One of the writings in this volume that might puzzle readers is Peirce’s two-part unsigned Nation review of William James’s Principles of Psychology (sel. 37), not so much for its content as for its tone. The content itself is not surprising, for it reflects Peirce’s practice of zeroing in on logical inconsistencies committed by authors who should know better, and of displaying and criticizing the hidden metaphysics that underlies naïve anti-metaphysical claims. But Peirce and James were friends of long standing, and Peirce knew that James had spent many hard years writing his first major work. Peirce was one of five persons whom James expressed gratitude to in his preface for intellectual companionship. So it might be surprising that Peirce took James rather severely to task (merciless Royce, on the other hand, would have appreciated the deed, as we shall soon see). After calling into question James’s inexact writing style, Peirce wrote that James’s thought “is highly original, or at least novel,” but it is “originality of the destructive kind,” and that “the book should have been preceded by an introduction discussing the strange positions in logic upon which all its arguments turn.” James, Peirce found, “seems to pin his faith” on “the general incomprehensibility of things,” and he is “materialistic to the core … in a methodical sense”—according to James, once psychology “has ascertained the empirical correlation of the various sorts of thought and feeling with definite conditions of the brain,” it can go no farther. This is part and parcel of the mechanistic philosophy that Peirce had taken it upon himself to refute. Peirce accused James of employing the “principle of the uncritical acceptance of data,” which “would make a complete rupture with accepted methods of psychology and of science in general.” To illustrate his case, Peirce chose in the second part of his review to examine with some care one section of James’s book: “Is Perception Unconscious Inference?” Peirce went to some length to explain in what sense he believed perception to involve unconscious inference and challenged James’s claim that although there is inference in perception there is nothing unconscious about it. According to Peirce, James failed to understand that what was meant by “unconscious inference” was only that “the reasoner is not conscious of making an inference,” and, furthermore, James “forgets his logic” in assigning the inference in perception to “immediate inference,” because it has no middle term, when, in fact, modus ponens is the form it takes in that sort of analysis (which Peirce thinks is wrong, having long concluded that the inference is hypothetical in form). Peirce concluded by characterizing James’s reasoning as circular and virtually self-refuting.
Peirce was one of very few reviewers who did not lavishly praise James’s book as a landmark work for psychology.41 And yet, he sincerely believed James’s Psychology to probably be “the most important contribution that has been made to the subject for many years” and certainly to be “one of the most weighty productions of American thought.”42 Aware of the tone of his review, Peirce clarified that the “directness and sharpness” of his objections “must be understood as a tribute of respect.” That he was truthful is beyond doubt; throughout their lives, Peirce and James practiced candor and forthrightness in their personal relations. Yet what may have been understood to be “intellectual jousting” by James was not recognized as such by many of the Nation readers and naturally not by William’s brother, Henry, or his sister, Alice. Henry wrote to William from Ireland on 31 July to report on Alice’s health—she had been diagnosed with cancer—and said that “the main thing … that has happened to Alice, appears to have been the disgust & indignation experienced by her over the idiotic review of your Psychology in the Nation.” Henry said he didn’t know “what to make of the way the Nation treats, & has mainly always treated us…. It is some vicious, pigheaded parti-pris of Garrison’s.” William wrote back to Henry on 20 August to express his amusement at his and Alice’s indignation over the Nation review. He made light of it, speculating that it was an “eccentric production probably read by no one” and likely the work of “some old fogy.” James added that he “didn’t care a single straw for the matter one way or the other, not even enough to find out who wrote it.” It seems unlikely that James didn’t recognize Peirce’s hand in the review so perhaps he was protecting Peirce from his family’s indignation. James would not have seen the relevance of Peirce’s logical criticisms, at any rate, and few would have.
On 9 July the Nation published an editorial, entitled “A Plain Moral Question,” that addressed “the idea which the Christian Union keeps reiterating … that a minister may honorably remain in the service of a church though repudiating leading articles of its creed.” The Nation praised the open-mindedness of churchmen who could “see how the new wine of modern research is hopelessly bursting the old ecclesiastical wine-skins,” but held that if they could not “conscientiously read the new meanings into the old shibboleths” and in continuing to serve their church would have to flout its creed, to do so would be “an immoral thing.”43 Peirce felt strong disagreement with the Nation’s position and wrote a reply to the editor advocating a fallibilistic stance (sel. 38). Peirce said that to represent a matter of conduct “wherein serious men differ” as a plain moral question was “highly offensive.” Curiously, he argued that while he, a layman, had severed his “visible connection with the Church, and so put [his] soul in jeopardy” because he could not believe “a certain article of faith in the sense in which it is commonly understood,” yet “the opposite course of allegiance to God and His Church” was the duty of ordained ministers. The only possible way that the Church can correct its errors is if the “clergy to whom they become known” acknowledge them to be errors “while remaining in their posts.” Peirce concluded with a prediction that there would be great “changes in religious beliefs during the course of the coming century” and that any denomination that “pins its existence upon an unyielding creed,” as the Nation says morality requires, is headed for “break up.” Peirce’s letter was never published and may not have been sent.
Over seven months had passed since on 4 February Peirce had sent Mendenhall the full report on the state of his work for the Survey. Since then, Peirce had continued to send in his monthly “personal reports,” but nothing more substantial. Committed to high standards for his scientific publications, he had neither the time nor resources for the work still required before completing his reports. Mendenhall had come to see that he could not count on Peirce to help move the Survey to a new era of pendulum research using the half-seconds pendulums he had designed, and Mendenhall was not willing to commit more resources to advance Peirce’s gravity program. A clean break was necessary and the time had come to do a hard thing.
On the 21st of September, Mendenhall wrote to ask for Peirce’s resignation from the Coast and Geodetic Survey. Peirce had shown no inclination to revise his long report in the way Newcomb thought necessary for publication and Mendenhall had waited long enough for the additional reports Peirce owed. It was time for Peirce to go. Peirce had long anticipated that he would be forced out, even admitting to Mendenhall in his letter of reply (29 Sept. 1891) that it was “a necessary act,” yet the fact of it must have been a brutal blow.
Peirce admitted that his work had been going slowly, in part because he could no longer perform the difficult mathematical work needed to finish his reports with the ease of his younger days, but also because of his treatment during Superintendent Thorn’s administration and because it had been necessary for him to develop other means of livelihood. But Peirce insisted that he had not been idle and he defended the organization of his gravity report. And even while admitting that Mendenhall was right to ask for his resignation, Peirce suggested ways that he might stay on, asking for a bright assistant for a short time to