all capacity for moral self-defence. + +In reply to Mr. Warner, August 4, I wrote as follows: "Permit me +further to say, with regard to Dr. Royce's letter, 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 accusations. These were the +chief points of my Card, and I note the refusal implied by Dr. Royce's +evasive letter. But I decline to accept his plea of +'conscientiousness' in maintaining the accusation as to Hegel. I might +as well plead 'conscientiousness' in maintaining an accusation that +Dr. Royce assassinated Abraham Lincoln, in face of the evidence that +John Wilkes Booth was the assassin." + +Here the correspondence closed. My apology for inflicting it upon you, +gentlemen, must be the necessity of showing to you that, as I was +plainly bound to do, I first exhausted every means of private redress +before laying the matter before you publicly. Not till I had failed to +obtain a fair hearing in the same periodical which published Dr. +Royce's libel, and not till I had failed to obtain from Dr. Royce +himself a retraction of this libel, did I find myself reduced to the +alternatives of either acquiescing in your own unwarrantably +insinuated condemnation, or else of clearing my assailed reputation +through direct and open appeal to you. I am no lover of strife, and +least of all do I now seek revenge. I seek only such a vindication of +my good name from unmerited calumny as you, in your own good judgment +and in your own chosen way, are now, I most respectfully submit, bound +in justice to give. + + +VIII. + +To you, therefore, gentlemen of the Corporation and Board of Overseers +of Harvard University, I make with all due deference this public +appeal for redress of a wrong done to me by one of your appointees--a +wrong done, not in his private capacity as an individual (for which, +of course, you would not be justly held responsible), but publicly and +explicitly and emphatically in the name of his "profession," that is, +of his position as a professor in Harvard College. This position is an +official one, due to your appointment; and his scandalous abuse of it +renders him amenable to discipline by you to whom he owes it. +Therefore, I now formally appeal to you for redress of these specific +wrongs, committed by Assistant Professor Josiah Royce in flagrant +violation of my rights as a citizen and as a man:-- + +I. He has published against me, in the "International Journal of +Ethics," a libel which is as wanton and unprovoked as it is malicious +and false, and for which no motive is even conceivable except mere +professional jealousy or rivalry in authorship. + +II. He has sought to give credibility and respectability to this false +and libellous publication by invoking the authority, not of reason or +truth, but of his mere "professional" position as professor in Harvard +University, thereby artfully suggesting and insinuating to the +uninformed public that Harvard University sustains him in his attack; +whereas, in conferring upon me the degree of doctor of philosophy and +in committing to me formerly the conduct of an advanced course of +philosophical instruction, Harvard University has given emphatic +testimony to the contrary. + +III. Repudiating his bold promise to "ask no mercy," he has sought, +with incredible cowardice and meanness, to deprive me of all +opportunity of being heard in self-defence, _first_, by excluding from +the "International Journal of Ethics" my perfectly reasonable reply to +what he himself confesses to have been an "intentionally severe +attack," and, _secondly_, by threatening me through his counsel with +legal prosecution, if I publish it anywhere else or circulate it at +all. + +IV. Lastly, when, after all this, in order to spare him the +mortification and disgrace of a public exposure, and in order to +prevent Harvard University from incurring any possible discredit on +account of his personal misconduct, I proposed to him a pacific +settlement of the whole affair through a simple retraction of his +calumnious accusations, and that, too, in words of his own choosing, +he made no answer but a stubborn and contumelious re-affirmation of +the original libel. + +I submit that these acts of wrong constitute conduct unbecoming a +gentleman, a man of honor, or a professor in Harvard University, and +justly entitle me to redress at your hands. This appeal has not been +made hastily or without a patient and long-protracted effort to secure +justice in other ways. Dr. Royce has succeeded hitherto, during many +months, in defeating that effort; but now the appeal lies to those +whom he cannot control, and now he must abide your judgment. Asking +neither less nor more than justice, and believing that you will +recognize justice as Harvard's highest law, + +I have the honor to remain, gentlemen, in devoted loyalty to our Alma +Mater, + +Your obedient servant, + +FRANCIS E. ABBOT. + +CAMBRIDGE, Oct. 1, 1891. + + + * * * * * + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: + +On page 5, in the word Boeotia, the oe ligature has been expanded to +the two characters, oe. The sentence begins: Only a native of +Boeotia could be imposed upon by them, when the actual character.... + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Public Appeal for Redress to the +Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University, by Francis Ellingwood Abbot + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PUBLIC APPEAL FOR REDRESS *** + +***** This file should be named 19768-8.txt or 19768-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/7/6/19768/ + +Produced by Curtis Weyant, Diane Monico, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University + Professor Royce's Libel + +Author: Francis Ellingwood Abbot + +Release Date: November 12, 2006 [EBook #19768] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PUBLIC APPEAL FOR REDRESS *** + + + + +Produced by Curtis Weyant, Diane Monico, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by Case Western Reserve University Preservation Department +Digital Library.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + +<h2>PROFESSOR ROYCE'S LIBEL.</h2> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<h1>A</h1> + +<h1>PUBLIC APPEAL FOR REDRESS</h1> + +<h4>TO THE</h4> + +<h1>CORPORATION AND OVERSEERS</h1> + +<h4>OF</h4> + +<h1>HARVARD UNIVERSITY.</h1> + +<h4>BY</h4> + +<h2><span class="smcap">Francis Ellingwood Abbot, Ph.D.</span></h2> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Cambridge, Mass.</span></h4> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Boston, Mass.</span></p> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Geo. H. Ellis, 141 Franklin Street,</span></p> +<p class="center">1891.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> +<h2>PUBLIC APPEAL.</h2> + + +<p><span class="smcap">To the President and Fellows and Board of Overseers +of Harvard University</span>:</p> + +<p><i>Gentlemen</i>,—Believing it to be a necessary part of good +citizenship to defend one's reputation against unjustifiable +attacks, and believing you to have been unwarrantably, but +not remotely, implicated in an unjustifiable attack upon my +own reputation by Assistant Professor Josiah Royce, since +his attack is made publicly, explicitly, and emphatically on +the authority of his "professional" position as one of your +agents and appointees, I respectfully apply to you for redress +of the wrong, leaving it wholly to your own wisdom and +sense of justice to decide what form such redress should +take. If Dr. Royce had not, by clear and undeniable implication, +appealed to your high sanction to sustain him in his +attack,—if he had not undeniably sought to create a widespread +but false public impression that, in making this attack, +he spoke, and had a right to speak, with all the prestige and +authority of Harvard University itself,—I should not have +deemed it either necessary or becoming to appeal to you in +self-defence, or, indeed, to take any public notice whatever +of an attack otherwise unworthy of it. 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 employer, from the agent to the +principal; and it would be disrespectful to you to doubt for +a moment that, disapproving of an attack made impliedly +and yet unwarrantably in your name, you will express your +disapprobation in some just and appropriate manner. My +action in thus laying the matter publicly before you can +inflict no possible injury upon our honored and revered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> +Alma Mater: injury to her is not even conceivable, except +on the wildly improbable supposition of your being indifferent +to a scandalous abuse of his position by one of your +assistant professors, who, with no imaginable motive other +than mere professional jealousy or rivalry of authorship, has +gone to the unheard-of length of "professionally warning +the public" against a peaceable and inoffensive private +scholar, whose published arguments he has twice tried, but +twice signally failed, to meet in an intellectual way. 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 you, as incompatible with the dignity and the +decencies of his office and with the rights of private citizens +in general, Harvard University would indeed suffer, and +ought to suffer; but it is wholly within your power to prevent +the growth of so injurious a belief. I beg leave, therefore, +to submit to you the following statement, and to solicit +for it the patient and impartial consideration which the +gravity of the case requires.</p> + + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<p>The first number of a new quarterly periodical, the "International +Journal of Ethics," published at Philadelphia in +October, 1890, contained an ostensible review by Dr. Royce +of my last book, "The Way out of Agnosticism." I advisedly +use the word "ostensible," because the main purport +and intention of the article were not at all to criticise a +philosophy, but to sully the reputation of the philosopher, +deprive him of public confidence, ridicule and misrepresent +his labors, hold him up by name to public obloquy and contempt, +destroy or lessen the circulation of his books, and, in +general, to blacken and break down his literary reputation +by any and every means, even to the extent of aspersing his +personal reputation, although there had never been the +slightest personal collision. Its bitter and invidious spirit +was not in the least disguised by a few exaggerated compliments +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>adroitly inserted here and there: these merely furnish +the foil needed to give greater potency and efficiency +to the personal insinuations, and, like Mark Antony's compliments +to Cæsar's assassins, subserved quite too many +politic purposes to be accepted as sincere. Only a native +of Boeotia could be imposed upon by them, when the actual +character of the book in question was carefully misrepresented, +and when the self-evident trend, tenor, 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 opinions.</p> + +<p>Of course, the very largest liberty must be and should be +conceded to legitimate criticism. From this, as is well +known, I never shrank in the least; on the contrary, I court +it, and desire nothing better for my books, provided only +that the criticism be pertinent, intelligent, and fair. But +misrepresentation for the purpose of detraction is not criticism +at all; and (notwithstanding numerous quotations perverted +by unfair and misleading glosses, including two misquotations +quite too useful to be accidental) this ostensible +review is, from beginning to end, nothing but misrepresentation +for the purpose of detraction. Passing over numerous +minor instances, permit me to invite your attention to three +gross instances of such misrepresentation.</p> + + +<h3>II.</h3> + +<p>The book under review had taken the utmost pains (pages +16-39, especially page 39) to distinguish "realism" from +"idealism," and to argue for the former in opposition to the +latter, on the ground of the absolute incompatibility of the +latter with the scientific method of investigation. It had +taken the utmost pains to make the contrast broad and deep, +and to point out its far-reaching consequences by explicitly +opposing (1) scientific realism to philosophical idealism in +general, and in particular (2) constructive realism to constructive +idealism, (3) critical realism to critical idealism,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> +(4) ethical realism to ethical idealism, and (5) religious realism +to religious idealism. Any fair or honorable critic would +recognize this contrast and opposition between realism and +idealism as the very foundation of the work he was criticising, +and would at least state it candidly, as the foundation +of his own favorable or unfavorable comments. How did +Dr. Royce treat it? He not only absolutely ignored it, not +only said nothing whatever about it, but actually took pains +to put the reader on a false scent at the start, by assuring +him (without the least discussion of this all-important point) +that my philosophical conclusions are "essentially idealistic"!</p> + +<p>So gross a misrepresentation as this might be charitably +attributed to critical incapacity of some sort, if it did not so +very conveniently pave the way for the second gross misrepresentation +which was to follow: namely, that the theory +actually propounded in my book had been, in fact, "<i>appropriated" +and "borrowed" from an idealist</i>! The immense +utility of misrepresenting my system at the start as "essentially +idealistic" lay in the fact that, by adopting this stratagem, +Dr. Royce could escape altogether the formidable +necessity of <i>first arguing the main question of idealism versus +realism</i>. Secretly conscious of his own inability to handle +that question, to refute my "Soliloquy of the Self-Consistent +Idealist," or to overthrow my demonstration that +consistent idealism leads logically to hopeless absurdity at +last, Dr. Royce found it infinitely easier to deceive his uninformed +readers by a bold assertion that I myself am an idealist +at bottom. This assertion, swallowed without suspicion +of its absolute untruth, would render it plausible and quite +credible to assert, next, that I had actually "appropriated" +my philosophy from a greater idealist than myself.</p> + +<p>For the only substantial criticism of the book made by +Dr. Royce is that I "borrowed" my whole theory of universals +from Hegel—"unconsciously," he has the caution +to say; 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> +work. It would be inopportune and discourteous to weary +you with philosophical discussions. I exposed the amazing +absurdity of Dr. Royce's accusation of plagiarism in the +reply to his article which, as appears below, Dr. Royce himself +anxiously suppressed, and which I should now submit +to you, if he had not at last taken fright and served upon +me a legal protest against its circulation. But, to any well-educated +man, such an accusation as this refutes itself. It +would be just as reasonable, just as plausible, to accuse Darwin +of having borrowed his theory of natural selection from +Agassiz, or Daniel Webster of having borrowed his theory +of the inseparable Union from John C. Calhoun, or ex-President +Cleveland of having borrowed his message on tariff +reform from the Home Market Club, as to accuse me of having +borrowed my theory of universals from Hegel. Hegel's +theory of universals is divided from mine by the whole vast +chasm between realism and idealism. The two theories contradict +each other absolutely, uncompromisingly, irreconcilably: +Hegel's is a theory of "absolute idealism" or "pure +thought" (<i>reines Denken</i>), that is, of <i>thought absolutely independent +of experience</i>, while mine is a theory of "scientific +realism," that is, of <i>thought absolutely dependent upon experience.</i> +It is quite immaterial here which theory is the +true one; the only point involved at present is that the two +theories flatly contradict each other, and that it is self-evidently +impossible that either <i>could</i> be "borrowed," consciously +or unconsciously, from the other. If Dr. Royce +had ever done any hard thinking on the theory of universals, +or if he had the slightest comprehension of the problems it +involves, he would never have been so rash as to charge me +with "borrowing" my theory from Hegel, and thus to commit +himself irrevocably to a defence of the absurd; but +eagerness to accuse another has betrayed him into a position +whence it is impossible for him to escape with honor. +Solely by misdescribing my philosophy as "essentially idealistic" +when it openly and constantly and emphatically +avows itself to be essentially realistic, could Dr. Royce give +the faintest color of plausibility to his monstrous and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>supremely +ridiculous accusation of plagiarism; 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 +world. These gross misrepresentations, however, he did +not hesitate to make, since they were necessary in order to +pave the way to a third and still grosser misrepresentation +on which he apparently had set his heart: namely, that, +after borrowing the whole substance of my philosophy from +Hegel, I have been guilty of making "vast and extravagant +pretensions" as to my own "novelty," "originality," and +"profundity," not only with regard to my published books, +but also with regard to my "still unpublished system of philosophy." +His words are these:—</p> + +<p>"Of novelty, good or bad, the book contains, indeed, despite +its vast pretensions, hardly a sign."</p> + +<p>"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 philosophy, to give the +reader some hint of what so far appears to be the nature of +our author's contributions to philosophical reflection."</p> + +<p>Precisely what have been these alleged "pretensions"? +Dr. Royce cites only three instances.</p> + +<p>I. He first garbles a sentence in the prefatory Note to +"The Way out of Agnosticism," by quoting only one phrase +from it. The sentence in full is this: "By a wholly new +line of reasoning, drawn exclusively from those sources [science +and philosophy], this book aims to show that, in order +to refute agnosticism and establish enlightened theism, nothing +is now necessary but to philosophize that very scientific +method which agnosticism barbarously misunderstands and +misuses." There is no "pretension" whatever in these +words, except that the general "line of reasoning" set forth +in the book is, <i>as a whole</i>, different from that of other books. +If not, why publish it? Or, without the same cause, why +publish any book? I see no reason to recall or to modify +this perfectly true statement; Dr. Royce, at least, has +shown none. The "novelty" of the book lies in its very attempt +to evolve philosophy as a whole out of the scientific<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> +method itself, as "observation, hypothesis, and experimental +verification," by developing the theory of universals +which is implicit in that purely experiential method; and +Dr. Royce does not even try to prove that Hegel, or anybody +else, has ever made just such an attempt as that. Unless +there can be shown somewhere a <i>parallel attempt</i>, the +statement is as undeniably true as it is certainly unpretentious.</p> + +<p>II. Next, Dr. Royce extracts these sentences from the +body of the book (I supply in brackets words which he +omitted): "The first great task of philosophy is to lay deep +and solid foundations for the expansion [and ideal perfection] +of human knowledge in a bold, new, and true theory +of universals. For so-called modern philosophy rests complacently +in a theory of universals which is thoroughly mediæval +or antiquated." What personal pretension, even of +the mildest sort, can be conceived to lurk in these innocent +words? I did not say that I have succeeded in performing +that "task"; I repeat now what I have often said and what +I meant then; namely, that modern science has unawares +performed it already, that I have faithfully tried to formulate +and further apply what science has done, and that I respectfully +submit the result (so far as already published), not to +such critics as Dr. Royce, but to able, learned, and magnanimous +students of philosophy everywhere.</p> + +<p>III. Lastly, though employing quotation marks so as to +evade a charge of formal misquotation, he perverts and +effectually misquotes a sentence of the book in a way which +makes it appear exactly what it is not,—"pretentious." I +had said at the end of my own book (page 75): "<i>Its aim +has been to show</i> the way out of agnosticism into the sunlight +of the predestined philosophy of science." This expression +is perfectly in harmony with the prefatory Note, +which says that "<i>this book aims to show</i> that, in order to +refute agnosticism and establish enlightened theism, nothing +is now necessary but to philosophize that very scientific +method which agnosticism barbarously misunderstands and +misuses," and which immediately adds: "<i>Of the success of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> +the perhaps unwise attempt to show this in so small a compass, +the educated public must be the judge.</i>" Most certainly, +there is no "pretension" in this modest and carefully +guarded avowal of the simple aim of my book. But Dr. +Royce twists this modest avowal into a barefaced boast, +and injuriously misquotes me to his own readers thus: "At +the conclusion of the book, we learn that <i>we have been +shown</i> 'the way out of agnosticism into the sunlight of the +predestined philosophy of science.'" Gentlemen, I request +you to compare thoughtfully the expressions which I have +here italicized, and then decide for yourselves whether this +injurious misquotation is purely accidental, or, in view of +Dr. Royce's purpose of proving me guilty of "vast pretensions," +quite too useful to be purely accidental.</p> + +<p>IV. But Dr. Royce does not content himself with quoting +or misquoting what I have published, for the self-evident +reason that what I have published is not sufficiently +"pretentious" for his purpose. Disinterested anxiety for +the public welfare, and tender sorrow over the "harm to +careful inquiry" which my book is doing by "getting influence +over immature or imperfectly trained minds," constrain +him to accuse me of "frequently making of late extravagant +pretensions as to the originality and profundity" of my +"still unpublished system of philosophy."</p> + +<p>Precisely what have been these "extravagant pretensions"? +Simply these:—</p> + +<p>In the preface to "Scientific Theism," I said of that book: +"It is a mere <i>résumé</i> of a small portion of a comprehensive +philosophical system, so far as I have been able to work it +out under most distracting, discouraging, and unpropitious +circumstances of many years; and for this reason I must +beg some indulgence for the unavoidable incompleteness of +my work."</p> + +<p>Enumerating some reasons why I hesitated to begin the +series of papers afterwards published as "The Way out of +Agnosticism," I said, in the first of these papers: "First +and foremost, perhaps, is the fact that, although the ground-plan +of this theory is already thoroughly matured, the literary +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>execution of it is as yet scarcely even begun, and from +want of opportunity may never be completed; and it seems +almost absurd to present the abridgment of a work which +does not yet exist to be abridged."</p> + +<p>Finally, in an address printed in the "Unitarian Review" +for December, 1889, I said: "Without advancing any personal +claim whatever, permit me to take advantage of your +indulgent kindness, and to make here the first public confession +of certain painfully matured results of thirty years' +thinking, which, in the momentous and arduous enterprise +of developing a scientific theology out of the scientific +method itself, appear to be principles of cosmical import.... +Perhaps I can make them intelligible, as a contribution to +that 'Unitary Science' which the great Agassiz foresaw +and foretold." In a postscript to this address I added: +"For fuller support of the position taken above, I am constrained +to refer ... to a large treatise, now in process of +preparation, 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 itself."</p> + +<p>What remotest allusion to my own "originality" is contained +in these passages, or what remotest allusion to my +own "profundity"? What "pretension" of any sort is here +made, whether "extravagant" or moderate? Yet this is the +only actual evidence, <i>and the whole of it</i>, on which Dr. +Royce dares to accuse me of "frequently making of late +extravagant pretensions as to the originality and profundity +of my still unpublished system of philosophy"! The pure +absurdity of such an accusation reveals itself in the very +statement of it. Dr. Royce is referring here, be it understood, +not to my published books, but to my "unpublished +system of philosophy." <i>How does he know anything about +it?</i> I certainly have never shown him my unpublished +manuscript, and beyond those published allusions to it he +possesses absolutely no means whatever of knowing anything +about its contents. Nothing, surely, except full and +exact knowledge, derived from careful and patient personal +examination of that manuscript, could possibly be a ground<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> +of just judgment of its character. How, then, in absolute +ignorance of its character and contents, could any fair man +hazard any public verdict upon it? Yet Dr. Royce not +only accuses me of making "pretensions" about it which I +never made, but dares to characterize them as "extravagant," +when, <i>for all he knows</i>, they might (if made) fall far +short of the truth. Whether in this case the evidence supports +the accusation, 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 appointees,—these, +gentlemen, are questions for you yourselves +to decide.</p> + + +<h3>III.</h3> + +<p>These three connected and logically affiliated <i>misstatements +of fact</i>—namely, (1) that my philosophy is "essentially +idealistic," (2) that it has been "appropriated" and +"unconsciously borrowed" from the idealist Hegel, and +(3) 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 misrepresentation, +as methodical and coherent as it is unscrupulous. +It is not "fair criticism"; it is not "criticism" at all; +and I do not hesitate to characterize it deliberately as a +disgrace both to Harvard University and to American +scholarship.</p> + +<p>Yet, gross and studied and systematic as this misrepresentation +is, I should have passed it over in silence, precisely +as I did pass over a similar attack by Dr. Royce on +my earlier book in "Science" for April 9, 1886, were it not +that, perhaps emboldened by former impunity, he now +makes his misrepresentations culminate in the perpetration +of a literary outrage, to which, I am persuaded, no parallel +can be found in the history of polite literature. It is clear +that forbearance must have somewhere its limit. The commands +of self-respect and of civic conscience, the duty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> +which every citizen owes to his fellow-citizens not to permit +the fundamental rights of all to be unlimitedly violated in +his own person, must at last set a bound to forbearance +itself, and compel to self-defence. These are the reasons +which, after patient exhaustion of every milder means of +redress, have moved me to this public appeal.</p> + +<p>Dr. Royce's misstatements of fact, so elaborately fashioned +and so ingeniously mortised together, were merely +his foundation for a deliberate and formal "professional +warning to the liberal-minded public" against my alleged +"philosophical pretensions." 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 Theism,'" printed as a publishers' advertisement +of my former book at the end of the book which lay before +him. These "Press Notices," as usual, contain numerous +extracts from eulogistic reviews, in which, curiously enough, +these very words, "original" and "profound," or their +equivalents, occur with sufficient frequency to explain Dr. +Royce's choleric unhappiness. For instance, Dr. James +Freeman Clarke wrote in the "Unitarian Review": "If +every position taken by Dr. Abbot cannot be maintained, his +book remains an original contribution to philosophy of a high +order and of great value"; M. Renouvier, in "La Critique +Philosophique," classed the book among "de remarquables +efforts de construction métaphysique et morale dus à des +penseurs indépendants et profonds"; and M. Carrau, in +explaining why he added to his critical history of "Religious +Philosophy in England" a chapter of twenty pages on my +own system, actually introduced both of the words which, +when thus applied, jar so painfully on Dr. Royce's nerves: +"La pensée de M. Abbot m'a paru assez profonde et assez +originale pour mériter d'être reproduite littéralement." +(La Philosophie Religieuse en Angleterre. Par Ludovic +Carrau, Directeur des Conférences de philosophie à la +Faculté des lettres de Paris. Paris, 1888.) These extracts,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> +be it remembered, were all printed at the end of the book +which Dr. Royce was reviewing. Now he had an undoubted +right to think and to say that such encomiums as these on +my work were silly, extravagant, preposterous, and totally +undeserved; but <i>to take them out of the mouth of others and +put them into mine was wilful and deliberate calumny</i>. +Systematic and calumnious misrepresentation is the sole +foundation of the "professional warning" in which Dr. +Royce's ostensible review culminates, and which is too +extraordinary not to be quoted here in full:—</p> + +<p>"And so, finally, after this somewhat detailed study of +Dr. Abbot's little book, I feel constrained to repeat my judgment +as above. Results in philosophy are one thing; a +careful way of thinking is another. Babes and sucklings +often get very magnificent results. It is not the office of +philosophy to outdo the babes and sucklings at their own +business of receiving revelations. It is the office of philosophy +to undertake a serious scrutiny of the presuppositions +of human belief. Hence the importance of the careful way +of thinking in philosophy. But Dr. Abbot's way is not careful, +is not novel, and, when thus set forth to the people as +new and bold and American, it is likely to do precisely as +much harm to careful inquiry as it gets influence over immature +or imperfectly trained minds. I venture, therefore, +to speak plainly, by way of a professional warning to the +liberal-minded public concerning Dr. Abbot's philosophical +pretensions. And my warning takes the form of saying +that, if people are to think in this confused way, unconsciously +borrowing from a great speculator like Hegel, and +then depriving the borrowed conception of the peculiar +subtlety of statement that made it useful in its place,—and +if we readers are for our part to accept such scholasticism +as is found in Dr. Abbot's concluding sections as at all +resembling philosophy,—then it were far better for the +world that no reflective thinking whatever should be done. +If we can't improve on what God has already put into the +mouth of the babes and sucklings, let us at all events make +some other use of our wisdom and prudence than in setting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> +forth the American theory of what has been in large part +hidden from us."</p> + +<p>Gentlemen, I deny sweepingly the whole groundwork of +cunning and amazing misrepresentation on which this unparalleled +tirade is founded.</p> + +<p>I. I deny that my philosophy is "essentially idealistic," +or that any "careful" or conscientious scholar could possibly +affirm it to be such.</p> + +<p>II. I deny that I "borrowed" my realistic theory of +universals from the idealist, Hegel, whether consciously or +unconsciously. The charge is unspeakably silly. Realism +and idealism contradict each other more absolutely than +protectionism and free-trade.</p> + +<p>III. I deny that I ever made the "philosophical pretensions" +which Dr. Royce calumniously imputes to me. But, +if I had made pretensions as high as the Himalayas, I deny +his authority to post me publicly—to act as policeman in +the republic of letters and to collar me on that account. A +college professor who thus mistakes his academic gown for +the policeman's uniform, and dares to use his private walking-stick +for the policeman's bludgeon, is likely to find himself +suddenly prostrated by a return blow, arrested for assault +and battery, and unceremoniously hustled off into a cell, by +the officer whose function he has injudiciously aped without +waiting for the tiresome but quite indispensable little preliminary +of first securing a regular commission.</p> + +<p>IV. Most of all, I deny Dr. Royce's self-assumed right +to club every philosopher whose reasoning he can neither +refute nor understand. I deny, in general, that any Harvard +professor has the right to fulminate a "professional +warning" <i>against anybody</i>; and, in particular, that you, +gentlemen, ever voted or intended to invest Dr. Royce with +that right. He himself now publicly puts forth a worse +than "extravagant pretension" when he arrogates to himself +this right of literary outrage. He was not appointed professor +by you for any such unseemly purpose. To arrogate to +himself a senseless "professional" superiority over all non-"professional" +authors, to the insufferable extent of publicly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> +posting and placarding them for a mere difference of opinion, +is, from a moral point of view, scandalously to abuse his +academical position, to compromise the dignity of Harvard +University, to draw down universal contempt upon the "profession" +which he prostitutes to the uses of mere professional +jealousy or literary rivalry, and to degrade the honorable +office of professor in the eyes of all who understand that a +weak argument is not strengthened, and a false accusation +is not justified, by throwing "professional warnings" as a +make-weight into the scales of reason. I affirm emphatically +that no professor has a moral right to treat anybody with +this undisguised "insolence of office," or to use any weapon +but reason in order to put down what he conceives to be +errors in philosophy. In the present case, I deny that Dr. +Royce has any better or stronger claim than myself to speak +"professionally" on philosophical questions. The very book +against which he presumes to warn the public "professionally" +is founded upon lectures which I myself "professionally" +delivered, not only from Dr. Royce's own desk and to Dr. +Royce's own college class, but as a substitute for Dr. Royce +himself, at the request and by the appointment of his own +superiors, the Corporation and Overseers of his own University; +and the singular impropriety (to use no stronger word) +of his "professional warning" will be apparent to every one +in the light of that fact.</p> + + +<h3>IV.</h3> + +<p>So far I have treated Dr. Royce's attack solely from the +literary and ethical points of view. The legal point of view +must now be considered.</p> + +<p>Plagiarism, conscious or unconscious, is a very grave and serious +charge to bring against an author, and one which may +entail upon him, not only great damage to his literary reputation, +but also social disgrace and pecuniary loss. If proved, +or even if widely believed without proof, it cannot but ruin +his literary career and destroy the marketable value of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> +books; and it matters little, so far as these practical results +are concerned, whether the plagiarism attributed to him is +conscious or unconscious. In an able editorial article on +"Law and Theft," published in the New York "Nation" of +Feb. 12, 1891, it is forcibly said: "Authors or writers who +do this [borrowing other men's ideas] a good deal, undoubtedly +incur discredit by it with their fellows and the general +public. It greatly damages a writer's fame to be rightfully +accused of want of originality, or of imitation, or of getting +materials at second hand. But no one has ever proposed to +punish or restrain this sort of misappropriation by law. No +one has ever contended for the infliction on the purloiners +of other men's ideas of any penalty but ridicule or disgrace." +Whoever <i>wrongfully</i> accuses an author of plagiarism, then, +holds him up <i>undeservedly</i> to "discredit, ridicule, or disgrace," +and "slanders his title" to the product of his own +brain. This is contrary to the law. Yet this is precisely +what Dr. Royce has done in accusing me <i>falsely</i>, and as a +<i>"certain" matter of fact</i>, of borrowing my theory of universals +from Hegel. His accusation is made with as many +sneers and as much insult as could well be compressed +into the space:—</p> + +<p>"Dr. Abbot is hopelessly unhistorical in his consciousness. +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 use, in expounding it, one of the +most characteristic and familiar of Hegel's technical terms, +namely, 'concrete,' in that sense in which it is applied to the +objective and universal 'genus.' Dr. Abbot's appropriation +of Hegel's peculiar terminology comes ill indeed from one +who talks," <i>etc.</i> "This I say not to defend Hegel, for whose +elaborate theory of universals I hold in no wise a brief, but +simply in the cause of literary property-rights. When we +plough with another man's heifer, however unconscious we +are of our appropriation, however sincerely we seem to remember +that we alone raised her from her earliest calfhood, it +is yet in vain, after all, that we put our brand on her, or call +her 'American.'... Now Hegel's whole theory may be false;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> +but what is certain is that Dr. Abbot, who has all his life +been working in an atmosphere where Hegelian ideas were +more or less infectious, has derived his whole theory of universals, +so far as he has yet revealed it with any coherency, +from Hegelian sources, and even now cannot suggest any +better terminology than Hegel's for an important portion of +the doctrine. Yet in the volume before us we find all this +pretentious speech of an 'American' theory, and discover +our author wholly unaware that he is sinning against the +most obvious demands of literary property-rights."</p> + +<p>Passing over the self-evident point that whoever is "<i>unaware</i> +that he is sinning" cannot be "sinning" at all, since +"sinning" consists in <i>being aware</i> of the wrong we do,—and, +consequently, that Dr. Royce comes here as near as he +dares to a direct insinuation that my plagiarism is conscious, +and not "unconscious,"—let me call your attention to the +more important point, that Dr. Royce affirms my conscious +or unconscious theft from Hegel as a matter of <i>"certain" fact</i>, +not merely as a matter of <i>probable inference</i>. Yet the only +evidence he has to offer in support of this "certainty" is +(1) that I use the word "concrete" in the same sense as +Hegel, and (2) that I have worked all my life in a Hegelian +"atmosphere." These two points cover all the grounds of +his accusation. Permit me very briefly to examine them.</p> + +<p>(1) The word "concrete" is not in the least a technical +term copyrighted by Hegel, nor is it his trademark. It is one +of the commonest of words, and free to all. 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 word? Even this poor and solitary little premise slips +out of Dr. Royce's clutch, for Hegel's use of the word is <i>contradictory +to mine</i>! Hegel has to put upon the word "concrete" +a very unusual, strained, and artificial sense, in order +to cover up the weakest point of his idealistic system. He +explains it, however, frankly, clearly, and unambiguously: +"The Concept or Notion (<i>Begriff</i>) may be always called 'abstract,' +if the term 'concrete' must be limited to the mere +concrete of sensation and immediate perception; the Notion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> +as such cannot be grasped by the hands, and, when we deal +with it, eyes and ears are out of the question. Yet, as was +said before, the Notion is the only true concrete." (<i>Encyklopädie, +Werke</i>, VI. 316.) Again: "Just as little is the sensuous-concrete +of Intuition a rational-concrete of the Idea." +(<i>Ibid., Werke</i>, VI. 404.) A score of similar passages can +easily be cited. That is to say, Hegel avowedly excludes +from his <i>idealistic</i> theory of universals the "concrete" of +sensation, perception, intuition, or <i>real experience</i>, and admits +into it only the "concrete" of <i>pure or non-empirical thought</i>; +while I avowedly exclude from my <i>realistic</i> theory of universals +the "concrete" of <i>pure thought</i>, and admit into it only +the "concrete" of <i>real experience</i>. Hegel's "concrete" cannot +be seen, heard, or touched; while to me nothing which +cannot be seen, heard, or touched is "concrete" at all. A +mere common school education is quite sufficient for comprehension +of the contradictoriness of these two uses of the +word. Yet, in order to found a malicious charge of plagiarism, +Dr. Royce has the hardihood to assure the uninformed +general public that Hegel and I use the word "concrete" in +one and the same sense!</p> + +<p>(2) The assertion that I have lived all my life in a Hegelian +"atmosphere" I can only meet with a short, sharp, +and indignant denial. I know of no such "atmosphere" in +all America; if it anywhere exists, I certainly never lived, +moved, or worked in it. The statement is a gratuitous, impertinent, +and <i>totally false allegation of fact</i>, wholly outside +of my book and its contents, and is used in this connection +solely to feather an arrow shot at my reputation; it is a +pure invention, a manufactured assertion which is absolutely +without foundation, and, when thus artfully thrown out +with apparent artlessness (<i>ars celare artem</i>) as itself foundation +for a false and malicious charge of plagiarism, it becomes +fabrication of evidence for the purpose of defamation. The +less said about such an offence as that, the better for Dr. +Royce, and I spare him the comment it deserves.</p> + +<p>Now, while it might be "fair criticism" <i>to infer</i> my plagiarism +from Hegel, if there were only some reasonable or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> +even merely plausible evidence to support the inference +(which I have just proved not to be the case), it is incontestable +that <i>to affirm</i> this plagiarism, as a "certain" matter of +fact, without any reasonable evidence at all, is not that "fair +criticism" which the law justly allows, but, on the contrary, +a totally unjustifiable libel. In accusing me personally of +plagiarism on no reasonable grounds whatever, as I have +just unanswerably proved him to have done, 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 (namely, the false allegation that I have +worked all my life in a Hegelian "atmosphere"), Dr. Royce +has beyond all controversy transgressed the legally defined +limits of "fair criticism," and become a libeller.</p> + +<p>But this is by no means all. If the bat-like accusation +of an "unconscious", yet "sinning" (or sinful) plagiarism +hovers ambiguously between attacking my literary reputation +and attacking my moral character, there is no such +ambiguity hanging about the accusation of "extravagant +pretensions as to the originality and profundity of my still +unpublished system of philosophy." A decent modesty, a +self-respectful reserve, a manly humility in presence of the +unattainable ideal of either moral or intellectual perfection, +a speechless reverence in the presence of either infinite +goodness or infinite truth,—these are virtues which belong +to the very warp and woof of all noble, elevated, and justly +estimable character; and wherever their absence is conspicuously +shown, there is just ground for moral condemnation +and the contempt of mankind. Dr. Royce has not +scrupled to accuse me of making, not only "pretensions," +but even "extravagant pretensions," which are absolutely +incompatible with the possession of these beautiful and essential +virtues, and thereby to hold me up to universal contempt +and derision. He has done this, by the very terms +of his accusation, absolutely and confessedly <i>without cause</i>; +for the system of philosophy which is "unpublished" to +others is no less "unpublished" to him, and an accusation +thus made confessedly without any knowledge of its truth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> +is, on the very face of it, an accusation which is as malicious +as it is groundless. To make such a self-proved and self-condemned +accusation as this is, I submit, to be guilty of +libel with no ordinary degree of culpability.</p> + +<p>But the libel of which I have greatest cause to complain +is not confined to exceptional or isolated expressions. These +might charitably be explained as mere momentary ebullitions +of pettishness or spleen, and pardonable as merely faults of +temper in a criticism which was in the main conscientious +and fair. But the libel of which I complain most of all is +one that constitutes the entire ground and framework of the +article <i>as a whole</i>. Every part of it is methodically spun +and interwoven with every other part, in such a way as to +make it one seamless tissue of libel from beginning to end. +This I say in full consciousness of the interspersed occasional +compliments, since these have only the effect of disguising +the libellous intent of the whole from a simple-minded +or careless reader, and since they subserve the +purpose of furnishing to the writer a plausible and ready-made +defence of his libel against a foreseen protest. Compliments +to eke out a libel are merely insults in masquerade. +The libellous plan of the article as a whole is shown in the +<i>regular system</i> of gross and studied misrepresentation, of +logically connected and nicely dovetailed misstatements of +facts, which I exposed at the outset. 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 +realism, and to a defence of the latter against the former, as +the only possible method by which a spiritual theism can +be intellectually, and therefore successfully, defended in this +age of science. Only one who has read and digested the +two books can fully appreciate the enormity and the unscrupulousness +of the initial misrepresentation, slipped in, as it +were, quite casually, and without any argument, in the apparently +incidental and matter-of-course statement that my +"conclusion" is "essentially idealistic." It is <i>not</i> "idealistic" +at all, but as radically realistic as the premises themselves;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> +and no professor of philosophy could ever have called +it "idealistic" by a mere slip of the tongue or pen. The +intelligent origin of this misrepresentation is clearly enough +suggested in the use to which it is at once put: namely, to +render plausible the otherwise ridiculous charge that my +theory of universals was "borrowed" from an idealist. Next, +the same origin is more than suggested by the use to which +these two misrepresentations together are put: namely, to +show that any claim of "novelty" for a merely "borrowed" +philosophy is a "vast" and "extravagant pretension." +Lastly, the same origin is inductively and conclusively +proved, when these three inter-linked misrepresentations, as +a whole, are made the general foundation for a brutal "professional +warning" to the public at large against my "philosophical +pretensions" in general. Not one of these fundamental +positions of Dr. Royce's article is a fact,—least of +all, an "admitted fact"; on the contrary, each of them is +energetically and indignantly denied. But the libel of which +I complain above all is the <i>regular system</i> of gross and +studied misrepresentation by which the most essential facts +are first misstated and falsified, and then used to the injury +of my literary and personal reputation.</p> + +<p>It may, I trust, be permitted to me here to show clearly +what the law is, as applicable to the case in hand, by a few +pertinent citations.</p> + +<p>"The critic must confine himself to criticism, and not +make it the veil for personal censure, nor allow himself to +run into reckless and unfair attacks, merely from the love of +exercising his power of denunciation. Criticism and comment +on well-known and admitted facts are very different +things from the assertion of unsubstantiated facts. A fair +and <i>bona fide</i> comment on a matter of public interest is an +excuse of what would otherwise be a defamatory publication. +The statement of this rule assumes the matters of fact +commented on to be somehow ascertained. It does not +mean that a man may invent facts, and comment on the facts +so invented in what would be a fair and <i>bona fide</i> manner, on +the supposition that the facts were true. If the facts as a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> +comment upon which the publication is sought to be excused +do not exist, the foundation fails.... The distinction +cannot be too clearly borne in mind between comment or +criticism and allegations of fact.... To state matters which +are libellous is not comment or criticism." (<i>Newell on Defamation, +Slander, and Libel</i>, p. 568.) Applying this to the +case in hand: the "admitted facts" are these: (1) my philosophy +is realistic from beginning to end; (2) I have not +worked all my life, nor any part of my life, in a Hegelian +"atmosphere"; (3) I did not borrow my theory of universals +from Hegel; (4) I have made no vast or extravagant pretensions +whatever as to my own philosophy. But Dr. Royce +invents and states the exact opposite of all these facts, and +then bases on these purely invented facts most undeserved +"personal censure" and most "reckless and unfair attacks." +Therefore, his article is a libel in its whole groundwork and +essential spirit.</p> + +<p>"If a person, under pretence of criticising a literary work, +defames the private character of the author, and, instead of +writing in the spirit and for the purpose of fair and candid +discussion, travels into collateral matter, and introduces facts +not stated in the work, accompanied with injurious comment +upon them, such person is a libeller, and liable to an action." +(<i>Broom's Legal Maxims</i>, p. 320.) Applying this to the case +in hand: Dr. Royce "defames" my "private character," +when he accuses me of "frequently" indulging in "extravagant +pretensions"; he "travels into collateral matter," when +he alludes at all to my unpublished manuscript; he "introduces +facts not stated in the work, accompanied with injurious +comment upon them," when he alludes to this +unpublished manuscript for the sole purpose of saying (untruthfully) +that I "frequently make, of late, extravagant +pretensions as to its originality and profundity," and again +when he says that I have worked all my life in a Hegelian +"atmosphere," for the sole purpose of founding upon this +false statement a false charge of plagiarism.</p> + +<p>In the "Griffith Gaunt" case, Judge Clerke said in his +charge to the jury: "The interests of literature and science<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> +require that the productions of authors shall be subject to +fair criticism,—that even some animadversion may be permitted, +unless it appears that the critic, under the pretext of +reviewing his book, takes an opportunity of attacking the +character of the author, and of holding him up as an object of +ridicule, hatred, or contempt. In other words, the critic may +say what he pleases of the literary merits or demerits of the +published production of an author; but, with respect to his +personal rights relating to his reputation, the critic has no +more privilege than any other person not assuming the business +of criticism." (<i>Abbott's Practice Reports</i>, New Series, +VI. 18.) Applying this to the case in hand: Dr. Royce, +"under the pretext of reviewing" my "book, takes an opportunity +of attacking the author, and of holding him up as an +object of ridicule and contempt," if ridicule and contempt +are the deservedly universal punishment of the plagiarist and +the braggart. To so unprecedented a length has he carried +this attack, as deliberately and formally, in the name of his +"profession," and therefore, by necessary implication, in the +name of Harvard University itself, to "warn the liberal-minded +public" against me, <i>precisely as one warns the general +public against an impostor soliciting alms under false pretences</i>! +This is a flagrant violation of my "personal rights +relating to my reputation"; and, therefore, according to the +above judicial ruling of an American court, Dr. Royce is +guilty of wanton and unprovoked libel against one who never +injured him in the slightest degree.</p> + +<p>In the case of Strauss <i>versus</i> Francis, Chief Justice Cockburn +said: "The question is as to the article as a whole.... +The verdict must be upon the article as a whole, and +whether, as a whole, it is to be deemed malicious and libellous." +(<i>Foster and Finlason's Reports</i>, IV. 1107.) Applying +this to the case in hand: Dr. Royce's ostensible review presents +its darkest, most odious, and most libellous aspect to him +who most thoroughly, penetratingly, and comprehensively +studies out the inner structure of its argument <i>as a whole</i>, +and who most intelligently compares it with the book which it +falsely professes to criticise fairly. Allow me to quote here a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> +passage from page 39 of "the Way out of Agnosticism" in +order simply to show you how uncompromisingly this passage, +which sums up the entire results of the first half of the book +and luminously forecasts the entire conclusion of the whole, +plants my system on the side of Realism:—</p> + +<p>"The scientific, modern, or American theory of universals, +which results necessarily from analysis of the scientific +method, is Scientific Realism, as opposed to Philosophical +Idealism; and it determines the subdivision of scientific +philosophy into its three great departments, the theories of +Being, of Knowing, and of Doing. The scientific theory of +Being results from analysis of the Genus-in-itself, and constitutes +ontology or Constructive Realism, as opposed to all +forms of Constructive Idealism. The scientific theory of +Knowledge results from analysis of the Concept, and constitutes +psychology or Critical Realism, as opposed to all forms +of transcendental or Critical Idealism. The scientific theory +of Conduct results from analysis of the Word, and constitutes +anthroponomy (including ethics, politics, and art in its +widest sense), sociology, or Ethical Realism, as opposed to +all forms of Ethical Idealism. The scientific theory of the +universe, as the absolute union of Being, Knowing, and +Doing in the One and All, results from comprehension of +these three theories in complete organic unity, and constitutes +organic philosophy, scientific theology, or Religious +Realism, as opposed to all forms of Religious Idealism."</p> + +<p>I submit this long extract to you, gentlemen, not to bore +you with metaphysical speculations, but simply to enable +you, as educated men who understand the meaning of plain +and straightforward English on any subject, to follow the +twistings and turnings of an extraordinarily sinuous and disingenuous +intellect, and intelligently to decide a question +which needs here to be settled clearly in your own minds: +could any competent professor of philosophy, undertaking to +give, as a fair critic, a truthful account to the public of the +contents of my book, read that passage, and then, omitting +all reference to the contrast there and everywhere made between +realism and idealism, honestly tell that public, without<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> +any further information at all on the subject, that the "conclusion" +of my philosophy is "essentially idealistic"?</p> + +<p>Yet that is the conscienceless misrepresentation with +which Dr. Royce prepares the way for all that is to follow, +deceives the reader at the very outset, predisposes him to believe +the preposterous charge that I "appropriated" my main +theory from the great idealist Hegel, arouses his indignation +or mirth, as the case may be, at my alleged strutting about +in borrowed plumes, and so leads him at last to applaud the +righteous castigation of the "professional warning," by which +the peacock-feathers are made to fly in all directions and I +myself am scourged back among my brother-jackdaws, the +impostors, charlatans, and quacks of myriad kinds. This is +the purport and the spirit of Dr. Royce's ostensible review, +"<i>as a whole</i>." Is it the "fair criticism" which the law +allows? Or is it the "libel" which the law condemns? Is it +the fair and critical judgment which your silence shall sanction, +as Harvard's official verdict on my work? Or is it the libellous +and vulgar abuse which your speech shall rebuke, as +shaming Harvard more than me by bringing the ethics and +manners of the literary Bedouin into the professor's chair?</p> + + +<h3>V.</h3> + +<p>But, gentlemen, the gravest aspect of Dr. Royce's ostensible +review remains still to be considered. Is libel—vulgar, +violent, and brutal libel—the means by which Harvard +University, represented by one of her professors of philosophy +who openly claims to address the general public in the +name of his office and of her, proposes to realize the lofty +ideal of her President, and make herself the "philosophical +pioneer" for each new generation in the pursuit of truth? +Is this the welcome which she accords to serious, dignified, +and not unscholarly works, giving the results, however partially +and imperfectly wrought out, of patient and independent +reflection for more than thirty years on the highest +problems of human life and thought? Is this the best sympathy +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>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 ideal? Is this the attitude in which she confronts +the great questions of the age, and the spirit which +she aims to foster in her young men? I do not believe it; +but you alone, gentlemen, can give the authoritative answer +to such queries.</p> + +<p>When civil service reformers plead the urgent necessity of +political reform, they are irrelevantly charged by the adherents +of the spoils system with being "hypocrites and pharisees." +Precisely so, when I plead the urgent necessity of +philosophical reform, I am irrelevantly charged by Dr. Royce, +in effect, with being a false pretender, a plagiarist, and an +impostor. The charge is just as true in one case as in the +other. But, be the charge true or untrue, the attention of +keen and candid minds is not to be diverted by this perfectly +transparent device from the main point of reform.</p> + +<p>What is this needed philosophical reform?</p> + +<p>Briefly, <i>to substitute the scientific method for the idealistic +method in philosophy</i>, as the only possible means, in this critical +and sceptical age, of making ethics and religion so reasonable +as to command the continued allegiance of reasonable +minds. Unphilosophized science conceives the universe as +nothing but a Machine-World; and in this conception there +is no room for any Ethical Ideal. Unscientific philosophy conceives +the universe as nothing but a Thought-World; and in +this conception there is no room for any Mechanical Real. +On the possibility of developing a scientific philosophy out +of the scientific method itself must depend at last the only +possibility, for reasonable men, of believing equally in the +real principles of mechanical science and in the ideal principles +of ethical science. To-day the greatest obstacle to such +a reasonable belief is the "philosophical idealism" which directly +contradicts it; and the greatest reform needed in +modern thought, above all in the theory of ethics, is the substitution +of the scientific method for the idealistic method in +philosophy itself.</p> + +<p>The cause of philosophical reform, indeed, cannot be long<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> +delayed by any Philistinism in those who, by their professional +position, ought to be its most ardent friends. The +method of science is destined to revolutionize philosophy—to +modernize it by founding it anew upon a thoroughly realistic +and scientific theory of universals. The net result of +all the physical sciences thus far, the one fixed result to +which all their other results steadily point with increasingly +evident convergence, is that <i>the already known constitution +of the real universe is that of the Machine</i>. This universal +fixed result, and not mere individual self-consciousness, is +the necessary and only beginning-point of a constructive +philosophy of Nature; for, where the special sciences end, +there universal philosophy must begin. It is the task of +philosophy to-day to show that the unquestionably mechanical +constitution of the universe, instead of being the ultimate +boundary of scientific investigation, is merely the starting-point +in a new series of investigations, no less scientific +than those of physical science, but far more profound; and +to show that the mechanical constitution itself, when deeply +studied and comprehended, necessarily involves the organic +and the personal constitutions. In this way, and I believe +in no other way, can it be proved to the satisfaction of the +modern intelligence that the Mechanical Real itself, at bottom, +includes the Ethical Ideal—that the Moral Law, the +Divine Ideal itself, is the innermost Fact of Nature. I have +made, and make now, not the slightest personal "pretension"; +but, finding in all my reading no outline of any such +argument as this, and believing it to be fruitful of the very +noblest results, I have done my best to point out its possibilities +to other earnest searchers after truth. Not until +this new field has been faithfully examined and explored and +proved to be sterile, shall I cease to recommend it to the +attention of all who would fain <i>see reason</i> to believe that the +Ethical Ideal is no Unreality, but rather the innermost +Reality of the real universe itself. I speak only to those +who have souls to hear and to respond; let the rest listen +to Dr. Royce, and be dupes of his "professional warning." +But the cause of philosophical reform will not be stayed by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> +him or by them: the world's heart is hungry for higher +truth than idealism can discover, and will be grateful in the +end to any philosophy which shall show what mighty moral +conviction, what unspeakable spiritual invigoration, must +needs grow out of comprehension of the despised Real.</p> + +<p>These thoughts are not remote abstractions, up in the air, +out of reach, of no practical value or application; they touch +the very life and soul of Harvard University. For want of +such thoughts, many of the brightest and most intellectual +of her students, graduates from the philosophical courses, +go out year after year disbelieving totally in the possibility +of arriving at any fundamental "truth" whatever, even in +ethics. Several years ago, the then President of the Harvard +"Philosophical Club" said in my hearing that he "saw +no ground of moral obligation anywhere in the universe"; +and this declaration was apparently assented to by every one +of the fifteen or twenty members present. This very last +summer, a recent graduate told me that he left college bewildered, +depressed, and "disheartened," because he saw +nowhere any ground of rational "conviction" about anything; +and that it was "just the same with all the other fellows"—that +is, all his companions in the study of philosophy. +It is time, high time, that this state of things should +be searchingly investigated in the interest of Harvard University +itself, the facts determined, their causes ascertained. +While such a state of things prevails, 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 world: +namely, to send out her young graduates well armed beforehand +for the battle of life with clear, strong, and lofty <i>moral +convictions</i>. Whatever other causes may exist for the failure, +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 thoughtful, closely +reasoned, and earnest plea for philosophical reform in this +very direction, or to criticise it with anything better than +irrelevant and unparliamentary personalities, studied and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> +systematic misrepresentation both of the plea and of the +pleader, and a demoralizing example of libel, so bitter and so +extreme as to furnish abundant ground for prosecution.</p> + + +<h3>VI.</h3> + +<p>Here, gentlemen, you may very properly inquire: "Why +do you not, then, prosecute Dr. Royce in the courts, instead +of bringing the case before us?"</p> + +<p>Briefly, 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 +measures. You would have had just cause to complain of +me, 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 way, and in +dignified recognition of your own ultimate responsibility. A +prosecution may not, I trust will not, prove necessary; for +I have neither malice nor vindictiveness to gratify, but only +a resolute purpose to defend my reputation effectually +against a malicious libel, and not to permit the libeller to +set up a plausible claim that, by silence and passive submission, +I "tacitly confess the justice of an official condemnation +by Harvard University of my 'philosophical +pretensions.'" Except for that one phrase, "professional +warning," in Dr. Royce's attack, this appeal would never have +been written, or the least notice taken of his intrinsically +puerile "criticisms." When Mr. Herbert Spencer, whom I +have more than once publicly criticised, can yet magnanimously +write to me of this very book, "I do not see any +probability that it will change my beliefs, yet I rejoice that +the subject should be so well discussed,"—and Mr. William +Ewart Gladstone, "I am very conscious of the force with +which you handle the subject,"—and ex-President Noah +Porter, "I thank you very sincerely for sending me a copy +of your last book; I had already read it nearly twice, and +found much in it very admirable and timely,"—I could very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> +well afford to pass over Dr. Royce's ineffectual "criticisms" +with indifference. But when he insinuates to the +uninformed public that these same "criticisms" have the +weighty sanction of Harvard University, it is quite another +matter. That calls upon me to defend myself against so +atrocious a calumny.</p> + +<p>But even self-defence has its proprieties, and to these I +scrupulously submit. The first step was to send a reply +to the periodical which published the attack. This was +sent. At first, Dr. Royce effusively agreed to its publication, +and wrote a rejoinder to be published simultaneously +with it. Later, in alarm, he procured its rejection, and, +through legal counsel, served a formal notice upon me not +to publish or to circulate it at all. The second step was +to demand from Dr. Royce a specific retraction and apology; +this he contemptuously refused. The third step was to +appeal from the recalcitrant employee to the responsible employer, +and to lay the case respectfully before the supreme +representatives of Harvard University itself. This I now +do, and it is entirely unnecessary to look any farther. But, +in order to lay the case before you fully, it is incumbent +upon me to state the details of these proceedings with some +minuteness, and I now proceed to unfold the extraordinary +tale.</p> + + +<h3>VII.</h3> + +<p>Dr. Royce wound up his ostensible review with these +words of bravado and of challenge: "<i>We must show no +mercy,—as we ask none.</i>" This fierce flourish of trumpets +I understood to be, at least, a fearless public pledge of a fair +hearing in the "Journal of Ethics" of which he was one of +the editors. Moreover, 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 accuser. Lastly, I was averse +to litigation, and desired to use no coarser weapon, even<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> +against a calumniator and libeller, than the sharp edge of +reason itself.</p> + +<p>Accordingly, I sought redress in the first instance from +the "International Journal of Ethics." On January 21, I +mailed to Mr. S. Burns Weston, the office editor, an article +in reply to Dr. Royce's ostensible review, together with a +letter in which I wrote: "I do not at all complain of your +publishing Dr. Royce's original article, although it was a +most malicious and slanderous one, and undertook (not to +put too fine a point upon it) to post me publicly as a quack. +If you do not deny my indefeasible right to be heard in +self-defence in the same columns, I shall feel that I have no +cause whatever to regard you or your committee as a party +to the outrage, and shall entertain no feelings towards you +or towards them other than such as are perfectly friendly. +Let even slander and malice be heard, if truth shall be as free +to reply." Pressing engagements had prevented me from +writing the article in season for the January number of the +"Journal of Ethics," but it was in ample season for the April +number.</p> + +<p>I sent it at last because I had full confidence in the soundness +of what Thomas Jefferson said so well: "Truth and +reason can maintain themselves without the aid of coercion, +if left free to defend themselves. But then they must defend +themselves. Eternal lies and sophisms on one side, and +silence on the other, are too unequal."</p> + +<p>The "International Journal of Ethics" is under the control +of an "editorial committee" of eight, Dr. Felix Adler +at the head and Dr. Royce at the end; the other six members +live in Europe and have no share in the home management. +Mr. Weston is not a member of the committee, has +little editorial authority, and, in case of disagreement between +the two American members, would, as he himself +expressly and frankly informed me in answer to a direct +question, obey implicitly the directions of Dr. Adler. To +Dr. Adler, therefore, belongs the general and ultimate editorial +responsibility, whether legal or moral, since, according +to Mr. Western's just quoted declaration, Dr. Adler alone has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> +actual power either to procure or to prevent publication; +while to Dr. Royce is assigned merely the special department +of "theoretical ethics." Hence Dr. Adler and Dr. +Royce were jointly responsible for the original libel, the latter +for writing it, the former for publishing it; but Dr. Adler +alone was editorially responsible for publishing or refusing +to publish my reply to it. It was to Dr. Adler alone, as responsible +editor-in-chief of the "Journal of Ethics," that I +looked for publication of my defence, as the best possible +reparation for the wrong done in publishing the libellous attack; +and I looked to him with confidence for this partial +and inadequate reparation, believing that, as head of the +"ethical culture movement," he would be anxious to conduct +the "Journal of Ethics" in accordance with the highest principles +of justice, honor, and fair play.</p> + +<p>To my astonishment and indignation, however, my manuscript, +instead of being considered and finally passed upon +by Dr. Adler, was forwarded by him or by his direction to +Dr. Royce! The latter, getting wind of it, had "insisted" +that it belonged to his department of "theoretical ethics," +and "claimed the right" to <i>edit it with a rejoinder in the +same issue</i>. Nothing could be conceived more unfair or more +absurd. A libel had been published by Dr. Adler, and Dr. +Adler sent the defence against this libel to be edited by the +libeller himself! Protest was in vain. Dr Adler denied his +own moral responsibility, washed his hands of the whole affair, +and even refused to enlighten himself as to his own +duty (notwithstanding my urgent request that he should do +so) by taking counsel of some wise and able lawyer of his +own acquaintance. Instead of doing this, he affected to consider +my self-defence against a libel as merely a reply to an +ordinary "book-criticism," made a few inquiries as to the +"usual practice of journals" with reference to book-criticisms +alone, turned my article over to Dr. Royce as one on "theoretical +ethics," and permitted him to attach to it a rejoinder +which reiterated the original libel with additions and improvements, +but in which he took pains to say of my reply: "I +may add that even now it does not occur to me to feel <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>personally +wounded, nor yet uneasy at Dr. Abbot's present +warmth." These words have a peculiar interest with reference +to his later legal notice against all publication or circulation +of this very reply: his assumed or genuine pachydermatousness +soon gave way to fearful apprehension of its +effect upon the public mind.</p> + +<p>In no sense whatever was my reply an article on "theoretical +ethics." To what part of the "theory of ethics" +belongs Dr. Royce's false personal accusation of "extravagant +pretensions"? To what part of the "theory of ethics" +belongs Dr. Royce's false personal accusation of "sinning +against the most obvious demands of literary property-rights"? +To what part of the "theory of ethics" belongs +Dr. Royce's "professional warning" against pretensions +which were never made? His false accusations and their +false grounds were the main theme of my article, and they +had nothing to do with "theoretical ethics," Dr Adler and +Dr. Royce to the contrary notwithstanding. Dr. Royce had +no shadow of right to set up so preposterous a claim, and Dr. +Adler had no shadow of right to yield to it, as he weakly did, +thereby violating his own undeniable obligation, as editor-in-chief, +to do his utmost to repair the wrong which he himself +had done in publishing a libel. My article was avowedly +nothing but a defence against this libel, and, as such, was +necessarily addressed to the responsible editor of the "Journal +of Ethics," not to the sub-editor of one of its special departments—most +assuredly not to the libeller himself. The +only fair and just course was to publish this defence alone by +itself, precisely as the libel had been published alone by +itself, and afterwards to allow Dr. Royce to follow it, if he +pleased, with a rejoinder in the succeeding number. I made +not the slightest objection to one rejoinder or a dozen rejoinders +from him, provided the responsible editor held the +balance true, accorded as fair a hearing to the accused as he +had accorded to the accuser, and granted to each in turn an +opportunity to plead his cause without interruption by the +other. I asked no more than what Dr. Royce had already +received—an opportunity to enjoy the undivided and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>undistracted +attention of the audience for a limited time. He +had had the ear of the public for six months. Could I not +have it for three?</p> + +<p>But I regret to say that considerations of equal justice +seemed to have no weight whatever with Dr. Adler. Dr. +Royce, despite his public pledge, was "asking for mercy," +after all, and got from Dr. Adler all he asked for; I asked +Dr. Adler for equity alone, and could not get even that. +The sole concession made was that I might follow Dr. +Royce's rejoinder with a second reply in the same number, +thus closing the case with a last word for the defence.</p> + +<p>To this last proposal, in order not to refuse a meagre +measure of justice, I consented under protest. But the +proof-sheets of Dr. Royce's rejoinder, to which I was to reply, +did not reach me till March 18, and were accompanied with +a notice from the "Journal of Ethics" that my reply must be +mailed "within ten hours after receiving Royce's proof." +This notice I answered as follows:—</p> + +<p>"The proof of Royce's rejoinder, with your notes of the +16th and 17th, arrived this morning at 9 <span class="smcap">a.m.</span> As I have had +to be at my teaching till 3 <span class="smcap">p.m.</span>, it was obviously impossible to +mail a reply by 7 <span class="smcap">p.m.</span> Hence I telegraphed to you at once: +'<i>I protest against the gross injustice of postponing my article, +or of publishing this new attack without the last word you +promised me. It is impossible to write this now</i> [<i>i. e.</i>, within +the ten hours stipulated]. <i>If you have any love of justice, +publish my article now, and postpone the rejoinders to next +issue.</i>' Nothing stands in the way of this, the only fair +course, 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 none.' To hold back my +reply to his libel for three months longer, merely because he +is afraid to let it go forth without an attempt to break its +force in the same number, would be disgracefully unjust in +him and in the 'Journal.' His rejoinder is simply a fresh +libel; there is nothing in it to which I cannot easily and +effectually reply. But what <i>right</i> is there in refusing to me +the opportunity of answering one libel at a time? Or in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> +compelling me to be silent nine months [from October to +July], in order to save him from being silent three months +[from April to July]? 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 this."</p> + +<p>But the April number of the "Journal of Ethics," nevertheless, +was published without my article. The latter was +all in type, and the proof-sheets had been corrected; nothing +prevented its publication in April except (1) Dr. Royce's +insistence that my reply to his first libel should <i>not be published +at all without his second libel</i>, and (2) Dr. Adler's weak +submission to this unjust and pusillanimous demand of his +associate.</p> + +<p>The whole matter was thus most inequitably postponed to +the July number, primarily at Dr. Royce's instigation. 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 first. Now to answer a +libel effectively requires the freedom, not of the parliament, +but of the courts. A mere literary discussion admits of +parliamentary freedom alone, and properly excludes all reflections +upon personal character. But Dr. Royce had most +unparliamentarily turned his ostensible review into a libel, +and, contrary to all canons of literary discussion, had indulged +himself in reflections upon my personal character as malicious +as they were false. Now the only possible disproof of a +libel is the proof that it <i>is</i> a libel,—that it is either untruthful, +or malicious, or both; and, since a libel is both a civil injury +and a criminal offence, the proof of its libellous character +cannot be established without reflecting upon the personal +character of the libeller. Hence Dr. Royce himself, by +writing a libel, had self-evidently raised the question of his +own personal character, and bound himself beforehand, by +his own act, to submit with what grace he could to the +necessary consequences of that act; and to seek to shield +himself from these consequences, which he should have foreseen +clearly and nerved himself to bear bravely, was only to +incur the ridicule invited by a timorous man who first strikes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> +another and then runs away. Dr. Adler, moreover, as the +responsible editor of the "Journal of Ethics," had laid himself, +by publishing Dr. Royce's libel, under the clear moral +obligation of according to the accused the same freedom of +the courts which he had already accorded to the accuser; +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 parties. 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 attack.</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding these plain facts, Dr. Royce and Dr. +Adler united in denying to me the necessary freedom of +self-defence against the attack which they had united in +making.</p> + +<p>At first, Dr. Royce undertook to dictate to me beforehand +the nature of my reply to his rejoinder, and sought to restrict +it to the parliamentary freedom of a purely literary +discussion. Ignoring the fact that he had himself rendered +a purely literary discussion impossible by his own reflections +upon personal character, he endeavored now to restrict my +defence to a purely literary discussion of what, with amusing +deficiency in the sense of humor, he considered to be his +"criticisms"; whereas these pointless and ignorant criticisms +had no importance whatever except as leading up to his "professional +warning." The only object of a reply to his rejoinder +was to expose its true character as a second libel, and +thereby make plain to the dullest mind the outrage of his +"professional warning." Evidently fearing this, and being +anxious to prevent the exposure, he sent to me through +Mr. Weston, who called upon me for the purpose on April +15, the following unspeakable document, apparently without +a suspicion that it pricked the bubble of his previous iridescent +pledge to "ask no mercy":—</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center"><span class="smcap">Memorandum of Apr.</span> 13, 1891.</p> + +<p>1. Dr. Abbot's article must be in Mr. Weston's hands in +MS. by June 1, for issue in the July No., if possible.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p> + +<p>2. This article must not exceed, in actual number of +words, Prof. Royce's last rejoinder.</p> + +<p>3. Prof. Royce is not to reply to the above article of Dr. +Abbot before or simultaneously with its publication in the +"Journal of Ethics"; and the controversy is thus to be closed +in the "Journal" by Dr. Abbot.</p> + +<p>4. Dr. Abbot's article is to be strictly a rejoinder, is not +to raise essentially new issues, is not to assault any further +his opponent's personal character, is to be parliamentary in +form, and free from personally abusive language. Otherwise +it is perfectly free as to plainness of speech.</p> + +<p>5. Prof. Royce is to see this article at once, and before it +goes to the printer.</p> + +<p>6. Should Prof. Royce, after seeing the paper, object to +the article as "<i>not in conformity with the conditions of No. 4</i> +(<i>above</i>)," then, but only then, the article is to be submitted, +before publication, to the judgment of some impartial friend +or friends of both the disputants, such friend or friends +to be chosen as promptly as possible, and by agreement, and +to arbitrate the question, "<i>Whether Dr. Abbot's final rejoinder +is in conformity with the conditions of this present +memorandum?</i>" The arbitrator or arbitrators may be any +person or persons agreable [<i>sic</i>] to the wishes of both the +disputants, as determined in case the mentioned objection of +Prof. Royce should be made, but not otherwise.</p> + +<p>7. Should Prof. Royce <i>not</i> object to the article, or should +he not formally object <i>on the grounds mentioned</i>, then the +article of Dr. Abbot is to close the controversy in the "Journal +of Ethics."</p> + +<p>8. Should Dr. Abbot <i>not</i> accept the conditions of the present +memorandum, he is at liberty to withdraw his paper, or +else to let both the papers now in type appear as they are, +at his pleasure.</p></div> + +<p class="author"> +[Signed] J. R.</p> + +<p>It is difficult to conceive the state of mind in which so extraordinary +a document as this could have originated. My +answer to Dr. Royce's officious interference was a short and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> +dry rejection <i>in toto</i>. Dr. Royce was not the responsible +editor of the "Journal of Ethics," and had no power to dictate +any conditions of publication whatever. That a libeller +should actually presume to dictate to the libelled the terms +of his defence, to demand that this defence should be submitted +to himself in advance of publication for approval or +disapproval, and, in case of disapproval, to invoke a board of +referees for the sole purpose of enforcing his own arbitrary +and preposterous "conditions,"—this was too exquisitely +absurd. But there was method in the madness. The central +aim of the "Memorandum" is clear on its face: namely, +<i>to refuse the forensic freedom necessary to self-defence against +a libel, and to concede only the parliamentary freedom proper to +a purely literary discussion</i>. Since, however, the only object +of my writing at all was to expose his rejoinder as a second +libel, and since the central aim of the "Memorandum" was +to defeat this very object, nothing could be plainer than this: +that Dr. Royce, having been guilty of two unprovoked and +malicious libels, now sought to prevent the exposure of his +guilt by suppressing the necessary freedom of self-defence. +For, I repeat, the only possible defence against a libel is to +prove that it <i>is</i> a libel, and this cannot be done without +reflecting upon the "personal character" of the libeller. It +was no fault of mine that he had himself rendered a "parliamentary" +discussion impossible; it was no fault of mine +that he had made his own "personal character" the real +point at issue; it was no fault of mine that he now betrayed +his secret alarm, uttered a cry for "mercy," and convicted +himself out of his own mouth, in his extraordinary and indescribable +"Memorandum." That "Memorandum" tells the +whole story.</p> + +<p>On the failure of Dr. Royce's very injudicious attempt at +dictation, Dr. Adler found himself compelled to assume the +editorial power and responsibility, which he ought to have +assumed and exercised in the first instance by refusing publication +to Dr. Royce's original libel. But, yielding to Dr. +Royce's influence, he took the same position, and still tried +to shield the libeller from the just and lawful consequences<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> +of his libel. No principle is more firmly established in the +public conscience, as interpreted by the common law, than +that the fact of an attack by A involves the right of self-defence +by B. Whoever, therefore, has permitted an attack +which he might have prevented is bound to permit the self-defence, +also; and Dr. Adler, having granted to Dr. Royce +the freedom of libelling me, was bound to grant to me the +equal freedom of defending myself against the libel. But +this equal freedom Dr. Adler denied. After some fruitless +correspondence, I wrote to him on May 4 as follows: "I +require the freedom, not of 'parliament,' but of the courts—freedom +to present my 'facts,' and no less to draw my 'inferences'—freedom +to array my evidence, and no less to +make my pleading. By publishing his new libel, you estop +yourself from denying me this freedom. If you do deny it, +I withdraw altogether and seek justice and redress elsewhere. +I ask only what is self-evidently fair: (1) equal +space with Dr. Royce, (2) equal freedom with Dr. Royce, +(3) no further rejoinders by Dr. Royce, and (4) no editorial +mention of the matter at all from the 'Journal' itself." To +this letter Dr. Adler merely telegraphed his final reply on +May 6 in these brief terms: "Regret your insistence on freedom +of courts—parliamentary freedom open to you." This +ended the matter, so far as the "Journal of Ethics" was concerned, +in Dr. 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 +committee."</p> + +<p>Negotiations, it is true, for the publication of my reply in +the July number were a little later re-opened by Dr. Adler, +on receiving advice from a legal friend of his own that to +publish it would be his wisest course; but he himself broke +them off on a trivial pretext, after receiving contrary advice +from Dr. Royce's counsel, together with a copy of the legal +protest sent to me personally. Thus Dr. Royce himself, +recalling his original consent, procured the final rejection +by the "Journal of Ethics" of my reply to his own attack. +On June 19, I was notified that the July number had been +made up without it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p> + +<p>But already, on June 9, I had received from Mr. J. B. +Warner, acting as Dr. Royce's counsel, this formal protest +against any other use whatever of my reply: "On Dr. +Royce's behalf, I must warn you that he protests against +the publication or any circulation of it, in its present shape, +and must point out to you that it may, if circulated, entail +a serious legal responsibility." To this strangely impolitic +and utterly futile attempt to intimidate me in the defence of +my own reputation, I chose to offer not the slightest resistance. +The protest only facilitated that defence. How could +a libeller more conspicuously put himself in the wrong, or +more effectually ruin his own evil cause in all eyes, than by +<i>trying to gag the man he had injured</i>? First, to prevent +publication in the "Journal of Ethics" of the very reply he +had publicly and defiantly challenged, and then to suppress +all circulation of a few privately printed copies of it by +means of legal threats: if Dr. Royce could afford to commit +such blunders, why should I shield him from himself? +"Whom the gods destroy, they first make mad."</p> + +<p>Before proceeding to any more energetic measures, however, +in order to vindicate my reputation, I was anxious to +offer to Dr. Royce an opportunity of doing me justice in a +manner which should be consistent with full vindication, yet +should involve the least possible publicity and the least possible +mortification to himself. Accordingly, on June 20, I +wrote to Mr. Warner thus: "I beg leave to enclose a Card, +which, if returned to me within a week from to-day, unchanged, +dated, and signed by Dr. Royce, and if actually +published in the October number of the 'Journal,' will render +unnecessary further measures of self-vindication as now contemplated. +I send this because you assured me that Dr. +Royce disclaims all malice in the publication of the original +article I complain of, and because I am willing to test the +sincerity of his disclaimer before resorting to other measures +for my self-protection. I expect you, who came to me +in the character of a pacificator, and who expressed a creditable +desire, in which I fully join, for the settlement of this +trouble in some way which shall occasion no scandal to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>Harvard +College, to exert your utmost influence with Dr. Royce +to persuade him to perform this act of manifest justice to +me. A frank retraction and apology, when unjust charges +have been made as now, is not dishonorable and ought not +to be humiliating; and I shall consider Dr. Royce's action +in this matter as showing the sincerity or insincerity of his +disclaimer of all malice in his original article." The enclosed +paper above mentioned was this:—</p> + + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">A Card</span>.</p> + +<p class="date"> +<span class="smcap">Cambridge</span>, June —, 1891.<br /> +</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I. I admit that I have no knowledge whatever of any +"extravagant pretensions" made by Dr. Abbot "as to the +originality and profundity of his still unpublished system of +philosophy."</p> + +<p>II. I admit that Dr. Abbot did not, consciously or unconsciously, +"borrow his theory of universals from Hegel," +or "sin against the most obvious demands of literary property-rights."</p> + +<p>III. I unconditionally retract my "professional warning +to the liberal-minded public against Dr. Abbot's philosophical +pretensions," acknowledge that it was groundless +and unjustifiable, and apologize to Dr. Abbot for having +published it in the "International Journal of Ethics."</p> + +<p>IV. I authorize the publication of this retraction and +apology in the next number of the "International Journal +of Ethics" without note or comment.</p></div> + +<p>In his answer of June 24, Mr. Warner informed me that +Dr. Royce had gone to Denver, and wrote: "As for the +Card which you propose, I will leave Dr. Royce to make his +own answer after he has seen it. I will say, however, for +my own part, that, while he has always been ready to disclaim +any desire to injure you personally, I think that his +opinions concerning your philosophical system and its origin +are unchanged, and he is not likely to retract them. I must +say, too, that you have put your Card in a form in which +you could not have expected Dr. Royce to sign it, and I do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> +not regard it as any step, on your part, toward a pacific +settlement, nor think your demand a reasonable one to make +of a self-respecting man."</p> + +<p>The next day, June 25, I wrote to Mr. Warner: "I ought +distinctly to deny that my rejected article is 'a libellous +paper.' Its statements are true; its motive is not malice, +but a self-evident purpose to defend myself against Dr. +Royce's libel; and, even if it should be concluded to come +under any legal definition of 'libel,' I maintain that it is +self-evidently a 'justifiable libel.' If I pay any heed to your +notice, it is merely because your notice strengthens my case.—You +do not mention when Dr. Royce will return from Denver; +but, because my purpose in enclosing to you that Card +is in good faith a pacific one, I will wait a reasonable time +for his return beyond the date I mentioned. You will not +judge the character of that Card accurately, and you cannot +give sound or salutary advice to your client, if you ignore +the libellous character of his original article. I do not see +how 'a self-respecting man' could ever have written such a +paper; but, if he did it inadvertently and not maliciously, +he would certainly do one of two things: (1) either submit +courageously, unflinchingly, and without legal protest, to the +reply it challenged and evoked, or (2) manfully retract +charges demonstrated, as these have been, to be false. +Have you really a different idea of 'self-respect'? Certainly +not, for you are an honorable gentleman. Be this as +it may, I warn you not to persist in considering that Card +as other than a pacific step on my part, if you desire to +counsel your client to his own good, or to prove yourself a +real friend to Harvard College. I say this in good faith."</p> + +<p>To this, on July 2, Mr. Warner replied: "Dr. Royce has +returned, and I have submitted to him the Card which you +have prepared. As I anticipated, Dr. Royce says that he +cannot sign it, nor can I advise him to do so. It goes far +beyond any disavowal of malice or personal hostility, and it +amounts to a retraction of the opinions which he actually +holds about your philosophical system, and that retraction +you surely cannot expect him to make. Dr. Royce has again +expressed to me his regret that the form of his article should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> +have wounded you, and he is entirely ready to disavow any +intention of wounding you."</p> + +<p>On July 11, I wrote in answer: "Most certainly I do not +expect, or wish, that Dr. Royce should disavow any philosophical +'opinions' he may hold. What I complain of is a +<i>misstatement of fact</i>, demonstrated to be such, which I believe +to have had its origin in a spirit of malicious detraction, and +to be now persevered in from no other cause. In my reply +to his article, which he himself challenged and then pusillanimously +suppressed, he has had abundant means of information. +If he now refuses to correct a misstatement which +grossly injures me, after he has been informed of the truth, +the refusal admits of but one interpretation, and throws a +satirical light on the merely private 'regret' he professes. +Inasmuch, however, as you have objected (quite unnecessarily, +as I think) to the 'form' of the Card I sent you, and inasmuch +as I intend to leave no room for doubt as to Dr. +Royce's real animus in this affair, I propose now that he +send me such a retraction and apology as you yourself shall +deem adequate, fitting, and due. In your letter of June 9, +you admitted that Dr. Royce had 'transgressed the limits of +courteous discussion' and that you 'do not defend in all respects +the tone of the review.' It is plain enough that you, +Dr. Royce's own counsel, perceive at least something improper, +something that ought to be retracted and apologized +for. You are, then, I submit, bound to do what you can to +right the wrong, which is not at all done by Dr. Royce's +profuse, <i>but private</i>, disclaimers. He professes to bear no +malice. Very well, then: let him make reparation for the +wrong he has committed. He owes it to himself, if he considers +himself a gentleman, certainly to his position in Harvard +College, to send me some paper, specifying what he +himself regrets in his own article, with authority to publish +this paper in the 'Journal of Ethics.' The Card I sent sufficiently +indicates what I think is due to me; if Dr. Royce, +in other language, covers the same ground, it will be accepted +as satisfactory. That is the very least that a gentleman +would do under the circumstances. You cannot object to +this proposal on account of its 'form'; if either you or he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> +objects to it at all, it must be on account of its substance. +Certainly you cannot affect to consider it as other than 'pacific.' +I shall await your answer to it as to the only 'pacific +step on my part' which remains possible to me."</p> + +<p>In reply to this letter, on July 24, Mr. Warner wrote: "I +forwarded your letter of July 11 to Dr. Royce, and he has +written a reply to me which I think it best to enclose as he +wrote it." In this enclosed letter, dated July 14, Dr. Royce +first re-affirmed, in substance, the truth of his false and ridiculous +accusation of plagiarism from Hegel, and then wrote as +follows: "Now as to my feeling concerning what was regrettable +in my article. I repeat once more—regrettable, in +my eyes, was the manner of the article in so far as it actually +gave unnecessary pain to Dr. Abbot. And I regard any +pain as unnecessary that may have been due, <i>not</i> to my +objectively justified opinion of Dr. Abbot's work (an opinion +which I cannot alter in the least), but to any severity of expression +that may not have been absolutely needful to give +form to this opinion itself. Dr. Abbot's reply has shown +him to be not merely alive to the strong difference of opinion +that separates us, but personally offended by an attack that +was intended to be indeed severe, but directed wholly to +matters of professional, but not of personal concern. This +attitude of Dr. Abbot's I regret, and, in so far as I am to +blame for it, I am willing to express my regret publicly."</p> + +<p>This letter of Dr. Royce is, in effect, a deliberate and unqualified +re-affirmation of every fact as alleged, and every +inference as drawn, 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 end. Nothing whatever in the substance +of his article is retracted or regretted; nothing is "regrettable" +even in its form, except vaguely, hypothetically, and +conditionally; the only thing Dr. Royce "regrets," as a +fact, is that his "objectively justified" and "intentionally +severe attack" should have given needless "personal offence" +and "unnecessary pain" to its object! This deliberate +and contemptuous refusal to recall, to modify, or +to apologize for any of the false accusations he has made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> +against me is, I submit, demonstration of the malice which +originally prompted them, and now moves him to maintain +them; nothing further is needed to make their malicious +character perfectly plain, and to prove the insincerity of his +disclaimers of malice. But Dr. Royce seriously mistakes +the nature of the effect produced by his "attack," when he +affects to consider it as the quite needless excitation of excessive +sensitiveness. If a gentleman in a crowd discovers +his nearest neighbor engaged in filching his pocket-book, and +at once hands the culprit over to the police, it would hardly +be graphic to describe his frame of mind as needless "personal +offence" or "unnecessary pain"; and the expressions +are no more graphic as to my own frame of mind, when I +discover Dr. Royce endeavoring to filch from me my reputation +in the name of Harvard University. It is not always +safe to reckon on the absence, in parties confessedly "attacked," +of all capacity for <i>moral indignation</i>, or all capacity +for moral self-defence.</p> + +<p>In reply to Mr. Warner, August 4, I wrote as follows: +"Permit me further to say, with regard to Dr. Royce's +letter, 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 accusations. These were the +chief points of my Card, and I note the refusal implied by +Dr. Royce's evasive letter. But I decline to accept his plea +of 'conscientiousness' in maintaining the accusation as to +Hegel. I might as well plead 'conscientiousness' in maintaining +an accusation that Dr. Royce assassinated Abraham +Lincoln, in face of the evidence that John Wilkes Booth +was the assassin."</p> + +<p>Here the correspondence closed. My apology for inflicting +it upon you, gentlemen, must be the necessity of showing +to you that, as I was plainly bound to do, I first exhausted +every means of private redress before laying the +matter before you publicly. Not till I had failed to obtain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> +a fair hearing in the same periodical which published Dr. +Royce's libel, and not till I had failed to obtain from Dr. +Royce himself a retraction of this libel, did I find myself +reduced to the alternatives of either acquiescing in your own +unwarrantably insinuated condemnation, or else of clearing +my assailed reputation through direct and open appeal to +you. I am no lover of strife, and least of all do I now seek +revenge. I seek only such a vindication of my good name +from unmerited calumny as you, in your own good judgment +and in your own chosen way, are now, I most respectfully +submit, bound in justice to give.</p> + + +<h3>VIII.</h3> + +<p>To you, therefore, gentlemen of the Corporation and +Board of Overseers of Harvard University, I make with all +due deference this public appeal for redress of a wrong done +to me by one of your appointees—a wrong done, not in his +private capacity as an individual (for which, of course, you +would not be justly held responsible), but publicly and explicitly +and emphatically in the name of his "profession," that +is, of his position as a professor in Harvard College. This +position is an official one, due to your appointment; and his +scandalous abuse of it renders him amenable to discipline by +you to whom he owes it. Therefore, I now formally appeal +to you for redress of these specific wrongs, committed by +Assistant Professor Josiah Royce in flagrant violation of my +rights as a citizen and as a man:—</p> + +<p>I. He has published against me, in the "International +Journal of Ethics," a libel which is as wanton and unprovoked +as it is malicious and false, and for which no motive +is even conceivable except mere professional jealousy or +rivalry in authorship.</p> + +<p>II. He has sought to give credibility and respectability +to this false and libellous publication by invoking the authority, +not of reason or truth, but of his mere "professional" +position as professor in Harvard University, thereby +artfully suggesting and insinuating to the uninformed public<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> +that Harvard University sustains him in his attack; whereas, +in conferring upon me the degree of doctor of philosophy +and in committing to me formerly the conduct of an advanced +course of philosophical instruction, Harvard University +has given emphatic testimony to the contrary.</p> + +<p>III. Repudiating his bold promise to "ask no mercy," +he has sought, with incredible cowardice and meanness, to +deprive me of all opportunity of being heard in self-defence, +<i>first</i>, by excluding from the "International Journal of Ethics" +my perfectly reasonable reply to what he himself confesses +to have been an "intentionally severe attack," and, <i>secondly</i>, +by threatening me through his counsel with legal prosecution, +if I publish it anywhere else or circulate it at all.</p> + +<p>IV. Lastly, when, after all this, in order to spare him the +mortification and disgrace of a public exposure, and in order +to prevent Harvard University from incurring any possible +discredit on account of his personal misconduct, I proposed +to him a pacific settlement of the whole affair through a +simple retraction of his calumnious accusations, and that, +too, in words of his own choosing, he made no answer but +a stubborn and contumelious re-affirmation of the original +libel.</p> + +<p>I submit that these acts of wrong constitute conduct unbecoming +a gentleman, a man of honor, or a professor in +Harvard University, and justly entitle me to redress at your +hands. This appeal has not been made hastily or without +a patient and long-protracted effort to secure justice in +other ways. Dr. Royce has succeeded hitherto, during +many months, in defeating that effort; but now the appeal +lies to those whom he cannot control, and now he must +abide your judgment. Asking neither less nor more than +justice, and believing that you will recognize justice as +Harvard's highest law,</p> + +<p>I have the honor to remain, gentlemen, in devoted loyalty +to our Alma Mater,</p> + +<p class="center"> +Your obedient servant,</p> +<p class="author">Francis E. Abbot.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cambridge</span>, Oct. 1, 1891.</p> + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> + +<p class="center"><small>TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:</small></p> + +<p><small>On <a href="#Page_5">page 5</a>, in the word Boeotia, the oe ligature has been expanded to +the two characters, oe. The sentence begins: Only a native of +Boeotia could be imposed upon by them, when the actual character....</small></p> + + + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Public Appeal for Redress to the +Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University, by Francis Ellingwood Abbot + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PUBLIC APPEAL FOR REDRESS *** + +***** This file should be named 19768-h.htm or 19768-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/7/6/19768/ + +Produced by Curtis Weyant, Diane Monico, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University + Professor Royce's Libel + +Author: Francis Ellingwood Abbot + +Release Date: November 12, 2006 [EBook #19768] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PUBLIC APPEAL FOR REDRESS *** + + + + +Produced by Curtis Weyant, Diane Monico, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by Case Western Reserve University Preservation Department +Digital Library.) + + + + + + + + + + +PROFESSOR ROYCE'S LIBEL. + + * * * * * + +A + +PUBLIC APPEAL FOR REDRESS + +TO THE + +CORPORATION AND OVERSEERS + +OF + +HARVARD UNIVERSITY. + +BY + +FRANCIS ELLINGWOOD ABBOT, PH.D. + +CAMBRIDGE, MASS. + + * * * * * + +BOSTON, MASS. + +GEO. H. ELLIS, 141 FRANKLIN STREET, 1891. + + + + +PUBLIC APPEAL. + + +TO THE PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS AND BOARD OF OVERSEERS OF HARVARD +UNIVERSITY: + +_Gentlemen_,--Believing it to be a necessary part of good citizenship +to defend one's reputation against unjustifiable attacks, and +believing you to have been unwarrantably, but not remotely, implicated +in an unjustifiable attack upon my own reputation by Assistant +Professor Josiah Royce, since his attack is made publicly, explicitly, +and emphatically on the authority of his "professional" position as +one of your agents and appointees, I respectfully apply to you for +redress of the wrong, leaving it wholly to your own wisdom and sense +of justice to decide what form such redress should take. If Dr. Royce +had not, by clear and undeniable implication, appealed to your high +sanction to sustain him in his attack,--if he had not undeniably +sought to create a widespread but false public impression that, in +making this attack, he spoke, and had a right to speak, with all the +prestige and authority of Harvard University itself,--I should not +have deemed it either necessary or becoming to appeal to you in +self-defence, or, indeed, to take any public notice whatever of an +attack otherwise unworthy of it. 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 +employer, from the agent to the principal; and it would be +disrespectful to you to doubt for a moment that, disapproving of an +attack made impliedly and yet unwarrantably in your name, you will +express your disapprobation in some just and appropriate manner. My +action in thus laying the matter publicly before you can inflict no +possible injury upon our honored and revered Alma Mater: injury to +her is not even conceivable, except on the wildly improbable +supposition of your being indifferent to a scandalous abuse of his +position by one of your assistant professors, who, with no imaginable +motive other than mere professional jealousy or rivalry of authorship, +has gone to the unheard-of length of "professionally warning the +public" against a peaceable and inoffensive private scholar, whose +published arguments he has twice tried, but twice signally failed, to +meet in an intellectual way. 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 you, as incompatible with the dignity and the +decencies of his office and with the rights of private citizens in +general, Harvard University would indeed suffer, and ought to suffer; +but it is wholly within your power to prevent the growth of so +injurious a belief. I beg leave, therefore, to submit to you the +following statement, and to solicit for it the patient and impartial +consideration which the gravity of the case requires. + + +I. + +The first number of a new quarterly periodical, the "International +Journal of Ethics," published at Philadelphia in October, 1890, +contained an ostensible review by Dr. Royce of my last book, "The Way +out of Agnosticism." I advisedly use the word "ostensible," because +the main purport and intention of the article were not at all to +criticise a philosophy, but to sully the reputation of the +philosopher, deprive him of public confidence, ridicule and +misrepresent his labors, hold him up by name to public obloquy and +contempt, destroy or lessen the circulation of his books, and, in +general, to blacken and break down his literary reputation by any and +every means, even to the extent of aspersing his personal reputation, +although there had never been the slightest personal collision. Its +bitter and invidious spirit was not in the least disguised by a few +exaggerated compliments adroitly inserted here and there: these +merely furnish the foil needed to give greater potency and efficiency +to the personal insinuations, and, like Mark Antony's compliments to +Caesar's assassins, subserved quite too many politic purposes to be +accepted as sincere. Only a native of Boeotia could be imposed upon by +them, when the actual character of the book in question was carefully +misrepresented, and when the self-evident trend, tenor, 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 opinions. + +Of course, the very largest liberty must be and should be conceded to +legitimate criticism. From this, as is well known, I never shrank in +the least; on the contrary, I court it, and desire nothing better for +my books, provided only that the criticism be pertinent, intelligent, +and fair. But misrepresentation for the purpose of detraction is not +criticism at all; and (notwithstanding numerous quotations perverted +by unfair and misleading glosses, including two misquotations quite +too useful to be accidental) this ostensible review is, from beginning +to end, nothing but misrepresentation for the purpose of detraction. +Passing over numerous minor instances, permit me to invite your +attention to three gross instances of such misrepresentation. + + +II. + +The book under review had taken the utmost pains (pages 16-39, +especially page 39) to distinguish "realism" from "idealism," and to +argue for the former in opposition to the latter, on the ground of the +absolute incompatibility of the latter with the scientific method of +investigation. It had taken the utmost pains to make the contrast +broad and deep, and to point out its far-reaching consequences by +explicitly opposing (1) scientific realism to philosophical idealism +in general, and in particular (2) constructive realism to constructive +idealism, (3) critical realism to critical idealism, (4) ethical +realism to ethical idealism, and (5) religious realism to religious +idealism. Any fair or honorable critic would recognize this contrast +and opposition between realism and idealism as the very foundation of +the work he was criticising, and would at least state it candidly, as +the foundation of his own favorable or unfavorable comments. How did +Dr. Royce treat it? He not only absolutely ignored it, not only said +nothing whatever about it, but actually took pains to put the reader +on a false scent at the start, by assuring him (without the least +discussion of this all-important point) that my philosophical +conclusions are "essentially idealistic"! + +So gross a misrepresentation as this might be charitably attributed to +critical incapacity of some sort, if it did not so very conveniently +pave the way for the second gross misrepresentation which was to +follow: namely, that the theory actually propounded in my book had +been, in fact, "_appropriated" and "borrowed" from an idealist_! The +immense utility of misrepresenting my system at the start as +"essentially idealistic" lay in the fact that, by adopting this +stratagem, Dr. Royce could escape altogether the formidable necessity +of _first arguing the main question of idealism versus realism_. +Secretly conscious of his own inability to handle that question, to +refute my "Soliloquy of the Self-Consistent Idealist," or to overthrow +my demonstration that consistent idealism leads logically to hopeless +absurdity at last, Dr. Royce found it infinitely easier to deceive his +uninformed readers by a bold assertion that I myself am an idealist at +bottom. This assertion, swallowed without suspicion of its absolute +untruth, would render it plausible and quite credible to assert, next, +that I had actually "appropriated" my philosophy from a greater +idealist than myself. + +For the only substantial criticism of the book made by Dr. Royce is +that I "borrowed" my whole theory of universals from +Hegel--"unconsciously," he has the caution to say; 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 work. It would be inopportune and +discourteous to weary you with philosophical discussions. I exposed +the amazing absurdity of Dr. Royce's accusation of plagiarism in the +reply to his article which, as appears below, Dr. Royce himself +anxiously suppressed, and which I should now submit to you, if he had +not at last taken fright and served upon me a legal protest against +its circulation. But, to any well-educated man, such an accusation as +this refutes itself. It would be just as reasonable, just as +plausible, to accuse Darwin of having borrowed his theory of natural +selection from Agassiz, or Daniel Webster of having borrowed his +theory of the inseparable Union from John C. Calhoun, or ex-President +Cleveland of having borrowed his message on tariff reform from the +Home Market Club, as to accuse me of having borrowed my theory of +universals from Hegel. Hegel's theory of universals is divided from +mine by the whole vast chasm between realism and idealism. The two +theories contradict each other absolutely, uncompromisingly, +irreconcilably: Hegel's is a theory of "absolute idealism" or "pure +thought" (_reines Denken_), that is, of _thought absolutely +independent of experience_, while mine is a theory of "scientific +realism," that is, of _thought absolutely dependent upon experience._ +It is quite immaterial here which theory is the true one; the only +point involved at present is that the two theories flatly contradict +each other, and that it is self-evidently impossible that either +_could_ be "borrowed," consciously or unconsciously, from the other. +If Dr. Royce had ever done any hard thinking on the theory of +universals, or if he had the slightest comprehension of the problems +it involves, he would never have been so rash as to charge me with +"borrowing" my theory from Hegel, and thus to commit himself +irrevocably to a defence of the absurd; but eagerness to accuse +another has betrayed him into a position whence it is impossible for +him to escape with honor. Solely by misdescribing my philosophy as +"essentially idealistic" when it openly and constantly and +emphatically avows itself to be essentially realistic, could Dr. Royce +give the faintest color of plausibility to his monstrous and +supremely ridiculous accusation of plagiarism; 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 world. These gross +misrepresentations, however, he did not hesitate to make, since they +were necessary in order to pave the way to a third and still grosser +misrepresentation on which he apparently had set his heart: namely, +that, after borrowing the whole substance of my philosophy from Hegel, +I have been guilty of making "vast and extravagant pretensions" as to +my own "novelty," "originality," and "profundity," not only with +regard to my published books, but also with regard to my "still +unpublished system of philosophy." His words are these:-- + +"Of novelty, good or bad, the book contains, indeed, despite its vast +pretensions, hardly a sign." + +"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 philosophy, to give the reader some hint of what +so far appears to be the nature of our author's contributions to +philosophical reflection." + +Precisely what have been these alleged "pretensions"? Dr. Royce cites +only three instances. + +I. He first garbles a sentence in the prefatory Note to "The Way out +of Agnosticism," by quoting only one phrase from it. The sentence in +full is this: "By a wholly new line of reasoning, drawn exclusively +from those sources [science and philosophy], this book aims to show +that, in order to refute agnosticism and establish enlightened theism, +nothing is now necessary but to philosophize that very scientific +method which agnosticism barbarously misunderstands and misuses." +There is no "pretension" whatever in these words, except that the +general "line of reasoning" set forth in the book is, _as a whole_, +different from that of other books. If not, why publish it? Or, +without the same cause, why publish any book? I see no reason to +recall or to modify this perfectly true statement; Dr. Royce, at +least, has shown none. The "novelty" of the book lies in its very +attempt to evolve philosophy as a whole out of the scientific method +itself, as "observation, hypothesis, and experimental verification," +by developing the theory of universals which is implicit in that +purely experiential method; and Dr. Royce does not even try to prove +that Hegel, or anybody else, has ever made just such an attempt as +that. Unless there can be shown somewhere a _parallel attempt_, the +statement is as undeniably true as it is certainly unpretentious. + +II. Next, Dr. Royce extracts these sentences from the body of the book +(I supply in brackets words which he omitted): "The first great task +of philosophy is to lay deep and solid foundations for the expansion +[and ideal perfection] of human knowledge in a bold, new, and true +theory of universals. For so-called modern philosophy rests +complacently in a theory of universals which is thoroughly mediaeval or +antiquated." What personal pretension, even of the mildest sort, can +be conceived to lurk in these innocent words? I did not say that I +have succeeded in performing that "task"; I repeat now what I have +often said and what I meant then; namely, that modern science has +unawares performed it already, that I have faithfully tried to +formulate and further apply what science has done, and that I +respectfully submit the result (so far as already published), not to +such critics as Dr. Royce, but to able, learned, and magnanimous +students of philosophy everywhere. + +III. Lastly, though employing quotation marks so as to evade a charge +of formal misquotation, he perverts and effectually misquotes a +sentence of the book in a way which makes it appear exactly what it is +not,--"pretentious." I had said at the end of my own book (page 75): +"_Its aim has been to show_ the way out of agnosticism into the +sunlight of the predestined philosophy of science." This expression is +perfectly in harmony with the prefatory Note, which says that "_this +book aims to show_ that, in order to refute agnosticism and establish +enlightened theism, nothing is now necessary but to philosophize that +very scientific method which agnosticism barbarously misunderstands +and misuses," and which immediately adds: "_Of the success of the +perhaps unwise attempt to show this in so small a compass, the +educated public must be the judge._" Most certainly, there is no +"pretension" in this modest and carefully guarded avowal of the simple +aim of my book. But Dr. Royce twists this modest avowal into a +barefaced boast, and injuriously misquotes me to his own readers thus: +"At the conclusion of the book, we learn that _we have been shown_ +'the way out of agnosticism into the sunlight of the predestined +philosophy of science.'" Gentlemen, I request you to compare +thoughtfully the expressions which I have here italicized, and then +decide for yourselves whether this injurious misquotation is purely +accidental, or, in view of Dr. Royce's purpose of proving me guilty of +"vast pretensions," quite too useful to be purely accidental. + +IV. But Dr. Royce does not content himself with quoting or misquoting +what I have published, for the self-evident reason that what I have +published is not sufficiently "pretentious" for his purpose. +Disinterested anxiety for the public welfare, and tender sorrow over +the "harm to careful inquiry" which my book is doing by "getting +influence over immature or imperfectly trained minds," constrain him +to accuse me of "frequently making of late extravagant pretensions as +to the originality and profundity" of my "still unpublished system of +philosophy." + +Precisely what have been these "extravagant pretensions"? Simply +these:-- + +In the preface to "Scientific Theism," I said of that book: "It is a +mere _resume_ of a small portion of a comprehensive philosophical +system, so far as I have been able to work it out under most +distracting, discouraging, and unpropitious circumstances of many +years; and for this reason I must beg some indulgence for the +unavoidable incompleteness of my work." + +Enumerating some reasons why I hesitated to begin the series of papers +afterwards published as "The Way out of Agnosticism," I said, in the +first of these papers: "First and foremost, perhaps, is the fact that, +although the ground-plan of this theory is already thoroughly matured, +the literary execution of it is as yet scarcely even begun, and from +want of opportunity may never be completed; and it seems almost absurd +to present the abridgment of a work which does not yet exist to be +abridged." + +Finally, in an address printed in the "Unitarian Review" for December, +1889, I said: "Without advancing any personal claim whatever, permit +me to take advantage of your indulgent kindness, and to make here the +first public confession of certain painfully matured results of thirty +years' thinking, which, in the momentous and arduous enterprise of +developing a scientific theology out of the scientific method itself, +appear to be principles of cosmical import.... Perhaps I can make them +intelligible, as a contribution to that 'Unitary Science' which the +great Agassiz foresaw and foretold." In a postscript to this address I +added: "For fuller support of the position taken above, I am +constrained to refer ... to a large treatise, now in process of +preparation, 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 itself." + +What remotest allusion to my own "originality" is contained in these +passages, or what remotest allusion to my own "profundity"? What +"pretension" of any sort is here made, whether "extravagant" or +moderate? Yet this is the only actual evidence, _and the whole of it_, +on which Dr. Royce dares to accuse me of "frequently making of late +extravagant pretensions as to the originality and profundity of my +still unpublished system of philosophy"! The pure absurdity of such an +accusation reveals itself in the very statement of it. Dr. Royce is +referring here, be it understood, not to my published books, but to my +"unpublished system of philosophy." _How does he know anything about +it?_ I certainly have never shown him my unpublished manuscript, and +beyond those published allusions to it he possesses absolutely no +means whatever of knowing anything about its contents. Nothing, +surely, except full and exact knowledge, derived from careful and +patient personal examination of that manuscript, could possibly be a +ground of just judgment of its character. How, then, in absolute +ignorance of its character and contents, could any fair man hazard any +public verdict upon it? Yet Dr. Royce not only accuses me of making +"pretensions" about it which I never made, but dares to characterize +them as "extravagant," when, _for all he knows_, they might (if made) +fall far short of the truth. Whether in this case the evidence +supports the accusation, 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 appointees,--these, +gentlemen, are questions for you yourselves to decide. + + +III. + +These three connected and logically affiliated _misstatements of +fact_--namely, (1) that my philosophy is "essentially idealistic," (2) +that it has been "appropriated" and "unconsciously borrowed" from the +idealist Hegel, and (3) 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 misrepresentation, as methodical +and coherent as it is unscrupulous. It is not "fair criticism"; it is +not "criticism" at all; and I do not hesitate to characterize it +deliberately as a disgrace both to Harvard University and to American +scholarship. + +Yet, gross and studied and systematic as this misrepresentation is, I +should have passed it over in silence, precisely as I did pass over a +similar attack by Dr. Royce on my earlier book in "Science" for April +9, 1886, were it not that, perhaps emboldened by former impunity, he +now makes his misrepresentations culminate in the perpetration of a +literary outrage, to which, I am persuaded, no parallel can be found +in the history of polite literature. It is clear that forbearance must +have somewhere its limit. The commands of self-respect and of civic +conscience, 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 person, must at last set a bound to forbearance itself, and +compel to self-defence. These are the reasons which, after patient +exhaustion of every milder means of redress, have moved me to this +public appeal. + +Dr. Royce's misstatements of fact, so elaborately fashioned and so +ingeniously mortised together, were merely his foundation for a +deliberate and formal "professional warning to the liberal-minded +public" against my alleged "philosophical pretensions." 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 Theism,'" +printed as a publishers' advertisement of my former book at the end of +the book which lay before him. These "Press Notices," as usual, +contain numerous extracts from eulogistic reviews, in which, curiously +enough, these very words, "original" and "profound," or their +equivalents, occur with sufficient frequency to explain Dr. Royce's +choleric unhappiness. For instance, Dr. James Freeman Clarke wrote in +the "Unitarian Review": "If every position taken by Dr. Abbot cannot +be maintained, his book remains an original contribution to philosophy +of a high order and of great value"; M. Renouvier, in "La Critique +Philosophique," classed the book among "de remarquables efforts de +construction metaphysique et morale dus a des penseurs independants et +profonds"; and M. Carrau, in explaining why he added to his critical +history of "Religious Philosophy in England" a chapter of twenty pages +on my own system, actually introduced both of the words which, when +thus applied, jar so painfully on Dr. Royce's nerves: "La pensee de M. +Abbot m'a paru assez profonde et assez originale pour meriter d'etre +reproduite litteralement." (La Philosophie Religieuse en Angleterre. +Par Ludovic Carrau, Directeur des Conferences de philosophie a la +Faculte des lettres de Paris. Paris, 1888.) These extracts, be it +remembered, were all printed at the end of the book which Dr. Royce +was reviewing. Now he had an undoubted right to think and to say that +such encomiums as these on my work were silly, extravagant, +preposterous, and totally undeserved; but _to take them out of the +mouth of others and put them into mine was wilful and deliberate +calumny_. Systematic and calumnious misrepresentation is the sole +foundation of the "professional warning" in which Dr. Royce's +ostensible review culminates, and which is too extraordinary not to be +quoted here in full:-- + +"And so, finally, after this somewhat detailed study of Dr. Abbot's +little book, I feel constrained to repeat my judgment as above. +Results in philosophy are one thing; a careful way of thinking is +another. Babes and sucklings often get very magnificent results. It is +not the office of philosophy to outdo the babes and sucklings at their +own business of receiving revelations. It is the office of philosophy +to undertake a serious scrutiny of the presuppositions of human +belief. Hence the importance of the careful way of thinking in +philosophy. But Dr. Abbot's way is not careful, is not novel, and, +when thus set forth to the people as new and bold and American, it is +likely to do precisely as much harm to careful inquiry as it gets +influence over immature or imperfectly trained minds. I venture, +therefore, to speak plainly, by way of a professional warning to the +liberal-minded public concerning Dr. Abbot's philosophical +pretensions. And my warning takes the form of saying that, if people +are to think in this confused way, unconsciously borrowing from a +great speculator like Hegel, and then depriving the borrowed +conception of the peculiar subtlety of statement that made it useful +in its place,--and if we readers are for our part to accept such +scholasticism as is found in Dr. Abbot's concluding sections as at all +resembling philosophy,--then it were far better for the world that no +reflective thinking whatever should be done. If we can't improve on +what God has already put into the mouth of the babes and sucklings, +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 us." + +Gentlemen, I deny sweepingly the whole groundwork of cunning and +amazing misrepresentation on which this unparalleled tirade is +founded. + +I. I deny that my philosophy is "essentially idealistic," or that any +"careful" or conscientious scholar could possibly affirm it to be +such. + +II. I deny that I "borrowed" my realistic theory of universals from +the idealist, Hegel, whether consciously or unconsciously. The charge +is unspeakably silly. Realism and idealism contradict each other more +absolutely than protectionism and free-trade. + +III. I deny that I ever made the "philosophical pretensions" which Dr. +Royce calumniously imputes to me. But, if I had made pretensions as +high as the Himalayas, I deny his authority to post me publicly--to +act as policeman in the republic of letters and to collar me on that +account. A college professor who thus mistakes his academic gown for +the policeman's uniform, and dares to use his private walking-stick +for the policeman's bludgeon, is likely to find himself suddenly +prostrated by a return blow, arrested for assault and battery, and +unceremoniously hustled off into a cell, by the officer whose function +he has injudiciously aped without waiting for the tiresome but quite +indispensable little preliminary of first securing a regular +commission. + +IV. Most of all, I deny Dr. Royce's self-assumed right to club every +philosopher whose reasoning he can neither refute nor understand. I +deny, in general, that any Harvard professor has the right to +fulminate a "professional warning" _against anybody_; and, in +particular, that you, gentlemen, ever voted or intended to invest Dr. +Royce with that right. He himself now publicly puts forth a worse than +"extravagant pretension" when he arrogates to himself this right of +literary outrage. He was not appointed professor by you for any such +unseemly purpose. To arrogate to himself a senseless "professional" +superiority over all non-"professional" authors, to the insufferable +extent of publicly posting and placarding them for a mere difference +of opinion, is, from a moral point of view, scandalously to abuse his +academical position, to compromise the dignity of Harvard University, +to draw down universal contempt upon the "profession" which he +prostitutes to the uses of mere professional jealousy or literary +rivalry, and to degrade the honorable office of professor in the eyes +of all who understand that a weak argument is not strengthened, and a +false accusation is not justified, by throwing "professional warnings" +as a make-weight into the scales of reason. I affirm emphatically that +no professor has a moral right to treat anybody with this undisguised +"insolence of office," or to use any weapon but reason in order to put +down what he conceives to be errors in philosophy. In the present +case, I deny that Dr. Royce has any better or stronger claim than +myself to speak "professionally" on philosophical questions. The very +book against which he presumes to warn the public "professionally" is +founded upon lectures which I myself "professionally" delivered, not +only from Dr. Royce's own desk and to Dr. Royce's own college class, +but as a substitute for Dr. Royce himself, at the request and by the +appointment of his own superiors, the Corporation and Overseers of his +own University; and the singular impropriety (to use no stronger word) +of his "professional warning" will be apparent to every one in the +light of that fact. + + +IV. + +So far I have treated Dr. Royce's attack solely from the literary and +ethical points of view. The legal point of view must now be +considered. + +Plagiarism, conscious or unconscious, is a very grave and serious +charge to bring against an author, and one which may entail upon him, +not only great damage to his literary reputation, but also social +disgrace and pecuniary loss. If proved, or even if widely believed +without proof, it cannot but ruin his literary career and destroy the +marketable value of his books; and it matters little, so far as these +practical results are concerned, whether the plagiarism attributed to +him is conscious or unconscious. In an able editorial article on "Law +and Theft," published in the New York "Nation" of Feb. 12, 1891, it is +forcibly said: "Authors or writers who do this [borrowing other men's +ideas] a good deal, undoubtedly incur discredit by it with their +fellows and the general public. It greatly damages a writer's fame to +be rightfully accused of want of originality, or of imitation, or of +getting materials at second hand. But no one has ever proposed to +punish or restrain this sort of misappropriation by law. No one has +ever contended for the infliction on the purloiners of other men's +ideas of any penalty but ridicule or disgrace." Whoever _wrongfully_ +accuses an author of plagiarism, then, holds him up _undeservedly_ to +"discredit, ridicule, or disgrace," and "slanders his title" to the +product of his own brain. This is contrary to the law. Yet this is +precisely what Dr. Royce has done in accusing me _falsely_, and as a +_"certain" matter of fact_, of borrowing my theory of universals from +Hegel. His accusation is made with as many sneers and as much insult +as could well be compressed into the space:-- + +"Dr. Abbot is hopelessly unhistorical in his consciousness. 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 use, in +expounding it, one of the most characteristic and familiar of Hegel's +technical terms, namely, 'concrete,' in that sense in which it is +applied to the objective and universal 'genus.' Dr. Abbot's +appropriation of Hegel's peculiar terminology comes ill indeed from +one who talks," _etc._ "This I say not to defend Hegel, for whose +elaborate theory of universals I hold in no wise a brief, but simply +in the cause of literary property-rights. When we plough with another +man's heifer, however unconscious we are of our appropriation, however +sincerely we seem to remember that we alone raised her from her +earliest calfhood, it is yet in vain, after all, that we put our brand +on her, or call her 'American.'... Now Hegel's whole theory may be +false; but what is certain is that Dr. Abbot, who has all his life +been working in an atmosphere where Hegelian ideas were more or less +infectious, has derived his whole theory of universals, so far as he +has yet revealed it with any coherency, from Hegelian sources, and +even now cannot suggest any better terminology than Hegel's for an +important portion of the doctrine. Yet in the volume before us we find +all this pretentious speech of an 'American' theory, and discover our +author wholly unaware that he is sinning against the most obvious +demands of literary property-rights." + +Passing over the self-evident point that whoever is "_unaware_ that he +is sinning" cannot be "sinning" at all, since "sinning" consists in +_being aware_ of the wrong we do,--and, consequently, that Dr. Royce +comes here as near as he dares to a direct insinuation that my +plagiarism is conscious, and not "unconscious,"--let me call your +attention to the more important point, that Dr. Royce affirms my +conscious or unconscious theft from Hegel as a matter of _"certain" +fact_, not merely as a matter of _probable inference_. Yet the only +evidence he has to offer in support of this "certainty" is (1) that I +use the word "concrete" in the same sense as Hegel, and (2) that I +have worked all my life in a Hegelian "atmosphere." These two points +cover all the grounds of his accusation. Permit me very briefly to +examine them. + +(1) The word "concrete" is not in the least a technical term +copyrighted by Hegel, nor is it his trademark. It is one of the +commonest of words, and free to all. 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 word? Even this poor and +solitary little premise slips out of Dr. Royce's clutch, for Hegel's +use of the word is _contradictory to mine_! Hegel has to put upon the +word "concrete" a very unusual, strained, and artificial sense, in +order to cover up the weakest point of his idealistic system. He +explains it, however, frankly, clearly, and unambiguously: "The +Concept or Notion (_Begriff_) may be always called 'abstract,' if the +term 'concrete' must be limited to the mere concrete of sensation and +immediate perception; the Notion as such cannot be grasped by the +hands, and, when we deal with it, eyes and ears are out of the +question. Yet, as was said before, the Notion is the only true +concrete." (_Encyklopaedie, Werke_, VI. 316.) Again: "Just as little is +the sensuous-concrete of Intuition a rational-concrete of the Idea." +(_Ibid., Werke_, VI. 404.) A score of similar passages can easily be +cited. That is to say, Hegel avowedly excludes from his _idealistic_ +theory of universals the "concrete" of sensation, perception, +intuition, or _real experience_, and admits into it only the +"concrete" of _pure or non-empirical thought_; while I avowedly +exclude from my _realistic_ theory of universals the "concrete" of +_pure thought_, and admit into it only the "concrete" of _real +experience_. Hegel's "concrete" cannot be seen, heard, or touched; +while to me nothing which cannot be seen, heard, or touched is +"concrete" at all. A mere common school education is quite sufficient +for comprehension of the contradictoriness of these two uses of the +word. Yet, in order to found a malicious charge of plagiarism, Dr. +Royce has the hardihood to assure the uninformed general public that +Hegel and I use the word "concrete" in one and the same sense! + +(2) The assertion that I have lived all my life in a Hegelian +"atmosphere" I can only meet with a short, sharp, and indignant +denial. I know of no such "atmosphere" in all America; if it anywhere +exists, I certainly never lived, moved, or worked in it. The statement +is a gratuitous, impertinent, and _totally false allegation of fact_, +wholly outside of my book and its contents, and is used in this +connection solely to feather an arrow shot at my reputation; it is a +pure invention, a manufactured assertion which is absolutely without +foundation, and, when thus artfully thrown out with apparent +artlessness (_ars celare artem_) as itself foundation for a false and +malicious charge of plagiarism, it becomes fabrication of evidence for +the purpose of defamation. The less said about such an offence as +that, the better for Dr. Royce, and I spare him the comment it +deserves. + +Now, while it might be "fair criticism" _to infer_ my plagiarism from +Hegel, if there were only some reasonable or even merely plausible +evidence to support the inference (which I have just proved not to be +the case), it is incontestable that _to affirm_ this plagiarism, as a +"certain" matter of fact, without any reasonable evidence at all, is +not that "fair criticism" which the law justly allows, but, on the +contrary, a totally unjustifiable libel. In accusing me personally of +plagiarism on no reasonable grounds whatever, as I have just +unanswerably proved him to have done, 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 (namely, the false +allegation that I have worked all my life in a Hegelian "atmosphere"), +Dr. Royce has beyond all controversy transgressed the legally defined +limits of "fair criticism," and become a libeller. + +But this is by no means all. If the bat-like accusation of an +"unconscious", yet "sinning" (or sinful) plagiarism hovers ambiguously +between attacking my literary reputation and attacking my moral +character, there is no such ambiguity hanging about the accusation of +"extravagant pretensions as to the originality and profundity of my +still unpublished system of philosophy." A decent modesty, a +self-respectful reserve, a manly humility in presence of the +unattainable ideal of either moral or intellectual perfection, a +speechless reverence in the presence of either infinite goodness or +infinite truth,--these are virtues which belong to the very warp and +woof of all noble, elevated, and justly estimable character; and +wherever their absence is conspicuously shown, there is just ground +for moral condemnation and the contempt of mankind. Dr. Royce has not +scrupled to accuse me of making, not only "pretensions," but even +"extravagant pretensions," which are absolutely incompatible with the +possession of these beautiful and essential virtues, and thereby to +hold me up to universal contempt and derision. He has done this, by +the very terms of his accusation, absolutely and confessedly _without +cause_; for the system of philosophy which is "unpublished" to others +is no less "unpublished" to him, and an accusation thus made +confessedly without any knowledge of its truth is, on the very face +of it, an accusation which is as malicious as it is groundless. To +make such a self-proved and self-condemned accusation as this is, I +submit, to be guilty of libel with no ordinary degree of culpability. + +But the libel of which I have greatest cause to complain is not +confined to exceptional or isolated expressions. These might +charitably be explained as mere momentary ebullitions of pettishness +or spleen, and pardonable as merely faults of temper in a criticism +which was in the main conscientious and fair. But the libel of which I +complain most of all is one that constitutes the entire ground and +framework of the article _as a whole_. Every part of it is +methodically spun and interwoven with every other part, in such a way +as to make it one seamless tissue of libel from beginning to end. This +I say in full consciousness of the interspersed occasional +compliments, since these have only the effect of disguising the +libellous intent of the whole from a simple-minded or careless reader, +and since they subserve the purpose of furnishing to the writer a +plausible and ready-made defence of his libel against a foreseen +protest. Compliments to eke out a libel are merely insults in +masquerade. The libellous plan of the article as a whole is shown in +the _regular system_ of gross and studied misrepresentation, of +logically connected and nicely dovetailed misstatements of facts, +which I exposed at the outset. 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 realism, and to a defence of the latter +against the former, as the only possible method by which a spiritual +theism can be intellectually, and therefore successfully, defended in +this age of science. Only one who has read and digested the two books +can fully appreciate the enormity and the unscrupulousness of the +initial misrepresentation, slipped in, as it were, quite casually, and +without any argument, in the apparently incidental and +matter-of-course statement that my "conclusion" is "essentially +idealistic." It is _not_ "idealistic" at all, but as radically +realistic as the premises themselves; and no professor of philosophy +could ever have called it "idealistic" by a mere slip of the tongue or +pen. The intelligent origin of this misrepresentation is clearly +enough suggested in the use to which it is at once put: namely, to +render plausible the otherwise ridiculous charge that my theory of +universals was "borrowed" from an idealist. Next, the same origin is +more than suggested by the use to which these two misrepresentations +together are put: namely, to show that any claim of "novelty" for a +merely "borrowed" philosophy is a "vast" and "extravagant pretension." +Lastly, the same origin is inductively and conclusively proved, when +these three inter-linked misrepresentations, as a whole, are made the +general foundation for a brutal "professional warning" to the public +at large against my "philosophical pretensions" in general. Not one of +these fundamental positions of Dr. Royce's article is a fact,--least +of all, an "admitted fact"; on the contrary, each of them is +energetically and indignantly denied. 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 falsified, and then used to the injury of my literary +and personal reputation. + +It may, I trust, be permitted to me here to show clearly what the law +is, as applicable to the case in hand, by a few pertinent citations. + +"The critic must confine himself to criticism, and not make it the +veil for personal censure, nor allow himself to run into reckless and +unfair attacks, merely from the love of exercising his power of +denunciation. Criticism and comment on well-known and admitted facts +are very different things from the assertion of unsubstantiated facts. +A fair and _bona fide_ comment on a matter of public interest is an +excuse of what would otherwise be a defamatory publication. The +statement of this rule assumes the matters of fact commented on to be +somehow ascertained. It does not mean that a man may invent facts, and +comment on the facts so invented in what would be a fair and _bona +fide_ manner, on the supposition that the facts were true. If the +facts as a comment upon which the publication is sought to be excused +do not exist, the foundation fails.... The distinction cannot be too +clearly borne in mind between comment or criticism and allegations of +fact.... To state matters which are libellous is not comment or +criticism." (_Newell on Defamation, Slander, and Libel_, p. 568.) +Applying this to the case in hand: the "admitted facts" are these: (1) +my philosophy is realistic from beginning to end; (2) I have not +worked all my life, nor any part of my life, in a Hegelian +"atmosphere"; (3) I did not borrow my theory of universals from Hegel; +(4) I have made no vast or extravagant pretensions whatever as to my +own philosophy. But Dr. Royce invents and states the exact opposite of +all these facts, and then bases on these purely invented facts most +undeserved "personal censure" and most "reckless and unfair attacks." +Therefore, his article is a libel in its whole groundwork and +essential spirit. + +"If a person, under pretence of criticising a literary work, defames +the private character of the author, and, instead of writing in the +spirit and for the purpose of fair and candid discussion, travels into +collateral matter, and introduces facts not stated in the work, +accompanied with injurious comment upon them, such person is a +libeller, and liable to an action." (_Broom's Legal Maxims_, p. 320.) +Applying this to the case in hand: Dr. Royce "defames" my "private +character," when he accuses me of "frequently" indulging in +"extravagant pretensions"; he "travels into collateral matter," when +he alludes at all to my unpublished manuscript; he "introduces facts +not stated in the work, accompanied with injurious comment upon them," +when he alludes to this unpublished manuscript for the sole purpose of +saying (untruthfully) that I "frequently make, of late, extravagant +pretensions as to its originality and profundity," and again when he +says that I have worked all my life in a Hegelian "atmosphere," for +the sole purpose of founding upon this false statement a false charge +of plagiarism. + +In the "Griffith Gaunt" case, Judge Clerke said in his charge to the +jury: "The interests of literature and science require that the +productions of authors shall be subject to fair criticism,--that even +some animadversion may be permitted, unless it appears that the +critic, under the pretext of reviewing his book, takes an opportunity +of attacking the character of the author, and of holding him up as an +object of ridicule, hatred, or contempt. In other words, the critic +may say what he pleases of the literary merits or demerits of the +published production of an author; but, with respect to his personal +rights relating to his reputation, the critic has no more privilege +than any other person not assuming the business of criticism." +(_Abbott's Practice Reports_, New Series, VI. 18.) Applying this to +the case in hand: Dr. Royce, "under the pretext of reviewing" my +"book, takes an opportunity of attacking the author, and of holding +him up as an object of ridicule and contempt," if ridicule and +contempt are the deservedly universal punishment of the plagiarist and +the braggart. To so unprecedented a length has he carried this attack, +as deliberately and formally, in the name of his "profession," and +therefore, by necessary implication, in the name of Harvard University +itself, to "warn the liberal-minded public" against me, _precisely as +one warns the general public against an impostor soliciting alms under +false pretences_! This is a flagrant violation of my "personal rights +relating to my reputation"; and, therefore, according to the above +judicial ruling of an American court, Dr. Royce is guilty of wanton +and unprovoked libel against one who never injured him in the +slightest degree. + +In the case of Strauss _versus_ Francis, Chief Justice Cockburn said: +"The question is as to the article as a whole.... The verdict must be +upon the article as a whole, and whether, as a whole, it is to be +deemed malicious and libellous." (_Foster and Finlason's Reports_, IV. +1107.) Applying this to the case in hand: Dr. Royce's ostensible +review presents its darkest, most odious, and most libellous aspect to +him who most thoroughly, penetratingly, and comprehensively studies +out the inner structure of its argument _as a whole_, and who most +intelligently compares it with the book which it falsely professes to +criticise fairly. Allow me to quote here a passage from page 39 of +"the Way out of Agnosticism" in order simply to show you how +uncompromisingly this passage, which sums up the entire results of the +first half of the book and luminously forecasts the entire conclusion +of the whole, plants my system on the side of Realism:-- + +"The scientific, modern, or American theory of universals, which +results necessarily from analysis of the scientific method, is +Scientific Realism, as opposed to Philosophical Idealism; and it +determines the subdivision of scientific philosophy into its three +great departments, the theories of Being, of Knowing, and of Doing. +The scientific theory of Being results from analysis of the +Genus-in-itself, and constitutes ontology or Constructive Realism, as +opposed to all forms of Constructive Idealism. The scientific theory +of Knowledge results from analysis of the Concept, and constitutes +psychology or Critical Realism, as opposed to all forms of +transcendental or Critical Idealism. The scientific theory of Conduct +results from analysis of the Word, and constitutes anthroponomy +(including ethics, politics, and art in its widest sense), sociology, +or Ethical Realism, as opposed to all forms of Ethical Idealism. The +scientific theory of the universe, as the absolute union of Being, +Knowing, and Doing in the One and All, results from comprehension of +these three theories in complete organic unity, and constitutes +organic philosophy, scientific theology, or Religious Realism, as +opposed to all forms of Religious Idealism." + +I submit this long extract to you, gentlemen, not to bore you with +metaphysical speculations, but simply to enable you, as educated men +who understand the meaning of plain and straightforward English on any +subject, to follow the twistings and turnings of an extraordinarily +sinuous and disingenuous intellect, and intelligently to decide a +question which needs here to be settled clearly in your own minds: +could any competent professor of philosophy, undertaking to give, as a +fair critic, a truthful account to the public of the contents of my +book, read that passage, and then, omitting all reference to the +contrast there and everywhere made between realism and idealism, +honestly tell that public, without any further information at all on +the subject, that the "conclusion" of my philosophy is "essentially +idealistic"? + +Yet that is the conscienceless misrepresentation with which Dr. Royce +prepares the way for all that is to follow, deceives the reader at the +very outset, predisposes him to believe the preposterous charge that I +"appropriated" my main theory from the great idealist Hegel, arouses +his indignation or mirth, as the case may be, at my alleged strutting +about in borrowed plumes, and so leads him at last to applaud the +righteous castigation of the "professional warning," by which the +peacock-feathers are made to fly in all directions and I myself am +scourged back among my brother-jackdaws, the impostors, charlatans, +and quacks of myriad kinds. This is the purport and the spirit of Dr. +Royce's ostensible review, "_as a whole_." Is it the "fair criticism" +which the law allows? Or is it the "libel" which the law condemns? Is +it the fair and critical judgment which your silence shall sanction, +as Harvard's official verdict on my work? Or is it the libellous and +vulgar abuse which your speech shall rebuke, as shaming Harvard more +than me by bringing the ethics and manners of the literary Bedouin +into the professor's chair? + + +V. + +But, gentlemen, the gravest aspect of Dr. Royce's ostensible review +remains still to be considered. Is libel--vulgar, violent, and brutal +libel--the means by which Harvard University, represented by one of +her professors of philosophy who openly claims to address the general +public in the name of his office and of her, proposes to realize the +lofty ideal of her President, and make herself the "philosophical +pioneer" for each new generation in the pursuit of truth? Is this the +welcome which she accords to serious, dignified, and not unscholarly +works, giving the results, however partially and imperfectly wrought +out, of patient and independent reflection for more than thirty years +on the highest problems of human life and thought? 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 ideal? +Is this the attitude in which she confronts the great questions of the +age, and the spirit which she aims to foster in her young men? I do +not believe it; but you alone, gentlemen, can give the authoritative +answer to such queries. + +When civil service reformers plead the urgent necessity of political +reform, they are irrelevantly charged by the adherents of the spoils +system with being "hypocrites and pharisees." Precisely so, when I +plead the urgent necessity of philosophical reform, I am irrelevantly +charged by Dr. Royce, in effect, with being a false pretender, a +plagiarist, and an impostor. The charge is just as true in one case as +in the other. But, be the charge true or untrue, the attention of keen +and candid minds is not to be diverted by this perfectly transparent +device from the main point of reform. + +What is this needed philosophical reform? + +Briefly, _to substitute the scientific method for the idealistic +method in philosophy_, as the only possible means, in this critical +and sceptical age, of making ethics and religion so reasonable as to +command the continued allegiance of reasonable minds. Unphilosophized +science conceives the universe as nothing but a Machine-World; and in +this conception there is no room for any Ethical Ideal. Unscientific +philosophy conceives the universe as nothing but a Thought-World; and +in this conception there is no room for any Mechanical Real. On the +possibility of developing a scientific philosophy out of the +scientific method itself must depend at last the only possibility, for +reasonable men, of believing equally in the real principles of +mechanical science and in the ideal principles of ethical science. +To-day the greatest obstacle to such a reasonable belief is the +"philosophical idealism" which directly contradicts it; and the +greatest reform needed in modern thought, above all in the theory of +ethics, is the substitution of the scientific method for the +idealistic method in philosophy itself. + +The cause of philosophical reform, indeed, cannot be long delayed by +any Philistinism in those who, by their professional position, ought +to be its most ardent friends. The method of science is destined to +revolutionize philosophy--to modernize it by founding it anew upon a +thoroughly realistic and scientific theory of universals. The net +result of all the physical sciences thus far, the one fixed result to +which all their other results steadily point with increasingly evident +convergence, is that _the already known constitution of the real +universe is that of the Machine_. This universal fixed result, and not +mere individual self-consciousness, is the necessary and only +beginning-point of a constructive philosophy of Nature; for, where the +special sciences end, there universal philosophy must begin. It is the +task of philosophy to-day to show that the unquestionably mechanical +constitution of the universe, instead of being the ultimate boundary +of scientific investigation, is merely the starting-point in a new +series of investigations, no less scientific than those of physical +science, but far more profound; and to show that the mechanical +constitution itself, when deeply studied and comprehended, necessarily +involves the organic and the personal constitutions. In this way, and +I believe in no other way, can it be proved to the satisfaction of the +modern intelligence that the Mechanical Real itself, at bottom, +includes the Ethical Ideal--that the Moral Law, the Divine Ideal +itself, is the innermost Fact of Nature. I have made, and make now, +not the slightest personal "pretension"; but, finding in all my +reading no outline of any such argument as this, and believing it to +be fruitful of the very noblest results, I have done my best to point +out its possibilities to other earnest searchers after truth. Not +until this new field has been faithfully examined and explored and +proved to be sterile, shall I cease to recommend it to the attention +of all who would fain _see reason_ to believe that the Ethical Ideal +is no Unreality, but rather the innermost Reality of the real universe +itself. I speak only to those who have souls to hear and to respond; +let the rest listen to Dr. Royce, and be dupes of his "professional +warning." But the cause of philosophical reform will not be stayed by +him or by them: the world's heart is hungry for higher truth than +idealism can discover, and will be grateful in the end to any +philosophy which shall show what mighty moral conviction, what +unspeakable spiritual invigoration, must needs grow out of +comprehension of the despised Real. + +These thoughts are not remote abstractions, up in the air, out of +reach, of no practical value or application; they touch the very life +and soul of Harvard University. For want of such thoughts, many of the +brightest and most intellectual of her students, graduates from the +philosophical courses, go out year after year disbelieving totally in +the possibility of arriving at any fundamental "truth" whatever, even +in ethics. Several years ago, the then President of the Harvard +"Philosophical Club" said in my hearing that he "saw no ground of +moral obligation anywhere in the universe"; and this declaration was +apparently assented to by every one of the fifteen or twenty members +present. This very last summer, a recent graduate told me that he left +college bewildered, depressed, and "disheartened," because he saw +nowhere any ground of rational "conviction" about anything; and that +it was "just the same with all the other fellows"--that is, all his +companions in the study of philosophy. It is time, high time, that +this state of things should be searchingly investigated in the +interest of Harvard University itself, the facts determined, their +causes ascertained. While such a state of things prevails, 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 world: namely, to send out her +young graduates well armed beforehand for the battle of life with +clear, strong, and lofty _moral convictions_. Whatever other causes +may exist for the failure, 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 thoughtful, +closely reasoned, and earnest plea for philosophical reform in this +very direction, or to criticise it with anything better than +irrelevant and unparliamentary personalities, studied and systematic +misrepresentation both of the plea and of the pleader, and a +demoralizing example of libel, so bitter and so extreme as to furnish +abundant ground for prosecution. + + +VI. + +Here, gentlemen, you may very properly inquire: "Why do you not, then, +prosecute Dr. Royce in the courts, instead of bringing the case before +us?" + +Briefly, 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 measures. You would have +had just cause to complain of me, 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 way, and in +dignified recognition of your own ultimate responsibility. A +prosecution may not, I trust will not, prove necessary; for I have +neither malice nor vindictiveness to gratify, but only a resolute +purpose to defend my reputation effectually against a malicious libel, +and not to permit the libeller to set up a plausible claim that, by +silence and passive submission, I "tacitly confess the justice of an +official condemnation by Harvard University of my 'philosophical +pretensions.'" Except for that one phrase, "professional warning," in +Dr. Royce's attack, this appeal would never have been written, or the +least notice taken of his intrinsically puerile "criticisms." When Mr. +Herbert Spencer, whom I have more than once publicly criticised, can +yet magnanimously write to me of this very book, "I do not see any +probability that it will change my beliefs, yet I rejoice that the +subject should be so well discussed,"--and Mr. William Ewart +Gladstone, "I am very conscious of the force with which you handle the +subject,"--and ex-President Noah Porter, "I thank you very sincerely +for sending me a copy of your last book; I had already read it nearly +twice, and found much in it very admirable and timely,"--I could very +well afford to pass over Dr. Royce's ineffectual "criticisms" with +indifference. But when he insinuates to the uninformed public that +these same "criticisms" have the weighty sanction of Harvard +University, it is quite another matter. That calls upon me to defend +myself against so atrocious a calumny. + +But even self-defence has its proprieties, and to these I scrupulously +submit. The first step was to send a reply to the periodical which +published the attack. This was sent. At first, Dr. Royce effusively +agreed to its publication, and wrote a rejoinder to be published +simultaneously with it. Later, in alarm, he procured its rejection, +and, through legal counsel, served a formal notice upon me not to +publish or to circulate it at all. The second step was to demand from +Dr. Royce a specific retraction and apology; this he contemptuously +refused. The third step was to appeal from the recalcitrant employee +to the responsible employer, and to lay the case respectfully before +the supreme representatives of Harvard University itself. This I now +do, and it is entirely unnecessary to look any farther. But, in order +to lay the case before you fully, it is incumbent upon me to state the +details of these proceedings with some minuteness, and I now proceed +to unfold the extraordinary tale. + + +VII. + +Dr. Royce wound up his ostensible review with these words of bravado +and of challenge: "_We must show no mercy,--as we ask none._" This +fierce flourish of trumpets I understood to be, at least, a fearless +public pledge of a fair hearing in the "Journal of Ethics" of which he +was one of the editors. Moreover, 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 accuser. Lastly, I was averse to litigation, and desired to use +no coarser weapon, even against a calumniator and libeller, than the +sharp edge of reason itself. + +Accordingly, I sought redress in the first instance from the +"International Journal of Ethics." On January 21, I mailed to Mr. S. +Burns Weston, the office editor, an article in reply to Dr. Royce's +ostensible review, together with a letter in which I wrote: "I do not +at all complain of your publishing Dr. Royce's original article, +although it was a most malicious and slanderous one, and undertook +(not to put too fine a point upon it) to post me publicly as a quack. +If you do not deny my indefeasible right to be heard in self-defence +in the same columns, I shall feel that I have no cause whatever to +regard you or your committee as a party to the outrage, and shall +entertain no feelings towards you or towards them other than such as +are perfectly friendly. Let even slander and malice be heard, if truth +shall be as free to reply." Pressing engagements had prevented me from +writing the article in season for the January number of the "Journal +of Ethics," but it was in ample season for the April number. + +I sent it at last because I had full confidence in the soundness of +what Thomas Jefferson said so well: "Truth and reason can maintain +themselves without the aid of coercion, if left free to defend +themselves. But then they must defend themselves. Eternal lies and +sophisms on one side, and silence on the other, are too unequal." + +The "International Journal of Ethics" is under the control of an +"editorial committee" of eight, Dr. Felix Adler at the head and Dr. +Royce at the end; the other six members live in Europe and have no +share in the home management. Mr. Weston is not a member of the +committee, has little editorial authority, and, in case of +disagreement between the two American members, would, as he himself +expressly and frankly informed me in answer to a direct question, obey +implicitly the directions of Dr. Adler. To Dr. Adler, therefore, +belongs the general and ultimate editorial responsibility, whether +legal or moral, since, according to Mr. Western's just quoted +declaration, Dr. Adler alone has actual power either to procure or to +prevent publication; while to Dr. Royce is assigned merely the special +department of "theoretical ethics." Hence Dr. Adler and Dr. Royce were +jointly responsible for the original libel, the latter for writing it, +the former for publishing it; but Dr. Adler alone was editorially +responsible for publishing or refusing to publish my reply to it. It +was to Dr. Adler alone, as responsible editor-in-chief of the "Journal +of Ethics," that I looked for publication of my defence, as the best +possible reparation for the wrong done in publishing the libellous +attack; and I looked to him with confidence for this partial and +inadequate reparation, believing that, as head of the "ethical culture +movement," he would be anxious to conduct the "Journal of Ethics" in +accordance with the highest principles of justice, honor, and fair +play. + +To my astonishment and indignation, however, my manuscript, instead of +being considered and finally passed upon by Dr. Adler, was forwarded +by him or by his direction to Dr. Royce! The latter, getting wind of +it, had "insisted" that it belonged to his department of "theoretical +ethics," and "claimed the right" to _edit it with a rejoinder in the +same issue_. Nothing could be conceived more unfair or more absurd. A +libel had been published by Dr. Adler, and Dr. Adler sent the defence +against this libel to be edited by the libeller himself! Protest was +in vain. Dr Adler denied his own moral responsibility, washed his +hands of the whole affair, and even refused to enlighten himself as to +his own duty (notwithstanding my urgent request that he should do so) +by taking counsel of some wise and able lawyer of his own +acquaintance. Instead of doing this, he affected to consider my +self-defence against a libel as merely a reply to an ordinary +"book-criticism," made a few inquiries as to the "usual practice of +journals" with reference to book-criticisms alone, turned my article +over to Dr. Royce as one on "theoretical ethics," and permitted him to +attach to it a rejoinder which reiterated the original libel with +additions and improvements, but in which he took pains to say of my +reply: "I may add that even now it does not occur to me to feel +personally wounded, nor yet uneasy at Dr. Abbot's present warmth." +These words have a peculiar interest with reference to his later legal +notice against all publication or circulation of this very reply: his +assumed or genuine pachydermatousness soon gave way to fearful +apprehension of its effect upon the public mind. + +In no sense whatever was my reply an article on "theoretical ethics." +To what part of the "theory of ethics" belongs Dr. Royce's false +personal accusation of "extravagant pretensions"? To what part of the +"theory of ethics" belongs Dr. Royce's false personal accusation of +"sinning against the most obvious demands of literary +property-rights"? To what part of the "theory of ethics" belongs Dr. +Royce's "professional warning" against pretensions which were never +made? His false accusations and their false grounds were the main +theme of my article, and they had nothing to do with "theoretical +ethics," Dr Adler and Dr. Royce to the contrary notwithstanding. Dr. +Royce had no shadow of right to set up so preposterous a claim, and +Dr. Adler had no shadow of right to yield to it, as he weakly did, +thereby violating his own undeniable obligation, as editor-in-chief, +to do his utmost to repair the wrong which he himself had done in +publishing a libel. My article was avowedly nothing but a defence +against this libel, and, as such, was necessarily addressed to the +responsible editor of the "Journal of Ethics," not to the sub-editor +of one of its special departments--most assuredly not to the libeller +himself. The only fair and just course was to publish this defence +alone by itself, precisely as the libel had been published alone by +itself, and afterwards to allow Dr. Royce to follow it, if he pleased, +with a rejoinder in the succeeding number. I made not the slightest +objection to one rejoinder or a dozen rejoinders from him, provided +the responsible editor held the balance true, accorded as fair a +hearing to the accused as he had accorded to the accuser, and granted +to each in turn an opportunity to plead his cause without interruption +by the other. I asked no more than what Dr. Royce had already +received--an opportunity to enjoy the undivided and undistracted +attention of the audience for a limited time. He had had the ear of +the public for six months. Could I not have it for three? + +But I regret to say that considerations of equal justice seemed to +have no weight whatever with Dr. Adler. Dr. Royce, despite his public +pledge, was "asking for mercy," after all, and got from Dr. Adler all +he asked for; I asked Dr. Adler for equity alone, and could not get +even that. The sole concession made was that I might follow Dr. +Royce's rejoinder with a second reply in the same number, thus closing +the case with a last word for the defence. + +To this last proposal, in order not to refuse a meagre measure of +justice, I consented under protest. But the proof-sheets of Dr. +Royce's rejoinder, to which I was to reply, did not reach me till +March 18, and were accompanied with a notice from the "Journal of +Ethics" that my reply must be mailed "within ten hours after receiving +Royce's proof." This notice I answered as follows:-- + +"The proof of Royce's rejoinder, with your notes of the 16th and 17th, +arrived this morning at 9 A.M. As I have had to be at my teaching till +3 P.M., it was obviously impossible to mail a reply by 7 P.M. Hence I +telegraphed to you at once: '_I protest against the gross injustice of +postponing my article, or of publishing this new attack without the +last word you promised me. It is impossible to write this now_ [_i. e._, +within the ten hours stipulated]. _If you have any love of justice, +publish my article now, and postpone the rejoinders to next issue._' +Nothing stands in the way of this, the only fair course, 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 +none.' To hold back my reply to his libel for three months longer, +merely because he is afraid to let it go forth without an attempt to +break its force in the same number, would be disgracefully unjust in +him and in the 'Journal.' His rejoinder is simply a fresh libel; there +is nothing in it to which I cannot easily and effectually reply. But +what _right_ is there in refusing to me the opportunity of answering +one libel at a time? Or in compelling me to be silent nine months +[from October to July], in order to save him from being silent three +months [from April to July]? 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 this." + +But the April number of the "Journal of Ethics," nevertheless, was +published without my article. The latter was all in type, and the +proof-sheets had been corrected; nothing prevented its publication in +April except (1) Dr. Royce's insistence that my reply to his first +libel should _not be published at all without his second libel_, and +(2) Dr. Adler's weak submission to this unjust and pusillanimous +demand of his associate. + +The whole matter was thus most inequitably postponed to the July +number, primarily at Dr. Royce's instigation. 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 +first. Now to answer a libel effectively requires the freedom, not of +the parliament, but of the courts. A mere literary discussion admits +of parliamentary freedom alone, and properly excludes all reflections +upon personal character. But Dr. Royce had most unparliamentarily +turned his ostensible review into a libel, and, contrary to all canons +of literary discussion, had indulged himself in reflections upon my +personal character as malicious as they were false. Now the only +possible disproof of a libel is the proof that it _is_ a libel,--that +it is either untruthful, or malicious, or both; and, since a libel is +both a civil injury and a criminal offence, the proof of its libellous +character cannot be established without reflecting upon the personal +character of the libeller. Hence Dr. Royce himself, by writing a +libel, had self-evidently raised the question of his own personal +character, and bound himself beforehand, by his own act, to submit +with what grace he could to the necessary consequences of that act; +and to seek to shield himself from these consequences, which he should +have foreseen clearly and nerved himself to bear bravely, was only to +incur the ridicule invited by a timorous man who first strikes +another and then runs away. Dr. Adler, moreover, as the responsible +editor of the "Journal of Ethics," had laid himself, by publishing Dr. +Royce's libel, under the clear moral obligation of according to the +accused the same freedom of the courts which he had already accorded +to the accuser; 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 parties. 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 attack. + +Notwithstanding these plain facts, Dr. Royce and Dr. Adler united in +denying to me the necessary freedom of self-defence against the attack +which they had united in making. + +At first, Dr. Royce undertook to dictate to me beforehand the nature +of my reply to his rejoinder, and sought to restrict it to the +parliamentary freedom of a purely literary discussion. Ignoring the +fact that he had himself rendered a purely literary discussion +impossible by his own reflections upon personal character, he +endeavored now to restrict my defence to a purely literary discussion +of what, with amusing deficiency in the sense of humor, he considered +to be his "criticisms"; whereas these pointless and ignorant +criticisms had no importance whatever except as leading up to his +"professional warning." The only object of a reply to his rejoinder +was to expose its true character as a second libel, and thereby make +plain to the dullest mind the outrage of his "professional warning." +Evidently fearing this, and being anxious to prevent the exposure, he +sent to me through Mr. Weston, who called upon me for the purpose on +April 15, the following unspeakable document, apparently without a +suspicion that it pricked the bubble of his previous iridescent pledge +to "ask no mercy":-- + + + MEMORANDUM OF APR. 13, 1891. + + 1. Dr. Abbot's article must be in Mr. Weston's hands in MS. + by June 1, for issue in the July No., if possible. + + 2. This article must not exceed, in actual number of words, + Prof. Royce's last rejoinder. + + 3. Prof. Royce is not to reply to the above article of Dr. + Abbot before or simultaneously with its publication in the + "Journal of Ethics"; and the controversy is thus to be + closed in the "Journal" by Dr. Abbot. + + 4. Dr. Abbot's article is to be strictly a rejoinder, is not + to raise essentially new issues, is not to assault any + further his opponent's personal character, is to be + parliamentary in form, and free from personally abusive + language. Otherwise it is perfectly free as to plainness of + speech. + + 5. Prof. Royce is to see this article at once, and before it + goes to the printer. + + 6. Should Prof. Royce, after seeing the paper, object to the + article as "_not in conformity with the conditions of No. 4_ + (_above_)," then, but only then, the article is to be + submitted, before publication, to the judgment of some + impartial friend or friends of both the disputants, such + friend or friends to be chosen as promptly as possible, and + by agreement, and to arbitrate the question, "_Whether Dr. + Abbot's final rejoinder is in conformity with the conditions + of this present memorandum?_" The arbitrator or arbitrators + may be any person or persons agreable [_sic_] to the wishes + of both the disputants, as determined in case the mentioned + objection of Prof. Royce should be made, but not otherwise. + + 7. Should Prof. Royce _not_ object to the article, or should + he not formally object _on the grounds mentioned_, then the + article of Dr. Abbot is to close the controversy in the + "Journal of Ethics." + + 8. Should Dr. Abbot _not_ accept the conditions of the + present memorandum, he is at liberty to withdraw his paper, + or else to let both the papers now in type appear as they + are, at his pleasure. + + [Signed] J. R. + +It is difficult to conceive the state of mind in which so +extraordinary a document as this could have originated. My answer to +Dr. Royce's officious interference was a short and dry rejection _in +toto_. Dr. Royce was not the responsible editor of the "Journal of +Ethics," and had no power to dictate any conditions of publication +whatever. That a libeller should actually presume to dictate to the +libelled the terms of his defence, to demand that this defence should +be submitted to himself in advance of publication for approval or +disapproval, and, in case of disapproval, to invoke a board of +referees for the sole purpose of enforcing his own arbitrary and +preposterous "conditions,"--this was too exquisitely absurd. But there +was method in the madness. The central aim of the "Memorandum" is +clear on its face: namely, _to refuse the forensic freedom necessary +to self-defence against a libel, and to concede only the parliamentary +freedom proper to a purely literary discussion_. Since, however, the +only object of my writing at all was to expose his rejoinder as a +second libel, and since the central aim of the "Memorandum" was to +defeat this very object, nothing could be plainer than this: that Dr. +Royce, having been guilty of two unprovoked and malicious libels, now +sought to prevent the exposure of his guilt by suppressing the +necessary freedom of self-defence. For, I repeat, the only possible +defence against a libel is to prove that it _is_ a libel, and this +cannot be done without reflecting upon the "personal character" of the +libeller. It was no fault of mine that he had himself rendered a +"parliamentary" discussion impossible; it was no fault of mine that he +had made his own "personal character" the real point at issue; it was +no fault of mine that he now betrayed his secret alarm, uttered a cry +for "mercy," and convicted himself out of his own mouth, in his +extraordinary and indescribable "Memorandum." That "Memorandum" tells +the whole story. + +On the failure of Dr. Royce's very injudicious attempt at dictation, +Dr. Adler found himself compelled to assume the editorial power and +responsibility, which he ought to have assumed and exercised in the +first instance by refusing publication to Dr. Royce's original libel. +But, yielding to Dr. Royce's influence, he took the same position, and +still tried to shield the libeller from the just and lawful +consequences of his libel. No principle is more firmly established in +the public conscience, as interpreted by the common law, than that the +fact of an attack by A involves the right of self-defence by B. +Whoever, therefore, has permitted an attack which he might have +prevented is bound to permit the self-defence, also; and Dr. Adler, +having granted to Dr. Royce the freedom of libelling me, was bound to +grant to me the equal freedom of defending myself against the libel. +But this equal freedom Dr. Adler denied. After some fruitless +correspondence, I wrote to him on May 4 as follows: "I require the +freedom, not of 'parliament,' but of the courts--freedom to present my +'facts,' and no less to draw my 'inferences'--freedom to array my +evidence, and no less to make my pleading. By publishing his new +libel, you estop yourself from denying me this freedom. If you do deny +it, I withdraw altogether and seek justice and redress elsewhere. I +ask only what is self-evidently fair: (1) equal space with Dr. Royce, +(2) equal freedom with Dr. Royce, (3) no further rejoinders by Dr. +Royce, and (4) no editorial mention of the matter at all from the +'Journal' itself." To this letter Dr. Adler merely telegraphed his +final reply on May 6 in these brief terms: "Regret your insistence on +freedom of courts--parliamentary freedom open to you." This ended the +matter, so far as the "Journal of Ethics" was concerned, in Dr. +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 committee." + +Negotiations, it is true, for the publication of my reply in the July +number were a little later re-opened by Dr. Adler, on receiving advice +from a legal friend of his own that to publish it would be his wisest +course; but he himself broke them off on a trivial pretext, after +receiving contrary advice from Dr. Royce's counsel, together with a +copy of the legal protest sent to me personally. Thus Dr. Royce +himself, recalling his original consent, procured the final rejection +by the "Journal of Ethics" of my reply to his own attack. On June 19, +I was notified that the July number had been made up without it. + +But already, on June 9, I had received from Mr. J. B. Warner, acting +as Dr. Royce's counsel, this formal protest against any other use +whatever of my reply: "On Dr. Royce's behalf, I must warn you that he +protests against the publication or any circulation of it, in its +present shape, and must point out to you that it may, if circulated, +entail a serious legal responsibility." To this strangely impolitic +and utterly futile attempt to intimidate me in the defence of my own +reputation, I chose to offer not the slightest resistance. The protest +only facilitated that defence. How could a libeller more conspicuously +put himself in the wrong, or more effectually ruin his own evil cause +in all eyes, than by _trying to gag the man he had injured_? First, to +prevent publication in the "Journal of Ethics" of the very reply he +had publicly and defiantly challenged, and then to suppress all +circulation of a few privately printed copies of it by means of legal +threats: if Dr. Royce could afford to commit such blunders, why should +I shield him from himself? "Whom the gods destroy, they first make +mad." + +Before proceeding to any more energetic measures, however, in order to +vindicate my reputation, I was anxious to offer to Dr. Royce an +opportunity of doing me justice in a manner which should be consistent +with full vindication, yet should involve the least possible publicity +and the least possible mortification to himself. Accordingly, on June +20, I wrote to Mr. Warner thus: "I beg leave to enclose a Card, which, +if returned to me within a week from to-day, unchanged, dated, and +signed by Dr. Royce, and if actually published in the October number +of the 'Journal,' will render unnecessary further measures of +self-vindication as now contemplated. I send this because you assured +me that Dr. Royce disclaims all malice in the publication of the +original article I complain of, and because I am willing to test the +sincerity of his disclaimer before resorting to other measures for my +self-protection. I expect you, who came to me in the character of a +pacificator, and who expressed a creditable desire, in which I fully +join, for the settlement of this trouble in some way which shall +occasion no scandal to Harvard College, to exert your utmost +influence with Dr. Royce to persuade him to perform this act of +manifest justice to me. A frank retraction and apology, when unjust +charges have been made as now, is not dishonorable and ought not to be +humiliating; and I shall consider Dr. Royce's action in this matter as +showing the sincerity or insincerity of his disclaimer of all malice +in his original article." The enclosed paper above mentioned was +this:-- + + + A CARD. + + CAMBRIDGE, June --, 1891. + + I. I admit that I have no knowledge whatever of any + "extravagant pretensions" made by Dr. Abbot "as to the + originality and profundity of his still unpublished system + of philosophy." + + II. I admit that Dr. Abbot did not, consciously or + unconsciously, "borrow his theory of universals from Hegel," + or "sin against the most obvious demands of literary + property-rights." + + III. I unconditionally retract my "professional warning to + the liberal-minded public against Dr. Abbot's philosophical + pretensions," acknowledge that it was groundless and + unjustifiable, and apologize to Dr. Abbot for having + published it in the "International Journal of Ethics." + + IV. I authorize the publication of this retraction and + apology in the next number of the "International Journal of + Ethics" without note or comment. + +In his answer of June 24, Mr. Warner informed me that Dr. Royce had +gone to Denver, and wrote: "As for the Card which you propose, I will +leave Dr. Royce to make his own answer after he has seen it. I will +say, however, for my own part, that, while he has always been ready to +disclaim any desire to injure you personally, I think that his +opinions concerning your philosophical system and its origin are +unchanged, and he is not likely to retract them. I must say, too, that +you have put your Card in a form in which you could not have expected +Dr. Royce to sign it, and I do not regard it as any step, on your +part, toward a pacific settlement, nor think your demand a reasonable +one to make of a self-respecting man." + +The next day, June 25, I wrote to Mr. Warner: "I ought distinctly to +deny that my rejected article is 'a libellous paper.' Its statements +are true; its motive is not malice, but a self-evident purpose to +defend myself against Dr. Royce's libel; and, even if it should be +concluded to come under any legal definition of 'libel,' I maintain +that it is self-evidently a 'justifiable libel.' If I pay any heed to +your notice, it is merely because your notice strengthens my +case.--You do not mention when Dr. Royce will return from Denver; but, +because my purpose in enclosing to you that Card is in good faith a +pacific one, I will wait a reasonable time for his return beyond the +date I mentioned. You will not judge the character of that Card +accurately, and you cannot give sound or salutary advice to your +client, if you ignore the libellous character of his original article. +I do not see how 'a self-respecting man' could ever have written such +a paper; but, if he did it inadvertently and not maliciously, he would +certainly do one of two things: (1) either submit courageously, +unflinchingly, and without legal protest, to the reply it challenged +and evoked, or (2) manfully retract charges demonstrated, as these +have been, to be false. Have you really a different idea of +'self-respect'? Certainly not, for you are an honorable gentleman. Be +this as it may, I warn you not to persist in considering that Card as +other than a pacific step on my part, if you desire to counsel your +client to his own good, or to prove yourself a real friend to Harvard +College. I say this in good faith." + +To this, on July 2, Mr. Warner replied: "Dr. Royce has returned, and I +have submitted to him the Card which you have prepared. As I +anticipated, Dr. Royce says that he cannot sign it, nor can I advise +him to do so. It goes far beyond any disavowal of malice or personal +hostility, and it amounts to a retraction of the opinions which he +actually holds about your philosophical system, and that retraction +you surely cannot expect him to make. Dr. Royce has again expressed to +me his regret that the form of his article should have wounded you, +and he is entirely ready to disavow any intention of wounding you." + +On July 11, I wrote in answer: "Most certainly I do not expect, or +wish, that Dr. Royce should disavow any philosophical 'opinions' he +may hold. What I complain of is a _misstatement of fact_, demonstrated +to be such, which I believe to have had its origin in a spirit of +malicious detraction, and to be now persevered in from no other cause. +In my reply to his article, which he himself challenged and then +pusillanimously suppressed, he has had abundant means of information. +If he now refuses to correct a misstatement which grossly injures me, +after he has been informed of the truth, the refusal admits of but one +interpretation, and throws a satirical light on the merely private +'regret' he professes. Inasmuch, however, as you have objected (quite +unnecessarily, as I think) to the 'form' of the Card I sent you, and +inasmuch as I intend to leave no room for doubt as to Dr. Royce's real +animus in this affair, I propose now that he send me such a retraction +and apology as you yourself shall deem adequate, fitting, and due. In +your letter of June 9, you admitted that Dr. Royce had 'transgressed +the limits of courteous discussion' and that you 'do not defend in all +respects the tone of the review.' It is plain enough that you, Dr. +Royce's own counsel, perceive at least something improper, something +that ought to be retracted and apologized for. You are, then, I +submit, bound to do what you can to right the wrong, which is not at +all done by Dr. Royce's profuse, _but private_, disclaimers. He +professes to bear no malice. Very well, then: let him make reparation +for the wrong he has committed. He owes it to himself, if he considers +himself a gentleman, certainly to his position in Harvard College, to +send me some paper, specifying what he himself regrets in his own +article, with authority to publish this paper in the 'Journal of +Ethics.' The Card I sent sufficiently indicates what I think is due to +me; if Dr. Royce, in other language, covers the same ground, it will +be accepted as satisfactory. That is the very least that a gentleman +would do under the circumstances. You cannot object to this proposal +on account of its 'form'; if either you or he objects to it at all, +it must be on account of its substance. Certainly you cannot affect to +consider it as other than 'pacific.' I shall await your answer to it +as to the only 'pacific step on my part' which remains possible to +me." + +In reply to this letter, on July 24, Mr. Warner wrote: "I forwarded +your letter of July 11 to Dr. Royce, and he has written a reply to me +which I think it best to enclose as he wrote it." In this enclosed +letter, dated July 14, Dr. Royce first re-affirmed, in substance, the +truth of his false and ridiculous accusation of plagiarism from Hegel, +and then wrote as follows: "Now as to my feeling concerning what was +regrettable in my article. I repeat once more--regrettable, in my +eyes, was the manner of the article in so far as it actually gave +unnecessary pain to Dr. Abbot. And I regard any pain as unnecessary +that may have been due, _not_ to my objectively justified opinion of +Dr. Abbot's work (an opinion which I cannot alter in the least), but +to any severity of expression that may not have been absolutely +needful to give form to this opinion itself. Dr. Abbot's reply has +shown him to be not merely alive to the strong difference of opinion +that separates us, but personally offended by an attack that was +intended to be indeed severe, but directed wholly to matters of +professional, but not of personal concern. This attitude of Dr. +Abbot's I regret, and, in so far as I am to blame for it, I am willing +to express my regret publicly." + +This letter of Dr. Royce is, in effect, a deliberate and unqualified +re-affirmation of every fact as alleged, and every inference as drawn, +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 end. Nothing whatever in the +substance of his article is retracted or regretted; nothing is +"regrettable" even in its form, except vaguely, hypothetically, and +conditionally; the only thing Dr. Royce "regrets," as a fact, is that +his "objectively justified" and "intentionally severe attack" should +have given needless "personal offence" and "unnecessary pain" to its +object! This deliberate and contemptuous refusal to recall, to modify, +or to apologize for any of the false accusations he has made against +me is, I submit, demonstration of the malice which originally prompted +them, and now moves him to maintain them; nothing further is needed to +make their malicious character perfectly plain, and to prove the +insincerity of his disclaimers of malice. But Dr. Royce seriously +mistakes the nature of the effect produced by his "attack," when he +affects to consider it as the quite needless excitation of excessive +sensitiveness. If a gentleman in a crowd discovers his nearest +neighbor engaged in filching his pocket-book, and at once hands the +culprit over to the police, it would hardly be graphic to describe his +frame of mind as needless "personal offence" or "unnecessary pain"; +and the expressions are no more graphic as to my own frame of mind, +when I discover Dr. Royce endeavoring to filch from me my reputation +in the name of Harvard University. It is not always safe to reckon on +the absence, in parties confessedly "attacked," of all capacity for +_moral indignation_, or all capacity for moral self-defence. + +In reply to Mr. Warner, August 4, I wrote as follows: "Permit me +further to say, with regard to Dr. Royce's letter, 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 accusations. These were the +chief points of my Card, and I note the refusal implied by Dr. Royce's +evasive letter. But I decline to accept his plea of +'conscientiousness' in maintaining the accusation as to Hegel. I might +as well plead 'conscientiousness' in maintaining an accusation that +Dr. Royce assassinated Abraham Lincoln, in face of the evidence that +John Wilkes Booth was the assassin." + +Here the correspondence closed. My apology for inflicting it upon you, +gentlemen, must be the necessity of showing to you that, as I was +plainly bound to do, I first exhausted every means of private redress +before laying the matter before you publicly. Not till I had failed to +obtain a fair hearing in the same periodical which published Dr. +Royce's libel, and not till I had failed to obtain from Dr. Royce +himself a retraction of this libel, did I find myself reduced to the +alternatives of either acquiescing in your own unwarrantably +insinuated condemnation, or else of clearing my assailed reputation +through direct and open appeal to you. I am no lover of strife, and +least of all do I now seek revenge. I seek only such a vindication of +my good name from unmerited calumny as you, in your own good judgment +and in your own chosen way, are now, I most respectfully submit, bound +in justice to give. + + +VIII. + +To you, therefore, gentlemen of the Corporation and Board of Overseers +of Harvard University, I make with all due deference this public +appeal for redress of a wrong done to me by one of your appointees--a +wrong done, not in his private capacity as an individual (for which, +of course, you would not be justly held responsible), but publicly and +explicitly and emphatically in the name of his "profession," that is, +of his position as a professor in Harvard College. This position is an +official one, due to your appointment; and his scandalous abuse of it +renders him amenable to discipline by you to whom he owes it. +Therefore, I now formally appeal to you for redress of these specific +wrongs, committed by Assistant Professor Josiah Royce in flagrant +violation of my rights as a citizen and as a man:-- + +I. He has published against me, in the "International Journal of +Ethics," a libel which is as wanton and unprovoked as it is malicious +and false, and for which no motive is even conceivable except mere +professional jealousy or rivalry in authorship. + +II. He has sought to give credibility and respectability to this false +and libellous publication by invoking the authority, not of reason or +truth, but of his mere "professional" position as professor in Harvard +University, thereby artfully suggesting and insinuating to the +uninformed public that Harvard University sustains him in his attack; +whereas, in conferring upon me the degree of doctor of philosophy and +in committing to me formerly the conduct of an advanced course of +philosophical instruction, Harvard University has given emphatic +testimony to the contrary. + +III. Repudiating his bold promise to "ask no mercy," he has sought, +with incredible cowardice and meanness, to deprive me of all +opportunity of being heard in self-defence, _first_, by excluding from +the "International Journal of Ethics" my perfectly reasonable reply to +what he himself confesses to have been an "intentionally severe +attack," and, _secondly_, by threatening me through his counsel with +legal prosecution, if I publish it anywhere else or circulate it at +all. + +IV. Lastly, when, after all this, in order to spare him the +mortification and disgrace of a public exposure, and in order to +prevent Harvard University from incurring any possible discredit on +account of his personal misconduct, I proposed to him a pacific +settlement of the whole affair through a simple retraction of his +calumnious accusations, and that, too, in words of his own choosing, +he made no answer but a stubborn and contumelious re-affirmation of +the original libel. + +I submit that these acts of wrong constitute conduct unbecoming a +gentleman, a man of honor, or a professor in Harvard University, and +justly entitle me to redress at your hands. This appeal has not been +made hastily or without a patient and long-protracted effort to secure +justice in other ways. Dr. Royce has succeeded hitherto, during many +months, in defeating that effort; but now the appeal lies to those +whom he cannot control, and now he must abide your judgment. Asking +neither less nor more than justice, and believing that you will +recognize justice as Harvard's highest law, + +I have the honor to remain, gentlemen, in devoted loyalty to our Alma +Mater, + +Your obedient servant, + +FRANCIS E. ABBOT. + +CAMBRIDGE, Oct. 1, 1891. + + + * * * * * + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: + +On page 5, in the word Boeotia, the oe ligature has been expanded to +the two characters, oe. The sentence begins: Only a native of +Boeotia could be imposed upon by them, when the actual character.... + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Public Appeal for Redress to the +Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University, by Francis Ellingwood Abbot + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PUBLIC APPEAL FOR REDRESS *** + +***** This file should be named 19768.txt or 19768.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/7/6/19768/ + +Produced by Curtis Weyant, Diane Monico, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. 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