Description
Description: This fascinating three-page letter is an exchange between two 19th-century philosophers, William Whewell corresponding with Lady Mary Shepherd, about the nature of induction. Whewell argues that scientific conceptions are the result of both empirical and rational thought processes. This letter gives us a glimpse into how he reasons. He reflects upon Lady Mary’s ruminations about reasoning and suggests that he and the polymath Mary Somerville would be able to build on them:
Dear Lady Mary,
Your letter has followed me from Cambridge back to London where I came for the present. I am much gratified to find that you think my views likely to tend to reform our philosophy, which is what ought to be our business as speculators. I have read with much interest your letter to Mrs. Somerville (Mary Somerville, a Scottish writer and polymath), and agree with you, if you will allow us to do so going a great deal further. For I hold, with you, that observed facts can do more than suggest general truths; but then I think that the mind, so fast in action, can work upon such suggestions through a range so wide, that the demonstrable truths of mathematics has no means to adequately represent the changes. And when we say that we reason from knowing that like things an like, or from a knowledge of causes, if I were wrangling (as we learn to do at Cambridge) I should say, that, in the very judgment that the things an like, and in the apprehension of a ambition [?] of affect and cause which we apply to the facts, resides an operation of thought, which is the basis of the general truths which we educe. I agree with you that we do not derive our general theories from observed facts, nor can we do so by any process of reasoning, and perhaps you will agree with me, that the achieve [?] of the stop by which we catch inactive truths, when reviewed in its full extent and including all kinds of truths, is very difficult to sort clearly.
You wish me to write a little essay on Nature and Laws of Nature. Of course you will not think three thick octavos an answerable extent for such a subject, and inform some such scale as that, I will make the attempt or soon as I have the leisure.
I return you the letter to Mrs Somerville with many thanks, and am, dear Lady Mary
Very truly yours/W. Whewell.
Autograph letter signed on an 8” x 7½” sheet of “T Edmunds 1836” watermarked paper. Item #A01814
William Whewell (1794-1856) was one of the most influential scientists of the 19th c… a scientist, Anglican priest, philosopher, historian of science and theologian. He was known for his wordsmithing… coining new terms: “scientist”, “linguistics”, “astigmatism”, among others. He influenced the works of John Herschel, Charles Lyell, Charles Darwin, and Michael Faraday among others and championed the work of Lady Mary Shepherd. He coined the terms anode, cathode and ion for Faraday. He taught Moral Philosophy at Trinity College, was named a Master of the College in 1841, and then became its Vice-Chancellor in 1842 and 1855.
Lady Mary Shepherd (1777-1847) was a Scottish philosopher with much impact on Edinburgh philosophers. Among many essays, she authored two books, An Essay upon the Relation of Cause and Effect, controverting the Doctrine of Mr. Hume, concerning the Nature of the Relation, 1824; Essays on the Perception of an External Universe and other Subjects Connected with the Doctrine of Causation, 1827. William Whewell implemented her book and invited her to teach to his students at Cambridge.
Condition: Mailing fold lines with some toning. Generally very good condition.
