in the name of Harvard University. It is not always safe to reckon on the absence, in parties confessedly "attacked," of all capacity for _moral indignation_, or all capacity for moral self-defence. In reply to Mr. Warner, August 4, I wrote as follows: "Permit me further to say, with regard to Dr. Royce's letter, that I can only interpret it as a distinct refusal to retract his accusation that I have made 'extravagant pretensions as to the originality and profundity of my still unpublished system of philosophy'--a distinct refusal to retract his accusation that I have 'borrowed my theory of universals from Hegel'--a distinct refusal to retract his 'professional warning' based upon these accusations. These were the chief points of my Card, and I note the refusal implied by Dr. Royce's evasive letter. But I decline to accept his plea of 'conscientiousness' in maintaining the accusation as to Hegel. I might as well plead 'conscientiousness' in maintaining an accusation that Dr. Royce assassinated Abraham Lincoln, in face of the evidence that John Wilkes Booth was the assassin." Here the correspondence closed. My apology for inflicting it upon you, gentlemen, must be the necessity of showing to you that, as I was plainly bound to do, I first exhausted every means of private redress before laying the matter before you publicly. Not till I had failed to obtain a fair hearing in the same periodical which published Dr. Royce's libel, and not till I had failed to obtain from Dr. Royce himself a retraction of this libel, did I find myself reduced to the alternatives of either acquiescing in your own unwarrantably insinuated condemnation, or else of clearing my assailed reputation through direct and open appeal to you. I am no lover of strife, and least of all do I now seek revenge. I seek only such a vindication of my good name from unmerited calumny as you, in your own good judgment and in your own chosen way, are now, I most respectfully submit, bound in justice to give. VIII. 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:--