Second and Third Visits to England. 203 



as you there picture. I think you are altogether right; 

 I never thought the practice of law would satisfy you. 

 You are on the right track — a little routine literary work, 

 which will not exhaust the mind, but will keep the pot in a 

 state of brisk ebullition, leaving the surplus of time and 

 force for independent thinking. Business first, of course — 

 the dear wife and darling baby, food and raiment, before 

 all other things — and beyond doubt the first condition of 

 all other, success. But a non-professional and literary busi- 

 ness, if possible, as a profession tends to suck up all the 

 mental juices and leaves only a husk for other things. 

 Your bill of fare is indeed temptmg, and makes one's 

 mouth water to glance it over.* I cannot doubt its suc- 

 cess, and by this I mean that you will have no difficulty in 

 procuring a first-rate publisher, and your book would be 

 bound to work its way into the libraries of the best 

 thinkers. 



But it will be wise not to entertain too sanguine expecta- 

 tions in reference to the profits of a work of this grave 

 character, and a first effort at that. Still, I doubt not it 

 will do well, and, being intrinsically valuable, can be made 

 to do well at any rate. 



I opened the ball for Spencer before leaving for the 

 AVest. I hoped it would be a good thing to get it simmer- 

 ing ; and when I return and find nothing, nothing, nothing 

 done by anybody, I am a little alarmed, for there was 

 considerable stir and promise before I left. 



There is one thing that is bad — infernally bad just now. 

 Some Eastern Abbot — Time and Space Abbot, I supposef 



* The reference is to a projected volume of essays illustrating the 

 doctrine of evolution. I had sent Youmans a list of the subjects which 

 I proposed to treat. Such work as was done in pursuance of this design 

 was afterward absorbed in the larger enterprise of the Outlines of Cosmic 

 Philosophy, begun in 1869. The chapter of that work entitled Sociology 

 and Free Will was written in this year (1866). » 



f Mr. Francis Ellingwood Abbot, of Cambridge (class of 1S59), who. 



