infer_ my plagiarism from
Hegel, if there were only some reasonable or even merely plausible
evidence to support the inference (which I have just proved not to be
the case), it is incontestable that _to affirm_ this plagiarism, as a
"certain" matter of fact, without any reasonable evidence at all, is
not that "fair criticism" which the law justly allows, but, on the
contrary, a totally unjustifiable libel. In accusing me personally of
plagiarism on no reasonable grounds whatever, as I have just
unanswerably proved him to have done, and in making the "certainty" of
the plagiarism depend upon an allegation of fact wholly independent of
the book which he professed to be criticising (namely, the false
allegation that I have worked all my life in a Hegelian "atmosphere"),
Dr. Royce has beyond all controversy transgressed the legally defined
limits of "fair criticism," and become a libeller.

But this is by no means all. If the bat-like accusation of an
"unconscious", yet "sinning" (or sinful) plagiarism hovers ambiguously
between attacking my literary reputation and attacking my moral
character, there is no such ambiguity hanging about the accusation of
"extravagant pretensions as to the originality and profundity of my
still unpublished system of philosophy." A decent modesty, a
self-respectful reserve, a manly humility in presence of the
unattainable ideal of either moral or intellectual perfection, a
speechless reverence in the presence of either infinite goodness or
infinite truth,--these are virtues which belong to the very warp and
woof of all noble, elevated, and justly estimable character; and
wherever their absence is conspicuously shown, there is just ground
for moral condemnation and the contempt of mankind. Dr. Royce has not
scrupled to accuse me of making, not only "pretensions," but even
"extravagant pretensions," which are absolutely incompatible with the
possession of these beautiful and essential virtues, and thereby to
hold me up to universal contempt and derision. He has done this, by
the very terms of his accusation, absolutely and confessedly _without
cause_; for the system of philosophy which is "unpublished" to others
is no less "unpublished" to him, and an accusation thus made
confessedly without any knowledge of its truth is, on the very face
of it, an accusation which is as malicious as it is groundless. To
make such a self-proved and self-condemned accusation as this is, I
submit, to be guilty of