Francis Ellingwood Abbot

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The cause of philosophical reform, indeed, cannot be long [Pg 28] 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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 [Pg 30] 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 [Pg 20] 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. ”

“ 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 [Pg 15] forth the American theory of what has been in large part hidden from us. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”