Royal Institution of Great Britain | Wednesday
My dear Spencer
Every channel in my brain is at the present moment discharging its maximum of current force—the conductors are heated the flow is so strong, and I am determined to avoid contact with anything and everything which could divert the currents from their present direction. I would not kiss the prettiest girl in London, through fear of the subsequent perturbation, and if I decline to join you at Westminster it is because I cannot afford to swerve in the slightest degree from the work to which I am present pledged & wedded.
A month hence I shall be a free man But I think you must count on me as an irregular I cannot undertake any responsibility of organisation: in 99 cases out of 100 I strike the blow & fire the shot of yourself and Mr. Mill.2 The residual one percent I reserve with the view of having a shot at both of you.
Yours ever | John Tyndall
University of London - 145.791/334
[late December 1864]: the month and year are given based on the assumption that Tyndall was replying to Spencer about his lack of involvement in The Reader (see letter 2181, n. 1). Spencer shared information about The Reader in his autobiography, and noted that he “regretted afterwards that [he] took so active a part in the business; for it ended in disappointment and loss’ (H. Spencer, An Autobiography, 2 vols (London: Williams and Norgate, 1904), vol. 2, p. 119). As this letter suggests, Tyndall was too busy with work commitments. Spencer was still describing The Reader, and Tyndall’s participation in it, positively in a letter to Edward Youmans on 17 December 1864 (An Autobiography, vol. 2, p. 118).
Mr. Mill: John Stuart Mill (1806–73), a prominent British utilitarian philosopher,
Member of Parliament, and highly regarded philosopher of science (ODNB). He was the
former editor of the liberal Westminster Review, and one of the proprietors of The
Reader. Both Mill and Spencer were associated with a move towards a greater, if not exclusive,
emphasis upon empiricism and materialism in relation to scientific explanation.
Please cite as “Tyndall2207,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on