230 MEMOIR OF AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN. 



To Rev. Dr. Whewell. 



May 21, 1854, 



1854. MY DEAE SIR, I have to thank you for the dialogue. If 



you deny a plurality of worlds I presume you admit a plurality 

 of opponents to judge by the letters. 



You seem to be expressing your an ti- pluralism more posi- 

 tively than before. Your work seemed to say don't be so sure ; 

 your dialogue seems to maintain something more like a leaning 

 to the other positive conclusion. I suppose you will not object 

 to the conclusion that the stars either are inhabited, or that they 

 are not. This is mine, with a leaning to the affirmative of this 

 kind : Let it be granted that each planet has upon it, or in it, or 

 around it, some things which have a destiny of their own, for 

 which they might be conceived to exist independently of the 

 other planets or stars. These things I should call inhabitants of 

 that planet, but whether conscious or unconscious, intelligent or 

 unintelligent, &c., &c., I could have no opinion. But I cannot 

 divest myself of the idea that they have uses independent of us 

 and these uses are inhabitants. I strongly suspect that, to use 

 law phrases, these uses are also trusts, and therefore suppose 



Yours very truly, 



A. DE MORGAN. 



To Admiral Smyth. 



7 Camden Street, July 16, 1854. 



MY DEAR ADMIRAL, Here you see the balance of blue queen's 

 heads forwarded to me on a special service. I hope a larger 

 proportion of Napier's blues will find their way home again from 

 the Baltic. 



All is going on well as to the Government proceedings. 1 We 

 shall not be stirred these ten years, I augur. You know the 

 story of the birds in the nest listening to the farmer plotting 

 how to cut the corn. Now Government is a man who cannot 

 work for himself. He acts through people who report. Deep 

 calleth unto deep that is, one office reports to another, and the 

 other refers back, and then they consider, and red tape becomes 

 grey before they have settled how to proceed. And if you then 

 give them six months' start, and set a snail after them, the 



1 Referring to a proposed removal of the Astronomical Society from 

 their rooms at Somerset House. 



