"_July 2._--No more in this interval. All that precedes is a desperate attempt to induce me to continue my descriptions: notoriety at any price." I dare say the matter is finished: the record of so marked an instance of self-delusion will be useful. I append to the foregoing a letter from Dr. Whewell[395] to Mr. James Smith. The Master of Trinity was conspicuous as a rough customer, an intellectual bully, an overbearing disputant: the character was as well established as that of Sam Johnson. But there was a marked difference. It was said of Johnson that if his pistol missed fire, he would knock you down with the butt end of it: but Whewell, in like case, always acknowledged the miss, and loaded again or not, as the case might be. He reminded me of Dennis Brulgruddery, who says to Dan, Pacify me with a good reason, and you'll find me a dutiful master. I knew him from the time when he was my teacher at Cambridge, more than forty years. As a teacher, he was anything but dictatorial, and he was perfectly accessible to proposal of objections. He came in contact with me in his slashing way twice in our after joint lives, and on both occasions he acknowledged himself overcome, by that change of manner, and apologetic mode of continuance, which I had seen him employ towards others under like circumstances. I had expressed my wish to have a _thermometer of probability_, with impossibility at one end, as 2 and 2 make 5, and necessity at the other, as 2 and 2 make 4, and a graduated rise of examples between them. Down came a blow: "What! put necessary and contingent propositions together! It's absurd!" I pointed out that the two kinds of necessity are but such extremes of probability as 0 and [infinity] are of number, and illustrated by an urn with 1 white and _n_ black {247} balls, _n_ increasing without limit. It was frankly seen, and the point yielded; a large company was present. Again, in a large party, after dinner, and politics being the subject, I was proceeding, in discussion with Mr. Whewell, with "I think"...--"Ugh! _you_ think!" was the answer. I repeated my phrase, and gave as a reason the words which Lord Grey[396] had used in the House of Lords the night before (the celebrated advice to the Bishops to set their houses in order). He had not heard of this, and his manner changed in an instant: he was the rational discutient all the rest of the evening, having previously been nothing but a disputant with all the distinctions strongly marked. I have said that Whewell was gentle with his pupils; it was the same with all who wanted teaching: it was only on an armed enemy that he drew his weapon. The letter which he wrote to Mr. J. Smith is an instance: and as it applies with perfect fidelity to the efforts of unreasoning above described, I give it here. Mr. James Smith is skilfully exposed, and felt it; as is proved by "putting the writer in the stocks." "The Lodge, Cambridge, September 14th, 1862.