It now being manifest that I cannot be souring grapes which have been taken from me, I will say what I never said in print before. There is not the slightest merit in making the symbols of the premises yield that of the conclusion by erasure: _the thing must do itself in every system which symbolises quantities_. For in every syllogism (except the inverted _Bramantip_ of the Aristotelians) the conclusion is manifest in this way without symbols. This _Bramantip_ destroys system in the Aristotelian lot: and circumstances which I have pointed out destroy it in Hamilton's own collection. But in that enlargement of the reputed Aristotelian system which I have called _onymatic_, and in that correction of Hamilton's system which I have called _exemplar_, the rule of erasure is universal, and may be seen without symbols. Our first controversy was in 1846. In 1847, in my _Formal Logic_, I gave him back a little satire for satire, just to show, as I stated, that I could employ ridicule if I pleased. He was so offended with the appendix in which this was contained, that he would not accept the copy of the book I sent him, but returned it. Copies of controversial works, sent from opponent to opponent, are not _presents_, in the usual sense: it was a marked success to make him angry enough to forget this. It had some effect however: during the rest of his life I wished to avoid provocation; for I {339} could not feel sure that excitement might not produce consequences. I allowed his slashing account of me in the _Discussions_ to pass unanswered: and before that, when he proposed to open a controversy in the _Athenaeum_ upon my second Cambridge paper, I merely deferred the dispute until the next edition of my _Formal Logic_. I cannot expect the account in the _Discussions_ to amuse an unconcerned reader as much as it amused myself: but for a cut-and-thrust, might-and-main, tooth-and-nail, hammer-and-tongs assault, I can particularly recommend it. I never knew, until I read it, how much I should enjoy a thundering onslought on myself, done with racy insolence by a master hand, to whom my good genius had whispered _Ita feri ut se sentiat emori_.[718] Since that time I have, as the Irishman said, become "dry moulded for want of a bating." Some of my paradoxers have done their best: but theirs is mere twopenny--"small swipes," as Peter Peebles said. Brandy for heroes! I hope a reviewer or two will have mercy on me, and will give me as good discipline as Strafford would have given Hampden and his set: "much beholden," said he, "should they be to any one that should thoroughly take pains with them in that kind"--meaning _objective_ flagellation. And I shall be the same to any one who will serve me so--but in a literary and periodical sense: my corporeal cuticle is as thin as my neighbors'.