Piershill, Edinburgh,
Jan. 1, 1870.
My dear Sir,
I am glad that I was not wrong in considering your paper published, so far as a review of it by me was concerned. I should have been sorry had I committed an inconvénance [sic].[2]
Perhaps you will allow me to say a word or two on the point between us. Hegel’s one object is so peculiar that it appears to put him in a false position again & again as regards received views. It is they, however, who take this for granted, that really occupy a false position. Dr Ingleby[3] , for example, writes me that Hegel denies “universal gravitation totidem verbis”.[4] Now I do not at this moment know the particular passage to which Dr I. alludes; still I know that his conclusion is quite wrong. Have the kindness to read in Schwegler[5] the sketch of Hegel’s Naturphilosophie. There you will see clearly Hegel’s general object, & nothing incompatible with ordinary thinking. As for gravitation, Hegel not only believes in it, but supposes himself to account for it.
All apparent nonsense that Hegel says flows from this attempt to account for it. You would laugh at a man trying to account for Space, for its three dimensions &c. Hegel, nevertheless, seems to succeed very well that length. I have admitted in the Secret of Hegel the equivocal look of much in Hegel in this connection (as examples, see him on gravity at the equator, or on the tides) & there is nothing easier than to raise a laugh against him. The truth is, however, Hegel was quite as well informed as either you or I, & all is changed when the “conditions” are “seen into”. As regards mathematics, Hegel was evidently conditioned by Lagrange.[6] That being so, however, it is Lagrange must suffer for any errors, & not Hegel. I feel quite sure that — in the first long note, for example, as translated by myself — however often Hegel may say things that a professional mathematician would not say, there is not one technical blunder in elementary mathematics. His position in regard to a knowledge of mathematics, I have accurately indicated. Some day I shall put all Hegel’s physicalia & mathematicalia together.
Yours very faithfully,
J .H. Stirling
W. R. Smith, Esq.
[1] CUL ADD 7449 D699 MS
[2] Smith and Stirling are being excessively polite towards one another. Technically, the paper was unpublished (as WRS had noted) but it seems to have been mutually agreed that it might be regarded as published, in view of Stirling’s published comments in the Edinburgh Courant.
[3] Ingleby, Clement Mansfield (1823–1886): was educated as a lawyer at Trinity College, Cambridge, but became a Shakespearean critic and miscellaneous writer [DNB] as well as being a would-be philosopher.
[4] Totidem verbis: i.e. in so many words.
[5] Schwegler, Albert (1819–1857): was a pupil of F. C. Baur but gave up theology for historical and philosophical writing [EB9].
[6] Lagrange, Joseph Louis (1736–1813): one of the foremost mathematicians of his day and notable for his frequently valid criticisms of Newton’s analytical method. Both Stirling and WRS attack Lagrange in this respect. Cf. the article “Lagrange” in EB9 by Miss A. M. Clerk.