was satisfied and wrote to Peirce on 30 November 1888 that he understood that no blame had been intended. He added: “I beg to assure you that I have always been impressed with your earnestness and zeal in connection with these observations, and I know that you were very decided in insisting upon the conditions under which the work should be done. I cannot well believe that any one should consider you as desirous of pulling down a house which has been substantially built with your hands; for to your assiduity, skill, and knowledge must be credited, as I have always understood, the latest and most important advances in the methods of application of pendulum observations.” That brought to an end an unfortunate episode largely fueled by misunderstanding; but while Peirce’s relations with Greely seemed to have been mended, his relations with the Survey had suffered further damage.
As he grappled with the Ft. Conger pendulum results, Peirce continued working on his definitions for the Century Dictionary—before long his main concern. And, typically, from time to time other topics would catch his attention. In 1886, three members of the English Psychical Research Society, Edmund Gurney, Frederic Myers, and Frank Podmore, published a book which recounted hundreds of cases of the hallucination of the appearance of a person who would die or had died within twelve hours of their “appearance” and a scientific case was made for the authenticity of telepathic and apparitional phenomena. William James, a close friend of Gurney and a member of the English Psychical Research Society as well as of its American counterpart, gave the book, Phantasms of the Living, a very positive review in the January 1887 issue of Science. Peirce, who would have known of the book in any case because of his many acquaintances in the American branch of the Society (to which he never belonged), including his own brother Jem, must have been struck by James’s praise for the book. Only two years earlier, Peirce had speculated (W5: sel. 24) that presumed telepathic phenomena were the result of faint sensations, and he had endorsed the field as worthy of further scientific study. So in early 1887, Peirce was working his way through the main argument of this huge book with his own review in mind—it would appear later in the year in the Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research (sel. 16) and trigger a controversy with Gurney that would continue for two years.
Probably in March, Peirce and a few other prominent American scientists were asked to contribute short articles to The Christian Register for a series on how science viewed belief in a future life. Peirce agreed to participate and drew material from his ongoing examination of Phantasms for his contribution (sel. 14). He wrote to his mother on 3 April 1887 that his work for his correspondence course was improving his writing style and that he hoped in a year or two to be “as good a writer as these men who write the editorials in the New York papers, who turn out so much good English and good sense.” The little piece for the Register, published on 7 April, gave Peirce an opportunity not only to try out his developing style, but also to “announce” a few ideas that were growing more and more important for him and that would become signature doctrines. Among these were his ideas that the variety in the universe could not have come about by strict adherence to mechanical law and that there are no definite limits to human knowledge. According to Max Fisch, it is here that Peirce first made his case in print against the doctrine of necessity.8 Peirce thought that although the evidence in favor of afterlife was not strong, it might be expected to become stronger. As to the “shades” who supposedly survive physical death, existing evidence could only bring Peirce to conclude that they were mere ghosts of their former selves—and so painfully solemn. Perhaps revealing more of his own circumstances than he intended, he wrote that were he suddenly to find himself “liberated from all the trials and responsibilities of this life, my probation over, and my destiny put beyond marring or making, I should … regard the situation as a stupendous frolic, should be at the summit of gayety, and should only be too glad to leave the vale of tears behind.” He certainly would not “come mooning back … to cry over spilled milk.”
Probably while he was working on his contribution for the “Science and Immortality” series, possibly slightly later, Peirce wrote a paper entitled “Logical Machines” (sel. 15) for the November inaugural issue of G. Stanley Hall’s American Journal of Psychology. Peirce argued for the superiority of Allan Marquand’s logic machine over that of Jevons, but he offered some improvements and suggested that it should be possible to construct a machine “which should work the logic of relations with a large number of terms.” Peirce believed that the study of such machines was a good way to improve logic. In this paper Peirce did not mention his recent recommendation to Marquand to use electrical switching circuits for logical operations (W5:421–22),9 but he did, in passing, make some interesting remarks about “the secret of all reasoning machines” and the appropriateness of calling such machines “reasoning machines,” and then suggested that to some extent every machine is a reasoning machine—to the extent that they depend on “the objective reason embodied in the laws of nature.” Peirce claimed that “reasoning machines” are destitute of originality and initiative: “it cannot find its own problems; … it cannot direct itself between different possible procedures.” The absence of originality, however, is no defect for a machine: “we no more want an original machine, than a house-builder would want an original journeyman, or an American board of college trustees would hire an original professor”—a clear reference to himself.
It is not surprising that what we see of Peirce’s life mirrored in his writings from this period appears as troubled and somewhat embittered. He had been forced to leave Johns Hopkins and, though not without hope, saw no good prospect of an appointment at another university. The Coast Survey was in disarray and he knew that it was just a matter of time until his career there would come to an end. His one hope was his correspondence course. He felt sure it could succeed—but without the capital to begin his scheme at full strength it would have to grow to a critical mass before he could devote himself to it fully, and reaching that point would take time. Could he and Juliette survive in New York while they waited? On 3 April, Peirce wrote to his mother:
It seems to be pretty certain that there is going to be enough to live on from my lessons any way, even in New York. But I shall go into the country the first of May and economize a little; and can stay there next winter if necessary. The expenses have so far eaten largely into the profits, but I have made arrangements to reduce the cost of my advertising, and at the same time make it more effective. My clerks will get trained and will make the letters less costly, and the purchases of type-writers, etc. will cease, or nearly so, as I reach my maximum. For the next few months, this will be a heavy expense, but then I expect to retain the Coast Survey two, and perhaps three, months more. That gives me more than enough to pay for type-writers. I think I shall eventually make a handsome thing of this. At any rate, I shall make a living, and earn the everlasting gratitude of the country, when the effects of the training come to be seen. I have had an enormous quantity of extremely interesting letters from teachers, professors, lawyers, business men, etc. I am also getting numerous suggestions to invest money. But I have not yet been obliged to purchase a steam coupon-cutting machine.
Peirce’s spirits sound high but he must have been putting his best face on for his mother—in fact, during most of this period he was in emotional turmoil. He was under constant, often extreme, pressure from Thorn to submit reports, yet congressional budget cuts made it virtually impossible for him to receive sustained computing assistance, especially since he had moved out of Washington. There were some exceptions, but Peirce was left to his own devices most of the time. He thus confronted a mountain of data at the very time he found his powers as a mathematical computer to be weakening. A few years later, in December 1891, as he was about to resign, Peirce wrote to then Superintendent T. C. Mendenhall what amounted to a confession about his hidden struggle with his loss of computing proficiency.
My mind, as it seems to me, is generally sound and decidedly strong. But of late years, in a certain direction a singular weakness has been growing upon me; though I cannot but believe that with a good rest I should recover. When Thorn had been in about a year I think it was that I found I got all mixed up about my computations, and at first complained of it openly. Then, I began to see that it would injure me and kept quiet about it. We were constantly expecting that Mr. Thorn would go, and I was determined
