A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University | Page 8

Notion (Begriff) may be always
called 'abstract,' if the term 'concrete' must be limited to the mere
concrete of sensation and immediate perception; the Notion as such
cannot be grasped by the hands, and, when we deal with it, eyes and
ears are out of the question. Yet, as was said before, the Notion is the
only true concrete." (Encyklopädie, Werke, VI. 316.) Again: "Just as
little is the sensuous-concrete of Intuition a rational-concrete of the
Idea." (Ibid., Werke, VI. 404.) A score of similar passages can easily be
cited. That is to say, Hegel avowedly excludes from his idealistic
theory of universals the "concrete" of sensation, perception, intuition,
or real experience, and admits into it only the "concrete" of pure or
non-empirical thought; while I avowedly exclude from my realistic
theory of universals the "concrete" of pure thought, and admit into it
only the "concrete" of real experience. Hegel's "concrete" cannot be
seen, heard, or touched; while to me nothing which cannot be seen,
heard, or touched is "concrete" at all. A mere common school education
is quite sufficient for comprehension of the contradictoriness of these
two uses of the word. Yet, in order to found a malicious charge of
plagiarism, Dr. Royce has the hardihood to assure the uninformed
general public that Hegel and I use the word "concrete" in one and the
same sense!
(2) The assertion that I have lived all my life in a Hegelian
"atmosphere" I can only meet with a short, sharp, and indignant denial.
I know of no such "atmosphere" in all America; if it anywhere exists, I
certainly never lived, moved, or worked in it. The statement is a
gratuitous, impertinent, and totally false allegation of fact, wholly
outside of my book and its contents, and is used in this connection
solely to feather an arrow shot at my reputation; it is a pure invention, a
manufactured assertion which is absolutely without foundation, and,
when thus artfully thrown out with apparent artlessness (ars celare
artem) as itself foundation for a false and malicious charge of
plagiarism, it becomes fabrication of evidence for the purpose of
defamation. The less said about such an offence as that, the better for
Dr. Royce, and I spare him the comment it deserves.

Now, while it might be "fair criticism" to infer my plagiarism from
Hegel, if there were only some reasonable or even merely plausible
evidence to support the inference (which I have just proved not to be
the case), it is incontestable that to affirm this plagiarism, as a "certain"
matter of fact, without any reasonable evidence at all, is not that "fair
criticism" which the law justly allows, but, on the contrary, a totally
unjustifiable libel. In accusing me personally of plagiarism on no
reasonable grounds whatever, as I have just unanswerably proved him
to have done, and in making the "certainty" of the plagiarism depend
upon an allegation of fact wholly independent of the book which he
professed to be criticising (namely, the false allegation that I have
worked all my life in a Hegelian "atmosphere"), Dr. Royce has beyond
all controversy transgressed the legally defined limits of "fair
criticism," and become a libeller.
But this is by no means all. If the bat-like accusation of an
"unconscious", yet "sinning" (or sinful) plagiarism hovers ambiguously
between attacking my literary reputation and attacking my moral
character, there is no such ambiguity hanging about the accusation of
"extravagant pretensions as to the originality and profundity of my still
unpublished system of philosophy." A decent modesty, a self-respectful
reserve, a manly humility in presence of the unattainable ideal of either
moral or intellectual perfection, a speechless reverence in the presence
of either infinite goodness or infinite truth,--these are virtues which
belong to the very warp and woof of all noble, elevated, and justly
estimable character; and wherever their absence is conspicuously
shown, there is just ground for moral condemnation and the contempt
of mankind. Dr. Royce has not scrupled to accuse me of making, not
only "pretensions," but even "extravagant pretensions," which are
absolutely incompatible with the possession of these beautiful and
essential virtues, and thereby to hold me up to universal contempt and
derision. He has done this, by the very terms of his accusation,
absolutely and confessedly without cause; for the system of philosophy
which is "unpublished" to others is no less "unpublished" to him, and
an accusation thus made confessedly without any knowledge of its truth
is, on the very face of it, an accusation which is as malicious as it is
groundless. To make such a self-proved and self-condemned accusation

as this is, I submit, to be guilty of libel with no ordinary degree of
culpability.
But the libel of which I have greatest cause to complain is not confined
to exceptional or