A principal concern of Peirce’s, previewed a few months earlier in his review of Ribot’s Psychology (sel. 2), was to show the limits of mechanical causation and the need for a conception of growth that was non-reversible and not merely the statistical outcome of billions of physical interactions as with the behavior of gases. The cosmological philosophy Peirce was aiming for would not sanction the idea that causal explanation is constrained by the causal closure of the physical. Peirce’s growing sense of mission to develop a comprehensive philosophy that could challenge and hopefully supplant the mechanical philosophy led him to look at the history of ideas in new ways. Though Helmholtz’s discovery of the law of the conservation of energy may have been the first great achievement of modern science, Peirce now looked back with renewed interest to Galileo, who had taken the first step of modern scientific thought with the inauguration of dynamics, and asked how Galileo could have accomplished such a thing. Peirce concluded that Galileo had depended more on common sense and il lume naturale, a “natural prompting” of a mind “formed under the influence of phenomena governed by the laws of mechanics,” than on experiment.22 This seemed fully compatible with Peirce’s objective idealism and with his ideas about the growth of law and the growth of mind and would frequently be invoked in coming years as he became more and more intrigued with the centrality of abductive cognition. In bringing to a close his survey of the “elementary ideas [that] ought to enter into our view of the universe,” Peirce singled out chance and continuity as key conceptions necessary for constructing a philosophy informed by and fully consistent with modern science. These two conceptions would be examined in detail in his next two Monist papers (sels. 24–27).
After finishing his first paper for the Monist, Peirce found time to review Alexander C. Fraser’s Locke for the Nation; the review appeared in the 25 Sept. 1890 issue. Peirce began his review (sel. 10) with a reference to Galton’s “eminent persons” and an indirect reference to his own study of great men (W5: 26–106). Peirce discounted the importance of heredity for producing great men but, perhaps in an allusion to his own situation, he acknowledged the importance of “gifts of fortune” and quoted Palissy who held that “the majority of geniuses are crushed under adverse circumstances.”23 Peirce gave Locke as an example of a man who attained true greatness even though his family did not show distinguished ability. Beyond his intelligence and other qualities, the key to Locke’s greatness, in Peirce’s eyes, was his “public spirit,” “the benevolent wish to improve the condition of his country and the world.” It was that spirit of devotion that inspired all that Locke wrote and that explains the “vast influence” of Locke’s philosophy on the development of Europe. To those who would question Locke’s merits or seek to reduce him to a “mouthpiece of the ideas which were destined to govern the world,” Peirce answers that there is nothing greater “than so to anticipate the vital thought of the coming age as to be mistaken for its master.” Locke’s grand lesson, for Peirce, was to discount two of the methods of settling belief—that of authority and the a priori method—and to invite men to think independently, critically, and anew. It may interest readers of this volume that Peirce concluded his review by supporting Fraser’s plea for a new edition of Locke’s works: “this great man, whose utterances still have their lessons for the world, with wholesome influences for all plastic minds, should be studied in a complete, correct, and critical edition.”
During the summer of 1890, Mendenhall had weighed his options for resuming gravity operations and had concluded that the Survey could no longer afford the traditional European-style pendulum operations Peirce had introduced to U.S. science. Under the influence of Robert von Sterneck, a geodesist from Austria-Hungary, Mendenhall decided to reprogram the Survey’s gravity operations by basing them on the use of short half-seconds invariable pendulums of his own design that could be easily transported from station to station and operated at a fraction of the cost of Peirce’s operations.24 On October 1st, Mendenhall wrote to Peirce to let him know that he was “contemplating a renewal of activity in Gravitation work with field operations under the direction of Assistant Preston” and that “to reduce greatly the time and expense” he would make use of the new half-seconds pendulums.
Peirce was not pleased. Not only was Mendenhall indirectly giving him notice that his leadership of gravity research would not be restored, but also that the world-class research operation Peirce had built up over the years would be abandoned. The radical change of apparatus and technique would inevitably tend to disconnect the results of future research from those of the past—Peirce’s for the most part. Peirce might have suspected that this decision would influence Mendenhall’s judgment about the value of the long report he had submitted the previous November. In fact, Mendenhall had heard back from at least one reviewer: Simon Newcomb. Newcomb acknowledged that the report was “a careful and conscientious piece of work” but he advised that Peirce’s “inversion of the logical order” of the presentation made it impossible to comprehend. He recommended that the report not be published unless Peirce reconstructed it “in logical order” (28 April 1890). Of course Peirce did not know how things stood with his report; what he knew was that his leadership and his legacy were being threatened by Mendenhall’s changes.
Peirce held little back. He replied at once (2 Oct. 1890) that “[t]o go back to a non-reversible bar pendulum would be an unintelligent and ostrich-like policy,—a way of concealing from oneself any source of constant error.” He insisted that there were factors more important than time and money relevant to “the economy of the subject”: “One of these is accuracy; for if this is not attained, the work is useless; and the time and money, however little, are thrown away. The other is assurance of accuracy; for however accurate the work may be, if we do not positively know that it is so, it is little better than if it were not so.” Peirce added that more than a year earlier he had shared his own plan for conducting pendulum operations quickly and inexpensively (occupying three stations a week), and that that plan should be adopted and he should be in charge. Mendenhall asked in reply to see the details of Peirce’s plan but reminded him that it was not accuracy that he wanted to sacrifice but unnecessary refinement.25
The inaugural issue of the Monist was published in October without Peirce’s “Architecture” article, but Peirce celebrated the event with an appreciative note in the Nation (sel. 11): “the establishment of a new philosophical quarterly which may prove a focus for all the agitation of thought that struggles today to illuminate the deepest problems with light from modern science, is an event worthy of particular notice.” He wrote that the first number opened “with good promise,” the articles having been authored by reputed European and American psychologists, biologists, and physicists with a keen interest in the philosophical questions of the day. Peirce questioned what the editors meant by “monism.” Referencing Carus’s explanation in his Fundamental Problems where monism was offered in opposition to a two-substance dualism and as an alternative to both idealism and materialism, Peirce warned that “metaphysicians who call themselves Monists are usually materialists sans le savoir.” Here was already a public intimation that Hegeler’s program might be based on a philosophical misconception.
As 1890 drew toward a close, Peirce knew that the coming year would bring an end to his work for the Century Company and that his Coast Survey position was not secure. It was critical to find alternative means for his and Juliette’s livelihood, and he would launch himself into various pursuits, many of them seemingly haphazard or short-lived. It appears, for instance, that he began to develop an investment scheme that involved rapid transit out of New York City. On 12 November 1890, Samuel Dimmick Mott, an inventor who had worked for Thomas Edison, wrote to say that he was sorry to have missed Peirce when he tried to see him to discuss the “rapid transit matter.” Mott then explained expected costs and gains for a project to construct a rapid transit rail line between New York and Philadelphia and told Peirce that if he could “succeed in doing anything in my behalf with good parties I will cheerfully make it worth your while, by agreeing to give you 10%.” This railroad scheme, which ultimately went nowhere, was only one of several investment or marketing ideas that Peirce pursued around this time. On 22 November, his brother