Arisbe, Milford, Pa.
1904 Dec. 2
My dear Lady Welby:
I am dangerously fatigued from overwork. A man of 65 ought not to work through two consecutive nights & three days as I have done; but the work was pressing. I say this to show why I can only acknowledge your big package, -the bigger the better,-which has this minute come to hand. I will only say that Mr. Russell's idea that there is a fourthness, etc is natural; but I prove absolutely that all systems of more than three elements are reducible to compounds of triads; and he will see that it is so on reflection. The point is that triads evidently cannot be so reduced since the very relation of a whole to two parts is a triadic relation.
I have determined "in principle", as ther say in diplomacy, to accept a small consulate that has been offered to me in Ceylon, & to sell out this place. Many reasons urge me to this, & for one thing, small as the consul's pay is, I need it. I should like very much to take England on my way & carry away the memory of having passed some hour or two with you, as well as to see those Oxford men of the new movements. Much of my work never will be published. If I can, before I die, get so much made accessible as others may have a difficulty in discovering. I shall feel that I can be excused from more. My aversion to publishing anything has not been due to want of interest in others but to the thought that after all a philosophy can only be passed from mouth to mouth, where there is opportunity to object & cross-question & that printing is not publishing unless the matter be pretty frivolous.
very faithfully
C. S. Peirce
Fin de: "L 463: Letter to Lady Welby" (02.12.04). Fuente textual en SS 43-44.
Fecha del documento: 21 de agosto 2006
Última actualización: 26 de enero 2011