As I am otherwise engaged, I take this
opportunity of provoking
you to write a letter or two. I have begun to write
Elastic
Equilibrium, and I find that I must write you a letter in order at
least,
indeed, to serve on the one hand as an excuse
to
myself for sticking up, and on the other hand as a sluice for all the
nonsense
which I would have written. I therefore propose
to divide this letter as follows:—My say naturally breaks up into—1.
Education;
2. Notions; 3. Hearsay.
1.
Education—Public.
10-11.—Gregory
is on Alloys of Metals just now. Last
Saturday I was
examined, and asked how I would do if the contents of a
stomach
were submitted to me to detect arsenic, and I had to go through the
whole
of the preparatory processes of chopping up the tripes,
boiling
with potash, filtering, boiling with H C L and K O C L O5, all
which
Kemp the Practical says are useless and detrimental processes, invented
by chemists who want something to do. 11-12.—Prof. Forbes
is
on Sound and Light day about as Bob well knows, and can tell you if
he chooses. He (R. C.) has written an essay [128] on Probabilities,
with very grand props in it; everything original, but
no signs of reading, I guess. It was all written in a week. He has
despaired
of Optics.
12-1. Wilson, after having fully explained his own
opinions, has proceeded to those of other great men: Plato, Aristotle,
Stoics, Epicureans. He shows that Plato's proof of
the
immortality of the soul, from its immateriality, if it be a
proof,
proves its pre-existence, the immortality of beasts and vegetables, and
why not transmigration? (Do you remember how Raphael tells
Adam about meats and drinks in Paradise Lost?) (Greek Iambics, if you
please.)
He quarrels with Aristotle's doctrine of the Golden Mean,—"a virtue
is the mean between two vices,"—not properly understanding
the saying. He chooses to consider it as a pocket rule to find virtue,
which it is not meant to be, but an apophthegm or maxim, or dark
saying, signifying that as a hill falls away on both sides of the top,
so a virtue at its maximum declines by excess or
defect
(not of virtue but) of some variable quantity at the disposal
of
the will. Thus, let it be a virtue to give alms with your own money,
then
it is a greater virtue to pay one's debts to
the full. Now, a man has so much money: the more alms he gives up to
a certain point, the more virtue. As soon as it becomes
impossible
to pay debts, the virtue of solvency decreases faster than that of
almsgiving
increases, so that the giving of money to the poor
becomes
a vice, so that the variable is the sum given away, by excess
or
defect of which virtue diminishes, say I; so that Wilson garbles
Aristotle,—but
I bamboozle myself. I say that some things are
virtues,
others are virtuous or generally lead to virtue. Substitute goods for
virtues,
and it will be
more general: thus, Wisdom, Happiness, Virtue, are goods, and cannot
be in excess; but Knowledge, Pleasure, and—what?
(please
tell me, Is it Propriety, Obedience, or what is it?) lead to the other
three, and are not so much goods as tending to good;
whereas particular knowledges, pleasures, and obediences may be in
excess
and lead to evils. I postpone the rest of my
observations
to my Collection of the Metaphysical principles of Moral
Philosophy
founded on the three laws of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, thus
expressed :—
1. That
which can be done is that which has been done;
that is, that
the possibility (with respect to the agent) of an action (as
simple)
depends on the agent having had the sensation of having done it.
2. That
which ought to be done is that which (under
the given conditions)
produces, implies, or tends to the greatest amount of good (an
excess
or defect in the variables will lessen the good and make evil).
3. Moral
actions can be judged of only by the
principle of exchange;
that is , our own actions must be judged by the laws we have made
for others; others must be judged by putting ourselves in their place.
22d March.
At
Practical Mechanics I have been turning Devils of
sorts. For private
studies I have been reading Young's Lectures, Willis's
Principles
of Mechanism, Moseley's Engineering and Mechcanics, Dixon on Heat,
and
Moigno's Répertoire d'Optique. This last is a very complete
analysis
of all that has been done in the optical way from Fresnel
to
the end of 1849, and there is another volume a-coming which will
complete
the work. There is in it besides common optics all about the
other
things which accompany light, as heat, chemical action, photographic
rays,
action on vegetables, etc.
My
notions are rather few, as I do not entertain them
just now. I have
a notion for the torsion of wires and rods, not to be made
till the vacation; of experiments on the action of compression on
glass,
jelly, etc., numerically done up; of papers for the
Physico-Mathematical
Society (which is to revive in earnest next session!); on the relations
of optical and mechanical constants, their desirableness,
etc.,
and suspension-bridges, and catenaries, and elastic curves.
Alex. Campbell, Agnew, and I are appointed to read up the subject [130]
of periodical shooting stars, and to prepare a list of the
phenomena to be observed on the 9th August and 13th November. The
Society's
barometer is to be taken up Arthur's Seat at the end of the session,
when
Forbes goes up, and All students are invited to attend, so
that the existence of the Society may be recognised.
I have
notions of reading, the whole of Corpus Juris
and Pandects in
no time at all; but these are getting somewhat dim, as the
Cambridge scheme has been howked up from its repose in the regions of
abortions,
and is as far forward as an inspection of the Cambridge Calendar and a
communication with Cantabs.
Mr.
Bob is choosing his college. I rejected for him
all but Peter's,
Caius, or Trinity Hall, the last being, though legal, not in
favour,
or lazy, or something. Caius is populous, and is society to itself.
Peter's
is select, and knows the University. Please give me some
notions
on these things, both for Bob and me. I postpone my answer to
you
about the Gorham business till another time, when also I shall have
read
Waterland on Regenration, which is with Mrs. Morrieson, and
some Pusey books I know. In the meantime I admire the Judgement as a
composition
of great art and ingenuity.
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