Honoured Sir,

From a literary portion of the Parisian Journal “Le Français” (N^o. 210, 2 Août 1877) I have just learned that an article of the Parisian scholar Taine on the intellectual development of a child has caused you to publish a diary, which you have made about one of your children 37 years ago.¹ The above mentioned article says that you have observed and marked daily the psychologic manifestations of the child.

The very same thing I undertook, when on the 16^th. of May 1867 à Orléans (France) at the birth of my first child, a girl, I began to keep a diary, of which the editor, Hartung et Son here, has just sent you a copy of the second edition.² Urged on the matter by the debates on “Kraft und Stoff”, but convinced as much of the reality of the mind as of that of the matter, I hoped through close observation of the development of the child to seize, as it were, the mind it its spring.³ I did not succeed; however, “Le Français” sas as well of you as of Taine: “Deux philosophes sont entrés récemment dans cette ètude de la psychologie infantile, et, quoiqu’ils n’y aient pas fait jusqu’ici de découverte bien saillante, ils ont au moins ouvert la voie”.⁴ By the way I note that the mentioned Journal, being advertised through me, will say in future: Trois philosophes. My treatise was undertaken and published before Taine’s; yours, honoured Sir, is older with regard to time, but has also appeared later on the market. My observations, therefore, are quite independent and original.

Now I beg you, honoured Sir, to read my book, perhaps there will be, on your recomandation, a translator in England; a little allusion to English prudery, as I hope, be pardonet, is it a saying to be heard every where.⁵

But to the correct judgement and appreciation I add the following: In the course of the keeping of my diary I have somewhat deviated from the original aim and purpose, or rather, I have enlarged on the plan. Of a poetic disposition, I have interspersed now and then descriptions of nature and home life in prosa and in verses, so that my book has become a picture of family life. Besides this I am also politically occupied and have, in consequence, sometimes added criticisms of social conditions and ideas of a politic and pedagogic nature etc.

Yet throughout the whole the original aim is visible. In the printed book I have not marked the dates (at least not the days); but from the noted weeks and months the reader will almost learn the chronology. If you, honoured sir, would deign to take notice of my book, I should, in a third edition, mark the days of my observations.

You will also find your name in it; it was inevitable.⁶ I regret not being educated in physiology, metaphysics prevailing in my youth in Germany.⁷ But I rest on a passage of Feuerbach to support the right of philosophic speculation with that of investigation into natural history.⁸

I hope, honoured sir, that you will pay a kind regard to my essay to solute the problem, as you will find the matter sufficiently interesting and important, to treat it yourself, and, therefore, hope for a favorable answer.⁹ You would oblige me, if you would send me your treatise, which, until now, I only know from the “Français.”

With high esteem | Yours | faithfully | Herman Semmig, ph. dr.

Turnerstr. 2, II.