A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University | Page 9

isolated expressions. These might charitably be
explained as mere momentary ebullitions of pettishness or spleen, and
pardonable as merely faults of temper in a criticism which was in the
main conscientious and fair. But the libel of which I complain most of
all is one that constitutes the entire ground and framework of the article
as a whole. Every part of it is methodically spun and interwoven with
every other part, in such a way as to make it one seamless tissue of libel
from beginning to end. This I say in full consciousness of the
interspersed occasional compliments, since these have only the effect
of disguising the libellous intent of the whole from a simple-minded or
careless reader, and since they subserve the purpose of furnishing to the
writer a plausible and ready-made defence of his libel against a
foreseen protest. Compliments to eke out a libel are merely insults in
masquerade. The libellous plan of the article as a whole is shown in the
regular system of gross and studied misrepresentation, of logically
connected and nicely dovetailed misstatements of facts, which I
exposed at the outset. Every intelligent reader of my two books is
perfectly aware that they are both devoted to an exposition of the
fundamental and irreconcilable conflict between philosophical idealism
and scientific realism, and to a defence of the latter against the former,
as the only possible method by which a spiritual theism can be
intellectually, and therefore successfully, defended in this age of
science. Only one who has read and digested the two books can fully
appreciate the enormity and the unscrupulousness of the initial
misrepresentation, slipped in, as it were, quite casually, and without
any argument, in the apparently incidental and matter-of-course
statement that my "conclusion" is "essentially idealistic." It is not
"idealistic" at all, but as radically realistic as the premises themselves;
and no professor of philosophy could ever have called it "idealistic" by
a mere slip of the tongue or pen. The intelligent origin of this
misrepresentation is clearly enough suggested in the use to which it is
at once put: namely, to render plausible the otherwise ridiculous charge
that my theory of universals was "borrowed" from an idealist. Next, the

same origin is more than suggested by the use to which these two
misrepresentations together are put: namely, to show that any claim of
"novelty" for a merely "borrowed" philosophy is a "vast" and
"extravagant pretension." Lastly, the same origin is inductively and
conclusively proved, when these three inter-linked misrepresentations,
as a whole, are made the general foundation for a brutal "professional
warning" to the public at large against my "philosophical pretensions"
in general. Not one of these fundamental positions of Dr. Royce's
article is a fact,--least of all, an "admitted fact"; on the contrary, each of
them is energetically and indignantly denied. But the libel of which I
complain above all is the regular system of gross and studied
misrepresentation by which the most essential facts are first misstated
and falsified, and then used to the injury of my literary and personal
reputation.
It may, I trust, be permitted to me here to show clearly what the law is,
as applicable to the case in hand, by a few pertinent citations.
"The critic must confine himself to criticism, and not make it the veil
for personal censure, nor allow himself to run into reckless and unfair
attacks, merely from the love of exercising his power of denunciation.
Criticism and comment on well-known and admitted facts are very
different things from the assertion of unsubstantiated facts. A fair and
bona fide comment on a matter of public interest is an excuse of what
would otherwise be a defamatory publication. The statement of this
rule assumes the matters of fact commented on to be somehow
ascertained. It does not mean that a man may invent facts, and
comment on the facts so invented in what would be a fair and bona fide
manner, on the supposition that the facts were true. If the facts as a
comment upon which the publication is sought to be excused do not
exist, the foundation fails.... The distinction cannot be too clearly borne
in mind between comment or criticism and allegations of fact.... To
state matters which are libellous is not comment or criticism." (Newell
on Defamation, Slander, and Libel, p. 568.) Applying this to the case in
hand: the "admitted facts" are these: (1) my philosophy is realistic from
beginning to end; (2) I have not worked all my life, nor any part of my
life, in a Hegelian "atmosphere"; (3) I did not borrow my theory of

universals from Hegel; (4) I have made no vast or extravagant
pretensions whatever as to my own philosophy. But Dr. Royce invents
and states the exact opposite of