APPENDIX: SUPPLEMENT 1980 TO "HUSSERL IN ENGLAND" This Supplement, written after the reprinting ofthe original article was already at the galley stage, is the result of an odd repetition ofthe circumstances which necessitated the Postscript 1969 after the unexpected arrival of the Freiburg Diary 1928 by W. R Boyce Gibson at the Husserl Archives in Louvain in 1969.1 Only this time, the information that, thanks to the efforts of Professor Cyril Welch of Mount Allison University, became available to me is even more authentie and of greater significance than the Diary for supplementing and correcting the story of Husserl's visit to England, for it comes from the letters of Edmund Husserl and his wife Malvine. Winthrop Bell, the Canadian addressee of these 23 letters and postcards from 1919 to 1925, was one of Husserl's earliest Anglo-American students (after William Ernest Hocking who had spent only two months in Göttingen in 1902). Bell had come to Husserl after a year's graduate study at Harvard and then at Cambridge, England - a fact which mayaIso explain Husserl's hope to enlist hirn as his" mentor" and assistant during his visit to England in 1922. Bell had left Cambridge for health reasons to go to Leipzig, where he first learned about Husserl. So he transferred to Göttingen, where he stayed on from 1911 to 1914. There he had just completed his German Ph.D. thesis, at Husserl's urging on "Eine kritische Untersuchung der Erkenntnistheorie von J osiah Royce"2 when W orld War I broke out, leading to Bell' s internment in Ruhleben near Berlin. After his return as a civilian to America, he taught philosophy first at Toronto, then at Harvard. But then he had to take charge of the family enterprise (fisheries) in Chester, Nova Scotia. Having obtained his address through the Harvard Alumni Office I took up correspondence with hirn in 1955 and learned on that occasion, in addition to fascinating other information about his years with Husserl, that he had some letters from Husserl. But he did not offer to send them or copies ofthem to me at the time. After his death his papers were transferred to Mount Allison University, his undergraduate college. But at that time the letters were not yet included. It came therefore as a happy surprise to me when Cyril Welch wrote me in October 1980 that Husserl's letters to Bell were finally accessible, and that he could even send me xerox co pies of the 23 pieces that had been turned over to the University Library Archives on September 8, 1980. 230 Even than I had no good reason to expect that these letters would prove of major importance in view ofwhat Bell had written me in November 3, 1955: I still have sorne letters frorn Husserl frorn the 1920s, but with little philosophical significance in thern, I fear. And what there is of that kind would be rather rneaningless without letters I had written to hirn. Of those I have no copies. I learned to use the typewriter only quite late in life (unfortunately), so rny letters to hirn were handwritten and no copies were kept. And I could not today recall what I wrote. Under these circumstances it is unfortunate that the originals ofBell's letters have not survived at the Husserl Archives in Louvain. Chances are that they belonged to the ones that were destroyed in a storehouse at Antwerp as a result of an allied air raid in 1940.3 But a good deal ofBell's letters can be inferred from the Husserls' replies. Also, Husserl' spart of this correspondence is clearly the one most important in the present context. All I can do at this stage is to describe in the following pages the new information on the Husserls' visit to England by gearing it to the relevant passages in my earlier account through numbers in the margins. I believe that this will also be the most effective way to show how much this correspondence has enriched and corrected the earlier picture. Besides, I do not think that the entire story should be rewritten before it is certain that no further information will be forthcoming from other sources. THE NEW EVIDENCE FROM THE HUSSERLS' LETTERS AND POSTCARDS TO BELL [1] As early as December 7, 1921, when, in a postcard beginning with the sentence "There are signs and wonders," Husserl announced to Bell the invitation by the University of London, his "first thought" concemed the possibility of Bell' s joining hirn in London as his" wise mentor" and helper. He added to this news the "big request" that Bell translate the four lectures he was to give for the printer and likewise a brief syllabus for the university news paper. Then he asked for advice whether he should look into F. H. Bradley' s major works and for information about philosophers in London, for instance Hicks? Bosanquet? Finally he announced at once his theme : "Phenomenological Method and Phenomenological Philosophy." The fact that Husserl had thought imme­ diately for Bell as his assistant for the English undertaking explains why his messages to hirn are the best source for the still missing information about the visit. A second postcard, written on December 19, acknowledging a preceding Christmas note from Bell, states that Husserl, who had accepted Hicks's invitation for April, had realized this early date would interfere with Bell' s 231 teaching at Toronto and ofTers to postpone his London commitment until June if this would help. [2] Husserl's preparations for the English lectures appear now in an entirely new light from what I thought before seeing his pieces to Bell. The postcard of January 22, 1922 shows hirn studying English contemporary philosophers apparently suggested spontaneously by Bell. As Karl Schuhmann has established, Bell also sent hirn the following books: Lord Haldane, The Reign oJRelativity, London, 1921 (Husserl Library at the Louvain Archives. BA 662), William Sorley, Moral Va lu es and the Idea oJGod, Cambridge, 1918 (BA 1608) and probably others. Yet these names and that of Wildon Carr,4 to which Husserl responds, are hardly representative of London and Cambridge philosophy at the time. Husserl himselfinquires about Shadworth Hodgson5 and again about F. H. Bradley, whom he had read and liked during his years at the University ofHalle (1887-1901). Another item ofinterest is that, in preparation for the visit, Husserl took English lessons which would enable hirn to follow at least slow English conversations and discussions. However, judging from later remarks, the results were limited. On J anuary 28, 1922 Husserl acknowledged the receipt of a work by R A. F. Hoernle (1880-1943), an Idealist friend of the ailing Bernard Bosanquet, of South African descent, whom Husserl was to meet later on the occasion of the lectures, calling it sehr hübsch (very nice). This was Hoernl6' s first book, the Studies in Metaphysics (1920) (BA 797). According to Karl Schuhmann, HusserlinanMS(ofFebruary 19,1922) underBI38 creditsthis book with having seen that thus far metaphysics had always tried to reduce "Being" to one kind ofbeing. Incidentally, Hoernle had published "A Plea for a Phenomenology ofMeaning" in the Proceedings oJ the Aristotelian Society XXII (1921),71-89, discussing Meinong and Husserl on pp. 80-86. In a postcard ofMay 10, 1922, Husserl announced the receipt of other books which he had read "with much enjoyment". They may weIl have included Bell's own copy ofBradley'sAppearance and Reality (BA 187). I agree with Karl Schuhmann that Bell's selection may have contributed to Husserl's impression that Idealism was still dominant in England and even encouraged him to present phenomenology as a form of idealism. But at the same time he stated to Bell that he had not ordered any more books ("although I would be very eager for Whitehead's writings"6), since he would not have the time to read them before his arrival in London. The same would be the case with the writings of Samuel Alexander. Although most of these readings dealt with British Idealist authors, Husserl was most anxious to meet others like James Ward and G. E. Moore (December 6, 1921) in Cambridge. [3] The exact length of the Husserls' stay in England can now be determined from his postcard of J anuary 10, 1922 and Malvine's letter from Cambridge of June 11. They arrived in Cambridge on the Saturday before Pentecost (June 232 3), and returned to Freiburg on Saturday June 20. Thus the entire visit did not exceed two weeks. [4] Husserl's extensive retrospect on the visit to Cambridge and London of December 13 contains a remarkably complete record of his philosophical contacts during this briefvisit G. Dawes Hicks was of course the central figure during the entire period. He sees in hirn the only Englishman who realizes that phenomenology is not only literature for the day ofthe "usual philosophical and international style" but a "serious enterprise in which one can and eventually must invest one's life." But Husserl also remarks that Hicks is a philosophical personality whose "irrational" life circumstances had used up his powers rather "irrationally." (Once, in connection with Hicks's insistence on early publication of the London lectures in English he even states: "The old gentleman takes hirnself a little tragic.") He met several times with the "fine" J ames Ward, chairman ofthe second London lecture, who was the only one to call on the Husserls and invited them twice to tea, in addition to beinga dinner guest at Hicks's with G. E. Moore, and who took hirn once to dinner at Trinity College, where at high table he introduced Husserl to McTaggart, "the stout Hegelian," who withdrew promptly after dinner.