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HAMILTON, William Rowan (1805-1865) Autograph letter signed ('William Rowan Hamilton') to the Revd. William Lee 'Observatory' [Dublin], 2 July 1859. 6 pages, 220 x 130mm. Provenance: Roy Davids Collection. ‘"Philosophy" is a grand and sacred word': the Irish mathematician and astronomer Sir William Rowan Hamilton picks a quarrel with his esteemed peer Henry Longueville Mansel. After his initial ‘ungrudging and unbounded admiration’ of Mansel’s Bampton Lectures, which he considered ‘a work of genius, & of learning, devoted to the highest interests of religion, and humanity’, Hamilton thinks it important to critique the same work, in the spirit of Kant. Accordingly, he continues to ‘pick (in thought) a quarrel with him’, asking: ‘Does he insist too much on the limitation of the human faculties?’. Hamilton continues, ‘"Philosophy" is a grand and sacred word' and that what Mansel calls a "Philosophy of the Infinite" would perhaps more properly be called a "Science of the Infinite"; to wit, Mathematical Science’. He also takes issue with Mansel's criticism of Kant's Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, though admits that 'I have, possibly, been bribed to like that work of Kant' by his friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who gave Hamilton his own copy of the Kritik der Urteilskraft. Hamilton goes on to suggest that he and Lee exchange copies of their own publications for future study. [With:] autograph letter to C[harles] R. Dodd Royal Irish Academy [Dublin], 29 January 1841, enclosing two contemporary documents giving autobiographical details of his life and employment relating to his application for inclusion in Dodd’s Peerage, the two documents being: a part-printed questionnaire listing information about his life and work; and a documentary extract dated and initialled by Hamilton. Known as ‘the second Newton’, Hamilton is best known for devising quaternions (a new form of algebra comprising three-dimensional complex numbers), and his contributions on dynamics have continued relevance in quantum physics. Significant autograph material by Hamilton is rare on the market.