Papers of William Kingdon Clifford

(Place of writing not indicated.) Is unable to come to be 'wound up' on Wednesday, as they are going to a play. Is tired, having spent the day working with Lockyer on a paper on molecules and the evening in talking metaphysics with Huxley. Thinks they have established that the force between two molecules cannot be entirely in the line joining their centres, as previously supposed, which suits his guess that they are magnets. Supposes that his 'sermon' ['The Ethics of Belief'?] may be called so because it dealt with 'the right and wrong of admitting the results of the scientific method in certain ground which it has already occupied.' Urges the importance of getting people to feel that it is 'wrong to resist the evidence because the results are unpleasing', and of discrediting the 'medicine-man', who is becoming more and more influential over the feelings of the masses.