“ * * * * * I could send them now [the proofs], but retain them to consider an important suggestion of your critical friend—in truth a very cogent argument, which deserves much thought whether to introduce it or not. I can, however, deal with it in a few hours, if noticed at all, and only on account of the present state of the MS. wish I had had the benefit of the suggestion sooner. * * *
“I cannot too often repeat how advantageous I feel his criticism has been, and how
* If I remember rightly, the suggestion referred to was apropos to an argument of Evelyn, that the almost universal hope of a future state is a sufficient proof of the existence of such a state—on the principle that a beneficent Deity would not implant such a hope and leave it groundless. The suggestion was, that the argument was open to the objection, on the part of the sceptical Tremaine, that even admitting the existence of such a hope, and the beneficence of the Deity in implanting it (which, latter Tremaine nowhere denies), the hope in question is a beneficent end in itself, and will not be disappointed even in the ultimate event of there being no such state. On referring to the last edition of “Tremaine,” the original argument of the MS. seems to have been omitted. |
| 18 | R. PLUMER WARD. |
“I think him right in proposing to omit the very abstruse problem quoted by Archbishop King. I fairly own it is above my mathematical learning to comprehend it: yet, as it is proveable to those who have this learning, the more it appears jargon the more it is for my purpose.
“You will suppose I mean all this for your friend. Let me add, that his criticisms as to style seem almost always just, and I have always changed what he has pointed at as obscure, with real benefit. He has read me with close and gratifying attention, and I cannot but have profited by his reading.
