To Rev. Dr. Whewell.

Camden Street, Oct. 21, 1846.

1846

My dear Sir,—First, I am very much obliged by your kind invitation, but my lectures are imperative, and I cannot leave town in November.

Next, as to Athenœum police report, you have made worse guesses, unless indeed you never were mistaken in your life.

Now as to the papers. The only wish I have for them to appear in one is that I may get my copies all at one time, and get them disposed of with one trouble. Whether, this condition being fulfilled, they are printed in the form of two papers or one does not matter, and I agree with you that they are distinct enough to be two, and might better be so.

I am going to publish a work on Logic, which, as I told you, will appear soon after the paper. This is sufficient reason for not developing in the paper. Indeed, the Society must know that fact, and take it into consideration in deciding on the printing. There is of course an advantage in new things going first through the usual channels in which scientific matters are propagated, and so I should like the Transactions to have them. But, tota re perspecta, the Society may think otherwise, particularly if there is heavy matter, typographically speaking, on hand already.