Found

F. E. Abbot’s Libel Case against Josiah Royce

• “On the latter book Josiah Royce wrote an article so scathing that Abbot took it as an unfair attempt to destroy his reputation, and eventually responded publicly with Mr. Royce’s Libel (1891 October) in which he sought redress from Royce’s employer Harvard University. The debate moved to the pages of The Nation, where Charles Sanders Peirce took Abbot’s side.” — Wikepedia article on Francis Ellingwood Abbot

This is a key document in the story of Charles Sanders Peirce, who respected Abbot and quoted him in his own work. Abbot like Peirce combined the elements I associate with triadic philosophy — a commitment to science and to spirituality and a refusal to see the two as separate. I publish this in the hope of advancing the effort to spread this understanding.

PROFESSOR ROYCE’S LIBEL

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 OVER-
SEERS 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 impli-
cation, appealed to your high sanction to sustain him in his
attack, if he had not undeniably sought to create a wide-
spread 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 cir-
cumstances 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 indiffer-
ent 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 con-
demned 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 pre-
vent the growth of so injurious a belief. I beg leave, there-
fore, 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 “ In-
ternational 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 ad-
visedly 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 con-
tempt, 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 compli-

ments adroitly inserted here and there : these merely fur-
nished the foil needed to give greater potency and efficiency
to the personal insinuations, and, like Mark Antony’s com-
pliments 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 misrepre-
sented, 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 criti-
cism at all ; and (notwithstanding numerous quotations per-
verted by unfair and misleading glosses, including two mis-
quotations quite too useful to be accidental) this ostensible
review is, from beginning to end, nothing but misrepresenta-
tion 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 (i) scientific realism to philosophical idealism in
general, and in particular (2) constructive realism to con-
structive idealism, (3) critical realism to critical idealism,

(4) ethical realism to ethical idealism, and (5) religious real-
ism 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 criticis-
ing, 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 ideal-
istic “ !

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 misrep-
resentation which was to follow : namely, that the theory
actually propounded in my book had been, in fact, “ appro-
priated” and “ borrowed” from an idealist! The immense
utility of misrepresenting my system at the start as “ essen-
tially idealistic” lay in the fact that, by adopting this strata-
gem, Dr. Royce could escape altogether the formidable
necessity of first arguing the main question of idealism ver-
sus realism. Secretly conscious of his own inability to han-
dle that question, to refute my “ Soliloquy of the Self-Con-
sistent 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 unin-
formed readers by a bold assertion that I myself am an ideal-
ist 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 uni-
versals 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 him-
self 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 Dar-
win 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-Presi-
dent Cleveland of having borrowed his message on tariff
reform from the Home Market Club, as to accuse me of hav-
ing 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 con-
tradict each other absolutely, uncompromisingly, irreconcil-
ably : Hegel’s is a theory of “ absolute idealism “ or “pure
thought “ (reines Denkcu), that is, of thought absolutely inde-
pendent of experience, while mine is a theory of “ scientific
realism,” that is, of thought absolutely dependent upon expe-
rience. 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-evi-
dently impossible that either could be “borrowed,” con-
sciously 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 com-
mit himself irrevocably to a defence of the absurd; but
eagerness to accuse another has betrayed him into a posi-
tion whence it is impossible for him to escape with honor.
Solely by misdescribing my philosophy as “essentially ideal-
istic” 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 su-

8

premely ridiculous accusation of plagiarism ; solely by pre-
suming 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 phi-
losophy.” His words are these :

“ Of novelty, good or bad, the book contains, indeed, de-
spite 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 [sci-
ence and philosophy], this book aims to show that, in order
to refute agnosticism and establish enlightened theism, noth-
ing 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 at-
tempt to evolve philosophy as a whole out of the scientific

9

method itself, as “observation, hypothesis, and experimen-
tal 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 any-
body else, has ever made just such an attempt as that. Un-
less there can be shown somewhere a parallel attempt, the
statement is as undeniably true as it is certainly unpreten-
tious.

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 perfec-
tion] of human knowledge in a bold, new, and true theory
of universals. For so-called modern philosophy rests com-
placently in a theory of universals which is thoroughly me-
diaeval 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 respect-
fully submit the result (so far as already published), not to
such critics as Dr. Royce, but to able, learned, and magnan-
imous 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
Jias been to shoiu the way out of agnosticism into the sun-
light of the predestined philosophy of science.” This ex-
pression 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

10

the perhaps unwise attempt to show tliis in so small a com-
pass, the educated public must be tJie 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 preten-
sions,” quite too useful to be purely accidental.

IV. But Dr. Royce does not content himself with quot-
ing or misquoting what I -have published, for the self-evi-
dent 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 influ-
ence 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 preten-
sions “ ? 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 liter-

II

ary 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 per-
sonal claim whatever, permit me to take advantage of your
indulgent kindness, and to make here the first public con-
fession 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 con-
strained 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 con-
tained 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 zv/iole 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 under-
stood, 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 any-
thing 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

12

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 “extrava-
gant,” when,/0r all he knows, they might (if made) fall far
short of the truth. Whether in this case the evidence sup-
ports the accusation, and whether the conscience which per-
mits the making of such an accusation on such evidence is
itself such a conscience as you expect to find in your ap-
pointees, these, gentlemen, are questions for you your-
selves to decide.

III.

These three connected and logically affiliated misstate-
ments of fact namely, (i) that my philosophy is “essen-
tially 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 “bor-
rowed” and “appropriated” philosophy constitute in
their totality a regular system of gross and studied misrep-
resentation, as methodical and coherent as it is unscrupu-
lous. 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 misrepre-
sentation is, I should have passed it over in silence, pre
cisely 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 com-
mands of self-respect and of civic conscience, the duty

13

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 fash-
ioned 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 “ original-
ity” 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
1 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 reproduce litteralement.”
(La Philosophic Religieuse en Angleterre. Par Ludovic
Carrau, Directeur des Conferences de philosophic a la
Faculte des lettres de Paris. Paris, 1888.) These extracts,

14

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 judg-
ment 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 philoso-
phy 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 care-
ful, 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 im-
mature 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, uncon-
sciously 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 un-
paralleled 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 preten-
sions “ 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 walk-
ing-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 pre-
liminary 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 Har-
vard 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 profes-
sor 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

i6

posting and placarding them for a mere difference of opin-
ion, 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 “ pro-
fession “ 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 Univer-
sity ; 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 se-
rious charge to bring against an author, and one which may
entail upon him, not only great damage to his literary repu-
tation, 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

17

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, undoubt-
edly 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 dis-
grace,” 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 univer-
sals 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 conscious-
ness. 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 re-
member 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;

1.8

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 uni-
versals, 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 “ un-
aware 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
(i) 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.

(i) 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 com-
plex 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 con-
tradictory to mine! Hegel has to put upon the word “con-
crete “ 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 (Bcgriff) may be always called ‘ab-
stract,’ if the term ‘concrete’ must be limited to the mere
concrete of sensation and immediate perception ; the Notion

19

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.” (Encyklo-
padie, Werke, VI. 316.) Again : “Just as little is the sensu-
ous-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” oft. pure or non-empirical thought ;
while I avowedly exclude from my realistic theory of univer-
sals the “ concrete “ of pure thougJit, and admit into it only
the “ concrete “ of real experience. -Hegel’s “ concrete “ can-
not 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 compre-
hension of the contradictoriness of these two uses of the
word. Yet, in order to found a malicious charge of plagia-
rism, 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 He-
gelian “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, im-
pertinent, 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 arteni) as itself founda-
tion 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 plagi-
arism from Hegel, if there were only some reasonable or

2O

even merely plausible evidence to support the inference
(which I have just proved not to be the case), it is incontest-
able 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 reputa-
tion 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 con-
spicuously shown, there is j ust ground for moral condemna-
tion 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 es-
sential virtues, and thereby to hold me up to universal con-
tempt 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

21

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 occa-
sional compliments, since these have only the effect of dis-
guising 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. Com-
pliments to eke out a libel are merely insults in masquerade.
The libellous plan of the article as a whole is shown in the
regtilar 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 irreconcil-
able 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 unscru-
pulousness of the initial misrepresentation, slipped in, as it
were, quite casually, and without any argument, in the ap-
parently incidental and matter-of-course statement that my
“conclusion” is “essentially idealistic.” It is not “ideal-
istic “ at all, but as radically realistic as the premises them-

22

selves ; 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 “ pro-
fessional warning” to the public at large against my “philo-
sophical pretensions “ in general. Not one of these funda-
mental 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 com-
ment 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 publica-
tion. 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

23

comment upon which the publication is sought to be ex-
cused 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 Defa^
mation, Slander, and Libel, p. 568.) Applying this to the
case in hand: the “admitted facts” are these: (i) my phi-
losophy 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 preten-
sions 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 “extrava-
gant pretensions “; he “travels into collateral matter,” when
he alludes at all to my unpublished manuscript ; he “ intro-
duces facts not stated in the work, accompanied with in-
jurious comment upon them,” when he alludes to this
unpublished manuscript for the sole purpose of saying (un-
truthfully) 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

24

require that the productions of authors shall be subject to
fair criticism, that even some animadversion may be per-
mitted, 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 busi-
ness of criticism.” (Abbott’s Practice Reports, New Series,
VI. 1 8.) Applying this to the case in hand : Dr. Royce,
“ under the pretext of reviewing “ my “ book, takes an oppor-
tunity 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 war-ns the gen-
eral public against an impostor soliciting alms under false pre-
tences ! 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 Cock-
burn 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 libel-
lous.” (Foster and Finlason’s Reports, I V. 1107.) Applying
this to the case in hand : Dr. Royce’s ostensible review pre-
sents 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

25

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 consti-
tutes ontology or Constructive Realism, as opposed to all
forms of Constructive Idealism. The scientific theory of
Knowledge results from analysis of the Concept, and consti-
tutes 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 consti-
tutes 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 consti-
tutes 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 dis-
ingenuous 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 be-
tween realism and idealism, honestly tell that public, without

26

any further information at all on the subject, that the “con-
clusion “ 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 be-
lieve 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 libel-
lous 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 ostensi-
ble 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 philoso-
phy 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 par-
tially and imperfectly wrought out, of patient and indepen-
dent reflection for more than thirty years on the highest
problems of human life and thought ? Is this the best sym-

patby 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 con-
fronts 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 adher-
ents of the spoils system with being “ hypocrites and phari-
sees.” 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 criti-
cal and sceptical age, of making ethics and religion so reason-
able 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 con-
ceives 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 princi-
ples of ethical science. To-day the greatest obstacle to such
a reasonable belief is the “ philosophical idealism “ which di-
rectly contradicts it ; and the greatest reform needed in
modern thought, above all in the theory of ethics, is the sub-
stitution of the scientific method for the idealistic method in
philosophy itself.

The cause of philosophical reform, indeed, cannot be long

28

delayed by any Philistinism in those who, by their profes-
sional 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 real-
istic 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 kiiown constitution
of tJie real universe is tJiat of tJie 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 mechan-
ical constitution of the universe, instead of being the ulti-
mate boundary of scientific investigation, is merely the start-
ing-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 bot-
tom, 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 “preten-
sion “ ; 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 possi-
bilities 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

2 9

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 Har-
vard “ 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 be-
wildered, depressed, and “disheartened,” because he saw
nowhere any ground of rational “conviction” about any-
thing; and that it was “just the same with all the other fel-
lows “- that is, all his companions in the study of philos-
ophy. It is time, high time, that this state of things should
be searchingly investigated in the interest of Harvard Uni-
versity itself, the facts determined, their causes ascertained.
While such a state of things prevails, Harvard conspicu-
ously fails to be a “ philosophical pioneer “ except in a dis-
tinctly retrograde direction conspicuously fails to dis-
charge the highest service which she owes to the world :
namely, to send out her young graduates well armed before-
hand for the battle of life with clear, strong, and lofty moral
convictions. Whatever other causes may exist fpr the fail-
ure, one cause at least is certain the self-proved and amaz-
ing 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 sub-
mission, I “ tacitly confess the justice of an official con-
demnation 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 magnani-
mously 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 “criti-
cisms “ 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 publica-
tion, 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 em-
ployer, 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 ex-
pressly 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

32

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 sound-
ness 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 de-
fend themselves. Eternal lies and sophisms on one side, and
silence on the other, are too unequal.”

The “ International Journal of Ethics “ is under the con-
trol of an “editorial committee” of eight, Dr. Felix Adler
at the head and Dr. Royce at the end ; the other six mem-
bers live in Europe and have no share in the home manage-
ment. Mr. Weston is not a member of the committee, has
little editorial authority, and, in case of disagreement be-
tween 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 edito-
rial responsibility, whether legal or moral, since, according
to Mr. Weston’ s just quoted declaration, Dr. Adler alone has

33

actual power either to procure or to prevent publication ;
while to Dr. Royce is assigned merely the special depart-
ment 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 re-
sponsible 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 at-
tack ; 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 prin-
ciples of justice, honor, and fair play.

To my astonishment and indignation, however, my manu-
script, 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 af-
fair, 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 con-
sider 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 “ the-
oretical ethics,” and permitted him to attach to it a rejoinder
which reiterated the original libel with additions and improve-
ments, 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 per-

34

sonally wounded, nor yet uneasy at Dr. Abbot’s present
warmth.” These words have a peculiar interest with refer-
ence to his later legal notice against all publication or circu-
lation of this very reply : his assumed or genuine pachyder-
matousness soon gave way to fearful apprehension of its
effect upon the public mind.

In no sense whatever was my reply an article on “ theo-
retical ethics.” To what part of the “theory of ethics”
belongs Dr. Royce’s false personal accusation of “ extrav-
agant 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 depart-
ments 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 re-
joinders 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 undis-

35

tracted 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
1 6th and i/th, 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:
1 1 protest against the gross injustice of postponing my article,
or of publishing tJiis new attack without the last word you
promised me. It is impossible to write this now \i. e. y 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

36

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 un-
ethical a judgment in so grave a case as this.”

But the April number of the “Journal of Ethics,” never-
theless, was published without my article. The latter was
all in type, and the proofrsheets had been corrected ; nothing
prevented its publication in April except (i) Dr. Royce’s
insistence that my reply to his first libel should not be pub-
lished 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 re-
flections 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 fore-
seen clearly and nerved himself to bear bravely, was only to
incur the ridicule invited by a timorous man who first strikes

37

another and then runs away. Dr. Adler, moreover, as the
responsible editor of the “Journal of Ethics,” had laid him-
self, 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 re-
strict 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 amus-
ing 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 “ pro-
fessional warning.” The only object of a reply to his re-
joinder 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 with-
out a suspicion that it pricked the bubble of his previous iri-
descent pledge to “ask no mercy “ :

MEMORANDUM OF APR. 13, 1891.

i. Dr. Abbot’s article must be in Mr. Weston’s hands in
MS. by June i, for issue in the July No., if possible.

38

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 ^vith the conditions of №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 re-
joinder 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 “ Jour-
nal of Ethics.”

8. Should Dr. Abbot not accept the conditions of the pres-
ent 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 ex-
traordinary a document as this could have originated. My
answer to Dr. Royce’s officious interference was a short and

39

dry rejection in toto. Dr. Royce was not the responsible
editor of the “Journal of Ethics,” and had no power to dic-
tate 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 sub-
mitted 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 cen-
tral 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 “ par-
liamentary “ 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 inde-
scribable “ 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 pub-
lication 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

4 o

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 ‘ in-
ferences ‘ 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 else-
where. I ask only what is self-evidently fair: (i) 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 free-
dom of courts parliamentary freedom open to you.” This
ended the matter, so far as the “Journal of Ethics “ was con-
cerned, in Dr. Adler’s explicit denial of a full and fair hear-
ing 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.

41

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 resist-
ance. 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, how-
ever, 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 pos-
sible 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, un-
changed, 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 con-
templated. 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 meas-
ures for my self-protection. I expect you, who came to me
in the character of a pacificator, and who expressed a credit-
able desire, in which I fully join, for the settlement of this
trouble in some way which shall occasion no scandal to Har-

42

vard 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 en-
closed 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 un-
consciously, “ borrow his theory of universals from Hegel,”
or “ sin against the most obvious demands of literary prop-
erty-rights.”

III. I unconditionally retract my “professional warning
to the liberal-minded public against Dr. Abbot’s philo-
sophical 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 dis-
claim 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

43

not regard it as any step, on your part, towards 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 Den-
ver ; 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 : (i) 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 ‘ ? Cer-
tainly 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

44

have wounded you, and he is entirely ready to disavow any
intention of wounding you.”

On July n, I wrote in answer: “Most certainly I do not
expect, or wish, that Dr. Royce should disavow any philo-
sophical ‘ opinions ‘ he may hold. What I complain of is a
mis statement 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 pusillan-
imously suppressed, he has had abundant means of informa-
tion. 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 unnecessa-
rily, as I think) to the ‘ form ‘ of the Card I sent you, and in-
asmuch 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 re-
spects the tone of the review.’ It is plain enough that you,
Dr. Royce’s own counsel, perceive at least something im-
proper, 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 con-
siders himself a gentleman, certainly to his position in Har-
vard 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 suf-
ficiently 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

45

objects to it at all, it must be on account of its substance.
Certainly you cannot affect to consider it as other than ‘ pa-
cific.’ 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 1 1 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 ridic-
ulous accusation of plagiarism from Hegel, and then wrote as
follows : “ Now as to my feeling concerning what was regret-
table 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 ex-
pression 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 un-
qualified 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 “ regretta-
ble “ 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 of-
fence” and “unnecessary pain” to its object! This delib-
erate and contemptuous refusal to recall, to modify, or
to apologize for any of the false accusations he has made

4 6

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 ex-
cessive 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 “ per-
sonal 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 reputa-
tion in the name of Harvard University. It is not always
safe to reckon on the absence, in parties confessedly “ at-
tacked,” 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 preten-
sions as to the originality and profundity of my still unpub-
lished 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 main-
taining 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 inflict-
ing it upon you, gentlemen, must be the necessity of show-
ing to you that, as I was plainly bound to do, I first ex-
hausted every means of private redress before laying the
matter before you publicly. Not till I had failed to obtain

47

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 ex-
plicitly 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 unpro-
voked 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 au-
thority, not of reason or truth, but of his mere “ profes-
sional “ position as professor in Harvard University, thereby
artfully suggesting and insinuating to the uninformed public

4 8

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 ad-
vanced course of philosophical instruction, Harvard Univer-
sity 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 prosecu-
tion, 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 un-
becoming 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 Mate r ,

Your obedient servant,

FRANCIS E. ABBOT.
CAMBRIDGE, Oct. i, 1891.

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