ith is the force of instance which he has lent to my
assertion that men who have not had real training in pure logic are unsafe
reasoners in matter which is not familiar. It is hard to get first-rate
examples of this, because there are few who find the way to the printer
until practice and reflection have given security against the grossest
slips. I cannot but think that his case will lead many to take what I have
said into consideration, among those who are competent to think of the
great mental disciplines. To this end I should desire him to continue his
efforts, to amplify and develop his great principle, that of proving a
proposition by assuming it and taking as confirmation every consequence
that does not contradict the assumption.

Since my Budget commenced, Mr. Smith has written me notes: the portion
which I have preserved--I suppose several have been mislaid--makes a
hundred and seven pages of note-paper, closely written. To all this I have
not answered one word: but I think I cannot have read fewer than forty
pages. In the last letter the writer informs me that he will not write at
greater length until I have given him an answer, according to the "rules of
good society." Did I not know that for every inch I wrote back he would
return an ell? Surely in vain the net is spread in the eyes of anything
that hath a wing. There were several good excuses for not writing to Mr. J.
Smith: I will mention five. First, I distinctly announced at the beginning
of this Budget that I would not communicate with squarers of the circle.
Secondly, any answer I might choose to give might with perfect propriety be
reserved for this article; had the imputation of incivility been made after
the first note, I should immediately have replied to this effect: but I
presumed it was quite understood. Thirdly, Mr. Smith, by his publication of
E. M.'s letters against the wish of the writer, had put himself out of the
pale of correspondence. Fourthly, he had also gone beyond the rules of good
society in sending {124} letter after letter to a person who had shown by
his silence an intention to avoid correspondence. Fifthly, these same rules
of good society are contrived to be flexible or frangible in extreme cases:
otherwise there would be no living under them; and good society would be
bad. Father Aldrovand has laid down the necessary distinction--"I tell
thee, thou foolish Fleming, the text speaketh but of promises made unto
Christians, and ther