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 help him finish his gravity reports and perhaps to help with some new fieldwork at two very interesting sites on his own estate. He noted, again, that his “chief study for a long time” had been “to produce an efficient method for the practical solution of questions in hydrodynamics,” a problem of importance for pendulum research and perhaps the most important current issue for applied mathematics. So, without much hope, Peirce tried to make a case for staying on, but if Mendenhall thought it “more convenient” that his “connection with the survey should be severed” then, Peirce wrote, “I shall depend upon you to indicate to me the date at which my official resignation must be sent at latest, so that it may precede all other official action.”
Mendenhall replied with a friendly letter, assuring Peirce that he appreciated his “rare abilities and long service” and he promised to occasionally use Peirce for “discussion of observations” and the like. But he asked Peirce to forward his resignation “at once to take effect on Dec. 31st.” On 1 October 1891, Peirce tendered his resignation to take effect on the last day of the year. That would end thirty years of service and would eliminate Peirce’s principal source of income, a frightening prospect now that his regular work for the Century Company had concluded.
It was clear that making ends meet was fast becoming a truly vital concern. Peirce wrote to Garrison asking for more books to review for the Nation. His review of Herbert Spencer’s Essays, Scientific, Political, and Speculative (sel. 39) appeared in the 8 October issue. It opened with a remark on work being done in ethical theory, which Peirce appreciated for its supplying “a worthy motive to conservative morals at a time when all is confused and endangered by the storm of new thought, the disintegration of creeds, and the failure of all evidences of an exalted future life.” Eager to criticize Spencer once more for the latter’s stubborn attachment to indubitable first principles, absolute exactitude, and the belief in the supreme explanatory power of the law of the conservation of energy, Peirce previewed some of the key ideas he was developing for his second Monist paper: there “cannot be the slightest warrant” for holding that the three laws of motion are exactly true, the law of vis viva is “plainly violated in the phenomena of growth, since this is not a reversible process,” methods of inquiry must be self-corrective, and intelligibility requires more than a recourse to the Unknowable for its comprehension.44
After finishing his definitions for the Century Dictionary, Peirce had been able to return to his Monist project and on 5 November he was able to send Carus the manuscript for his second article, “The Doctrine of Necessity Examined” (sel. 24). In his letter accompanying the manuscript, Peirce wrote that he considered it “the strongest piece of argumentation” he had ever done. He enclosed his bill for $160 and asked Carus if he would consent to printing weekly advertisements in the Open Court for his “Instruction in the Art of Reasoning by Correspondence.”
In the first paper of his Monist series (sel. 23), Peirce had stressed that chance should be an essential element in “our view of the universe” and that it ought to play
