326 MEMOIR OF AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN. 



To Sir J. F. W. Herschel. 



91 Adelaide Road, September 20, 1864. 



1864. MY DEAE SIR JOHN, So honey-bees have stings as well as 



wapres. So much the better. I do confess to a baker's dozen of 

 readings of your letter. 1 Saving your presence, your usual mild- 

 ness and diffidence, and all those things of which I know no 

 more than my grandmother's torn cat knew of the differential 

 calculus, bring out the points with such strength that there is 

 no leaving off. It will do an abundant deal of good, and will 

 make the declaration a blessing. It is in good contrast with 

 Bowring, whose letter is capital in its way. 



Truly you did express yourself with tolerable precision and 

 to much purpose in the old discourse. I have been pasting a 

 copy into that discourse, and it notes time well to find that the 

 copy wherein I paste it is one which poor Stratford gave my 

 wife long before she was even my sweetheart, and my eldest son 

 is twenty-five years old. 



The inpasted copy is cut out of a reprint in the Bath 

 Chronicle, done for the special benefit of the Br. Ass. 



What is the collection of names they have got ? I suppose 

 they have handed out their best fifteen. ... I think I had as 

 good a right to be asked as . . . . ; 2 but possibly they took 

 me for too great a heretic. I dare not think they respect me 

 more than they do you ; but the temptation is great. How I 

 should strut ! 



They are now pledged to publish this declaration and the 

 names they have got. They might have dropt the thing after 

 Daubeny's letter. 



I hope your bronchial state is better. To my last letter I 

 add that the little dust does not confine itself to your books ; it 

 gets into your throat. 



Yours very truly, 



A. DE MORGAN. 



1 Many scientific men had been requested to sign a declaration of 

 their belief that science did not contradict revelation, &c. By the 

 ' honey-bee's sting ' is meant Sir J. Herschel's answer, which con- 

 tained a trenchant reply to the arguments contained therein. 



" I think he was asked to sign perhaps rather later. 



