HAMILTON (WILLIAM ROWAN)


Autograph letter signed ("William Rowan Hamilton"), to Rev. William Lee, Church of England clergyman, thanking him for his note about Mansel's controversial Bampton Lectures and describing his "ungrudging and unbounded admiration" for them on the first reading ("...a work of genius, & of learning..."), but, in the spirit of Kant, whom he quotes, finds fault with Mansel on the second; going on to discuss the question "Does he insist too much on the limitations of the human faculties?", noting that "Philosophy is a grand and sacred word" and that whilst there may be a "Philosophy of the Infinite" he is sure that there is a ""Science of the Infinite"; to wit, Mathematical Science...", but needs to read the lectures several times over to form a definitive opinion; he speaks of Kant's Kritik der praktischen Vernunft but has possibly been "bribed" to like that book in conversation with "my illustrious friend and (if I dare to say so) Master, Samuel Taylor Coleridge" who gave him his own copy "through his own particular ally [and executor] Joseph Henry Green"; ending by inviting Lee to exchange copies of their own publications, 6 pages on blue paper, some professional repairs, 8vo, [Dunsink] Observatory, 2 July 1859
|'MY ILLUSTRIOUS FRIEND AND MASTER SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE' – MATHEMATICS AS POETRY: 'Modern historians and philosophers have often and deeply investigated how much philosophy and poetry was essentially involved in the creation, presentation, and justification of Hamilton's mathematics, especially of his contention that algebra was properly the science of pure time... What is clear is that Hamilton claimed that mathematics was akin to poetry, sought advice from his friend William Wordsworth, supported the causes of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and cited Immanuel Kant in his work' (Albert C. Lewis, ODNB). Provenance: Bonhams, Papers & Portraits: The Roy Davids Collection Part II, 29 March 2011, lot 346.