London, 21 November 1882 

Dear Moor, 

I was on the point of asking you how your reserves stood when your 
letter* arrived today. Encl. cheque for £30 which you will be able to 
cash in the usual way. That being so, you will get the money on Mon- 
day, possibly even on Saturday or, if you’re prepared to lay out 1/- 
on a telegram, as early as Friday. 

Encl. 1. a mathematical experiment by Moore.**! His conclusion, 
namely that THE ALGEBRAIC METHOD IS ONLY THE DIFFERENTIAL METHOD DISGUIS- 
ED, relates, of course, solely to his own method of geometrical con- 
struction and to that extent is fairly correct. I have written to tell 

* See previous letter. 

him ?8* that you attach no importance whatever to the way in which 
one symbolises things in a geometrical construction, the application 
of the curves to the equations being, after all, sufficient. What’s more, 
I went on, the basic difference between your method and the old one 
consists in your transforming x into x’, i.e., making it a true variable, 
whereas the others proceed from x + h which simply represents the 
sum of two quantities but never the variation of a quantity. Which is 
why your x, even though it has passed through x’ and reverted to the 
first x, is nevertheless different from what it was before, whereas if one 
simply adds h to x and then subtracts it again, x remains constant 
throughout. But then any graphic depiction of variations must neces- 
sarily be the depiction of a past process, of the result, i.e. of a quantity 
that has become constant; the line x, the portion added to that con- 
stant, is depicted as x + h, two portions of one line. From this it 
clearly follows that a graphic depiction of how x becomes x’ and then 
x again is impossible. 

Further, 2., a letter from Bernstein which has just arrived and 
which I should like to have back.**? 

(I was interrupted by Pumps and the baby so shall have to get 
a move on with this letter as I have persuaded myself that it must go 
off at 5.30.) 

I don’t know whether I ought not to fire a braadside or two at 
Vollmar for his doctoring of history @ la Malon. His suppression 
of the Marseilles Congress **? is carrying the falsification of history 
a bit too far. If Bernstein fails to raise this in the notes on the final 
article, it will have to be put right. 

I shall send you the Egalité as soon as I have read it. As usual, 
a letter Lafargue promised to write has not yet arrived. His public re- 
ply to the examining magistrate, in which he came the professor, was 
a childish affair.t++ These people are acting as though they were 
absolutely intent on being arrested. Fortunately the government is 
pretty rocky, so it’s possible that they will still get away with it. 

Tussy and Johnny arrived atx right yesterday. 

Your 
F.E.