To Miss Howard.

Cambridge, Sept. 18, 1867.

. . . Your question (the best book on psychology for the young ladies) has just recently been considered and debated by Professor Gurney and me, with reference to the wants of a young gentleman, recently graduated, who also proposes to teach philosophy to young ladies. . . .

We have concluded that as good a book for this purpose as can be found, among many poor ones, is Dugald Stewart’s “Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind.” An edition of this work, abridged and annotated by Professor Bowen, has been used as a text-book in this college in past years; and Professor Gurney proposes to continue the use of it as an introduction to the college course of philosophy. This reprint has passed to a second edition, published in 1864 by William H. Dennet, of Boston. But your Springfield booksellers will know all about that. What they may not know about the book is that, in my opinion, it is an elegantly shallow treatise, not difficult to understand, because superficial; and it ought to be rather interesting to beginners. Professor Stewart was a good man, and is doubtless now in heaven. He wrote on philosophy in the interest of all that is lovely and of good report. There are no heresies in his book.

I hardly think you will need any other book to help you understand this one. But you might get some useful hints from Sir William Hamilton’s “Lectures on Metaphysics,” of which Professor Bowen has also edited an abridged edition. And, if you want to have all the ideas which you will get familiar with in these books completely upset and overthrown,

read Mill’s “Logic” and his “Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy.” I can hardly conceive of a more wholesome discipline of the human understanding than an interested study of Hamilton’s Philosophy, followed by a reading of Mill’s criticisms of it; but I think Stewart’s book the best to begin with.

I venture to volunteer the advice that, in teaching philosophy, it is well to call in question and refute every thing you can, with the aid of collateral reading, in order that the young ladies may never forget that they are not studying their catechisms,— not merely studying to acquire true and settled doctrines, but mainly to strengthen their understandings, to learn to think, and doubt, and inquire with equanimity. To help you teach this is the chief advantage of a parallel course of study. Still better, perhaps, since you would not have leisure to do all this reading, would it be to set those zealots of the class who are not satisfied with the length of the lessons in Stewart to reading other books for the sake of discussion. Let each come armed with some confounding objection to the doctrines of the text, and the recitations will be lively and profitable exercises. But this is rather an ideal advice, not founded on my own experience.

I am glad to hear from you that you have had so pleasant a summer. You only dread the coming work because it is strange. My dread of mine is because it is so dreadfully familiar. I have treated it all summer with a familiar neglect.

As this is the last of the letters to Miss Howard, I will add here some passages relating to Chauncey, from a note which she has kindly sent me: —

. . . “My remembrance is of the sweetest courtesy in explaining often very abstruse or scientific matters to very incompetent people, and he never even looked surprised at

any thing you did not know. He often went to Northampton to spend Thanksgiving, and always came here to tea on his way back, with the faithfulness which marked his friendships; and we were in the habit of storing up difficult questions which came up in our classes for Mr. Wright’s annual visit. The late train to Boston left Springfield at two o’clock at night; and you know how oblivious he was of the lapse of time when he was talking on subjects that interested him. With labors behind and before us, and the subject not unfrequently above our heads, we often felt shivers of sleepiness; but Mr. Wright would seem unconscious of every thing, and placidly say, as he rose to go in the small hours, ‘ I see you keep the same late hours you always did.’ — Once we were talking about the disintegration of the rocks in Conway, and S. said, ‘If rocks go to pieces, what can you trust in?’ Mr. Wright replied, with his inimitable serio-comic manner, ‘Truth!’ — He wanted to tell me about some book on one occasion; and I told him I was going to pass my Christmas vacation in Roxbury, and asked him to come there and see us. He said he would; and shutting his eyes, as if he were studying a problem, he said, ‘By what system of mnemonics can I recall that?’ and he did not invent a system, for he did not come.

“---- was on the conservative side always, in religious talks with Mr. Wright, and once told him she believed implicitly that the world was made in six days. He looked at her as if she were a new order of being, and I never shall forget the tone of his exclamation, ‘Is it possible?’

“We saw him constantly during a little visit which he made at Nantucket in the summer of 1871. You know how apt he was to lead the conversation to religious subjects. ---- was really pained by the turn the conversation took one evening, and she said most earnestly, ‘Mr. Wright, don’t you believe in the immortality of the soul?’ I felt almost nervous

at this direct question, for fear what his direct answer might be, but it has been my sheet-anchor since: ‘I think there is more reason to believe it than to disbelieve it.’

“You remember that Professor Peirce gave a course of lectures at the Lowell Institute. Mr. Wright had a seat near the front, and was always there till Mr. Peirce referred in a very complimentary manner to Chauncey Wright. He seemed utterly overwhelmed, and never appeared at the lectures again.

. . . “But the sweetest thing I remember in him was the way of advancing these ideas: there was nothing in the least aggressive about it, and a something that was almost tender in his way of trying to see your side of the question.”

In the last letter to Miss Howard, Chauncey humorously speaks of “dreading” his work because it is so “dreadfully familiar.” President Runkle of the Institute of Technology at Boston, who was for years associated with him in his work upon the Nautical Almanac, has sent me some information as to Chauncey’s habits of work, from which I will here quote: —

“His Almanac work,” he says, “always seemed the greatest drudgery, and he never did it till the last minute. When he could postpone no longer, he laid all else aside, and worked, almost literally, day and night till it was done. But it was done most conscientiously. For the sake of system, and to reduce the mental tax as much as possible and also to secure accuracy, he was willing to make many additional figures; and he rested his mind by changing from one part of the work to another. For instance, if he had a long series of numbers to convert into logarithms or the converse, he would lay these aside, and perform additions for an hour or two, for the sake of rest. I have known more rapid workers for a short time, but never one who could do such a vast amount of work on a long stretch. . . . For many years I knew Chauncey

intimately, and I am certain that I have never known a man so little influenced by external circumstances. He lived almost wholly in an ideal world.

. . . “After my coming to live in this town, Chauncey often came over to spend an evening. Mr. Runkle’s house was at Brookline, and about three miles from Cambridge. Chauncey’s visits were made during the years 1866 and 1867. ⁴⁴ He arrived late, and it was always early morning before we were ready to separate. He never would accept a bed, always saying that he liked the walk in the early morning. He probably felt that, once in his own room, he could prolong his nap without interfering with any one’s household arrangements.

“If he had had the ambitions which spur many men, he could have won almost any place, and I once felt sorry that he did not have them; but now I am thankful to have known one soul above the petty motives which actuate common mortals, — whose only aim was to discover the truth, and who was never even conscious that there could be any reason why he should not state it, no matter what private or public opinion might be upon the subject in hand.”