Chapter 5

To you, therefore, gentlemen of the Corporation and Board of Overseers of Harvard University, I make with all due deference this public appeal for redress of a wrong done to me by one of your appointees--a wrong done, not in his private capacity as an individual (for which, of course, you would not be justly held responsible), but publicly and explicitly and emphatically in the name of his "profession," that is, of his position as a professor in Harvard College. This position is an official one, due to your appointment; and his scandalous abuse of it renders him amenable to discipline by you to whom he owes it. Therefore, I now formally appeal to you for redress of these specific wrongs, committed by Assistant Professor Josiah Royce in flagrant violation of my rights as a citizen and as a man:--

I. He has published against me, in the "International Journal of Ethics," a libel which is as wanton and unprovoked as it is malicious and false, and for which no motive is even conceivable except mere professional jealousy or rivalry in authorship.

II. He has sought to give credibility and respectability to this false and libellous publication by invoking the authority, not of reason or truth, but of his mere "professional" position as professor in Harvard University, thereby artfully suggesting and insinuating to the uninformed public that Harvard University sustains him in his attack; whereas, in conferring upon me the degree of doctor of philosophy and in committing to me formerly the conduct of an advanced course of philosophical instruction, Harvard University has given emphatic testimony to the contrary.

III. Repudiating his bold promise to "ask no mercy," he has sought, with incredible cowardice and meanness, to deprive me of all opportunity of being heard in self-defence, _first_, by excluding from the "International Journal of Ethics" my perfectly reasonable reply to what he himself confesses to have been an "intentionally severe attack," and, _secondly_, by threatening me through his counsel with legal prosecution, if I publish it anywhere else or circulate it at all.

IV. Lastly, when, after all this, in order to spare him the mortification and disgrace of a public exposure, and in order to prevent Harvard University from incurring any possible discredit on account of his personal misconduct, I proposed to him a pacific settlement of the whole affair through a simple retraction of his calumnious accusations, and that, too, in words of his own choosing, he made no answer but a stubborn and contumelious re-affirmation of the original libel.

I submit that these acts of wrong constitute conduct unbecoming a gentleman, a man of honor, or a professor in Harvard University, and justly entitle me to redress at your hands. This appeal has not been made hastily or without a patient and long-protracted effort to secure justice in other ways. Dr. Royce has succeeded hitherto, during many months, in defeating that effort; but now the appeal lies to those whom he cannot control, and now he must abide your judgment. Asking neither less nor more than justice, and believing that you will recognize justice as Harvard's highest law,

I have the honor to remain, gentlemen, in devoted loyalty to our Alma Mater,

Your obedient servant,

FRANCIS E. ABBOT.

CAMBRIDGE, Oct. 1, 1891.

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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:

On page 5, in the word Boeotia, the oe ligature has been expanded to the two characters, oe. The sentence begins: Only a native of Boeotia could be imposed upon by them, when the actual character....