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A BUDGET OF PARADOXES
BY
AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN,
F.R.A.S. AND C.P.S. OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
REPRINTED, WITH THE AUTHOR'S ADDITIONS, FROM THE ATHEN-EUM
SECOND EDITION
EDITED BY
DAVID EUGENE SMITH.
"UT AGENDO SURGAMUS ARGUENDO GUSTAMUS."
— PTOCHODOKIARCHUS ANAGRAMMATISTES.
VOLUME I.
THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING CO.
CHICAGO LONDON
1915
AUTHORIZED EDITION
COPYRIGHT IN GREAT BRITAIN UNDER THE ACT OF 191 I
AND COPYRIGHT IN THE UNITED STATES BY
THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY
1915
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
(1872)
It is not without hesitation that I have taken upon my-
self the editorship of a work left avowedly imperfect by
the author, and, from its miscellaneous and discursive char-
acter, difficult of completion with due regard to editorial
limitations by a less able hand.
Had the author lived to carry out his purpose he would
have looked through his Budget again, amplifying and
probably rearranging some of its contents. He had col-
lected materials for further illustration of Paradox of the
kind treated of in this book ; and he meant to write a
second part, in which the contradictions and inconsisten-
cies of orthodox learning would have been subjected to the
same scrutiny and castigation as heterodox ignorance had
already received.
It will be seen that the present volume contains more
than the Athenceum Budget. Some of the additions formed
a Supplement to the original articles. These supplementary
paragraphs were, by the author, placed after those to which
they respectively referred, being distinguished from the rest
of the text by brackets. I have omitted these brackets as
useless, except where they were needed to indicate subse-
quent writing.
Another and a larger portion of the work consists of
discussion of matters of contemporary interest, for the
Budget was in some degree a receptacle for the author's
thoughts on any literary, scientific, or social question. Hav-
337853
IV A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
ing grown thus gradually to its present size, the book as
it was left was not quite in a fit condition for publication,
but the alterations which have been made are slight and
few, being in most cases verbal, and such as the sense
absolutely required, or transpositions of sentences to secure
coherence with the rest, in places where the author, in his
more recent insertion of them, had overlooked the con-
nection in which they stood. In no case has the meaning
been in any degree modified or interfered with.
One rather large omission must be mentioned here. It
is an account of the quarrel between Sir James South and
Mr. Troughton on the mounting, etc. of the equatorial tele-
scope at Campden Hill. At some future time when the
affair has passed entirely out of the memory of living
Astronomers, the appreciative sketch, which is omitted in
this edition of the Budget, will be an interesting piece of
history and study of character.1
A very small portion of Mr. James Smith's circle-squar-
ing has been left out, with a still smaller portion of Mr. De
Morgan's answers to that Cyclometrical Paradoxer.
In more than one place repetitions, which would have
disappeared under the author's revision, have been allowed
to remain, because they could not have been taken away
without leaving a hiatus, not easy to fill up without damage
to the author's meaning.
I give these explanations in obedience to the rules laid
down for the guidance of editors at page 15.2 If any
apology for the fragmentary character of the book be
thought necessary, it may be found in the author's own
words at page 281 of the second volume.3
1 See Mrs. De Morgan's Memoir of Augustus De Morgan, Lon-
$tfi, 1882, p. 61.
"In the first edition this reference was to page 11.
3 In the first edition this read "at page 438," the work then ap-
pearing in a single volume.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. V
The publication of the Budget could not have been de-
layed without lessening the interest attaching to the writer's
thoughts upon questions of our own day. I trust that, in-
complete as the work is compared with what it might have
been, I shall not be held mistaken in giving it to the world.
Rather let me hope that it will be welcomed as an old
friend returning under great disadvantages, but bringing a
pleasant remembrance of the amusement which its weekly
appearance in the Athenaum gave to both writer and
reader.
The Paradoxes are dealt with in chronological order.
This will be a guide to the reader, and with the alphabet-
ical Index of Names, etc., will, I trust, obviate all difficulty
of reference.
SOPHIA DE MORGAN.
6 MERTON ROAD, PRIMROSE HILL.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
If Mrs. De Morgan felt called upon to confess her hesi-
tation at taking upon herself the labor of editing these Para-
doxes, much more should one who was born two genera-
tions later, who lives in another land and who was reared
amid different influences, confess to the same feeling when
undertaking to revise this curious medley. But when we
consider the nature of the work, the fact that its present
rarity deprives so many readers of the enjoyment of its de-
licious satire, and the further fact that allusions that were
commonplace a halfcentury ago are now forgotten, it is
evident that some one should take up the work and perform
it con amore.
Having long been an admirer of De Morgan, having
continued his work in the bibliography of early arithmetics,
and having worked in his library among the books of which
he was so fond, it is possible that the present editor, what-
ever may be his other shortcomings, may undertake the
labor with as much of sympathy as any one who is in a
position to perform it. With this thought in mind, two
definite rules were laid down at the beginning of the task:
(1) That no alteration in the text should be made, save in
slightly modernizing spelling and punctuation and in the
case of manifest typographical errors ; (2) That when-
ever a note appeared it should show at once its authorship,
to the end that the material of the original edition might
appear intact.
In considering, however, the unbroken sequence of items
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. Vll
that form the Budget, it seems clear that readers would be
greatly aided if the various leading topics were separated
in some convenient manner. After considerable thought it
was decided to insert brief captions from time to time that
might aid the eye in selecting the larger subjects of the
text. In some .parts of the work these could easily be taken
from the original folio heads, but usually they had to be
written anew. While, therefore, the present editor accepts
the responsibility for the captions of the various subdivi-
sions, he has endeavored to insert them in harmony with
the original text.
As to the footnotes, the first edition had only a few,
some due to De Morgan himself and others to Mrs. De
Morgan. In the present edition those due to the former
are signed A. De M., and those due to Mrs. De Morgan
appear with her initials, S. E. De M. For all other foot-
notes the present editor is responsible. In preparing them
the effort has been made to elucidate the text by supplying
such information as the casual reader might wish as he
passes over the pages. Hundreds of names are referred to
in the text that were more or less known in England half
a century ago, but are now forgotten there and were never
familiar elsewhere. Many books that were then current
have now passed out of memory, and much that agitated
England in De Morgan's prime seems now like ancient his-
tory. Even with respect to well-known names, a little in-
formation as to dates and publications will often be wel-
come, although the editor recognizes that it will quite as
often be superfluous. In order, therefore, to derive the
pleasure that should come from reading the Budget, the
reader should have easy access to the information that the
notes are intended to supply. That they furnish too much
here and too little there is to be expected. They are a
human product, and if they fail to serve their purpose in all
respects it is hoped that this failure will not seriously inter-
fere with the reader's pleasure.
Vlll A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
In general the present editor has refrained from ex-
pressing any opinions that would strike a discordant note
in the reading of the text as De Morgan left it. The temp-
tation is great to add to the discussion at various points,
but it is a temptation to be resisted. To furnish such in-
formation as shall make the reading more pleasant, rather
than to attempt to improve upon one of the most delicious
bits of satire of the nineteenth century, has been the editor's
wish. It would have been an agreeable task to review the
history of circle squaring, of the trisection problem, and
of the duplication of the cube. This, however, would be to
go too far afield. For the benefit of those who wish to in-
vestigate the subject the editor can only refer to such works
and articles as the following: F. Rudio, Archimedes, Huy-
gens, Lambert, Legendre, — mit einer Uebersicht iiber die
Geschichte des Problemes von der Quadrat ur des Z irk els,
Leipsic, 1892; Thomas Muir, "Circle," in the eleventh edi-
tion of the Encyclopedia Britannica; the various histories
of mathematics ; and to his own article on "The Incommen-
surability of ?r" in Prof. J. W. A. Young's Monographs on
Topics of Modern Mathematics, New York, 1911.
The editor wishes to express his appreciation and thanks
to Dr. Paul Carus, editor of The Monist and The Open
Court for the opportunity of undertaking this work ; to
James Earl Russell, LL.D., Dean of Teachers College, Co-
lumbia University, for his encouragement in its prosecution ;
to Miss Caroline Eustis Seely for her intelligent and pains-
taking assistance in securing material for the notes ; and to
Miss Lydia G. Robinson and Miss Anna A. Kugler for their
aid and helpful suggestions in connection with the proof-
sheets. Without the generous help of all five this work
would have been impossible.
DAVID EUGENE SMITH.
TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.
INTRODUCTORY.
IF I had before me a fly and an elephant, having never seen
more than one such magnitude of either kind ; and if the
fly were to endeavor to persuade me that he was larger than
the elephant, I might by possibility be placed in a difficulty.
The apparently little creature might use such arguments
about the effect of distance, and might appeal to such laws
of sight and hearing as I, if unlearned in those things, might
be unable wholly to reject. But if there were a thousand flies,
all buzzing, to appearance, about the great creature ; and, to
a fly, declaring, each one for himself, that he was bigger than
the quadruped ; and all giving different and frequently con-
tradictory reasons ; and each one despising and opposing the
reasons of the others — I should feel quite at my ease. I
should certainly say, My little friends, the case of each one
of you is destroyed by the rest. I intend to show flies in the
swarm, with a few larger animals, for reasons to be given.
In every age of the world there has been an established
system, which has been opposed from time to time by iso-
lated and dissentient reformers. The established system has
sometimes fallen, slowly and gradually: it has either been
upset by the rising influence of some one man, or it has been
sapped by gradual change of opinion in the many.
I have insisted on the isolated character of the dissen-
tients, as an element of the a priori probabilities of the case.
Show me a schism, especially a growing schism, and it is
another thing. The homeopathists, for instance, shall be, if
any one so think, as wrong as St. John Long ; but an organ-
2 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
ized opposition, supported by the efforts of many acting in
concert, appealing to common arguments and experience,
with perpetual succession and a common seal, as the Queen
says in the charter, is, be the merit of the schism what it
may, a thing wholly different from the case of the isolated
opponent in the mode of opposition to it which reason points
out.
During the last two centuries and a half , physical knowl-
edge has been gradually made to rest upon a basis which it
had not before. It has become mathematical. The question
now is, not whether this or that hypothesis is better or worse
to the pure thought, but whether it accords with observed
phenomena in those consequences which can be shown neces-
sarily to follow from it, if it be true. Even in those sciences
which are not yet under the dominion of mathematics, and
perhaps never will be, a working copy of the mathematical
process has been made. This is not known to the followers
of those sciences who are not themselves mathematicians
and who very often exalt their horns against the mathemat-
ics in consequence. They might as well be squaring the
circle, for any sense they show in this particular.
A great many individuals, ever since the rise of the math-
ematical method, have, each for himself, attacked its direct
and indirect consequences. I shall not here stop to point out
how the very accuracy of exact science gives better aim than
the preceding state of things could give. I shall call each of
these persons a paradoxer, and his system a paradox. I use
v the word in the old sense : a paradox is something which is
apart from general opinion, either in subject-matter, method,
or conclusion.
Many of the things brought forward would now be
called crotchets, which is the nearest word we have to old
paradox. But there is this difference, that by calling a thing
^ a crotchet we mean to speak lightly of it ; which was not the
necessary sense of paradox. Thus in the sixteenth century
many spoke of the earth's motion as the paradox of Coper-
INTRODUCTORY. O
nicus, who held the ingenuity of that theory in very high
esteem, and some, I think, who even inclined towards it. In
the seventeenth century, the depravation of meaning took
place, in England at least. Phillips says paradox is "a thing
which seemeth strange" — here is the old meaning: after a
colon he proceeds — "and absurd, and is contrary to com-
mon opinion," which is an addition due to his own time.
Some of my readers are hardly inclined to think that the
word paradox could once have had no disparagement in its
meaning; still less that persons could have applied it to
themselves. I chance to have met with a case in point
against them. It is Spinoza's Philosophia Scriptures Inter-
pres, Exercitatio Paradoxa, printed anonymously at Eleu-
theropolis, in 1666. This place was one of several cities in
the clouds, to which the cuckoos resorted who were driven
\ away by the other birds ; that is, a feigned place of printing,
adopted by those who would have caught it if orthodoxy
could have caught them. Thus, in 1656, the works of So-
cinus could only be printed at Irenopolis. The author de-
serves his self-imposed title, as in the following:1
"Quanto sane satius fuisset illam [Trinitatem] pro mys-
terio non habuisse, et Philosophise ope, antequam quod esset
statuerent, secundum verae logices prsecepta quid esset cum
Cl. Kleckermanno investigasse ; tanto fervore ac labore in
profundissimas speluncas et obscurissimos metaphysicarum
speculationum atque fictionum recessus se recipere ut ab ad-
versariorum telis sententiam suam in tuto collocarent. Pro-
1 "Just as it would surely have been better not to have considered
it (i.e., the trinity) as a mystery, and with Cl. Kleckermann to have
investigated by the aid of philosophy according to the teaching of
true logic what it might be, before they determined what it was ;
just so would it have been better to withdraw zealously and indus-
triously into the deepest caverns and darkest recesses of metaphys-
ical speculations and suppositions in order to establish their opinion
beyond danger from the weapons of their adversaries. .. .Indeed that
great man so explains and demonstrates this dogma (although to
theologians the word has not much charm) from the immovable
foundations of philosophy, that with but few changes and additions
a mind sincerely devoted to truth can desire nothing more."
4 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
fecto magnus ille vir. . . .dogma illud, quamvis apud theo-
logos eo nomine non multum gratise iniverit, ita ex im-
motis Philosophise fundamentis explicat ac demonstrat, ut
paucis tantum immutatis, atque additis, nihil amplius animus
veritate sincere deditus desiderare possit."
This is properly paradox, though also heterodox. It
supposes, contrary to all opinion, orthodox and heterodox,
that philosophy can, with slight changes, explain the Atha-
nasian doctrine so as to be at least compatible with ortho-
doxy. The author would stand almost alone, if not quite ;
and this is what he meant. I have met with the counter-
paradox. I have heard it maintained that the doctrine as
it stands, in all its mystery is a priori more likely than any
other to have been Revelation, if such a thing were to be ;
and that it might almost have been predicted.
After looking into books of paradoxes for more than
thirty years, and holding conversation with many persons
who have written them, and many who might have done so,
there is one point on which my mind is fully made up. The
manner in which a paradoxer will show himself, as to sense
or nonsense, will not depend upon what he maintains, but
upon whether he has or has not made a sufficient knowledge
of what has been done by others, especially as to the mode of
doing it, a preliminary to inventing knowledge for himself.
That a little knowledge is a dangerous thing is one of the
most fallacious of proverbs. A person of small knowledge
is in danger of trying to make his little do the work of more ;
but a person without any is in more danger of making his
no knowledge do the work of some. Take the speculations
on the tides as an instance. Persons with nothing but a
little geometry have certainly exposed themselves in their
modes of objecting to results which require the higher math-
ematics to be known before an independent opinion can be
formed on sufficient grounds. But persons with no geom-
etry at all have done the same thing much more completely.
INTRODUCTORY. D
There is a line to be drawn which is constantly put aside
in the arguments held by paradoxers in favor of their right
to instruct the world. Most persons must, or at least will,
like the lady in Cadogan Place,1 form and express an im-
mense variety of opinions on an immense variety of sub-
jects; and all persons must be their own guides in many
things. So far all is well. But there are many who, in car-
rying the expression of their own opinions beyond the usual
tone of private conversation, whether they go no further
than attempts at oral proselytism, or whether they commit
themselves to the press, do not reflect that they have ceased
to stand upon the ground on which their process is defen-
sible. Aspiring to lead others, they have never given them-
selves the fair chance of being first led by other others into
something better than they can start for themselves ; and that
they should first do this is what both those classes of others
have a fair right to expect. New knowledge, when to any
purpose, must come by contemplation of old knowledge in
every matter which concerns thought ; mechanical contrivance
sometimes, not very often, escapes this rule. All the men who
are now called discoverers, in every matter ruled by thought,
have been men versed in the minds of their predecessors, and
learned in what had been before them. There is not one
exception. I do not say that every man has made direct
acquantance with the whole of his mental ancestry; many
have, as I may say, only known their grandfathers by the
report of their fathers. But even on this point it is remark-
able how many of the greatest names in all departments of
knowledge have been real antiquaries in their several sub-
jects.
I may cite, among those who have wrought strongly upon
opinion or practice in science, Aristotle, Plato, Ptolemy, Eu-
clid, Archimedes, Roger Bacon, Copernicus, Francis Bacon,
Ramus, Tycho Brahe, Galileo, Napier, Descartes, Leibnitz,
Newton, Locke. I take none but names known out of their
1 Mrs. Wititterly, in Nicholas Nickleby.—A. De M.
6 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
fields of work; and all were learned as well as sagacious.
I have chosen my instances: if any one will undertake to
show a person of little or no knowledge who has established
himself in a great matter of pure thought, let him bring
forward his man, and we shall see.
This is the true way of putting off those who plague
others with their great discoveries. The first demand made
should be — Mr. Moses, before I allow you to lead me over the
Red Sea, I must have you show that you are learned in all
the wisdom of the Egyptians upon your own subject. The
plea that it is unlikely that this or that unknown person
should succeed where Newton, etc. have failed, or should
show Newton, etc. to be wrong, is utterly null and void. It
was worthily versified by Sylvanus Morgan (the great her-
ald who in his Sphere of Gentry gave coat armor to " Gentle-
man Jesus," as he said), who sang of Copernicus as follows
(1652):
"If Tellus winged be,
The earth a motion round;
Then much deceived are they
Who nere before it found.
Solomon was the wisest,
His wit nere this attained;
Cease, then, Copernicus,
Thy hypothesis is vain."
Newton, etc. were once unknown ; but they made them-
selves known by what they knew, and then brought forward
what they could do ; which I see is as good verse as that of
Herald Sylvanus. The demand for previous knowledge dis-
poses of twenty-nine cases out of thirty, and the thirtieth
is worth listening to.
I have not set down Copernicus, Galileo, etc. among the
paradoxers, merely because everybody knows them; if my
list were quite complete, they would have been in it. But
the reader will find Gilbert, the great precursor of sound
magnetical theory ; and several others on whom no censure
can be cast, though some of their paradoxes are inadmissible,
INTRODUCTORY. /
some unprovoked, and some capital jokes, true or false: the
author of Vestiges of Creation is an instance. I expect that
my old correspondent, General Perronet Thompson, will ad-
mit that his geometry is part and parcel of my plan ; and
also that, if that plan embraced politics, he would claim a
place for his Catechism on the Corn Laws, a work at one
time paradoxical, but which had more to do with the aboli-
tion of the bread-tax than Sir Robert Peel.
My intention in publishing this Budget in the Athenaeum
is to enable those who have been puzzled by one or two dis-
coverers to see how they look in a lump. The only question
is, has the selection been fairly made ? To this my answer is,
that no selection at all has been made. The books are, with-
out exception, those which I have in my own library ; and I
have taken all — I mean all of the kind : Heaven forbid that
I should be supposed to have no other books ! But I may
have been a collector, influenced in choice by bias? I an-
swer that I never have collected books of this sort — that is,
I have never searched for them, never made up my mind to
look out for this book or that. I have bought what happened
to come in my way at show or auction ; I have retained what
came in as part of the undescribed portion of miscellaneous
auction lots ; I have received a few from friends who found
them among what they called their rubbish ; and I have pre-
served books sent to me for review. In not a few instances
the books have been bound up with others, unmentioned at
the back ; and for years I knew no more I had them than I
knew I had Lord Macclesfi eld's speech on moving the change
of Style, which, after I had searched shops, etc. for it in
vain, I found had been reposing on my own shelves for
many years, at the end of a summary of Leibnitz's philos-
ophy. Consequently, I may positively affirm that the fol-
lowing list is formed by accident and circumstance alone,
and that it truly represents the casualties of about a third
of a century. For instance, the large proportion of works
g A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
on the quadrature of the circle is not my doing: it is the
natural share of this subject in the actual run of events.
[I keep to my plan of inserting only such books as I pos-
sessed in 1863, except by casual notice in aid of my remarks.
I have found several books on my shelves which ought to
have been inserted. These have their titles set out at the
commencement of their articles, in leading paragraphs ; the
casuals are without this formality.1]
Before proceeding to open the Budget, I say something
on my personal knowledge of the class of discoverers who
square the circle, upset Newton, etc. I suspect I know more
of the English class than any man in Britain. I never kept
any reckoning ; but I know that one year with another — and
less of late years than in earlier time — I have talked to more
than five in each year, giving more than a hundred and fifty
specimens. Of this I am sure, that it is my own fault if they
have not been a thousand. Nobody knows how they swarm,
except those to whom they naturally resort. They are in all
ranks and occupations, of all ages and characters. They
are very earnest people, and their purpose is bona fide the
dissemination of their paradoxes. A great many — the mass,
indeed — are illiterate, and a great many waste their means,
and are in or approaching penury. But I must say that
never, in any one instance, has the quadrature of the circle,
or the like, been made a pretext for begging; even to be
asked to purchase a book is of the very rarest occurrence —
it has happened, and that is all.
These discoverers despise one another : if there were the
concert among them which there is among foreign mendi-
cants, a man who admitted one to a conference would be
plagued to death. I once gave something to a very genteel
French applicant, who overtook me in the street, at my own
door, saying he had picked up my handkerchief : whether he
picked it up in my pocket for an introduction, I know not.
*The brackets mean that the paragraph is substantially from
some one of the Athen&um Supplements. — S. E. De M.
INTRODUCTORY.
But that day week came another Frenchman to my house,
and that day fortnight a French lady ; both failed, and I had
no more trouble. The same thing happened with Poles. It
is not so with circle-squarers, etc.: they know nothing of
each other. Some will read this list, and will say I am right
enough, generally speaking, but that there is an exception,
if I could but see it.
I do not mean, by my confession of the manner in which
I have sinned against the twenty-four hours, to hold myself
out as accessible to personal explanation of new plans. Quite
the contrary : I consider myself as having made my report,
and being discharged from further attendance on the sub-
ject. I will not, from henceforward, talk to any squarer of
the circle, trisector of the angle, duplicator of the cube, con-
structor of perpetual motion, subverter of gravitation, stag-
nator of the earth, builder of the universe, etc. I will receive
any writings or books which require no answer, and read
them when I please : I will certainly preserve them — this list
may be enlarged at some future time.
There are three subjects which I have hardly anything
upon ; astrology, mechanism, and the infallible way of win-
ning at play. I have never cared to preserve astrology. The
mechanists make models, and not books. The infallible win-
ners— though I have seen a few — think their secret too val-
uable, and prefer mutare quadrata rotundis — to turn dice
into coin — at the gaming-house: verily they have their re-
ward.
I shall now select, to the mystic number seven, instances
of my personal knowledge of those who think they have
discovered, in illustration of as many misconceptions.
1. Attempt by help of the old philosophy, the discoverer
not being in possession of modern knowledge. A poor school-
master, in rags, introduced himself to a scientific friend with
whom I was talking, and announced that he had found out
the composition of the sun. "How was that done?" — "By
consideration of the four elements."— "What are they?"—
10 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
"Of course, fire, air, earth, and water."— "Did you not know
that air, earth, and water, have long been known to be no
elements at all, but compounds?" — "What do you mean,
sir? Who ever heard of such a 'thing?"
2. The notion that difficulties are enigmas, to be over-
come in a moment by a lucky thought. A nobleman of very
high rank, now long dead, read an article by me on the
quadrature, in an early number of the Penny Magazine. He
had, I suppose, school recollections of geometry. He put
pencil to paper, drew a circle, and constructed what seemed
likely to answer, and, indeed, was — as he said — certain, if
only this bit were equal to that ; which of course it was not.
He forwarded his diagram to the Secretary of the Diffusion
Society, to be handed to the author of the article, in case the
difficulty should happen to be therein overcome.
3. Discovery at all hazards, to get on in the world. Thirty
years ago, an officer of rank, just come from foreign service,
and trying for a decoration from the Crown, found that his
claims were of doubtful amount, and was told by a friend
that so and so, who had got the order, had the additional
claim of scientific distinction. Now this officer, while abroad,
had bethought himself one day, that there really could be
no difficulty in finding the circumference of a circle: if a
circle were rolled upon a straight line until the undermost
point came undermost again, there would be the straight
line equal to the circle. He came to me, saying that he did
not feel equal to the statement of his claim in this respect,
,but that if some clever fellow would put the thing in a
proper light, he thought his affair might be managed. I was
clever enough to put the thing in a proper light to himself,
to this extent at least, that, though perhaps they were wrong,
the advisers of the Crown would never put the letters K.C.B.
to such a circle as his.
4. The notion that mathematicians cannot find the circle
for common purposes. A working man measured the alti-
tude of a cylinder accurately, and — I think the process of
INTRODUCTORY. 1 1
Archimedes was one of his proceedings — found its bulk.
He then calculated the ratio of the circumference to the
diameter, and found it answered very well on other modes
of trial. His result was about 3 . 14. He came to London,
and somebody sent him to me. Like many others of his pur-
suit, he seemed to have turned the whole force of his mind
upon one of his points, on which alone he would be open to
refutation. He had read some of Kater's experiments, and
had got the Act of 1825 on weights and measures. Say what
I would, he had for a long time but one answer — "Sir ! I go
upon Captain Kater and the Act of Parliament." But I
fixed him at last. I happened to have on the table a proof-
sheet of the Astronomical Memoirs, in which were a large
number of observed places of the planets compared with
prediction, and asked him whether it could be possible that
persons who did not know the circle better than he had
found it could make the calculations, of which I gave him
a notion, so accurately? He was perfectly astonished, and
took the titles of some books which he said he would read.
5. Application for the reward from abroad. Many years
ago, about twenty-eight, I think, a Jesuit came from South
America, with a quadrature, and a cutting from a news-
paper, announcing that a reward was ready for the discovery
in England. On this evidence he came over. After satis-
fying him that nothing had ever been offered here, I dis-
cussed his quadrature, which was of no use. I succeeded
better when I told him of Richard White, also a Jesuit, and
author of a quadrature published before 1648, under the
name of Chryscespis, of which I can give no account, having
never seen it. This White (Albius) is the only quadrator
who was ever convinced of his error. My Jesuit was struck
by the instance, and promised to read more geometry — he
was no Clavius — before he published his book. He relapsed,
however, for I saw his book advertised in a few days. I
may say, as sufficient proof of my being no collector, that I
had not the curiosity to buy his book; and my friend the
12 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
Jesuit did not send me a copy, which he ought to have done,
after the hour I had given him.
6. Application for the reward at home. An agricultural
laborer squared the circle, and brought the proceeds to Lon-
don. He left his papers with me, one of which was the copy
of a letter to the Lord Chancellor, desiring his Lordship to
hand over forthwith 100,000 pounds, the amount of the
alleged offer of reward. He did not go quite so far as M.
de Vausenville, who, I think in 1778, brought an action
against the Academy of Sciences to recover a reward to
which he held himself entitled. I returned the papers, with
a note, stating that he had not the knowledge requisite to
see in what the problem consisted. I got for answer a letter
in which I was told that a person who could not see that he
had done the thing should "change his business, and appro-
priate his time and attention to a Sunday-school, to learn
what he could, and keep the litle children from durting their
close" I also received a letter from a friend of the quad-
rator, informing me that I knew his friend had succeeded,
and had been heard to say so. These letters were printed —
without the names of the writers — for the amusement of the
readers of Notes and Queries, First Series, xii. 57, and they
will appear again in the sequel.
[There are many who have such a deep respect for any
attempt at thought that they are shocked at ridicule even of
those who have made themselves conspicuous by pretending
to lead the world in matters which they have not studied.
Among my anonyms is a gentleman who is angry at my
treatment of the "poor but thoughtful" man who is described
in my introduction as recommending me to go to a Sunday-
school because I informed him that he did not know in what
the difficulty of quadrature consisted. My impugner quite
forgets that this man's "thoughtfulness" chiefly consisted
in his demanding a hundred thousand pounds from the Lord
Chancellor for his discovery ; and I may add, that his great-
est stretch of invention was finding out that "the clergy"
INTRODUCTORY. 13
were the means of his modest request being unnoticed. I
mention this letter because it affords occasion to note a very
common error, namely, that men unread in their subjects
have, by natural wisdom, been great benefactors of man-
kind. My critic says, "Shakspeare, whom the Pror (sic)
may admit to be a wisish man, though an object of con-
tempt as to learning. ..." Shakespeare an object of con-
tempt as to learning! Though not myself a thoroughgoing
Shakespearean — and adopting the first half of the opinion
given by George III, "What! is there not sad stuff? only
one must not say so" — I am strongly of opinion that he throws
out the masonic signs of learning in almost every scene, to
all who know what they are. And this over and above every
kind of direct evidence. First, foremost, and enough, the
evidence of Ben Jonson that he had "little Latin and less
Greek" ; then Shakespeare had as much Greek as Jonson
would call some, even when he was depreciating. To have
any Greek at all was in those days exceptional. In Shake-
speare's youth St. Paul's and Merchant Taylor's schools
were to have masters learned in good and clean Latin litera-
ture, and also in Greek if such may be gotten. When Jonson*
spoke as above, he intended to put Shakespeare low among
the learned, but not out of their pale ; and he spoke as a rival
dramatist, who was proud of his own learned sock ; and it
may be a subject of inquiry how much Latin he would call
little. If Shakespeare's learning on certain points be very
much less visible than Jonson's, it is partly because Shake-
speare's writings hold it in chemical combination, Jonson's
in mechanical aggregation.]
7. An elderly man came to me to show me how the uni-
verse was created. There was one molecule, which by vibra-
tion became — Heaven knows how! — the Sun. Further
vibration produced Mercury, and so on. I suspect the nebu-
lar hypothesis had got into the poor man's head by reading,
in some singular mixture with what it found there. Some
modifications of vibration gave heat, electricity, etc. I lis-
14 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
tened until my informant ceased to vibrate — which is always
the shortest way — and then said, "Our knowledge of elastic
fluids is imperfect." "Sir!" said he, "I see you perceive
the truth of what I have said, and I will reward your atten-
tion by telling you what I seldom disclose, never, except to
those who can receive my theory — the little molecule whose
vibrations have given rise to our solar system is the Logos
of St. John's Gospel!" He went away to Dr. Lardner,
who would not go into the solar system at all — the first
molecule settled the question. So hard upon poor discov-
erers are men of science who are not antiquaries in their
subject! On leaving, he said, "Sir, Mr. De Morgan re-
ceived me in a very different way! he heard me attentively,
and I left him perfectly satisfied of the truth of my system."
I have had much reason to think that many discoverers, of
all classes, believe they have convinced every one who is
not peremptory to the verge of incivility.
My list is given in chronological order. My readers will
understand that my general expressions, where slighting
or contemptuous, refer to the ignorant, who teach before
they have learned. In every instance, those of whom I am
able to speak with respect, whether as right or wrong, have
sought knowledge in the subject they were to handle before
they completed their speculations. I shall further illustrate
this at the conclusion of my list
Before I begin the list, I give prominence to the follow-
ing letter, addressed by me to the Correspondent of October
28, 1865. Some of my paradoxers attribute to me articles
in this or that journal ; and others may think — I know some
do think — they know me as the writer of reviews of some
of the very books noticed here. The following remarks will
explain the way in which they may be right, and in which
they may be wrong.
INTRODUCTORY.
THE EDITORIAL SYSTEM.
15
"SiR, — I have reason to think that many persons have a
very inaccurate notion of the Editorial System. What I call
by this name hc.s grown up in the last centenary — a word I
may use to signify the hundred years now ending, and to
avoid the ambiguity of century. It cannot conveniently be
explained by editors themselves, and edited journals gen-
erally do not like to say much about it. In your paper
perhaps, in which editorial duties differ somewhat from
those of ordinary journals, the common system may be
freely spoken of.
"When a reviewed author, as very often happens, writes
to the editor of the reviewing journal to complain of what
has been said of him, he frequently — even more often than
not — complains of 'your reviewer/ He sometimes presumes
that 'you' have, 'through inadvertence' in this instance, 'al-
lowed some incompetent person to lower the character of
your usually accurate pages.' Sometimes he talks of 'your
scribe,' and, in extreme cases, even of 'your hack.' All this
shows perfect ignorance of the journal system, except where
it is done under the notion of letting the editor down easy.
But the editor never accepts the mercy.
"All that is in a journal, except what is marked as from
a correspondent, either by the editor himself or by the cor-
respondent's real or fictitious signature, is published entirely
on editorial responsibility, as much as if the editor had writ-
ten it himself. The editor, therefore, may claim, and does
claim and exercise, unlimited right of omission, addition,
and alteration. This is so well understood that the editor
performs his last function on the last revise without the
'contributor' knowing what is done. The word contributor
is the proper one ; it implies that he furnishes materials with-
out stating what he furnishes or how much of it is accepted,
or whether he be the only contributor. All this applies both
to political and literary journals. No editor acknowledges
16 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
the right of a contributor to withdraw an article, if he should
find alterations in the proof sent to him for correction which
would make him wish that the article should not appear. If
the demand for suppression were made — I say nothing about
what might be granted to request — the answer would be, It
is not your article, but mine ; I have all the responsibility ; if
it should contain a libel, I could not give you up, even at
your own desire. You have furnished me with materials,
on the known and common understanding that I was to use
them at my discretion, and you have no right to impede my
operations by making the appearance of the article depend
on your approbation of my use of your materials/
"There is something to be said for this system, and some-
thing against it — I mean simply on its own merits. But the
all-conquering argument in its favor is, that the only prac-
ticable alternative is the modern French plan of no articles
without the signature of the writers. I need not discuss this
plan ; there is no collective party in favor of it. Some may
think it is not the only alternative ; they have not produced
any intermediate proposal in which any dozen of persons have
concurred. Many will say, Is not all this, though perfectly
correct, well known to be matter of form? Is it not prac-
tically the course of events that an engaged contributor
writes the article, and sends it to the editor, who admits it
as written — substantially, at least? And is it not often very
well known, by style and in other ways, who it was wrote
the article? This system is matter of form just as much
as loaded pistols are matter of form so long as the wearer
is not assailed ; but matter of form takes the form of matter
in the pulling of a trigger, so soon as the need arises. Edi-
tors and contributors who can work together find each other,
out by elective affinity, so that the common run of events
settles down into most articles appearing much as they are
written. And there are two safety-valves ; that is, when
judicious persons come together. In the first place, the edi-
tor himself, when he has selected his contributor, feels that
INTRODUCTORY. 17
the contributor is likely to know his business better than an
editor can teach him ; in fact, it is on that principle that the
selection is made. But he feels that he is more competent
than the writer to judge questions of strength and of tone,
especially when the general purpose of the journal is con-
sidered, of which the editor is the judge without appeal. An
editor who meddles with substantive matter is likely to be
wrong, even when he knows the subject; but one who prunes
what he deems excess, is likely to be right, even when he
does not know the subject. In the second place, a contrib-
utor knows that he is supplying an editor, and learns, with-
out suppressing truth or suggesting falsehood, to make the
tone of his communications suit the periodical in which they
are to appear. Hence it very often arises that a reviewed
author, who thinks he knows the name of his reviewer, and
proclaims it with expressions of dissatisfaction, is only
wrong in supposing that his critic has given all his mind.
It has happened to myself more than once, to be announced
as the author of articles which I could not have signed, be-
cause they did not go far enough to warrant my affixing my
name to them as to a sufficient expression of my own opin-
ion.
"There are two other ways in which a reviewed author
may be wrong about his critic. An editor frequently makes
slight insertions or omissions — I mean slight in quantity of
type — as he goes over the last proof ; this he does in a com-
parative hurry, and it may chance that he does not know the
full sting of his little alteration. The very bit which the
writer of the book most complains of may not have been seen
by the person who is called the writer of the article until
after the appearance of the journal ; nay, if he be one of those
— few, I daresay — who do not read their own articles, may
never have been seen by him at all. Possibly, the insertion
or omission would not have been made if the editor could
have had one minute's conversation with his contributor.
Sometimes it actually contradicts something which is al-
18 'A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
lowed to remain in another part of the article; and some-
times, especially in the case of omission, it renders other
parts of the article unintelligible. These are disadvantages
of the system, and a judicious editor is not very free with
his unus et alter pannus. Next, readers in general, when
they see the pages of a journal with the articles so nicely
fitting, and so many ending with the page or column, have
very little notion of the cutting and carving which goes to
the process. At the very last moment arises the necessity
of some trimming of this kind ; and the editor, who would
gladly call the writer to counsel if he could, is obliged to
strike out ten or twelve lines. He must do his best, but it
may chance that the omission selected would take from the
writer the power of owning the article. A few years ago,
an able Opponent of mine wrote to a journal some criticisms
upon an article which he expressly attributed to me. I re-
plied as if I were the writer, which, in a sense, I was. But
if any one had required of me an unmodified 'Yes' or 'No'
to the question whether I wrote the article, I must, of two
falsehoods, have chosen 'No': for certain omissions, dictated
by the necessities of space and time, would have amounted,
had my signature been affixed, to a silent surrender of points
which, in my own character, I must have strongly insisted
on, unless I had chosen to admit certain inferences against
what I had previously published in my own name. I may
here add that the forms of journalism obliged me in this
case to remind my opponent that it could not be permitted to
me, in that journal, either to acknowledge or deny the
authorship of the articles. The cautions derived from the
above remarks are particularly wanted with reference to the
editorial comments upon letters of complaint. There is often
no time to send these letters to the contributor, and even
when this can be done, an editor is — and very properly —
never of so editorial a mind as when he is revising the com-
ments of a contributor upon an assailant of the article. He
is then in a better position as to information, and a more
INTRODUCTORY. 19
critical position as to responsibility. Of course, an editor
never meddles, except under notice, with the letter of a cor-
respondent, whether of a complainant, of a casual informant,
or of a contributor who sees reason to become a correspond-
ent. Omissions must sometimes be made when a grievance
is too highly spiced. It did once happen to me that a wag-
gish editor made an insertion without notice in a letter
signed by me with some fiction, which insertion contained
the name of a friend of mine, with a satire which I did
not believe, and should not have written if I had. To my
strong rebuke, he replied — 'I know it was very wrong ; but
human nature could not resist/ But this was the only occa-
sion on which such a thing ever happened to me.
"I daresay what I have written may give some of your
readers to understand some of the pericula et commoda of
modern journalism. I have known men of deep learning
and science as ignorant of the prevailing system as any un-
educated reader of a newspaper in a country town. I may
perhaps induce some writers not to be too sure about
this, that, or the other person. They may detect their re-
viewer, and they may be safe in attributing to him the gen-
eral matter and tone of the article. But about one and
another point, especially if it be a short and stinging point,
they may very easily chance to be wrong. It has happened
to myself, and within a few weeks to publication, to be
wrong in two ways in reading a past article — to attribute
to editorial insertion what was really my own, and to at-
tribute to myself what was really editorial insertion."
What is a man to do who is asked whether he wrote an
article? He may, of course, refuse to answer; which is re-
garded as an admission. He may say, as Swift did to Ser-
jeant Bettesworth, "Sir, when I was a young man, a friend
of mine advised me, whenever I was asked whether I had
written a certain paper, to deny it; and I accordingly tell
you that I did not write it." He may say, as I often do,
20 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
when charged with having invented a joke, story, or epi-
gram, "I want all the credit I can get, and therefore I always
acknowledge all that is attributed to me, truly or not; the
story, etc. is mine." But for serious earnest, in the matter of
imputed criticism, the answer may be, "The article was of
my material, but the editor has not let it stand as I gave it ;
I cannot own it as a whole." He may then refuse to be
particular as to the amount of the editor's interference. Of
this there are two extreme cases. The editor may have ex-
punged nothing but a qualifying adverb. Or he may have
done as follows. We all remember the account of Adam
which satirizes woman, but eulogizes her if every second and
third line be transposed. As in :
"Adam could find no solid peace
When Eve was given him for a mate,
Till he beheld a woman's face,
Adam was in a happy state."
If this had been the article, and a gallant editor had made
the transpositions, the author could not with truth acknowl-
edge. If the alteration were only an omitted adverb, or a
few things of the sort, the author could not with truth deny.
In all that comes between, every man must be his own casuist.
I stared, when I was a boy, to hear grave persons approve
of Sir Walter Scott's downright denial that he was the
author of Waverley, in answer to the Prince Regent's down-
right question. If I remember rightly, Samuel Johnson
would have approved of the same course.
It is known that, whatever the law gives, it also gives
all that is necessary to full possession; thus a man whose
land is environed by land of others has a right of way
over the land of these others. By analogy, it is argued that
when a man has a right to his secret, he has a right to all
that is necessary to keep it, and that is not unlawful. If,
then, he can only keep his secret by denial, he has a right to
denial. This I admit to be an answer against all men except
the denier himself ; if conscience and self-respect 'will allow
INTRODUCTORY. 21
it, no one can impeach it. But the question cannot be solved
on a case. That question is, A lie, is it malum in se, without
reference to meaning and circumstances ? This is a question
with two sides to it. Cases may be invented in which a lie
is the only way of preventing a murder, or in which a lie
may otherwise save a life. In these cases it is difficult to
acquit, and almost impossible to blame; discretion intro-
duced, the line becomes very hard to draw.
I know but one work which has precisely — as at first
appears — the character and object of my Budget. It is the
Review of the Works of the Royal Society of London, by
Sir John Hill, M.D. (1751 and 1780, 4to.). This man
offended many : the Royal Society, by his work, the medical
profession, by inventing and selling extra-pharmacopoeian
doses ; Garrick, by resenting the rejection of a play. So
Garrick wrote:
"For physic and farces his equal there scarce is ;
His farces are physic ; his physic a farce is."
I have fired at the Royal Society and at the medical pro-
fession, but I have given a wide berth to the drama and its
wits ; so there is no epigram out against me, as yet. He was
very able and very eccentric. Dr. Thomson (Hist. Roy.
Soc.) says he has no humor, but Dr. Thomson was a man
who never would have discovered humor.
Mr. Weld (Hist. Roy. Soc.) backs Dr. Thomson, but
with a remarkable addition. Having followed his prede-
cessor in observing that the Transactions in Martin Folkes's
time have an unusual proportion of trifling and puerile pa-
pers, he says that Hill's book is a poor attempt at humor,
and glaringly exhibits the feelings of a disappointed man.
It is probable, he adds, that the points told with some effect
on the Society ; for shortly after its publication the Trans-
actions possess a much higher scientific value.
I copy an account which I gave elsewhere.
When the Royal Society was founded, the Fellows set
22 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
to work to prove all things, that they might hold fast that
which was good. They bent themselves to the question
whether sprats were young herrings. They made a circle
of the powder of a unicorn's horn, and set a spider in the
middle of it; "but it immediately ran out." They tried
several times, and the spider "once made some stay in the
powder." They inquired into Kenelm Digby's sympathetic
powder. "Magnetic cures being discoursed of, Sir Gilbert
Talbot promised to communicate what he knew of sympa-
thetical cures ; and those members who had any of the
powder of sympathy, were desired to bring some of it at
the next meeting."
June 21, 1661, certain gentlemen were appointed "cura-
tors of the proposal of tormenting a man with the sympa-
thetic powder" ; I cannot find any record of the result. And
so they went on until the time of Sir John Hill's satire, in
1751. This once well-known work is, in my judgment, the
greatest compliment the Royal Society ever received. It
brought forward a number of what are now feeble and
childish researches in the Philosophical Transactions. It
showed that the inquirers had actually been inquiring; and
that they did not pronounce decision about "natural knowl-
edge" by help of "natural knowledge." But for this, Hill
would neither have known what to assail, nor how. Mat-
ters are now entirely changed. The scientific bodies are far
too well established to risk themselves. Ibit qui zonam
perdidit :
"Let him take castles who has ne'er a groat."
These great institutions are now without any collective
purpose, except that of promoting individual energy; they
print for their contributors, and guard themselves by a gen-
eral declaration that they will not be answerable for the
things they print. Of course they will not put forward
anything for everybody; but a writer of a certain reputa-
tion, or matter of a certain look of plausibility and safety,
INTRODUCTORY. 23
will find admission. This is as it should be ; the pasturer of
flocks and herds and the hunters of wild beasts are two very
different bodies, with very different policies. The scien-
tific academies are what a spiritualist might call "publishing
mediums," and their spirits fall occasionally into writing
which looks as if minds in the higher state were not always
impervious to nonsense.
The following joke is attributed to Sir John Hill. I
cannot honestly say I believe it ; but it shows that his con-
temporaries did not believe he had no humor. Good stories
are always in some sort of keeping with the characters on
which they are fastened. Sir John Hill contrived a com-
munication to the Royal Society from Portsmouth, to the
effect that a sailor had broken his leg in a fall from the
mast-head ; that bandages and a plentiful application of tar-
water had made him, in three days, able to use his leg as
well as ever. While this communication was under grave
discussion — it must be remembered that many then thought
tarwater had extraordinary remedial properties — the joker
contrived that a second letter should be delivered, which
stated that the writer had forgotten, in his previous com-
munication, to mention that the leg was a wooden leg!
Horace Walpole told this story, I suppose for the first time ;
he is good authority for the fact of circulation, but for
nothing more.
Sir John Hill's book is droll and cutting satire. Dr.
Maty, (Sec. Rpyal Society) wrote thus of it in the Journal
Britannique (Feb. 1751), of which he was editor:
"II est facheux que cet ingenieux Naturaliste, qui nous
a deja donne et qui nous prepare encore des ouvrages plus
utiles, emploie a cette odieuse tache une plume qu'il trempe
dans le fiel et dans 1'absinthe. II est vrai que plusieurs de
ses remarques sont fondees, et qu'a 1'erreur qu'il indique, il
joint en meme terns la correction. Mais il n'est pas tou-
jours equitable, et ne manque jamais d'insulter. Que peut
24 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
apres tout prouver son livre, si ce n'est que la quarante-
cinquieme partie d'un tres-ample et tres-utile Recueil n'est
pas exempte d'erreurs? Devoit-il confondre avec des Ecri-
vains superficiels, dont la Liberte du Corps ne permet pas de
restreindre la fertilite, cette foule de savans du Premier
ordre, dont les Ecrits ont orne et ornent encore les Trans-
actions? A-t-il oublie qu'on y a vu frequemment les noms
des Boyle, des Newton, des Halley, des De Moivres, des
Hans Sloane, etc.? Et qu'on y trouve encore ceux des
Ward, des Bradley, des Graham, des Ellicot, des Watson,
et d'un Auteur que Mr. Hill prefere a tous les autres, je
veux dire de Mr. Hill lui-meme?"1
This was the only answer ; but it was no answer at all.
Hill's object was to expose the absurdities ; he therefore col-
lected the absurdities. I feel sure that Hill was a benefactor
of the Royal Society; and much more than he would have
been if he had softened their errors and enhanced their
praises. No reviewer will object to me that I have omitted
Young, Laplace, etc. But then my book has a true title.
Hill should not have called his a review of the "Works."
It was charged against Sir John Hill that he had tried to
become a Fellow of the Royal Society and had failed. This
he denied, and challenged the production of the certificate
which a candidate always sends in; and which is preserved.
1"It is annoying that this ingenious naturalist who has already
given us more useful works and has still others in preparation, uses
for this odious task, a pen dipped in gall and wormwood. It is true
that many of his remarks have some foundation, and that to each
error that he points out he at the same time adds its correction. But
he is not always just and never fails to insult. After all, what does
his book prove except that a forty-fifth part of a very useful review
is not free from mistakes? Must we confuse him with those super-
ficial writers whose liberty of body does not permit them to restrain
their fruitfulness, that crowd of savants of the highest rank whose
writings have adorned and still adorn the Transactions? Has he
forgotten that the names of the Boyles, Newtons, Halleys, De Moi-
vres, Hans Sloanes, etc. have been seen frequently? and that still are
found those of the Wards, Bradleys, Grahams, Ellicots, Watsons,
and of an author whom Mr. Hill prefers to all others, I mean Mr.
Hill himself?"
INTRODUCTORY. 25
But perhaps he could not get so far as a certificate — that is,
could not find any one to recommend him ; he was a likely
man to be in such a predicament. As I have myself run foul
of the Society on some little points, I conceive it possible that
I may fall under a like suspicion. Whether I could have
been a Fellow, I cannot know; as the gentleman said who
was asked if he could play the violin, I never tried. I have
always had a high opinion of the Society upon its whole his-
tory. A person used to historical inquiry learns to look at
wholes ; the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, the Col-
lege of Physicians, etc. are taken in all their duration. But
those who are not historians — I mean not possessed of the
habit of history — hold a mass of opinions about current
things which lead them into all kinds of confusion when they
try to look back. Not to give an instance which will offend
any set of existing men — this merely because I can do with-
out it — let us take the country at large. Magna Charta for
ever ! glorious safeguard of our liberties ! Nullus liber homo
capiatur out imprisonetur. . . .aut aliquo modo destruatur,
nisi per judicium parium . . . . 1 Liber homo ; frank home ; a
capital thing for him — but how about the villeins'? Oh,
there are none now\ But there were. Who cares for vil-
lains, or barbarians, or helots ? And so England, and Athens,
and Sparta, were free States ; all the freemen in them were
free. Long after Magna Charta, villains were sold with
their "chattels and offspring," named in that order. Long
after Magna Charta, it was law that "Le Seigniour poit
rob, naufrer, et chastiser son villein a son volunt, salve que
il ne poit luy maim."2
The Royal Society was founded as a co-operative fcody,
and co-operation was its purpose. The early charters, etc.
do not contain a trace of the intention to create a scientific
distinction, a kind of Legion of Honor. It is clear that the
1 Let no free man be seized or imprisoned or in any way harmed
except by trial of his peers."
"The master can rob, wreck and punish his slave according to
his pleasure save only that he may not maim him."
26 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
qualification was ability and willingness to do good work
for the promotion of natural knowledge, no matter in how
many persons, nor of what position in society. Charles II
gave a smart rebuke for exclusiveness, as elsewhere men-
tioned. In time arose, almost of course, the idea of distinc-
tion attaching to the title; and when I first began to know
the Society, it was in this state. Gentlemen of good social
position were freely elected if they were really educated
men ; but the moment a claimant was announced as resting
on his science, there was a disposition to inquire whether he
was scientific enough. The maxim of the poet was adopted ;
and the Fellows were practically divided into Drink-deeps
and Taste-nots.
I was, in early life, much repelled by the tone taken by
the Fellows of the Society with respect to their very mixed
body. A man high in science — some thirty-seven years ago
(about 1830) — gave me some encouragement, as he thought.
"We shall have you a Fellow of the Royal Society in time,"
said he. Umph ! thought I : for I had that day heard of sonic
recent elections, the united science of which would not have
demonstrated I. 1, nor explained the action of a pump.
Truly an elevation to look up at! It came, further, to my
knowledge that the Royal Society — if I might judge by the
claims made by very influential Fellows — considered itself
as entitled to the best of everything: second-best being left
for the newer bodies. A secretary, in returning thanks for
the Royal at an anniversary of the Astronomical, gave rather
a lecture to the company on the positive duty of all present
to send the very best to the old body, and the absolute right
of the old body to expect it. An old friend of mine, on a
similar occasion, stated as a fact that the thing was always
done, as well as that it ought to be done.
Of late years this pretension has been made by a Presi-
dent of the Society. In 1855, Lord Rosse presented a con-
fidential memorandum to the Council on the expediency of
enlarging their number. He says, "In a Council so small it
INTRODUCTORY. 27
is impossible to secure a satisfactory representation of the
leading scientific Societies, and it is scarcely to be expected
that, under such circumstances, they will continue to publish
inferior papers while they send the best to our Transact ions."
And, again, with all the Societies represented on the
Council, "even if every Science had its Society, and if they
published everything, withholding their best papers [i. e.,
from the Royal Society], which they would not be likely to
do, still there would remain to the Royal Society. . ." Lord
Rosse seems to imagine that the minor Societies themselves
transfer their best papers to the Royal Society ; that if, for
instance, the Astronomical Society were to receive from A. B.
a paper of unusual merit, the Society would transfer it to
the Royal Society. This is quite wrong: any preference of
the Royal to another Society is the work of the contrib-
utor himself. But it shows how well hafted is the Royal
Society's claim, that a President should acquire the notion
that it is acknowledged and acted upon by the other Socie-
ties, in their joint and corporate capacities. To the preten-
sion thus made I never could give any sympathy. When I
first heard Mr. Christie, Sec. R. S., set it forth at the anni-
versary dinner of the Astronomical Society, I remembered
the Baron in Walter Scott :
"Of Gilbert the Galliard a heriot he sought,
Saying, Give thy best steed as a vassal ought."
And I remembered the answer:
"Lord and Earl though thou be, I trow
I can rein Buck's-foot better than thou."
Fully conceding that the Royal Society is entitled to pre-
eminent rank and all the respect due to age and services, I
could not, nor can I now, see any more obligation in a con-
tributor to send his best to that Society than he can make out
to be due to himself. This pretension, in my mind, was
hooked on, by my historical mode of viewing things already
mentioned, to my knowledge of the fact that the Royal So-
28 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
ciety — the chief fault, perhaps, lying with its President, Sir
Joseph Banks — had sternly set itself against the formation
of other societies ; the Geological and Astronomical, for in-
stance, though it must be added that the chief rebels came
out of the 'Society itself. And so a certain not very defined
dislike was generated in my mind — an anti-aristocratic affair
— to the body which seemed to me a little too uplifted. This
would, I daresay, have worn off ; but a more formidable ob-
jection arose. My views of physical science gradually ar-
ranged themselves into a form which would have rendered
F.R.S., as attached to my name, a false representation sym-
bol. The Royal Society is the great fortress of general phys-
ics : and in the philosophy of our day, as to general physics,
there is something which makes the banner of -the R.S. one
under which I cannot march. Everybody who saw the three
letters after my name would infer certain things as to my
mode of thought which would not be true inference. It
would take much space to explain this in full. I may here-
after, perhaps, write a budget of collected results of the
a priori philosophy, the nibbling at the small end of om-
niscience, and the effect it has had on common life, from
the family parlor to the jury-box, from the girls'-school to
the vestry-meeting. There are in the Society those who
would, were there no others, prevent my criticism, be its
conclusions true or false, from having any basis; but they
are in the minority.
There is no objection to be made to the principles of
philosophy in vogue at the Society, when they are stated as
principles; but there is an omniscience in daily practice
which the principles repudiate. In like manner, the most
retaliatory Christians have a perfect form of round words
about behavior to those who injure them ; none of them are
as candid as a little boy I knew, who, to his mother's admo-
nition, You should love your enemies, answered — Catch me
at it!
Years ago, a change took place which would alone have
INTRODUCTORY. 29
put a sufficient difficulty in the way. The co-operative body
got tired of getting funds from and lending name to persons
who had little or no science, and wanted F.R.S. to be in
every case a Fellow Really Scientific. Accordingly, the num-
ber of yearly elections was limited to fifteen recommended
by the Council, unless the general body should choose to
elect more; which it does not do. The election is now a
competitive examination : it is no longer — Are you able and
willing to promote natural knowledge; it is — Are you one
of the upper fifteen of those who make such claim. In the
list of candidates — a list rapidly growing in number — each
year shows from thirty to forty of those whom Newton and
Boyle would have gladly welcomed as fellow-laborers. And
though the rejected of one year may be the accepted of the
next — or of the next but one, or but two, if self-respect will
permit the candidate to hang on — yet the time is clearly com-
ing when many of those who ought to be welcomed will be
excluded for life, or else shelved at last, when past work,
with a scientific peerage. Coupled with this attempt to
create a kind of order of knighthood is an absurdity so glar-
ing that it should always be kept before the general eye.
This distinction, this mark set by science upon successful
investigation, is of necessity a class-distinction. Rowan
Hamilton, one of the greatest names of our day in mathe-
matical science, never could attach F.R.S. to his name — he
could not afford it. There is a condition precedent — Four
Red Sovereigns. It is four pounds a year, or — to those who
have contributed to the Transactions — forty pounds down.
This is as it should be: the Society must be supported.
But it is not as it should be that a kind of title of honor
should be forged, that a body should take upon itself to
confer distinctions for science, when it is in the background
— and kept there when the distinction is trumpeted — that
the wearer is a man who can spare four pounds a year. I
am well aware that in England a person who is not gifted
either by nature or art, with this amount of money power,
30 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
is, with the mass, a very second-rate sort of Newton, what-
ever he may be in the field of investigation. Even men of
science, so called, have this feeling. I know that the scien-
tific advisers of the Admiralty, who, years ago, received
100 pounds a year each for his trouble, were sneered at by
a wealthy pretender as "fellows to whom a hundred a year
is an object." Dr. Thomas Young was one of them. To
a bookish man — I mean a man who can manage to collect
books — there is no tax. To myself, for example, 40 pounds
worth of books deducted from my shelves, and the life-use
of the Society's splendid library instead, would have been a
capital exchange. But there may be, and are, men who want
books, and cannot pay the Society's price. The Council
would be very liberal in allowing books to be consulted.
I have no doubt that if a known investigator were to call
and ask to look at certain books, the Assistant-Secretary
would forthwith seat him with the books before him, ab-
sence of F.R.S. not in any wise withstanding. But this is
not like having the right to consult any book on any day,
and to take it away, if farther wanted.
So much for the Royal Society as concerns myself. I
must add that there is not a spark of party feeling against
those who wilfully remain outside. The better minds of
course know better; and the smaller savants look compla-
cently on the idea of an outer world which makes elite of
them. I have done such a thing as serve on a committee
of the Society, and report on a paper: they had the sense
to ask, and I had the sense to see that none of my opinions
were compromised by compliance. And I will be of any
use which does not involve the status of homo trium lite-
rarum; as I have elsewhere explained, I would gladly be
Fautor Realis Scientice, but I would not be taken for Falsa
Rationis Sacerdos.
Nothing worse will ever happen to me than the smile
which individuals bestow on a man who does not groove.
Wisdom, like religion, belongs to majorities ; who can won-
INTRODUCTORY. 31
der that it should be so thought, when it is so clearly pictured
in the New Testament from one end to the other?
The counterpart of paradox, the isolated opinion of one
or of few, is the general opinion held by all the rest ; and the
counterpart of false and absurd paradox is what is called the
"vulgar error," the pseudodox. There is one great work on
this last subject, the Pseudodoxia Epidemica of Sir Thomas
Browne, the famous author of the Rellgio Medici ; it usually
goes by the name of Browne "On Vulgar Errors" ( 1st ed.
1646; 6th, 1672). A careful analysis of this work would
show that vulgar errors are frequently opposed by scientific
errors ; but good sense is always good sense, and Browne's
book has a vast quantity of it.
As an example of bad philosophy brought against bad
observation. The Amphisbsena serpent was supposed to
have two heads, one at each end; partly from its shape,
partly because it runs backwards as well as forwards. On
this Sir Thomas Browne makes the following remarks:
"And were there any such species or natural kind of
animal, it would be hard to make good those six positions
of body which, according to the three dimensions, are as-
cribed unto every Animal ; that is, infra, supra, ante, retro,
dextrosum, sinistrosum: for if (as it is determined) that be
the anterior and upper part wherein the senses are placed,
and that the posterior and lower part which is opposite
thereunto, there is no inferior or former part in this Animal ;
for the senses, being placed at both extreams, doth make
both ends anterior, which is impossible ; the terms being
Relative, which mutually subsist, and are not without each
other. And therefore this duplicity was ill contrived to place
one head at both extreams, and had been more tolerable to
have settled three or four at one. And therefore also Poets
have been more reasonable than Philosophers, and Geryon
or Cerberus less monstrous than Amphisbana"
32 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
There may be paradox upon paradox: and there is a
good instance in the eighth century in the case of Virgil,
an Irishman, Bishop of Salzburg and afterwards Saint, and
his quarrels with Boniface, an Englishman, Archbishop of
Mentz, also afterwards Saint. All we know about the matter
is, that there exists a letter of 748 from Pope Zachary, citing
Virgil — then, it seems, at most a simple priest, though the
Pope was not sure even of that — to Rome to answer the
charge of maintaining that there is another world (mundus)
under our earth (terra), with another sun and another
moon. Nothing more is known : the letter contains threats
in the event of the charge being true; and there history
drops the matter. Since Virgil was afterwards a Bishop
and a Saint, we may fairly conclude that he died in the full
flower of his orthodox reputation. It has been supposed —
and it seems probable— that Virgil maintained that the earth
is peopled all the way round, so that under some spots there
are antipodes ; that his contemporaries, with very dim ideas
about the roundness of the earth, and most of them with
none at all, interpreted him as putting another earth under
ours — turned the other way, probably, like the second piece
of bread-and-butter in a sandwich, with a sun and moon
of its own. In the eighth century this would infallibly have
led to an underground Gospel, an underground Pope, and
an underground Avignon for him to live in. When, in later
times, the idea of inhabitants for the planets was started, it
was immediately asked whether they had sinned, whether
Jesus Christ died for them, whether their wine and their
water could be lawfully used in the sacraments, etc.
On so small a basis as the above has been constructed a
companion case to the persecution of Galileo. On one side
the positive assertion, with indignant comment, that Virgil
was deposed for antipodal heresy, on the other, serious at-
tempts at justification, palliation, or mystification. Some
writers say that Virgil was found guilty ; others that he gave
satisfactory explanation, and became very good friends with
INTRODUCTORY. 33
Boniface: for all which see Bayle. Some have maintained
that the antipodist was a different person from the canon-
ized bishop : there is a second Virgil, made to order. When
your shoes pinch, and will not stretch, always throw them
away and get another pair : the same with your facts. Ba-
ronius was not up to the plan of a substitute : his commen-
tator Pagi (probably writing about 1690) argues for it in
a manner which I think Baronius would not have approved.
This Virgil was perhaps a slippery fellow. The Pope says
he hears that Virgil pretended licence from him to claim
one of some new bishoprics : this he declares is totally false.
It is part of the argument that such a man as this could not
have been created a Bishop and a Saint : on this point there
will be opinions and opinions.1
Lactantius, four centuries before, had laughed at the an-
tipodes in a manner which seems to be ridicule thrown on
the idea of the earth's roundness. Ptolemy, without refer-
ence to the antipodes, describes the extent of the inhabited
part of the globe in a way which shows that he could have
had no objection to men turned opposite ways. Probably,
in the eighth century, the roundness of the earth was matter
of thought only to astronomers. It should always be re-
membered, especially by those who affirm persecution of a
true opinion, that but for our knowing from Lactantius that
the antipodal notion had been matter of assertion and denial
among theologians, we could never have had any great con-
fidence in Virgil really having maintained the simple theory
of the existence of antipodes. And even now we are not
entitled to affirm it as having historical proof : the evidence
1 An Irish antiquary informs me that Virgil is mentioned in an-
nals, at A. D. 784, as "Verghil, i. e., the geometer, Abbot of Achadhbo
[and Bishop of Saltzburg] died in Germany in the thirteenth year of
his bishoprick." No allusion is made to his opinions ; but it seems he
was, by tradition, a mathematician. The Abbot of Aghabo (Queen's
County) was canonized by Gregory IX, in 1233. The story of the
second, or scapegoat, Virgil would be much damaged by the char-
acter given to the real bishop, if there were anything in it to dilapi-
date.—A. De M.
34 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
goes to Virgil having been charged with very absurd notions,
which it seems more likely than not were the absurd con-
structions which ignorant contemporaries put upon sensible
opinions of his.
One curious part of this discussion is that neither side
has allowed Pope Zachary to produce evidence to character.
He shall have been an Urban, say the astronomers ; an Ur-
ban he ought to have been, say the theologians. What sort
of man was Zachary? He was eminently sensible and con-
ciliatory; he contrived to make northern barbarians hear
reason in a way which puts him high among that section of
the early popes who had the knack of managing uneducated
swordsmen. He kept the peace in Italy to an extent which
historians mention with admiration. Even Bale, that Maha-
rajah of pope-haters, allows himself to quote in favor of
Zachary, that "multa Papalem dignitatem decentia, eadem-
que prseclara (scilicet) opera confecit."1 And this, though so
willing to find fault that, speaking of Zachary putting a
little geographical description of the earth on the portico of
the Lateran Church, he insinuates that it was intended to
affirm that the Pope was lord of the whole. Nor can he
say how long Zachary held the see, except by announcing
his death in 752, "cum decem annis pestilentiae sedi prae-
fuisset."2
There was another quarrel between Virgil and Boni-
face which is -an illustration. An ignorant priest had bap-
tized "in nomine Patria, et Filia et Spirituo Sancto." Boni-
face declared the rite null and void: Virgil maintained
the contrary; and Zachary decided in favor of Virgil, on
the ground that the absurd form was only ignorance of
Latin, and not heresy. It is hard to believe that this man
deposed a priest for asserting the whole globe to be in-
habited. To me the little information that we have seems
1 "He performed many acts befitting the Papal dignity, and like-
wise many excellent (to be sure!) works."
2 "After having been on the throne during ten years of p«6tilence."
INTRODUCTORY.
35
to indicate — but not with certainty — that Virgil maintained
the antipodes: that his ignorant contemporaries travestied
his theory into that of an underground cosmos; that the
Pope cited him to Rome to explain his system, which, as
reported, looked like what all would then have affirmed to
be heresy; that he gave satisfactory explanations, and was
dismissed with honor. It may be that the educated Greek
monk, Zachary, knew his Ptolemy well enough to guess
what the asserted heretic would say ; we have seen that he
seems to have patronized geography. The description of the
earth, according to historians, was a map ; this Pope may
have been more ready than another to prick up his ears at
any rumor of geographical heresy, from hope of informa-
tion. And Virgil, who may have entered the sacred pres-
ence as frightened as Jacquard, when Napoleon I sent for
him and said, with a stern voice and threatening gesture,
"You are the man who can tie a knot in a stretched string,"
may have departed as well pleased as Jacquard with the
riband and pension which the interview was worth to him.
A word more about Baronius. If he had been pope, as
he would have been but for the opposition of the Spaniards,
and if he had lived ten years longer than he did, and if
Clavius, who would have been his astronomical adviser, had
lived five years longer than he did, it is probable, nay almost
certain, that the great exhibition, the proceeding against
Galileo, would not have furnished a joke against theology
in all time to come. For Baronius was sensible and witty
enough to say that in the Scriptures the Holy Spirit intended
to teach how to go to Heaven, not how Heaven goes ; and
Clavius, in his last years, confessed that the whole system
of the heavens had broken down, and must be mended.
The manner in which the Galileo case, a reality, and the
Virgil case, a fiction, have been hawked against the Roman
see are enough to show that the Pope and his adherents
have not cared much about physical philosophy. In truth,
orthodoxy has always had other fish to fry. Physics, which
36 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
in modern times has almost usurped the name philosophy, in
England at least, has felt a little disposed to clothe herself
with all the honors of persecution which belong to the real
owner of the name. But the bishops, etc. of the Middle
Ages knew that the contest between nominalism and real-
ism, for instance, had a hundred times more bearing upon
orthodoxy than anything in astronomy, etc. A wrong notion
about substance might play the mischief with transubstan-
tiation.
The question of the earth's motion was the single point
in which orthodoxy came into real contact with science.
Many students of physics were suspected of magic, many of
atheism: but, stupid as the mistake may have been, it was
bona fide the magic or the atheism, not the physics, which
was assailed. In the astronomical case it was the very doc-
trine, as a doctrine, independently of consequences, which
was the corpus delicti: and this because it contradicted the
Bible. And so it did; for the stability of the earth is as
clearly assumed from one end of the Old Testament to
the other as the solidity of iron. Those who take the
Bible to be totidem verbis dictated by the God of Truth
can refuse to believe it; and they make strange reasons.
They undertake, a priori, to settle Divine intentions. The
Holy Spirit did not mean to teach natural philosophy: this
they know beforehand; or else they infer it from finding
that the earth does move, and the Bible says it does not.
Of course, ignorance apart, every word is truth, or the
writer did not mean truth. But this puts the whole book on
its trial: for we never can find out what the writer meant,
until we otherwise find out what is true. Those who like
may, of course, declare for an inspiration over which they
are to be viceroys ; but common sense will either accept
verbal meaning or deny verbal inspiration.
A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
VOLUME I.
THE STORY OF BURIDAN'S ASS.
Questiones Morales, folio, 1489 [Paris]. By T. Buridan.
This is the title from the Hartwell Catalogue of Law
Books. I suppose it is what is elsewhere called the "Com-
mentary on the Ethics of Aristotle," printed in 1489.1 Buri-
dan2 (died about 1358) is the creator of the famous ass
which, as Burdin's3 ass, was current in Burgundy, perhaps
is, as a vulgar proverb. Spinoza4 says it was a jenny ass,
and that a man would not have been so foolish ; but whether
the compliment is paid to human or to masculine character
does not appear — perhaps to both in one. The story told
about the famous paradox is very curious. The Queen of
France, Joanna or Jeanne, was in the habit of sewing her
Movers up in sacks, and throwing them into the Seine; not
for blabbing, but that they might not blab — certainly the
safer plan. Buridan was exempted, and, in gratitude, in-
vented the sophism. What it has to do with the matter
JThe work is the Questiones foannis Buridani super X libros Aris-
totelis ad Nicomachum, curante Egidio Delfo. . . .Parisiis, 1489, folio.
It also appeared at Paris in editions of 1499, 1513, and 1518, and at
Oxford in 1637.
2 Jean Buridan was born at Bethune about 1298, and died at Paris
about 1358. He was professor of philosophy at the University of
Paris and several times held the office of Rector. As a philosopher
he was classed among the nominalists.
8 So in the original.
4 Baruch Spinoza, or Benedict de Spinoza as he later called himself,
the pantheistic philosopher, excommunicated from the Jewish faith
for heresy, was born at Amsterdam in 1632 and died there in 1677.
38 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
has never been explained. Assuredly qui facit per alium
facit per se will convict Buridan of prating. The argument
is as follows, and is seldom told in full. Buridan was for
free-will — that is, will which determines conduct, let mo-
tives be ever so evenly balanced. An ass is equally pressed
by hunger and by thirst ; a bundle of hay is on one side, a
pail of water on the other. Surely, you will say, he will not
be ass enough to die for want of food or drink ; he will then
make a choice — that is, will choose between alternatives of
equal force. The problem became famous in the schools ;
some allowed the poor donkey to die of indecision ; some
denied the possibility of the balance, which was no answer
at all.
MICHAEL SCOTT'S DEVILS.
The following question is more difficult, and involves
free-will to all who answer — "Which you please." If the
northern hemisphere were land, and all the southern hemi-
sphere water, ought we to call the northern hemisphere an
island, or the southern hemisphere a lake? Both the ques-
tions would be good exercises for paradoxers who must be
kept employed, like Michael Scott's1 devils. The wizard
^Michael Scott, or Scot, was born about 1190, probably in Fife-
shire, Scotland, and died about 1291. He was one of the best known
savants of the court of Emperor Frederick II, and wrote upon astrol-
ogy, alchemy, and the occult sciences. He was looked upon as a great
magician and is mentioned among the wizards in Dante's Inferno.
"That other, round the loins
So slender of his shape, was Michael Scot,
Practised in every slight of magic wile." Inferno, XX.
Boccaccio also speaks of him : "It is not long since there was in
this city (Florence) a great master in .necromancy, who was called
Michele Scotto, because he was a Scot." Decameron, Dec. Giorno.
Scott's mention of him in Canto Second of his Lay of the Last
Minstrel, is well known :
"In these fair climes, it was my lot
To meet the wondrous Michael Scott ;
A wizard of such dreaded fame,
That when, in Salamanca's cave,
Him listed his magic wand to wave,
The bells would ring in Notre Dame!"
Sir Walter's notes upon him are of interest.
MICHAEL SCOTT'S DEVILS. 39
knew nothing about squaring the circle, etc., so he set them
to make ropes out of sea sand, which puzzled them. Stupid
devils ; much of our glass is sea sand, and it makes beautiful
thread. Had Michael set them to square the circle or to
find a perpetual motion, he would have done his work much
better. But all this is conjecture: who knows that I have
not hit on the very plan he adopted? Perhaps the whole
race of paradoxers on hopeless subjects are Michael's sub-
ordinates, condemned to transmigration after transmigra-
tion, until their task is done.
The above was not a bad guess. A little after the time
when the famous Pascal papers2 were produced, I came into
possession of a correspondence which, but for these papers,
I should have held too incredible to be put before the world.
But when one sheep leaps the ditch, another will follow:
so I gave the following account in the Athenceum of Oc-
tober 5, 1867:
"The recorded story is that Michael Scott, being bound by
contract to produce perpetual employment for a number of
young demons, was worried out of his life in inventing
jobs for them, until at last he set them to make ropes out of
sea sand, which they never could do. We have obtained a
very curious correspondence between the wizard Michael
and his demon-slaves ; but we do not feel at liberty to say
how it came into our hands. We much regret that we did
not receive it in time for the British Association. It appears
that the story, true as far as it goes, was never finished.
The demons easily conquered the rope difficulty, by the
simple process of making the sand into glass, and spinning
the glass into thread, which they twisted. Michael, thor-
oughly disconcerted, hit upon the plan of setting some to
'These were some of the forgeries which Michel Chasles (1793-
1880) was duped into buying. They purported to be a correspondence
between Pascal and Newton and to show that the former had antici-
pated some of the discoveries of the great English physicist and
mathematician. That they were forgeries was shown by Sir David
Brewster in 1855.
40 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
square the circle, others to find the perpetual motion, etc.
He commanded each of them to transmigrate from one hu-
man body into another, until their tasks were done. This
explains the whole succession of cyclometers, and all the
heroes of the Budget. Some of this correspondence is very
recent; it is much blotted, and we are not quite sure of its
meaning: it is full of figurative allusions to driving some-
thing illegible down a steep into the sea. It looks like a
humble petition to be allowed some diversion in the inter-
vals of transmigration ; and the answer is —
Rumpat et serpens iter institutum,3
— a line of Horace, which the demons interpret as a direction
to come athwart the proceedings of the Institute by a sly
trick. Until we saw this, we were suspicious of M. Libri.4
the unvarying blunders of the correspondence look like
knowledge. To be always out of the road requires a map :
genuine ignorance occasionally lapses into truth. We thought
it possible M. Libri might have played the trick to show how
easily the French are deceived ; but with our present in-
formation, our minds are at rest on the subject. We see M.
Chasles does not like to avow the real source of informa-
tion: he will not confess himself a spiritualist."
PHILO OF GADARA.
Philo of Gadara1 is asserted by Montucla,2 on the author-
8 "Let the serpent also break from its appointed path."
*Guglielmo Brutus Icilius Timoleon Libri-Carucci della Som-
maja, born at Florence in 1803; died at Fiesole in 1869. His His-
toire des Sciences Mathematiques appeared at Paris in 1838, the en-
tire first edition of volume I, save some half dozen that he had car-
ried home, being burned on the day that the printing was completed.
He was a great collector of early printed works on mathematics,
and was accused of having stolen large numbers of them from other
libraries. This accusation took him to London, where he bitterly
attacked his accusers. There were two auction sales of his library,
and a number of his books found their way into De Morgan's col-
lection.
1 Philo of Gadara lived in the second century B. C. He was a
pupil of Sporus, who worked on the problem of the two mean pro-
portionals.
2 In his Histoire des Mathematiques, the first edition of which
PHILO OF GADARA. 41
ity of Eutocitis,3 the commentator on Archimedes, to have
squared the circle within the ten-thousandth part of a unit,
that is, to four places of decimals. A modern classical dic-
tionary represents it as done by Philo to ten thousand places
of decimals. Lacroix comments on Montucla to the effect that
myriad (in Greek ten thousand} is here used as we use it,
vaguely, for an immense number. On looking into Eutocius,
I find that not one definite word is said about the extent to
which Philo carried the matter. I give a translation of the
passage :
"We ought to know that Apollonius Pergseus, in his
Ocytocium [this work is lost], demonstrated the same by
other numbers, and came nearer, which seems more accurate,
but has nothing to do with Archimedes ; for, as before said,
he aimed only at going near enough for the wants of life.
Neither is Porus of Nicaea fair when he takes Archimedes
to task for not giving a line accurately equal to the circum-
ference. He says in his Cerii that his teacher, Philo of
Gadara, had given a more accurate approximation (cts d*/Di-
jSeo-repov? api.6fjiov<s dyayeiv) than that of Archimedes, or than
7 to 22. But all these [the rest as well as Philo] miss the
intention. They multiply and divide by tens of thousands,
which no one can easily do, unless he be versed in the
logistics [fractional computation] of Magnus [now un-
known]."
Montucla, or his source, ought not to have made this
mistake. He had been at the Greek to correct Philo Gade-
tanus, as he had often been called, and he had brought away
appeared in 1758. Jean Etienne Montucla was born at Lyons in
1725 and died at Versailles in 1799. He was therefore only thirty-
three years old when his great work appeared. The second edition,
with additions by D'Alembert, appeared in 1799-1802. He also wrote
a work on the quadrature of the circle, Histoire des recherches sur
la Quadrature du Cercle, which appeared in 1754.
8 Eutocius of Ascalon was born in 480 A. D. He wrote com-
mentaries on the first four books of the conies of Apollonius of
Perga (247-222 B.C.). He also wrote on the Sphere and Cylinder
and the Quadrature of the Circle, and on the two books on Equilib-
rium of Archimedes (287-212 B. C.)
42 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
and quoted d™ TdSapw. Had he read two sentences further,
he would have found the mistake.
We here detect a person quite unnoticed hitherto by the
moderns, Magnus the arithmetician. The phrase is, ironical;
it is as if we should say, "To do this a man must be deep
in Cocker."4 Accordingly, Magnus, Baveme,5 and Cocker,
are three personifications of arithmetic; and there may be
more.
ON SQUARING THE CIRCLE.
Aristotle, treating of the category of relation, denies that
the quadrature has been found, but appears to assume that
it can be done. Boethius,1 in his comment on the passage,
says that it has been done since Aristotle, but that the demon-
stration is too long for him to give. Those who have no
notion of the quadrature question may look at the English
Cyclopcedia, art. "Quadrature of the Circle."
Tetragonismus. Id est circuli quadratura per Campanum, Archi-
medem Syracusanum, atque Boetium mathematical perspica-
cissimos adinventa. — At the end, Impressum Venetiis per loan.
Bapti. Sessa. Anno ab incarnatione Domini, 1503. Die 28
Augusti.
* Edward Cocker was born in 1631 and died between 1671 and
1677. His famous arithmetic appeared in 1677 and went through
many editions. It was written in a style that appealed to teachers,
and was so popular that the expression "According to Cocker" be-
came a household phrase. Early in the nineteenth century there was
a similar saying in America, "According to Daboll," whose arith-
metic had some points of analogy to that of Cocker. Each had a
well-known prototype in the ancient saying, "He reckons like Nico-
machus of Gerasa."
8 So in the original, for Barreme. Frangois Barreme was to
France what Cocker was to England. He was born at Lyons in
1640, and died at Paris in 1703. He published several arithmetics,
dedicating them to his patron, Colbert. One of the best known of
his works is Uarithmetique, ou le livre facile pour apprendre farith-
metique soi-meme, 1677. The French word bareme or barreme, a
ready-reckoner, is derived from his name.
1 Born at Rome, about 480 A. D. ; died at Pavia, 524. Gibbon
speaks of him as "the last of the Romans whom Cato or Tully could
have acknowledged for their countryman." His works on arithmetic,
music, and geometry were classics in the medieval schools.
ON SQUARING THE CIRCLE. 43
This book has never been noticed in the history of the
subject, and I cannot find any mention of it. The quadrature
of Campanus2 takes the ratio of Archimedes,3 7 to 22 to be
absolutely correct; the account given of Archimedes is not
a translation of his book ; and that of Boetius has more than
is in Boet/nus. This book must stand, with the next, as the
earliest in print on the subject, until further showing: Mur-
hard4 and Kastner5 have nothing so early. It is edited by
Lucas Gauricus,6 who has given a short preface. Luca Gau-
rico, Bishop of Civita Ducale, an astrologer of astrologers,
published this work at about thirty years of age, and lived
to eighty-two. His works are collected in folios, but I do
not know whether they contain this production. The poor
fellow could never tell his own fortune, because his father
neglected to note the hour and minute of his birth. But if
there had been anything in astrology, he could have worked
back, as Adams7 and Leverrier8 did when they caught Nep-
a Johannes Campanus, of Novarra, was chaplain to Pope Urban
IV (1261-1264). He was one of the early medieval translators of
Euclid from the Arabic into Latin, and the first printed edition of
the Elements (Venice, 1482) was from his translation. In this work
he probably depended not a little upon at least two or three earlier
scholars. He also wrote De computo ecclesiastico Calendarium, and
De quadratura circuit.
8 Archimedes gave 3Vr and 310Ai as the limits of the ratio of the
circumference to the diameter of a circle.
*Friedrich W. A. Murhard was born at Cassel in 1779 and died
there in 1853. His Bibliotheca Mat hematic a, Leipsic, 1797-1805, is
ill arranged and inaccurate, but it is still a helpful bibliography. De
Morgan speaks somewhere of his indebtedness to it.
B Abraham Gotthelf Kastner was born at Leipsic in 1719, and
died at Gottingen in 1800. He was professor of mathematics and
physics at Gottingen. His Geschichte der Mathematik (1796-1800)
was a work of considerable merit. In the text of the Budget of
Paradoxes the name appears throughout as Kastner instead of Kast-
ner.
6 Lucas Gauricus, or Luca Gaurico, born at Giffoni, near Naples,
in 1476; died at Rome in 1558. He was an astrologer and mathe-
matician, and was professor of mathematics at Ferrara in I531* In
1545 he became bishop of Civita Ducale.
TJohn Couch Adams was born at Lidcot, Cornwall, in 1819, and
died in 1892. He and Leverrier predicted the discovery of Neptune
from the perturbations in Uranus.
8 Urbain- Jean- Joseph Leverrier was born at Saint-L6, Manche,
44 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
tune: at sixty he could have examined every minute of his
day of birth, by the events of his life, and so would have
found the right minute. He could then have gone on, by
rules of prophecy. Gauricus was the mathematical teacher
of Joseph Scaliger,9 who did him no credit, as we shall see.
BOVILLUS ON THE QUADRATURE PROBLEM.
In hoc opere contenta Epitome Liber de quadratura Circuli.
.... Paris, 1503, folio.
The quadrator is Charles Bovillus,1 who adopted the views
of Cardinal Cusa,2 presently mentioned. Montucla is hard
on his compatriot, who, he says, was only saved from the
laughter of geometers by his obscurity. Persons must guard
against most historians of mathematics in one point: they
frequently attribute to his own age the obscurity which a
writer has in their own time. This tract was printed by
Henry Stephens,3 at the instigation of Faber Stapulensis,4
in 1811, and died at Paris in 1877. It was his data respecting the
perturbations of Uranus that were used by Adams and himself in
locating Neptune.
* Joseph-Juste Scaliger, the celebrated philologist, was born at
Agen in 1540, and died at Ley den in 1609. His Cyclometrica ele-
menta, to which De Morgan refers, appeared at Leyden in 1594.
1 The title is: In hoc libro contenta. . . .Introductio i geometria
. . . .Liber de quadratura cirfuli. Liber de cubicatione sphere. Per-
spectiva introductio. Carolus Bovillus, or Charles Bouvelles (Boii-
elles, Bouilles, Bouvel), was born at Saucourt, Picardy, about 1470,
and died at Noyon about 1533. He was canon and professor of
theology at Noyon. His Introductio contains considerable work on
star polygons, a favorite study in the Middle Ages and early Re-
naissance. His work Que hoc volumine continetur. Liber de in-
tellectu. Liber de sensu, etc., appeared at Paris in 1509-10.
2Nicolaus Cusanus, Nicolaus Chrypffs or Krebs, was born at
Kues on the Mosel in 1401, and died at Todi, Umbria, August n,
1464. He held positions of honor in the church, including the
bishopric of Brescia. He was made a cardinal in 1448. He wrote
several works on mathematics, his Opuscula varia appearing about
1490, probably at Strasburg, but published without date or place.
His Opera appeared at Paris in 1511 and again in 1514, and at Basel
in 1565.
"Henry Stephens (born at Paris about 1528, died at Lyons in
1598) was one of the most successful printers of his day. He was
known as Typographus Parisiensis, and to his press we owe some
of the best works of the period.-
4 Jacobus Faber Stapulensis (Jacques le Fevre d'Estaples) was
BOVILLUS ON THE QUADRATURE PROBLEM. 45
and is recorded by Dechales,5 etc. It was also introduced into
the Margarita Philosophica of 181 5,6 in the same appendix
with the new perspective from Viator. This is not extreme
obscurity, by any means. The quadrature deserved it; but
that is another point.
It is stated by Montucla that Bovillus makes TT = V 10.
But Montucla cites a work of 1507, Intro duct or ium Geo-
metricum, which I have never seen.7 He finds in it an
account which Bovillus gives of the quadrature of the peas-
ant laborer, and describes it as agreeing with his own. But
the description makes TT = 3J, which it thus appears Bovillus
could not distinguish from \/10. It seems also that this 3J,
about which we shall see so much in the sequel, takes its rise
in the thoughtful head of a poor laborer. It does him great
honor, being so near the truth, and he having no means of
instruction. In our day, when an ignorant person chooses
to bring his fancy forward in opposition to demonstration
which he will not study, he is deservedly laughed at.
born at Estaples, near Amiens, in 1455, and died at Nerac in 1536.
He was a priest, vicar of the bishop of Meaux, lecturer on philos-
ophy at the College Lemoine in Paris, and tutor to Charles, son of
Francois I. He wrote on philosophy, theology, and mathematics.
8 Claude-Frangois Milliet de Challes was born at Chambery in
1621, and died at Turin in 1678. He edited Eudidis Elementorum
libri octo in 1660, and published a Cursus seu mundus mathematicus,
which included a short history of mathematics, in 1674. He also
wrote on mathematical geography.
6 This date should be 1503, if he refers to the first edition. It is
well known that this is the first encyclopedia worthy the name to
appear in print. It was written by Gregorius Reisch (born at
Balingen, and died at Freiburg in 1487), prior of the cloister at
Freiburg and confessor to Maximilian I. The first edition appeared
at Freiburg in 1503, and it passed through many editions in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The title of the 1504 edition
reads: Aepitoma omnis phylosophiae. alias Margarita phylosophica
tractans de omni genere scibili : Cum additionibus : Quae in alijs non
habentur.
'This is the Introductio in arithmeticam Divi S. Boetii Eft-
tome rerum geometricarum ex geometrica introductio C. Bovilli.
De quadratura circuli demonstratio ex Campano, that appeared with-
out date about 1507.
46 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
THE STORY OF LACOMME'S ATTEMPT AT QUADRA-
TURE.
Mr. James Smith,1 of Liverpool— hereinafter notorified—
attributes the first announcement of 3J to M. Joseph La-
comme, a French well-sinker, of whom he gives the following
account :
"In the year 1836, at which time Lacomme could neither
read nor write, he had constructed a circular reservoir and
wished to know the quantity of stone that would be re-
quired to pave the bottom, and for this purpose called on a
professor of mathematics. On putting his question and giv-
ing the diameter, he was surprised at getting the following
answer from the Professor : 'Qu'il lui etait impossible de le
lui dire au juste, attendu que personne n'avait encore pit
trouver d'une maniere exacte le rapport de la cir -conference
au diametre.'2 From this he was led to attempt the solution
of the problem. His first process was purely mechanical,
and he was so far convinced he had made the discovery that
he took to educating himself, and became an expert arith-
metician, and then found that arithmetical results agreed
with his mechanical experiments. He appears to have eked
out a bare existence for many years by teaching arithmetic,
all the time struggling to get a hearing from some of the
learned societies, but without success. In the year 1855 he
found his way to Paris, where, as if by accident, he made
the acquaintance of a young gentleman, son of M. Winter,
a commissioner of police, and taught him his peculiar meth-
ods of calculation. The young man was so enchanted that
he strongly recommended Lacomme to his father, and sub-
1 Born at Liverpool in 1805, and died there about 1872. He was
a merchant, and in 1865 he published, at Liverpool, a work entitled
The Quadrature of the Circle, or the True Ratio between the Diam-
eter and Circumference geometrically and mathematically demon-
strated. In this he gives the ratio as exactly 3Vs.
2 "That it would be impossible to tell him exactly, since no one
had yet been able to find precisely the ratio of the circumference to
the diameter."
NICOLAUS OF CUSA'S ATTEMPT. 47
sequently through M. Winter he obtained an introduction
to the President of the Society of Arts and Sciences of Paris.
A committee of the society was appointed to examine and
report upon his discovery, and the society at its seance of
March 17, 1856, awarded a silver medal of the first class to
M. Joseph Lacomme for his discovery of the true ratio of
diameter to circumference in a circle. He subsequently re-
ceived three other medals from other societies. While writ-
ing this I have his likeness before me, with his medals on
his breast, which stands as a frontispiece to a short biography
of this extraordinary man, for which I am indebted to the
gentleman who did me the honor to publish a French trans-
lation of the pamphlet I distributed at the meeting of the
British Association for the Advancement of Science, at Ox-
ford, in 1860. — Correspondent, May 3, 1866.
My inquiries show that the story of the medals is not
incredible. There are at Paris little private societies which
have not so much claim to be exponents of scientific opinion
as our own Mechanics' Institutes. Some of them were in-
tended to give a false lustre: as the "Institut Historique,"
the members of which are "Membre de ITnstitut Historique."
That M. Lacomme should have got four medals from so-
cieties of this class is very possible : that he should have re-
ceived one from any society at Paris which has the least
claim to give one is as yet simply incredible.
NICOLAUS OF CUSA'S ATTEMPT.
Nicolai de Cusa Opera Omnia. Venice, 1514. 3 vols. folio.
The real title is "Haec accurata recognitio trium volu-
mimmi operum clariss. P. Nicolai Cusse . . . . proxime se-
quens pagina monstrat."1 Cardinal Cusa, who died in 1464,
is one of the earliest modern attempters. His quadrature
is found in the second volume, and is now quite unreadable.
1 This is the Paris edition : "Parisiis : ex officina Ascensiana anno
Christi MDXIIII," as appears by the colophon of the second
volume to which De Morgan refers.
48 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
In these early days every quadrator found a geometrical
opponent, who finished him. Regimontanus2 did this office
for the Cardinal.
HENRY CORNELIUS AGRIPPA.
De Occulta Philosophia libri III. By Henry Cornelius Agrippa.
Lyons, 1550, 8vo.
De incertitudine et vanitate scientiarum. By the same. Cologne.
1531, 8vo.
The first editions of these works were of 1530, as well
as I can make out; but the first was in progress in 15 10.1
In the second work Agrippa repents of having wasted time
on the magic of the first; but all those who actually deal
with demons are destined to eternal fire with Jamnes and
Mambres and Simon Magus. This means, as is the fact,
that his occult philosophy did not actually enter upon black
magic, but confined itself to the power of the stars, of num-
bers, etc. The fourth book, which appeared after the death
of Agrippa, and really concerns dealing with evil spirits,
is undoubtedly spurious. It is very difficult to make out
what Agrippa really believed on the subject. I have intro-
duced his books as the most marked specimens of treatises
on magic, a paradox of our day, though not far from ortho-
doxy in his ; and here I should have ended my notice, if I
had not casually found something more interesting to the
reader of our day.
2 Regiomontanus, or Johann Miiller of Konigsberg (Regiomon-
tanus), was born at Konigsberg in Franconia, June 5, 1436, and died
at Rome July 6, 1476. He studied at Vienna under the great astron-
omer Peuerbach, and was his most famous pupil. He wrote numer-
ous works, chiefly on astronomy. He is also known by the names
loannes de Monte Regio, de Regiomonte, loannes Germanus de
Regiomonte, etc.
1 Henry Cornelius Agrippa was born at Cologne in 1486 and died
either at Lyons in 1534 or at Grenoble in 1535. He was professor of
theology at Cologne and also at Turin. After the publication of his
De Occulta Philosophia he was imprisoned for sorcery. Both works
appeared at Antwerp in 1530, and each passed through a large num-
ber of editions. A French translation appeared in Paris in 1582,
and an English one in London in 1651.
.WHICH LEADS TO WALTER SCOTT. 49
WHICH LEADS TO WALTER SCOTT.
Walter Scott, it is well known, was curious on all matters
connected with magic, and has used them very widely. But
it is hardly known how much pains he has taken to be cor-
rect, and to give the real thing. The most decided detail of
a magical process which is found in his writings is that of
Dousterswivel in The Antiquary, and it is obvious, by his
accuracy of process, that he does not intend the adept for a
mere impostor, but for one who had a lurking belief in the
efficacy of his own processes, coupled with intent to make
a fraudulent use of them. The materials for the process
are taken from Agrippa. I first quote Mr. Dousterswivel:
". . .1 take a silver plate when she [the moon] is in her
fifteenth mansion, which mansion is in de head of Libra, and
I engrave upon one side de worts Schedbarschemoth Schar-
tachan [ch should be t] — dat is, de Intelligence of de In-
telligence of de moon — and I make his picture like a flying
serpent with a turkey-cock's head — vary well — Then upon
this side I make de table of de moon, which is a square of
nine, multiplied into itself, with eighty-one numbers [nine]
on every side and diameter nine "
In the De Occulta Philosophia, p. 290, we find that the
fifteenth mansion of the moon incipit capite Libra, and is
good pro extrahendis thesauris, the object being to discover
hidden treasure. In p. 246, we learn that a silver plate must
be used with the moon. In p. 248, we have the words which
denote the Intelligence, etc. But, owing to the falling of a
number into a wrong line, or the misplacement of a line, one
or other — which takes place in all the editions I have exam-
ined— Scott has, sad to say, got hold of the wrong words;
he has written down the demon of the demons of the moon.
Instead of the gibberish above, it should have been Malcha
betarsisim hed beruah schenhakim. In p. 253, we have the
magic square of the moon, with eighty-one numbers, and the
symbol for the Intelligence, which Scott likens to a flying
50 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
serpent with a turkey-cock's head. He was obliged to say
something; but I will stake my character — and so save a
woodcut — on the scratches being more like a pair of legs,
one shorter than the other, without a body, jumping over a
six-barred gate placed side uppermost. Those who thought
that Scott forged his own nonsense, will henceforth stand
corrected. As to the spirit Peolphan, etc., no doubt Scott
got it from the authors he elsewhere mentions, Nicolaus
Remigius1 and Petrus Thyracus; but this last word should
be Thyrseus.
The tendency of Scott's mind towards prophecy is very
marked, and it is always fulfilled. Hyder, in his disguise,
calls out to Tippoo : "Cursed is the prince who barters jus-
tice for lust; he shall die in the gate by the sword of the
stranger." Tippoo was killed in a gateway at Seringapatam.2
FINAEUS ON CIRCLE SQUARING.
Orontii Finaei . . . Quadratura Circuli. Paris, 1544, 4to.
Orontius1 squared the circle out of all comprehension;
but he was killed by a feather from his own wing. His
1 Nicolaus Remegius was born in Lorraine in 1554, and died at
Nancy in 1600. He was a jurist and historian, and held the office
of procurator general to the Duke of Lorraine.
2 This was at the storming of the city by trie British on May 4,
1799. From his having been born in India, all this appealed strongly
to the interests of De Morgan.
1 Orontius Finaeus, or Oronce Fine, was born at Brianc.on in 1494
and died at Paris, October 6, 1555. He was imprisoned by Frangois
I for refusing to recognize the concordat (1517). He was made
professor of mathematics in the College Royal (later called the
College de France) in 1532. He wrote extensively on astronomy
and geometry, but was by no means a great scholar. He was a
pretentious man, and his works went through several editions. His
Protomathesis appeared at Paris in 1530-32. The work referred to
by De Morgan is the Quadratura clrculi tandem inventa & clarissime
demonstrata Lutetiae Parisiorum, 1544, fol. In the 1556 edition
of his De rebus mathematicis , hactenus desideratis, Libri IIII, pub-
lished at Paris, the subtitle is: Quibus inter catera, Circuli quadra-
tura Centum modis, & supra, per eundem Orontlum recenter ex-
cogitatis, demonstrates, so that he kept up his efforts until his
death.
FINAEUS ON CIRCLE SQUARING. 51
former pupil, John Buteo,2 the same who — I believe for the
first time — calculated the question of Noah's ark, as to its
power to hold all the animals and stores, unsquared him
completely. Orontius was the author of very many works,
and died in 1555. Among the laudatory verses which, as
was usual, precede this work, there is one of a rare charac-
ter: a congratulatory ode to the wife of the author. The
French now call this writer Oronce Finee; but there is
much difficulty about delatinization. Is this more correct
than Oronce Fine, which the translator of De Thou uses?
Or than Horonce Phine, which older writers give ? I cannot
understand why M. de Viette3 should be called Viete, because
his Latin name is Vieta. It is difficult to restore Buteo ; for
not only now is butor a blockhead as well as a bird, but we
really cannot know what kind of bird Buteo stood for. We
may be sure that Madame Fine was Denise Blanche; for
Dionysia Candida can mean nothing else. Let her shade
rejoice in the fame which Hubertus Sussannaeus has given
her.
I ought to add that the quadrature of Orontius, and
solutions of all the other difficulties, were first published in
De Rebus Mathematicis Hactenus Desideratis* of which I
have not the date.
'Johannes Buteo (Boteo, Buteon, Bateon) was born in Dauphine
c. 1485-1489, and died in a cloister in 1560 or 1564. Some writers
give Charpey as the place and 1492 as the date of his birth, and
state that he died at Canar in 1572. He belonged to the order of
St. Anthony, and wrote chiefly on geometry, exposing the pretenses
of Finaeus. His Opera geometrica appeared at Lyons in 1554, and
his Logistica and De quadrature, circuit libri duo at Lyons in 1559.
'This is the great French algebraist, Francois Viete (Vieta),
who was born at Fontenay-le-Comte in 1540, and died at Paris,
December 13, 1603. His well-known Isagoge in artem analyticam
appeared at Tours in 1591. His Opera mathematica was edited by
Van Schooten in 1646.
4 This is the De Rebus mathematics hactenus desideratis, Libri
IIII, that appeared in Paris in 1556. For the title page see Smith,
D. K, Kara Arithmetica, Boston, 1908, p. 280.
52 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
DUCHESNE, AND A DISQUISITION ON ETYMOLOGY.
Nicolai Raymari Ursi Dithmarsi Fundamentum Astronomicum,
id est, nova doctrina sinuum et triangulorum Strasburg,
1588, 410.1
People choose the name of this astronomer for them-
selves: I take Ursus, because he was a bear. This book
gave the quadrature of Simon Duchesne,2 or a Quercu, which
excited Peter Metius,3 as presently noticed. It also gave that
unintelligible reference to Justus Byrgius which has been
used in the discussion about the invention of logarithms.4
The real name of Duchesne is Van der Eycke. I have
met with a tract in Dutch, Letterkundige Aanteekeningen,
upon Van Eycke, Van Ceulen,5 etc., by J.J. Dodt van Flens-
burg,6 which I make out to be since 1841 in date. I should
*The title is correct except for a colon after Astronomicum.
Nicolaus Raimarus Ursus was born in Henstede or Hattstede, in
Dithmarschen, and died at Prague in 1599 or 1600. He was a pupil
of Tycho Brahe. He also wrote De astronomis hypothesibus (1597)
and Arithmetica analytica vulgo Cosa oder Algebra (1601).-
2 Born at Dole, Franche-Comte, about 1550, died in Holland
about 1600. The work to which reference is made is the Quadrature
du cercle, ou maniere de trouver un quarre egal au cercle donne,
which appeared at Delft in 1584. Duchesne had the courage of his
convictions, not only on circle-squaring but on religion as well, for he
was obliged to leave France because of his conversion to Calvinism.
De Morgan's statement that his real name is Van der Eycke is
curious, since he was French born. The Dutch may have translated
his name when he became professor at Delft, but we might equally
well say, that his real name was Quercetanus or a Quercu.
'This was the father of Adriaan Metius (1571-1635). He was a
mathematician and military engineer, and suggested the ratio "%•
for TT, a ratio afterwards published by his son. The ratio, then new
to Europe, had long been known and used in China, having been
found by Tsu Ch'ung-chih (428-499 A. D.).
4 This was Jost Biirgi, or Justus Byrgius, the Swiss mathemati-
cian of whom Kepler wrote in 1627: "Apices logistici Justo Byrgio
multis annis ante editionem Neperianam viam prseiverunt ad hos
ipsissimos logarithmos." He constructed a table of antilogarithms
(Arithmetische und geometrische Progress-Tabulen), but it was not
published until after Napier's work appeared.
8 Ludolphus Van Ceulen, born at Hildesheim, and died at Leyden
in 1610. It was he who first carried the computation of * to 35 deci-
mal places.
"Jens Jenssen Dodt, van Flensburg, a Dutch historian, who died
in 1847.
FALCO'S RARE TRACT. 53
much like a translation of this tract to be printed, say in the
Phil. Mag. Dutch would be clear English if it were prop-
erly spelt. For example, learn-master would be seen at
once to be teacher', but they will spell it leermeester. Of
these they write as van deze\ widow the make weduwe.
All this is plain to me, who never saw a Dutch dictionary in
my life; but many of their misspellings are quite uncon-
querable.
FALCO'S RARE TRACT.
Jacobus Falco Valentinus, miles Ordinis Montesiani, hanc circuli
quadraturam invenit. Antwerp, 1589, 4to.1
The attempt is more than commonly worthless; but as
Montucla and others have referred to the verses at the end,
and as the tract is of the rarest, I will quote them:
Circulus loquitur.
Vocabar ante circulus
Eramque curvus undique
Ut alta sblis orbita
Et arcus ille nubium.
Eram figura nobilis
Carensque sola origine
Carensque sola termino.
Modo indecora prodeo
Novisque feeder angulis.
Nee hoc peregit Archytas2
Neque Icari pater neque
Tuus, lapete, films.
Quis ergo casus aut Deus
Meam quadravit aream?
Responded auctor.
Ad alta Turise ostia
Lacumque limpidissimum
Sita est beata civitas
*I do not know this edition. There was one "Antverpiae apud
Petrum Bellerum sub scuto Burgundiae," 4to, in 1591.
2 Archytas of Tarentum (430-365 B.C.) who wrote on propor-
tion, irrationals, and the duplication of the cube.
54 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
Parum Saguntus abfuit
Abestque Sucro plusculum.
Hie est poeta quispiam
Libenter astra consulens
Sibique semper arrogans
Negata doctioribus,
Senex ubique cogitans
Sui frequenter immemor
Nee explicare circinum
Nee exarare lineas
Sciens ut ipse prsedicat
Hie ergo bellus artifex
Tuam quadravit aream.3
Falco's verses are pretty, if the o - mysteries be correct ;
but of these things I have forgotten — what I knew. [One
mistake has been pointed out to me: it is Archytas].
As a specimen of the way in which history is written, I
copy the account which Montucla — who is accurate when he
writes about what he has seen — gives of these verses. He
gives the date 1587; he places the verses at the beginning
instead of the end; he says the circle thanks its quadrator
affectionately; and he says the good and modest chevalier
gives all the glory to the patron saint of his order. All of
little consequence, as it happens ; but writing at second-hand
makes as complete mistakes about more important matters.
8 The Circle Speaks.
"At first a circle I was called, But now unlovely do I seem
And was a curve around about Polluted by some angles new.
Like lofty orbit of the sun This thing Archytas hath not done
Or rainbowarch amongthe clouds. Nor noble sire of Icarus
A noble figure then was I — Nor son of thine, lapetus.
And lacking nothing but a start, What accident or god can then
And lacking nothing but an end. Have quadrated mine area?"
The Author Replies.
"By deepest mouth of Turia What is denied to wiser men; —
And lake of limpid clearness, lies An old man musing here and there
A happy state not far removed And oft forgetful of himself,
From old Saguntus ; farther yet Not knowing how to rightly place
A little way from Sucro town. The compasses, nor draw a line,
In this place doth a poet dwell, As he doth of himself relate. f
Who oft the stars will closely scan, This craftsman fine, in sooth it is
And always for himself doth claim Hath quadrated thine area."
BUNGUS ON THE MYSTERY OF NUMBER. 55
BUNGUS ON THE MYSTERY OF NUMBER.
Petri Bungi Bergomatis Numerorum mysteria. Bergomi [Ber-
gamo], 1591, 4to. Second Edition.
The first edition is said to be of 1585 j1 the third, Paris,
1618. Bungus is not for my purpose on his own score, but
those who gave the numbers their mysterious characters:
he is but a collector. He quotes or uses 402 authors, as we
are informed by his list ; this just beats Warburton,2 whom
some eulogist or satirist, I forget which, holds up as having
used 400 authors in some one work. Bungus goes through
1, 2, 3, etc., and gives the account of everything remarkable
in which each number occurs ; his accounts not being always
mysterious. The numbers which have nothing to say for
themselves are omitted : thus there is a gap between 50 and
60. In treating 666, Bungus, a good Catholic, could not
compliment the Pope with it, but he fixes it on Martin
Luther with a little forcing. If from A to I represent 1-10,
from K to S 10-90, and from T to Z 100-500, we see:
MARTIN LUTERA
30 1 80 100 9 40 20 200 100 5 80 1
which gives 666. Again, in Hebrew, Lulter does the same :
i n 5 i 5
200 400 30 6 30
And thus two can play at any game. The second is better
than the first : to Latinize the surname and not the Christian
*Pietro Bongo, or Petrus Bungus, was born at Bergamo, and
died there in 1601. His work on the Mystery of Numbers is one of
the most exhaustive and erudite ones of the mystic writers. The
first edition appeared at Bergamo in 1583-84; the second, at Ber-
gamo in 1584-85; the third, at yenice in 1585; the fourth, at Ber-
gamo in 1590; and the fifth, which De Morgan calls the second, in
1591. Other editions, before the Paris edition to which he refers,
appeared in 1509 and 1614; and the colophon of the Paris edition is
dated 1617. See the editor's Rara Arithmetic^ pp. 380-383.
* William Warburton (1698-1779), Bishop of Gloucester, whose
works got him into numerous literary quarrels, being the subject of
frequent satire.
56 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
name is very unscholarlike. The last number mentioned is a
thousand millions ; all greater numbers are dismissed in half
a page. Then follows an accurate distinction between num-
ber and multitude — a thing much wanted both in arithmetic
and logic.
WHICH LEADS TO A STORY ABOUT THE ROYAL SO-
CIETY.
What may be the use of such a book as this? The last
occasion on which it was used was the following. Fifteen
or sixteen years ago the Royal Society determined to restrict
the number of yearly admissions to fifteen men of science,
and noblemen ad libitum ; the men of science being selected
and recommended by the Council, with a power, since prac-
tically surrendered, to the Society to elect more. This plan
appears to me to be directly against the spirit of their char-
ter, the true intent of which is, that all who are fit should be
allowed to promote natural knowledge in association, from
and after the time at which they are both fit and willing.
It is also working more absurdly from year to year; the
tariff of fifteen per annum will soon amount to the practical
exlusion of many who would be very useful. This begins
to be felt already, I suspect. But, as appears above, the
body of the Society has the remedy in its own hands. When
the alteration was discussed by the Council, my friend the
late Mr. Galloway,1 then one of the body, opposed it strongly,
and inquired particularly into the reason why -fifteen, of all
numbers, was the one to be selected. Was it because fifteen
is seven and eight, typifying the Old Testament Sabbath,
and the New Testament day of the resurrection following?
Was it because Paul strove fifteen days against Peter, prov-
ing that he was a doctor both of the Old and New Testa-
ment? Was it because the prophet Hosea bought a lady
^Thomas Galloway (1796-1851), who was professor of mathe-
matics at Sandhurst for a time, and was later the actuary of the
Amicable Life Assurance Company of London. In the latter capac-
ity he naturally came to be associated with De Morgan.
A QUESTION OF EVIDENCE. 57
for fifteen pieces of silver? Was it because, according to
Micah, seven shepherds and eight chiefs should waste the
Assyrians? Was it because Ecclesiastes commands equal
reverence to be given to both Testaments — such was the
interpretation — in the words "Give a portion to seven, and
also to eight"? Was it because the waters of the Deluge
rose fifteen cubits above the mountains? — or because they
lasted fifteen decades of days? Was it because Ezekiel's
temple had fifteen steps? Was it because Jacob's ladder
has been supposed to have had fifteen steps ? Was it because
fifteen years were added to the life of Hezekiah? Was it
because the feast of unleavened bread was on the fifteenth
day of the month ? Was it because the scene of the Ascen-
sion was fifteen stadia from Jerusalem? Was it because
the stone-masons and porters employed in Solomon's temple
amounted to fifteen myriads ? etc. The Council were amused
and astounded by the volley of fifteens which was fired at
them ; they knowing nothing about Bungus, of which Mr.
Galloway — who did not, as the French say, indicate his
sources — possessed the copy now before me. In giving this
anecdote I give a specimen of the book, which is exceedingly
rare. Should another edition ever appear, which is not very
probable, he would be but a bungling Bungus who should
forget the fifteen of the Royal Society.
AND ALSO TO A QUESTION OF EVIDENCE.
[I make a remark on the different colors which the same
person gives to one story, according to the bias under which
he tells it. My friend Galloway told me how he had quizzed
the Council of the Royal Society, to my great amusement.
Whenever I am struck by the words of any one, I carry
away a vivid recollection of position, gestures, tones, etc.
I do not know whether this be common or uncommon. I
never recall this joke without seeing before me my friend,
leaning against his bookcase, with Bungus open in his hand,
and a certain half-depreciatory tone which he often used
58 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
when speaking of himself. Long after his death, an F.R.S.
who was present at the discussion, told me the story. I did
not say I had heard it, but I watched him, with Galloway
at the bookcase before me. I wanted to see whether the two
would agree as to the fact of an enormous budget of fifteens
having been fired at the Council, and they did agree per-
fectly. But when the paragraph of the Budget appeared in
the Athenaum, my friend, who seemed rather to object to
the showing-up, assured me that the thing was grossly ex-
aggerated; there was indeed a fifteen or two, but nothing
like the number I had given. I had, however, taken sharp
note of the previous narration.
AND TO ANOTHER QUESTION OF EVIDENCE.
I will give another instance. An Indian officer gave me
an account of an elephant, as follows. A detachment was
on the march, and one of the gun-carriages got a wheel off
the track, so that it was also off the ground, and hanging
over a precipice. If the bullocks had moved a step, carriages,
bullocks, and all must have been precipitated. No one knew
what could be done until some one proposed to bring up an
elephant, and let him manage it his own way. The elephant
took a moment's survey of the fix, put his trunk under the
axle of the free wheel, and waited. The surrounders, who
saw what he meant, moved the bullocks gently forward, the
elephant followed, supporting the axle, until there was
ground under the wheel, when he let it quietly down. From
all I had heard of the elephant, this was not too much to
believe. But when, years afterwards, I reminded my friend
of his story, he assured me that I had misunderstood him,
that the elephant was directed to put his trunk under the
wheel, and saw in a moment why. This is reasonable sagac-
ity, and very likely the correct account ; but I am quite sure
that, in the fit of elephant-worship under which the story
was first told, it was told as I have first stated it.]
GIORDANO BRUNO AND HIS PARADOXES. 59
GIORDANO BRUNO AND HIS PARADOXES.
[Jordani Bruni Nolani de Monade, Numero et Figura. . .item de
Innumerabilibus, Immense, et Infigurabili.. .Frankfort, 1591,
Svo.1
I cannot imagine how I came to omit a writer whom I
have known so many years, unless the following story will
explain it. The officer reproved the boatswain for perpetual
swearing ; the boatswain answered that he heard the officers
swear. "Only in an emergency," said the officer. "That's
just it," replied the other; "a boatswain's life is a life of
'mergency." Giordano Bruno was all paradox; and my
mind was not alive to his paradoxes, just as my ears might
have become dead to the boatswain's oaths. He was, as has
been said, a vorticist before Descartes,2 an optimist before
Leibnitz, a Copernican before Galileo. It would be easy
to collect a hundred strange opinions of his. He was born
about 1550, and was roasted alive at Rome, February 17,
1600, for the maintenance and defence of the holy Church,
and the rights and liberties of the same. These last words
are from the writ of our own good James I, under which
Leggatt3 was roasted at Smithfield, in March 1612; and if
I had a copy of the instrument under which Wightman4 was
roasted at Lichfield, a month afterwards, I daresay I should
1 Giordano Bruno was born near Naples about i55o; He left the
Dominican order to take up Calvinism, and among his publications
was L' expulsion de la bete triomphante. He taught philosophy at
Paris and Wittenberg, and some of his works were published in
England in 1583-86. Whether or not he was roasted alive "for the
maintenance and defence of the holy Church," as De Morgan states,
depends upon one's religious point of view. At any rate, he was
roasted as a heretic.
2 Referring to part of his Discours de la methode, Leyden, 1637.
'^Bartholomew Legate, who was born in Essex about 1575' He
denied the divinity of Christ and was the last heretic burned at
Smithfield.
* Edward Wightman, born probably in Staffordshire. He was
anti-Trinitarian, and claimed to be the Messiah. He was the last
man burned for heresy in England.
6Q A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
find something quite as edifying. I extract an account which
I gave of Bruno in the Comp. Aim. for 1855:
"He was first a Dominican priest, then a Calvinist; and
was roasted alive at Rome, in 1600, for as many heresies of
opinion, religious and philosophical, as ever lit one fire.
Some defenders of the papal cause have at least worded
their accusations so to be understood as imputing to him
villainous actions. But it is positively certain that his death
was due to opinions alone, and that retractation, even after
sentence, would have saved him. There exists a remarkable
letter, written from Rome on the very day of the murder,
by Scioppius5 (the celebrated scholar, a waspish convert from
Lutheranism, known by his hatred to Protestants and Jes-
uits) to Rittershusius,6 a well-known Lutheran writer on
civil and canon law, whose works are in the index of pro-
hibited books. This letter has been reprinted by Libri (vol.
iv. p. 407). The writer informs his friend (whom he wished
to convince that even a Lutheran would have burnt Bruno)
that all Rome would tell him that Bruno died for Lutheran-
ism ; but this is because the Italians do not know the differ-
ence between one heresy and another, in which simplicity
(says the writer) may God preserve them. That is to say,
they knew the difference between a live heretic and a roasted
one by actual inspection, but had no idea of the difference
between a Lutheran and a Calvinist. The countrymen of
Boccaccio would have smiled at the idea which the German
scholar entertained of them. They said Bruno was burnt
for Lutheranism, a name under which they classed all Prot-
estants : and they are better witnesses than Schopp, or Sciop-
pius. He then proceeds to describe to his Protestant friend
(to whom he would certainly not have omitted any act
which both their churches would have condemned) the mass
of opinions with which Bruno was charged; as that there
5 Caspar ScHopp, born at Neumarck< in 1576, died at Padua in
1649; grammarian, philologist, and satirist.
6 Konrad Ritterhusius, born at Brunswick in 1560 ; died at Altdorf
in 1613. He was a jurist of some power.
GIORDANO BRUNO AND HIS PARADOXES. 61
are innumerable worlds, that souls migrate, that Moses was
a magician, that the Scriptures are a dream, that only the
Hebrews descended from Adam and Eve, that the devils
would be saved, that Christ was a magician and deservedly
put to death, etc. In fact, says he, Bruno has advanced all
that was ever brought forward by all heathen philosophers,
and by all heretics, ancient and modern. A time for retracta-
tion was given, both before sentence and after, which should
be noted, as well for the wretched palliation which it may
afford, as for the additional proof it gives that opinions, and
opinions only, brought him to the stake. In this medley of
charges the Scriptures are a dream, while Adam, Eve, devils,
and salvation are truths, and the Saviour a deceiver. We
have examined no work of Bruno except the De Monade,
etc., mentioned in the text. A strong though strange theism
runs through the whole, and Moses, Christ, the Fathers, etc.,
are cited in a manner which excites no remark either way.
Among the versions of the cause of Bruno's death is atheism :
but this word was very often used to denote rejection of
revelation, not merely in the common course of dispute, but
by such writers, for instance, as Brucker7 and Morhof .8 Thus
Morhof says of the De Monade, etc., that it exhibits no mani-
fest signs of atheism. What he means by the word is clear
enough, when he thus speaks of a work which acknowledges
God in hundreds of places, and rejects opinions as blas-
phemous in several. The work of Bruno in which his astro-
nomical opinions are contained is De Monade, etc. (Frank-
fort, 1591, 8vo). He is the most thorough-going Copernican
possible, and throws out almost every opinion, true or false,
which has ever been discussed by astronomers, from the
theory of innumerable inhabited worlds and systems to that
7Johann Jakob Brucker, born at Augsburg in 1696, died there in
1770. He wrote on the history of philosophy (1731-36, and 1742-44).
8 Daniel Georg Morhof, born at Wismar in 1639, died at Ltibeck
in 1691. He was rector of the University of Kiel, and professor of
eloquence, poetry, and history.
62 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
of the planetary nature of comets. Libri (vol. iv)9 has re-
printed the most striking part of his expressions of Coper-
nican opinion."
THIS LEADS TO THE CHURCH QUESTION.
The Satanic doctrine that a church may employ force
in aid of its dogma is supposed to be obsolete in England,
except as an individual paradox ; but this is difficult to settle.
Opinions are much divided as to what the Roman Church
would do in England, if she could: any one who doubts
that she claims the right does not deserve an answer. When
the hopes of the Tractarian section of the High Church were
in bloom, before the most conspicuous intellects among them
had transgressed theif ministry, that they might go to their
own place, I had the curiosity to see how far it could be
ascertained whether they held the only doctrine which makes
me the personal enemy of a sect. I found in one of their
tracts the assumption of a right to persecute, modified by an
asserted conviction that force was not efficient. I cannot
now say that this tract was one of the celebrated ninety ; and
on looking at the collection I find it so poorly furnished
with contents, etc., that nothing but searching through three
thick volumes would decide. In these volumes I find, aug-
menting as we go on, declarations about the character and
power of "the Church" which have a suspicious appearance.
The suspicion is increased by that curious piece of sophis-
try, No. 87, on religious reserve. The queer paradoxes of
that tract leave us in doubt as to everything but this, that the
church (man) is not bound to give his whole counsel in all
things, and not bound to say what the things are in which
he does not give it. It is likely enough that some of the
"rights and liberties" are but scantily described. There is
now no fear ; but the time was when, if not fear, there might
be a looking for of fear to come ; nobody could then be so
'In the Histoire des Sciences Mathematiques, vol. IV, note X,
pp. 416-435 of the 1841 edition.
THE CHURCH QUESTION. 63
sure as we now are that the lion was only asleep. There was
every appearance of a harder fight at hand than was really
found needful.
Among other exquisite quirks of interpretation in the
No. 87 above mentioned is the following. God himself em-
ploys reserve; he is said to be decked with light as with a
garment (the old or prayer-book version of Psalm civ. 2).
To an ordinary apprehension this would be a strong image
of display, manifestation, revelation ; but there is something
more. "Does not a garment veil in some measure that which
it clothes? Is not that very light concealment?"
This No. 87, admitted into a series, fixes upon the man-
agers of the series, who permitted its introduction, a strong
presumption of that underhand intent with which they were
charged. At the same time it is honorable to our liberty
that this series could be published: though its promoters
were greatly shocked when the Essayists and Bishop Co-
lenso1 took a swing on the other side. When No. 90 was
under discussion, Dr. Maitland,2 the librarian at Lambeth,
asked Archbishop Howley3 a question about No. 89. "I did
not so much as know there was a No. 89," was the
answer. I am almost sure I have seen this in print, and quite
sure that Dr. Maitland told it to me. It is creditable that
there was so much freedom; but No. 90 was too bad, and
was stopped.
The Tractarian mania has now (October 1866) settled
down into a chronic vestment disease, complicated with fits
of transubstantiation, which has taken the name of Ritual-
1Colenso (1814-1883), missionary bishop of Natal, was one of
the leaders of his day in the field of higher biblical criticism. De
Morgan must have admired his mathematical works, which were not
without merit
2 Samuel Roffey Maitland, born at London in 1792 ; died at Glou-
cester in 1866. He was an excellent linguist and a critical student
of the Bible. He became librarian at Lambeth in 1838.
'Archbishop Howley (1766-1848) was a thorough Tory. He was
one of the opponents of the Roman Catholic Relief bill, the Reform
bill, and the Jewish Civil Disabilities Relief bill.
64 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
ism. The common sense of our national character will not
put up with a continuance of this grotesque folly ; millinery
in all its branches will at last be advertised only over the
proper shops. I am told that the Ritualists give short and
practical sermons ; if so, they may do good in the end. The
English Establishment has always contained those who want
an excitement ; the New Testament, in its plain meaning, can
do little for them. Since the Revolution, Jacobitism, Wes-
leyanism, Evangelicism, Puseyism,4 and Ritualism, have come
on in turn, and have furnished hot water for those who
could not wash without it. If the Ritualists should succeed
in substituting short and practical teaching for the high-
spiced lectures of the doctrinalists, they will be remembered
with praise. John the Baptist would perhaps not have
brought all Jerusalem out into the wilderness by his plain
and good sermons: it was the camel's hair and the locusts
which got him a congregation, and which, perhaps, added
force to his precepts. When at school I heard a dialogue,
between an usher and the man who cleaned the shoes, about
Mr. , a minister, a very corporate body with due area of
waistcoat. "He is a man of great erudition," said the first.
"Ah, yes sir," said Joe; "any one can see that who looks
at that silk waistcoat."]
OF THOMAS GEPHYRANDER SALICETUS.
[When I said at the outset that I had only taken books
from my own store, I should have added that I did not make
any search for information given as part of a work. Had I
looked through all my books, I might have made some curi-
ous additions. For instance, in Schott's Magia Naturalis1
* We have, in America at least, almost forgotten the great stir
made by Edward B. Pusey (1800-1882) in the great Oxford move-
ment in the middle of the nineteenth century. He was professor of
Hebrew at Oxford, and canon of Christ Church.
*That is, his Magia universalis naturae et artis sive recondita
naturalium et artificialium rerum scientia, Wiirzburg, 1657, 4to, with
editions at Bamberg in 1671, and at Frankfort in 1677. Gaspard
Schott (Konigshofen 1608, Wurzburg 1666) was a physicist and
OF THOMAS GEPHYRANDER SALICETUS. 65
(vol. iii. pp. 756-778) is an account of the quadrature of
Gephyrawder, as he is misprinted in Montucla. He was
Thomas Gephyrander Salicetus ; and he published two edi-
tions, in 1608 and 1609.2 I never even heard of a copy of
either. His work is of the extreme of absurdity : he makes a
distinction between geometrical and arithmetical fractions,
and evolves theorems from it. More curious than his quad-
rature is his name ; what are we to make of it ? If a German,
he is probably a German form of Bridgeman, and Salicetus
refers him to Weiden. But Thomas was hardly a German
Christian name of his time; of 526 German philosophers,
physicians, lawyers, and theologians who were biographed
by Melchior Adam,3 only two are of this name. Of these
one is Thomas Erastus,4 the physician whose theological
writings against the Church as a separate power have given
the name of Erastians to those who follow his doctrine,
whether they have heard of him or not. Erastus is little
known ; accordingly, some have supposed that he must be
Erastus, the friend of St. Paul and Timothy (Acts xix. 22;
2 Tim. iv. 20; Rom. xvi. 23), but what this gentleman did
to earn the character is not hinted at. Few words would
have done: Gaius (Rom. xvi. 23) has an immortality which
many more noted men have missed, given by John Bunyan,
out of seven words of St. Paul. I was once told that the
Erastians got their name from Blastus, and I could not
solve bl — er: at last I remembered that Blastus was a
chamberlain5 as well as Erastus ; hence the association which
mathematician, devoting most of his attention to the curiosities of
his sciences. His type of mind must have appealed to De Morgan.
* Salic etti Quadratura circuit nova, perspicua, expedita, veraque
turn naturalis, turn geometrica, etc., 1608. — Consideratio nova in opus-
culum Archimedis de circuli dimensione, etc., 1609.
3 Melchior Adam, who died at Heidelberg in 1622, wrote a col-
lection of biographies which was published at Heidelberg and Frank-
fort from 1615 to 1620.
4 Born at Baden in 1524; died at Basel in 1583. The Erastians
were related to the Zwinglians, and opposed all power of excom-
munication and the infliction of penalties by a church.
5 See Acts xii. 20.
66 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
caused the mistake. The real heresiarch was a physician
who died in 1583; his heresy was promulgated in a work,
published immediately after his death by his widow, De Ex-
communicatione Ecclesiastic a. He denied the power of ex-
communication on the principle above stated ; and was an-
swered by Besa.8 The work was translated by Dr. R. Lee7
(Edinb. 1844, 8vo). The other is Thomas Grynseus,8 a theo-
logian, nephew of Simon, who first printed Euclid in Greek ;
of him Adam says that of works he published none, of
learned sons four. If Gephyrander were a Frenchman, his
name is not so easily guessed at ; but he must have been of
La Saussaye. The account given by Schott is taken from a
certain Father Philip Colbinus, who wrote against him.
In some manuscripts lately given to the Royal Society,
David Gregory,9 who seems to have seen Gephyrander's
work, calls him Salicetus Westphalus, which is probably on
the title-page. But the only Weiden I can find is in Bavaria.
Murhard has both editions in his Catalogue, but had plainly
never seen the books: he gives the author as Thomas Gep.
Hyandrus, Salicettus Westphalus. Murhard is a very old
referee of mine ; but who the non nominandus was to see
Montucla's Gephyrauder in Murhard's Gep. Hyandrus, both
writers being usually accurate?]
NAPIER ON REVELATIONS.
A plain discoverie of the whole Revelation of St. John. . . .where-
tmto are annexed certain oracles of Sibylla. .. .Set Foorth by
John Napeir L. of Marchiston. London, 1611, 4to.1
'Theodore de Bese, a French theologian; born at Vezelay, in
Burgundy, in 1519; died at Geneva, in 1605.
7 Dr. Robert Lee (1804-1868) had some celebrity in De Morgan's
time through his attempt to introduce music and written prayers into
the service of the Scotch Presbyterian church.
8 Born at Veringen, Hohenzollern, in 1512; died at Roteln in
1564.
9 Born at Kinnairdie, Bannfshire, in 1661 ; died at London in
1708. His Astronomiae Physicae et Geometriae Elementa, Oxford,
1702, was an influential work.
xThe title was carelessly copied by De Morgan, not an unusual
NAPIER ON REVELATIONS.
67
The first edition was Edinburgh, 1593,2 4to. Napier8 al-
ways believed that his great mission was to upset the Pope,
and that logarithms, and such things, were merely episodes
and relaxations. It is a pity that so many books have been
written about this matter, while Napier, as good as any,
is forgotten and unread. He is one of the first who gave
us the six thousand years. "There is a sentence of the house
of Elias reserved in all ages, bearing these words : The world
shall stand six thousand years, and then it shall be con-
sumed by fire: two thousand yeares voide or without lawe,
two thousand yeares under the law, and two thousand yeares
shall be the daies of the Messias . . . . "
I give Napier's parting salute : it is a killing dilemma :
"In summar conclusion, if thou o Rome aledges thy-
self e reformed, and to beleeue true Christianisme, then be-
leeue Saint John the Disciple, whome Christ loued, pub-
likely here in this Reuelation proclaiming thy wracke, but
if thou remain Ethnick in thy priuate thoghts, beleeuing4
the old Oracles of the Sibyls reuerently keeped somtime in
thy Capitol: then doth here this Sibyll proclame also thy
wracke. Repent therefore alwayes, in this thy latter breath,
as thou louest thine Eternall salvation. Amen"
— Strange that Napier should not have seen that this ap-
peal could not succeed, unless the prophecies of the Apo-
calypse were no true prophecies at all.
thing in his case. The original reads : A Plaine Discovery, of the
whole Revelation of S. lohn: set downe in two treatises set
foorth by lohn Napier L. of Marchiston whereunto are an-
nexed, certaine Oracles of Sibylla London 1611.
3 1 have not seen the first edition, but it seems to have appeared
in Edinburgh, in 1593, with a second edition there in 1594. The 1611
edition was the third.
'It seems rather certain that Napier felt his theological work
of greater importance than that in logarithms. He was born at
Merchiston, near (now a part of) Edinburgh, in 1550, and died there
in 1617, three years after the appearance of his Mirifici logarith-
morum canonis descriptio.
'Followed, in the third edition, from which he quotes, by a
comma.
68 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
OF GILBERT'S DE MAGNETK
De Magnete magneticisque corporibus, et de magno magnate
tellure. By William Gilbert London, 1600, folio. — There is
a second edition; and a third, according to Watt.1
Of the great work on the magnet there is no need to
speak, though it was a paradox in its day. The posthumous
work of Gilbert, "De Mundo nostro sublunari philosophia
nova" (Amsterdam, 1651, 4to)2 is, as the title indicates,
confined to the physics of the globe and its atmosphere. It
has never excited attention: I should hope it would be ex-
amined with our present lights.
OF GIOVANNI BATISTA PORTA.
Elementorum Curvilineoriuni Libri tres. By John Baptista
Porta. Rome, 1610, ^o.1
This is a ridiculous attempt, which defies description,
except that it is all about lunules. Porta was a voluminous
writer. His printer announces fourteen works printed, and
four to come, besides thirteen plays printed, and eleven
waiting. His name is, and will be, current in treatises on
physics for more reasons than one.
1 There was an edition published at Stettin in 1633. An English
translation by P. F. Mottelay appeared at London in 1893. Gilbert
(1540-1603) was physician to Queen Elizabeth and President of the
College of Physicians at London. His De Magnete was the first
noteworthy treatise on physics printed in England. He treated of
the earth as a spherical magnet and suggested the variation and
declination of the needle as a means of finding latitude at sea.
2 The title says "ab authoris fratre collectum," although it was
edited by J. Gruterus.
1 Porta was born at Naples in 1550 and died there in 1615. He
studied the subject of lenses and the theory of sight, did some work
in hydraulics and agriculture, and was well known as an astrologer.
His Magiae naturalis libri XX was published at Naples in 1589. The
above title should read curvilineorum.
CATALDI ON THE QUADRATURE. 69
CATALDI ON THE QUADRATURE.
Trattato della quadratura del cerchio. Di Pietro Antonio Ca-
taldi. Bologna, 1612, folio.1
Rheticus,2 Vieta, and Cataldi are the three untiring com-
puters of Germany, France, and Italy; Napier in Scotland,
and Briggs3 in England, come just after them. This work
claims a place as beginning with the quadrature of Pelle-
grino Borello4 of Reggio, who will have the circle to be
exactly 3 diameters and 6%g4 of a diameter. Cataldi, taking
Van Ceulen's approximation, works hard at the rinding of
integers which nearly represent the ratio. He had not then
the continued fraction, a mode of representation which he
gave the next year in his work on the square root. He has
but twenty of Van Ceulen's thirty places, which he takes
from Clavius5 : and any one might be puzzled to know whence
the Italians got the result ; Van Ceulen, in 1612, not having
been translated from Dutch. But Clavius names his com-
rade Gruenberger, and attributes the approximation to them
1 Cataldi was born in 1548 and died at Bologna in 1626. He was
professor of mathematics at Perugia, Florence, and Bologna, and is
known in mathematics chiefly for his work in continued fractions.
He was one of the scholarly men of his day.
2Georg Joachim Rheticus was born at Feldkirch in 1514 and died
at Caschau, Hungary, in 1576. He was one of the most prominent
pupils of Copernicus, his Narratio de libris revolutionism Copernici
(Dantzig, 1540) having done much to make the theory of his master
known.
8 Henry Briggs, who did so much to make logarithms known, and
who used the base 10, was born at Warley Wood, in Yorkshire, in
1560, and died at Oxford in 1630. He was Savilian professor of
mathematics at Oxford, and his grave may still be seen there.
4 He lived at "Reggio nella Emilia" in the i6th and I7th centuries.
His Regola e modo facilissimo di quadrare il cerchio was published
at Reggio in 1609.
8 Christoph Klau (Clavius) was born at Bamberg in 1537, and
died at Rome in 1612. He was a Jesuit priest and taught mathe-
matics in the Jesuit College at Rome. He wrote a number of works
on mathematics, including excellent text-books on arithmetic and
algebra.
70 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
jointly; "Lud. aCollen et Chr. Gruenbergerus* invenerunt,"
which he had no right to do, unless, to his private knowl-
edge, Gruenberger had verified Van Ceulen. And Gruen-
berger only handed over twenty of the places. But here is
one instance, out of many, of the polyglot character of the
Jesuit body, and its advantages in literature.
OF LANSBERGIUS.
Philippi Lausbergii Cyclometriae Novae Libri Duo. Middleburg,
1616, 4U).1
This is one of the legitimate quadratures, on which I
shall here only remark that by candlelight it is quadrature
under difficulties, for all the diagrams are in red ink.
A TEXT LEADING TO REMARKS ON PRESTER JOHN.
Recherches Curieuses des Mesures du Monde. By S. C. de V.
Paris, 1626, 8vo (pp. 48). *
It is written by some Count for his son; and if all the
French nobility would have given their sons the same kind
of instruction about rank, the old French aristocracy would
have been as prosperous at this moment as the English
peerage and squireage. I sent the tract to Capt. Speke,2
shortly after his arrival in England, thinking he might like
"Christopher Gruenberger, or Grienberger, was born at Halle
in Tyrol in 1561, and died at Rome in 1636. He was, like Clavius,
a Jesuit and a mathematician, and he wrote a little upon the sub-
ject of projections. His Prospcctiva nova coelestis appeared at
Rome in 1612.
1The name should, of course, be Lansbergii in the genitive, and
is so in the original title. Philippus Lansbergius was born at Ghent
in 1560, and died at Middelburg in 1632. He was a Protestant
theologian, and was also a physician and astronomer. He was a
well-known supporter of Galileo and Copernicus. His Commen-
tationes in motum terrae diurnum et annuum appeared at Middel-
burg in 1630 and did much to help the new theory.
1 1 have never seen the work. It is rare.
"The African explorer, born in Somersetshire in 1827, died at
Bath in 1864. He was the first European to cross Central Africa
from north to south. He investigated the sources of the Nile.
A TEXT LEADING TO REMARKS ON PRESTER JOHN. 71
to see the old names of the Ethiopian provinces. But I
first made a copy of all that relates to Prester John,3 himself
a paradox. The tract contains, inter alia, an account of the
four empires ; of the great Turk, the great Tartar, the great
Sophy, and the great Prester John. This word great
(grand'), which was long used in the phrase "the great
Turk," is a generic adjunct to an emperor. Of the Tartars
it is said that "c'est vne nation prophane et barbaresque,
sale et vilaine, qui mangent la chair demie crue, qui boiuent
du laict de jument, et qui n'vsent de nappes et seruiettes
que pour essuyer leurs bouches et leurs mains."4 Many
persons have heard of Prester John, and have a very indis-
tinct idea of him. I give all that is said about him, since
the recent discussions about the Nile may give an interest
to the old notions of geography.5
"Le grand Prestre Jean qui est le quatriesme en rang,
est Empereur d'Ethiopie, et des Abyssins, et se vante
d'estre issu de la race de Dauid, comme estant descendu de
la Royne de Saba, Royne d'Ethiopie, laquelle estant venue
en Hierusalem pour voir la sagesse de Salomon, enuiron
Tan du monde 2952, s'en retourna grosse d'vn fils qu'ils
nomment Moylech, duquel ils disent estre descendus en ligne
directe. Et ainsi il se glorifie d'estre le plus ancien Mo-
narque de la terre, disant que son Empire a dure plus de
trois mil ans, ce que nul autre Empire ne peut dire. Aussi
met-il en ses tiltres ce qui s'ensuit: Nous, N. Souuerain en
mes Royaumes, vniquement ayme de Dieu, colomne de la
foy, sorty de la race de luda, etc. Les limites de cet Empire
touchent a la mer Rouge, et aux montagnes d'Azuma vers
'Prester (Presbyter, priest) John, the legendary Christian king
whose realm, in the Middle Ages, was placed both in Asia and in
Africa, is first mentioned in the chronicles of Otto of Freisingen in
the I2th century. In the I4th century his kingdom was supposed to
be Abyssinia.
*"It is a profane and barbarous nation, dirty and slovenly, who
eat their meat half raw and drink mare's milk, and who use table-
cloths and napkins only to wipe their hands and mouths."
8 For translation see page 73.
72 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
I'Orient, et du coste de 1'Occident, il est borne du fleuue du
Nil, qui le separe de la Nubie, vers le Septentrion il a
I'^igypte, et au Midy les Royaumes de Congo, et de Mo-
zambique, sa longueur contenant quarante degre, qui font
mille vingt cinq lieues, et ce depuis Congo ou Mozambique
qui sont au Midy, iusqu'en yEgypte qui est au Septentrion, et
sa largeur contenant depuis le Nil qui est a 1'Occident, ius-
qu'aux montagnes d'Azuma, qui sont a I'Orient, sept cens
vingt cinq lieues, qui font vingt neuf degrez. Cet empire
a sous soy trente grandes Prouinces, sgavoir, Medra, Gaga,
Alchy, Cedalon, Mantro, Finazam, Barnaquez, Ambiam,
Fungy, Angote, Cigremaon, Gorga Cafatez, Zastanla, Zeth,
Early, Belangana, Tygra, Gorgany, Barganaza, d'Ancut,
Dargaly Ambiacatina, Caracogly, Amara. Maon (sic),
Guegiera, Bally, Dobora et Macheda. Toutes ces Pro-
uinces cy dessus sont situees iustement sous la ligne equi-
noxiale, entres les Tropiques de Capricorne, et de Cancer.
Mais elles s'approchent de nostre Tropique, de deux cens
cinquante lieues plus qu'elles ne font de 1'autre Tropique.
Ce mot de Prestre Jean signifie grand Seigneur, et n'est pas
Prestre comme plusieurs pense, il a este tousiours Chrestien,
mais souuent Schismatique : maintenant il est Catholique, et
reconnaist le Pape pour Souuerain Pontife. Fay veu quel-
quVn des ses Euesques, estant en Hierusalem, auec lequel
i'ay confere souuent par le moyen de nostre trucheman:
il estoit d'vn port graue et serieux, succiur (sic) en son
parler, mais subtil a merueilles en tout ce qu'il disoit. II
prenoit grand plaisir au recit que je luy faisais de nos belles
ceremonies, et de la grauite de nos Prelats en leurs habits
Pontificaux, et autres choses que je laisse pour dire, que
1'Ethiopien est ioyoux et gaillard, ne ressemblant en rien
a la salete du Tartare, ny a Taffreux regard du miserable
Arabe, mais ils sont fins et cauteleux, et ne se fient en per-
sonne, soupgonneux a merueilles, et fort devotieux, ils ne
sont du tout noirs comme Ton croit, i'entens parler de ceux
qui ne sont pas sous la ligne Equinoxiale, ny trop proches
A TEXT LEADING TO REMARKS ON PRESTER JOHN. 73
d'icelle, car ceux qui sont dessous sont les Mores que nous
voyons."6
It will be observed that the author speaks of his con-
versation with an Ethiopian bishop, about that bishop's sov-
ereign. Something must have passed between the two
which satisfied the writer that the bishop acknowledged his
own sovereign under some title answering to Prester John.
' "The great Prester John, who is the fourth in rank, is emperor
of Ethiopia and of the Abyssinians, and boasts of his descent from
the race of David, as having descended from the Queen of Sheba,
Queen of Ethiopia. She, having gone to Jerusalem to see the wisdom
of Solomon, about the year of the world 2952, returned pregnant
with a son whom they called Moylech, from whom they claim descent
in a direct line. And so he glories in being the most ancient monarch
in the world, saying that his empire has endured for more than
three thousand years, which no other empire is able to assert. He
also puts into his titles the following: 'We, the sovereign in my
realms, uniquely beloved of God, pillar of the faith, sprung from the
race of Judah, etc.' The boundaries of this empire touch the Red
Sea and the mountains of Azuma on the east, and on the western
side it is bordered by the River Nile which separates it from Nubia.
To the north lies Egypt, and to the south the kingdoms of Congo
and Mozambique. It extends forty degrees in length, or one thou-
sand twenty-five leagues, from Congo or Mozambique on the south
to Egypt on the north ; and in width it reaches from the Nile on the
west to the mountains of Azuma on the east, seven hundred twenty-
five leagues, or twenty-nine degrees. This empire contains thirty
large provinces, namely Medra, Gaga, Alchy, Cedalon, Mantro, Fina-
zam, Barnaquez, Ambiam, Fungy, Angote, Cigremaon, Gorga, Cafa-
tez, Zastanla, Zeth, Early, Belangana, Tygra, Gorgany, Barganaza,
d'Ancut, Dargaly, Ambiacatina, Caracogly, Amara. Maon (sic),
Guegiera, Bally, Dobora, and Macheda. All of these provinces are situ-
ated directly under the equinoctial line between the tropics of Capri-
corn and Cancer; but they are two hundred fifty leagues nearer our
tropic than the other. The name of Prester John signifies Great
Lord, and is not Priest [Presbyter] as many think. He has always
been a Christian, but often schismatic. At the present time he is a
Catholic and recognizes the Pope as sovereign pontiff. I met one of
his bishops in Jerusalem, and often conversed with him through the
medium of our guide. He was of grave and serious bearing, pleas-
ant of speech, but wonderfully subtle in everything he said. He took
great delight in what I had to relate concerning our beautiful cere-
monies and the dignity of our prelates in their pontifical vestments.
As to other matters I will only say that the Ethiopian is joyous and
merry, not at all like the Tartar in the matter of filth, nor like the
wretched Arab. They are refined and subtle, trusting no one, wonder-
fully suspicious, and very devout. They are not at all black as is
commonly supposed, by which I refer to those who do not live under
the equator or too near to it, for these are Moors as we shall see.'
With respect to this translation it should be said that the original
74 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
CONCERNING A TRACT BY FIENUS.
De Cometa anni 1618 dissertationes Thomse Fieni1 et Liberti
Fromondi2 Equidem Thomae Fieni epistolica qusestio, An
verum sit Ccelum moveri et Terram quiescere? London, 1670,
8vo.
This tract of Fienus against the motion o£ the earth is
a reprint of one published in 1619.8 I have given an account
of it as a good summary of arguments of the time, in the
Companion to the Almanac for 1836.
forms of the proper names have been preserved, although they are
not those found in modern works. It should also be stated that
the meaning of Prester is not the one that was generally accepted
by scholars at the time the work was written, nor is it the one
accepted to-day. There seems to be no doubt that the word is de-
rived from Presbyter as stated in note 3 on page 71, since the above-
mentioned chronicles of Otto, bishop of Freisingen about the middle
of the twelfth century, states this fact clearly. Otto received his in-
formation from the bishop of Gabala (the Syrian Jibal) who told
him the story of John, rex et sacevdos, or Presbyter John as he liked
to be called. He goes on to say: "Should it be asked why, with all
this power and splendor, he calls himself merely 'presbyter/ this is
because of his humility, and because it was not fitting for one whose
server was a primate and king, whose butler an archbishop and
king, whose chamberlain a bishop and king, whose master of the
horse an archimandrite and king, whose chief cook an abbot and
king, to be called by such titles as these."
1 Thomas Fienus (Fyens) was born at Antwerp in 1567 and died
in 1631. He was professor of medicine at Louvain. Besides the
editions mentioned below, his De cometis anni 1618 appeared at
Leipsic in 1656. He also wrote a Disputatio an coelum moveatur
et terra quiescat, which appeared at Antwerp in 1619, and again at
Leipsic in 1656.
aLibertus Fromondus (1587-^.1653), a Belgian theologian, dean
of the College Church at Harcourt, and professor at Louvain. The
name also appears as Froidmont and Froimont.
9 L. Fromondi. . . .meteorologicorum libri sex. Cut accessit T.
Fieni et L. Fromondi dissertationes de cometa anni 1618. . . .This is
from the 1670 edition. The 1619 edition was published at Antwerp.
The Meteorologicorum libri VI, appeared at Antwerp in 1627. He
also wrote Anti-Aristarchus sive orbis terrae immobilis liber unicus
(Antwerp, 1631) ; Labyrrinthus sive de compositione continui liber
unus, Philosophis, Mathematicis, Theologis utilis et jucundus (Ant-
werp, 1631) and Vesta sive Anti-Aristarchi vindex adversus Jac.
Lansbergium (Philippi filium) et copernicanos (Antwerp, 1634).
ON BACON'S NOVUM ORGANUM. 75
ON SNELL'S WORK.
Willebrordi Snellii. R. F. Cyclometricus. Leyden, 1621, 4to.
This is a celebrated work on the approximative quad-
rature, which, having the suspicious word cyclometricus,
must be noticed here for distinction.1
ON BACON'S NOVUM ORGANUM.
1620. In this year, Francis Bacon1 published his Novum
Organum,2 which was long held in England — but not until
the last century — to be the work which taught Newton and
all his successors how to philosophize. That Newton never
mentions Bacon, nor alludes in any way to his works, passed
for nothing. Here and there a paradoxer ventured not to find
all this teaching in Bacon, but he was pronounced blind. In
our day it begins to be seen that, great as Bacon was, and
great as his book really is, he is not the philosophical father
of modern discovery.
But old prepossession will find reason for anything. A
learned friend of mine wrote to me that he had discovered
proof that Newton owned Bacon for his master: the proof
was that Newton, in some of his earlier writings, used the
1 Snell was born at Leyden in 1591, and died there in 1626. He
studied under Tycho Brahe and Kepler, and is known for Snell's
law of the refraction of light He was the first to determine the
size of the earth by measuring the arc of a meridian with any fair
degree of accuracy. The title should read : Willebrordi Snellii R. F.
Cyclometricus, de circuit dimensione secundum Logistarum abacos,
et ad Mechanicem accuratissima. .. .
1 Bacon was born at York House, London, in 1561, and died near
Highgate, London, in 1626. His Novum Organum Scientiarum or New
Method of employing the reasoning faculties in the pursuits of Truth
appeared at London in 1620. He had previously published a work
entitled Of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning, divine and
humane ^(London, 1605), which again appeared in 1621. His De
augmentis scientiarum Libri IX appeared at Paris in 1624, and his
Historia naturalis et experimental de ventis at Leyden in 1638. He
was successively solicitor general, attorney general, lord chancellor
(1619), Baron Verulam and Viscount St. Albans. He was deprived
of office and was imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1621, but
was later pardoned.
8 The Greek form, Organon, is sometimes used.
76 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
phrase experimentum crucis, which is Bacon's. Newton
may have read some of Bacon, though no proof of it ap-
pears. I have a dim idea that I once saw the two words
attributed to the alchemists : if so, there is another explana-
tion; for Newton was deeply read in the alchemists.
I subjoin a review which I wrote of the splendid edition
of Bacon by Spedding,3 Ellis,4 and Heath.5 All the opinions
therein expressed had been formed by me long before : most
of the materials were collected for another purpose.
The Works of Francis Bacon. Edited by James Spedding, R.
Leslie Ellis, and Douglas D. Heath. 5 vols.1
No knowledge of nature without experiment and ob-
servation: so said Aristotle, so said Bacon, so acted Coper-
nicus, Tycho Brahe,2 Gilbert, Kepler, Galileo, Harvey, etc.,
before Bacon wrote.3 No derived knowledge until experi-
ment and observation are concluded: so said Bacon, and
no one else. We do not mean to say that he laid down his
principle in these words, or that he carried it to the utmost
extreme: we mean that Bacon's ruling idea was the collec-
8 James Spedding (1808-1881), fellow of Cambridge, who devoted
his life to his edition of Bacon.
4R. Leslie Ellis (1817-1859), editor of the Cambridge Mathemat-
ical Journal. He also wrote on Roman aqueducts, on Boole's Laws
of Thought, and on the formation of a Chinese dictionary.
6 Douglas Derion Heath (1811-1897), a classical and mathematical
scholar.
1 There have been numerous editions of Bacon's complete works,
including the following: Frankfort, 1665; London, 1730, 1740, 1764,
1765, 1778, 1893, 1807, 1818, 1819, 1824, 1825-36, 1857-74, 1877. The
edition to which De Morgan refers is that of 1857-74, 14 vols., of
which five were apparently out at the time he wrote. There were
also French editions in 1800 and 1835.
2 So in the original for Tycho Brahe.
8 In general these men acted before Bacon wrote, or at any rate
before he wrote the Novum Organum, but the statement must not
be taken too literally. The dates are as follows: Copernicus, 1473-
1543; Tycho Brahe, 1546-1601; Gilbert, 1540-1603; Kepler, 1571-1630;
Galileo, 1564-1642; Harvey, 1578-1657. For example, Harvey's Exer-
citatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis did not appear until
1628, and his Exercitationes de Generatione until 1651.
ON BACON'S NOVUM ORGANUM. 77
tion of enormous masses of facts, and then digested pro-
cesses of arrangement and elimination, so artistically con-
trived, that a man of common intelligence, without any un-
usual sagacity, should be able to announce the truth sought
for. Let Bacon speak for himself, in his editor's English:
"But the course I propose for the discovery of sciences
is such as leaves but little to the acuteness and strength of
wits, but places all wits and understandings nearly on a
level. For, as in the drawing of a straight line or a per-
fect circle, much depends on the steadiness and practice of
the hand, if it be done by aim of hand only, but if with the
aid of rule or compass little or nothing, so it is exactly
with my plan. . . .For my way of discovering sciences goes
far to level men's wits, and leaves but little to individual
excellence ; because it performs everything by the surest
rules and demonstrations."
To show that we do not strain Bacon's meaning, we add
what is said by Hooke,4 whom we have already mentioned
as his professed disciple, and, we believe, his only disciple
of the day of Newton. We must, however, remind the
reader that Hooke was very little of a mathematician, and
spoke of algebra from his own idea of what others had
told him:
"The intellect is not to be suffered to act without its
helps, but is continually to be assisted by some method or
engine, which shall be as a guide to regulate its actions,
so as that it shall not be able to act amiss. Of this engine,
no man except the incomparable Verulam hath had any
thoughts, and he indeed hath promoted it to a very good
pitch ; but there is yet somewhat more to be added, which
he seemed to want time to complete. By this, as by that
4 Robert Hooke (1635-1703) studied under Robert Boyle at Ox-
ford. He was "Curator of Experiments" to the Royal Society and
its secretary, and was professor of geometry at Gresham College,
London. It is true that he was "very little of a mathematician"
although he wrote on the motion of the earth ( 1674) , on helioscopes
and other instruments (1675), on the rotation of Jupiter (1666),
and on barometers and sails.
78 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
art of algebra in geometry, 'twill be very easy to proceed
in any natural inquiry, regularly and certainly .... For as
'tis very hard for the most acute wit to find out any difficult
problem in geometry without the help of algebra .... and
altogether as easy for the meanest capacity acting by that
method to complete and perfect it, so will it be in the in-
quiry after natural knowledge."
Bacon did not live to mature the whole of this plan. Are
we really to believe that if he had completed the Instauratio
we who write this — and who feel ourselves growing bigger
as we write it — should have been on a level with Newton
in physical discovery? Bacon asks this belief of us, and
does not get it. But it may be said, Your business is with
what he did leave, and with its consequences. Be it so.
Mr. Ellis says: "That his method is impracticable cannot,
I think, be denied, if we reflect not only that it never has
produced any result, but also that the process by which
scientific truths have been established cannot be so presented
as even to appear to be in accordance with it." That this
is very true is well known to all who have studied the
history of discovery : those who deny it are bound to estab-
lish either that some great discovery has been made by
Bacon's method — we mean by the part peculiar to Bacon — •
or, better still, to show that some new discovery can be
made, by actually making it. No general talk about induc-
tion: no reliance upon the mere fact that certain experi-
ments or observations have been made ; let us see where
Bacon's induction has been actually used or can be used.
Mere induction, enumeratio simplex, is spoken of by him-
self with contempt, as utterly incompetent. For Bacon
knew well that a thousand instances may be contradicted
by the thousand and first: so that no enumeration of in-
stances, however large, is "sure demonstration," so long as
any are left.
The immortal Harvey, who was inventing — we use the
word in its old sense — the circulation of the blood, while
ON BACON'S NOVUM ORGANUM. 79
Bacon was in the full flow of thought upon his system, may
be trusted to say whether, when the system appeared, he
found any likeness in it to his own processes, or what would
have been any help to him, if he had waited for the Novum
Organum. He said of Bacon, "He writes philosophy like
a Lord Chancellor." This has been generally supposed to
be only a sneer at the sutor ultra crepidam ; but we cannot
help suspecting that there was more intended by it. To us,
Bacon is eminently the philosopher of error prevented, not
of progress facilitated. When we throw off the idea of
being led right, and betake ourselves to that of being kept
from going wrong, we read his writings with a sense of
their usefulness, his genius, and their probable effect upon
purely experimental science, which we can be conscious of
upon no other supposition. It amuses us to have to add
that the part of Aristotle's logic of which he saw the value
was the book on refutation of fallacies. Now is this not
the notion of things to which the bias of a practised lawyer
might lead him? In the case which is before the Court,
generally speaking, truth lurks somewhere about the facts,
and the elimination of all error will show it in the residuum.
The two senses of the word law come in so as to look almost
like a play upon words. The judge can apply the law so soon
as the facts are settled: the physical philosopher has to de-
duce the law from the facts. Wait, says the judge, until
the facts are determined: did the prisoner take the goods
with felonious intent? did the defendant give what amounts
to a warranty? or the like. Wait, says Bacon, until all the
facts, or all the obtainable facts, are brought in: apply my
rules of separation to the facts, and the result shall come
out as easily as by ruler and compasses. We think it pos-
sible that Harvey might allude to the legal character of
Bacon's notions : we can hardly conceive so acute a man,
after seeing what manner of writer Bacon was, meaning
only that he was a lawyer and had better stick to his busi-
ness. We do ourselves believe that Bacon's philosophy
80 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
more resembles the action of mind of a common-law judge
— not a Chancellor — than that of the physical inquirers who
have been supposed to follow in his steps. It seems to us
that Bacon's argument is, there can be nothing of law but
what must be either perceptible, or mechanically deducible,
when all the results of law, as exhibited in phenomena,
are before us. Now the truth is, that the physical philos-
opher has frequently to conceive law which never was in
his previous thought — to educe the unknown, not to choose
among the known. Physical discovery would be very easy
work if the inquirer could lay down his this, his that, and
his t'other, and say, "Now, one of these it must be; let us
proceed to try which." Often has he done this, and failed ;
often has the truth turned out to be neither this, that, nor
t'other. Bacon seems to us to think that the philosopher
is a judge who has to choose, upon ascertained facts, which
of known statutes is to rule the decision : he appears to us
more like a person who is to write the statute-book, with
no guide except the cases and decisions presented in all their
confusion and all their conflict.
Let us take the well-known first aphorism of the Novum
Organum :
"Man being the servant and interpreter of nature, can do
and understand so much, and so much only, as he has ob-
served in fact or in thought of the course of nature : beyond
this he neither knows anything nor can do anything."
This aphorism is placed by Sir John Herschel5 at the
head of his Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy :
a book containing notions of discovery far beyond any of
which Bacon ever dreamed ; and this because it was written
8 The son of the Sir William mentioned below. He was born in
1792 and died in 1871. He wrote a treatise on light (1831) and one
on astronomy (1836), and established an observatory at the Cape
of Good Hope where he made observations during 1834-1838, pub-
lishing them in 1847. On his return to England he was knighted,
and in 1848 was made president of the Royal Society. The title of
the work to which reference is made is : A preliminary discourse on
the Study of Natural Philosophy. It appeared at London in 1831.
ON BACON'S NOVUM ORGANUM. 81
after discovery, instead of before. Sir John Herschel, in
his version, has avoided the translation of re vel mente ob-
servaverit, and gives us only "by his observation of the
order of nature." In making this the opening of an ex-
cellent sermon, he has imitated the theologians, who often
employ the whole time of the discourse in stuffing matter
into the text, instead of drawing matter out of it. 'By ob-
servation he (Herschel) means the whole course of dis-
covery, observation, hypothesis, deduction, comparison, etc.
The type of the Baconian philosopher as it stood in his
mind, had been derived from a noble example, his own
father, William Herschel,6 an inquirer whose processes would
have been held by Bacon to have been vague, insufficient,
compounded of chance work and sagacity, and too meagre
of facts to deserve the name of induction. In another work,
his treatise on Astronomy,7 Sir John Herschel, after noting
that a popular account can only place the reader on the
threshold, proceeds to speak as follows of all the higher
departments of science. The italics are his own:
"Admission to its sanctuary, and to the privileges and
feelings of a votary, is only to be gained by one means —
sound and sufficient knowledge of mathematics, the great
instrument of all exact inquiry, without which no man can
ever make such advances in this or any other of the higher
departments of science as can entitle him to form an inde-
pendent opinion on any subject of discussion within their
range"
How is this? Man can know no more than he gets
from observation, and yet mathematics is the great instru-
ment of all exact inquiry. Are the results of mathematical
deduction results of observation? We think it likely that
"Sir William was born at Hanover in 1738 and died at Slough,
near Windsor, in 1822. He discovered the planet Uranus and six
satellites, besides two satellites of Saturn. He was knighted by
George III.
7 This was the work of 1836. He also published a work entitled
Outlines of Astronomy in 1849.
82 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
Sir John Herschel would reply that Bacon, in coupling
together observare re and observare mente, has done what
some wags said Newton afterwards did in his study-door —
cut a large hole of exit for the large cat, and a little hole
for the little cat.8 But Bacon did no such thing: he never
included any deduction under observation. To mathematics
he had a dislike. He averred that logic and mathematics
should be the handmaids, not the mistresses, of philosophy.
He meant that they should play a subordinate and subsequent
part in the dressing of the vast mass of facts by which dis-
covery was to be rendered equally accessible to Newton and
to us. (Bacon himself was very ignorant of all that had been
done by mathematics ; and, strange to say, he especially ob-
jected to astronomy being handed over to the mathemati-
cians. Leverrier and Adams, calculating an unknown planet
into visible existence by enormous heaps of algebra, furnish
the last comment of note on this specimen of the goodness
of Bacon's views. The following account of his knowledge
of what had been done in his own day or before it, is Mr.
Spedding's collection of casual remarks in Mr. Ellis's several
prefaces :
"Though he paid great attention to astronomy, dis-
cussed carefully the methods in which it ought to be studied,
constructed for the satisfaction of his own mind an elaborate
theory of the heavens, and listened eagerly for the news
from the stars brought by Galileo's telescope, he appears to
have been utterly ignorant of the discoveries which had
just been made by Kepler's calculations. Though he com-
plained in 1623 of the want of compendious methods for
facilitating arithmetical computations, especially with regard
to the doctrine of Series, and fully recognized the importance
of them as an aid to physical inquiries— he does not say a
word about Napier's Logarithms, which had been published
only nine, years before and reprinted more than once in the
"While Newton does not tell the story, he refers in the Prindpia
(1714 edition, p. 293) to the accident caused by his cat.
83
interval. He complained that no considerable advance had
been made in geometry beyond Euclid, without taking any
notice of what had been done by Archimedes and Apollonius.
He saw the importance of determining accurately the spe-
cific gravity of different substances, and himself attempted
to form a table of them by a rude process of his own, with-
out knowing of the more scientific though still imperfect
methods previously employed by Archimedes, Ghetaldus,9 and
Porta. He speaks of the evprjKa of Archimedes in a manner
which implies that he did not clearly apprehend either the
nature of the problem to be solved or the principles upon
which the solution depended. In reviewing the progress
of mechanics, he makes no mention of Archimedes himself,
or of Stevinus,10 Galileo, Guldinus,11 or Ghetaldus. He makes
no allusion to the theory of equilibrium. He observes that
a ball of one pound weight will fall nearly as fast through
the air as a ball of two, without alluding to the theory of
the acceleration of falling bodies, which had been made
known by Galileo more than thirty years before. He pro-
poses an inquiry with regard to the lever — namely, whether
in a balance with arms of different length but equal weight
the distance from the fulcrum has any effect upon the in-
clination,— though the theory of the lever was as well under-
stood in his own time as it is now. In making an experiment
"Marino Ghetaldi (1566-1627), whose Promotus 'Archimedes ap-
peared at Rome in 1603, Nonnullae propositiones de parabola at
Rome in 1603, and Apollonius redivivus at Venice in 1607. He was
a nobleman and was ambassador from Venice to Rome.
10 Simon Steyin (born at Bruges, 1548; died at the Hague, 1620).
He was an engineer and a soldier, and his La Disme (1585) was
the first separate treatise on the decimal fraction. The contribution
referred to above is probably that on the center of gravity of three
bodies (1586).
"Habakuk Guldin (1577-1643), who took the name Paul on his
conversion to Catholicism. He became a Jesuit, and was professor
of mathematics at Vienna and later at Gratz. In his Centrobaryca
sen de centra gravitatis trium specierum quantitatis continuae (1635),
of the edition of 1641, appears the Pappus rule for the volume of a
solid formed by the revolution of a plane figure about an axis, often
spoken of as Guldin' s Theorem.
84 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
of his own to ascertain the cause of the motion of a wind-
mill, he overlooks an obvious circumstance which makes the
experiment inconclusive, and an equally obvious variation
of the same experiment which would have shown him that
his theory was false. He speaks of the poles of the earth
as fixed, in a manner which seems to imply that he was not
acquainted with the precession of the equinoxes ; and in
another place, of the north pole being above and the south
pole below, as a reason why in our hemisphere the north
winds predominate over the south."
Much of this was known before, but such a summary
of Bacon's want of knowledge of the science of his own
time was never yet collected in one place. We may add,
that Bacon seems to have been as ignorant of Wright's12
memorable addition to the resources of navigation as of
Napier's addition to the means of calculation. Mathematics
was beginning to be the great instrument of exact inquiry:
Bacon threw the science aside, from ignorance, just at the
time when his enormous sagacity, applied to knowledge,
would have made him see the part it was to play. If New-
ton had taken Bacon for his master, not he, but somebody
else, would have been Newton.13
ON METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATORIES.
There is an attempt at induction going on, which has
yielded little or no fruit, the observations made in the
meteorological observatories. This attempt is carried on
in a manner which would have caused Bacon to dance for
joy; for he lived in times when Chancellors did dance.
"Edward Wright was born at Graveston, Norfolkshire, in 1560,
and died at London in 1615. He was a fellow of Caius College,
Cambridge, and in his work entitled The correction of certain errors
in Navigation (1599) he gives the principle of Mercator's projec-
tion. He translated the Portuum investigandorum ratio of Stevin in
1599-
18 De Morgan never wrote a more suggestive sentence. Its mes-
sage is not for his generation alone.
BASIS OF MODERN DISCOVERY. 85
Russia, says M. Biot,1 is covered by an army of meteoro-
graphs, with generals, high officers, subalterns, and privates
with fixed and defined duties of observation. Other coun-
tries have also their systematic observations. And what
has come of it? Nothing, says M. Biot, and nothing will
ever come of it ; the veteran mathematician and experimental
philosopher declares, as does Mr. Ellis, that no single branch
of science has ever been fruitfully explored in this way.
There is no special object, he says. Any one would suppose
that M. Biot's opinion, given to the French Government
upon the proposal to construct meteorological observatories
in Algeria (Comptes Rendus, vol. xli, Dec. 31, 1855), was
written to support the mythical Bacon, modern physics,
against the real Bacon of the Novum Organum. There is
no special object. In these words lies the difference between
the two methods.
[In the report to the Greenwich Board of Visitors for
1867 Mr. Airy,2 speaking of the increase of meteorological
observatories, remarks, "Whether the effect of this move-
ment will be that millions of useless observations will be
added to the millions that already exist, or whether some-
thing may be expected to result which will lead to a meteoro-
logical theory, I cannot hazard a conjecture." This is a
conjecture, and a very obvious one: if Mr. Airy would have
given 2%d. for the chance of a meteorological theory formed
by masses of observations, he would never have said what
I have quoted.]
BASIS OF MODERN DISCOVERY.
Modern discoveries have not been made by large collec-
tions of facts, with subsequent discussion, separation, and re-
1The eminent French physicist, Jean Baptiste Biot (1779-1862),
professor in the College de France. His work Sur les observatoires
meteor ologiques appeared in 1855.
8 George Biddell Airy (1801-1892), professor of astronomy and
physics at Cambridge, and afterwards director of the Observatory
at Greenwich.
86 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
suiting deduction of a truth thus rendered perceptible. A
few facts have suggested an hypothesis, which means a
supposition, proper to explain them. The necessary results
of this supposition are worked out, and then, and not till
then, other facts are examined to see if these ulterior results
are found in nature. The trial of the hypothesis is the
special object: prior to which, hypothesis must have been
started, not by rule, but by that sagacity of which no de-
scription can be given, precisely because the very owners
of it do not act under laws perceptible to themselves.1 The
inventor of hypothesis, if pressed to explain his method,
must answer as did Zerah Colburn,2 when asked for his mode
of instantaneous calculation. When the poor boy had been
bothered for some time in this manner, he cried out in a
huff, "God put it into my head, and I can't put it into yours."3
1De Morgan would have rejoiced in the role played by Intuition
in the mathematics of to-day, notably among the followers of Pro-
fessor Klein.
2 Colburn was the best known of the calculating boys produced
in America. He was born at Cabot, Vermont, in 1804, and died at
Norwich, Vermont, in 1840. Having shown remarkable skill in
numbers as early as 1810, he was taken to London in 1812, whence
he toured through Great Britain and to Paris. The Earl of Bristol
placed him in Westminster School (1816-1819). On his return to
America he became a preacher, and later a teacher of languages.
8 The history of calculating boys is interesting. Mathieu le Coc
(about 1664), a boy of Lorraine, could extract cube roots at sight
at the age of eight. Tom Fuller, a Virginian slave of the eighteenth
century, although illiterate, gave the number of seconds in 7 years
17 days 12 hours after only a minute and a half of thought Jede-
diah Buxton, an Englishman of the eighteenth century, was studied
by the Royal Society because of his remarkable powers. Ampere,
the physicist, made long calculations with pebbles at the age of four.
Gauss, one of the few infant prodigies to become an adult prodigy,
corrected his father's payroll at the age of three. One of the most
remarkable of the French calculating boys was Henri Mpndeux.
He was investigated by Arago, Sturm, Cauchy, and Liouville, for
the Academic des Sciences, and a report was written by Cauchy.
His specialty was the solution of algebraic problems mentally. He
seems to have calculated squares and cubes by a binomial formula
of his own invention. He died in obscurity, but was the subject
of a Biographie by Jacoby (1846). George P. Bidder, the Scotch
engineer (1806-1878), was exhibited as an arithmetical prodigy at
the age of ten, and did not attend school until he was twelve. Of
the recent cases two deserve special mention, Inaudi and Diamandi.
BASIS OF MODERN DISCOVERY. 87
Wrong hypotheses, rightly worked from, have produced
more useful results than unguided observation. But this is
not the Baconian plan. Charles the Second, when informed
of the state of navigation, founded a Baconian observatory
at Greenwich, to observe, observe, observe away at the
moon, until her motions were known sufficiently well to
render her useful in guiding the seaman. And no doubt
Flamsteed's4 observations, twenty or thirty of them at least,
were of signal use. But how ? A somewhat fanciful thinker,
one Kepler, had hit upon the approximate orbits of the
planets by trying one hypothesis after another: he found
the ellipse, which the Platonists, well despised of Bacon,
and who would have despised him as heartily if they had
known him, had investigated and put ready to hand nearly
2000 years before.5 The sun in the focus, the motions of
the planet more and more rapid as they approach the sun,
led Kepler — and Bacon would have reproved him for his
rashness — to imagine that a force residing in the sun might
move the planets, a force inversely as the distance. Bouil-
laud,6 upon a fanciful analogy, rejected the inverse distance,
Jacques Inaudi (born in 1867) was investigated for the Academic
in 1892 by a commission including Poincare, Charcot, and Binet.
(See the Revue des Deux Mondes, June 15, 1892, and the laboratory
bulletins of the Sorbonne). He has frequently exhibited his re-
markable powers in America. Pericles Diamandi was investigated
by the same commission in 1893. See Alfred Binet, Psychologic des
Grands Calculateurs et Joueurs d'Echecs, Paris, 1894.
4 John Flamsteed's (1646-1719) "old white house" was the first
Greenwich observatory. He was the Astronomer Royal and first
head of this observatory.
5 It seems a pity that De Morgan should not have lived to lash
those of our time who are demanding only the immediately prac-
tical in mathematics. His satire would have been worth the read-
ing against those who seek to stifle the science they pretend to foster.
'Ismael Bouillaud, or Boulliau, was born in 1605 and died at
Paris in 1694. He was well known as an astronomer, mathemati-
cian, and jurist. He lived with De Thou at Paris, and accompanied
him to Holland. He traveled extensively, and was versed in the
astronomical work of the Persians and Arabs. It was in his
Astronomia philolaica, opus novum (Paris, 1645) that he attacked
Kepler's laws. His tables were shown to be erroneous by the fact
that the solar eclipse did not take place as predicted by him in 1645.
88 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
and, rejecting the force altogether, declared that if such a
thing there were, it would be as the inverse square of the
distance. Newton, ready prepared with the mathematics
of the subject, tried the fall of the moon towards the earth,
away from her tangent, and found that, as compared with
the fall of a stone, the law of the inverse square did hold
for the moon. He deduced the ellipse, he proceeded to
deduce the effect of the disturbance of the sun upon the
moon, upon the assumed theory of universal gravitation.
He found result after result of his theory in conformity with
observed fact: and, by aid of Flamsteed's observations,
which amended what mathematicians call his constants, he
constructed his lunar theory. Had it not been for Newton,
the whole dynasty of Greenwich astronomers, from Flam-
steed of happy memory, to Airy whom Heaven preserve,7
might have worked away at nightly observation and daily
reduction, without any remarkable result: looking forward,
as to a millennium, to the time when any man of moderate
intelligence was to see the whole explanation. What are
large collections of facts for? To make theories from, says
Bacon: to try ready-made theories by, says the history of
discovery: it's all the same, says the idolater: nonsense,
say we!
Time and space run short: how odd it is that of the
three leading ideas of mechanics, time, space, and matter,
the first two should always fail a reviewer before the third.
We might dwell upon many points, especially if we at-
tempted a more descriptive account of the valuable edition
before us. No one need imagine that the editors, by their
uncompromising attack upon the notion of Bacon's influence
common even among mathematicians and experimental phi-
losophers, have lowered the glory of the great man whom
it was, many will think, their business to defend through
thick and thin. They have given a clearer notion of his
TAs it did, until 1892, when Airy had reached the ripe age of
ninety-one.
THE REAL VALUE OF BACON^S WORKS. 89
excellencies, and a better idea of the power of his mind,
than ever we saw given before. Such a correction as theirs
must have come, and soon, for as Hallam says — after noting
that the Novum Organum was never published separately
in England, Bacon has probably been more read in the
last thirty years — now forty — than in the two hundred years
which preceded. He will now be more read than ever he
was. The history of the intellectual world is the history
of the worship of one idol after another. No sooner is it
clear that a Hercules has appeared among men, than all
that imagination can conceive of strength is attributed to
him, and his labors are recorded in the heavens. The time
arrives when, as in the case of Aristotle, a new deity is
found, and the old one is consigned to shame and reproach.
A reaction may afterwards take place, and this is now hap-
pening in the case of the Greek philosopher. The end of the
process is, that the opposing deities take their places, side
by side, in a Pantheon dedicated not to gods, but to heroes.
THE REAL VALUE OF BACON'S WORKS.
Passing over the success of Bacon's own endeavors to
improve the details of physical science, which was next to
nothing, and of his method as a whole, which has never
been practised, we might say much of the good influence
of his writings. Sound wisdom, set in sparkling wit, must
instruct and amuse to the end of time: and, as against
error, we repeat that Bacon is soundly wise, so far as he
goes. There is hardly a form of human error within his
scope which he did not detect, expose, and attach to a satir-
ical metaphor which never ceases to sting. He is largely
indebted to a very extensive reading; but the thoughts of
others fall into his text with such a close-fitting compact-
ness that he can make even the words of the Sacred Writers
pass for his own. A saying of the prophet Daniel, rather
a hackneyed quotation in our day, Multi pertransibunt, et
augebitur scientia, stands in the title-page of the first edition
90 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
of Montucla's History of Mathematics as a quotation from
Bacon — and it is not the only place in which this mistake
occurs. When the truth of the matter, as to Bacon's sys-
tem, is fully recognized, we have little fear that there will
be a reaction against the man. First, because Bacon will
always live to speak for himself, for he will not cease to be
read: secondly, because those who seek the truth will find
it in the best edition of his works, and will be most ably led
to know what Bacon was, in the very books which first
showed at large what he was not.
THE CONGREGATION OF THE INDEX, ON COPERNICUS.
In this year ( 1620) appeared the corrections under which
the Congregation of the Index — i. e., the Committee of
Cardinals which superintended the Index of forbidden books
— proposed to allow the work of Copernicus to be read. I
insert these conditions in full, because they are often alluded
to, and I know of no source of reference accessible to a
twentieth part of those who take interest in the question.
By a decree of the Congregation of the Index, dated
March 5, 1616, the work of Copernicus, and another of
Didacus Astunica,1 are suspended donee corrigantur, as teach-
ing:
"Falsam illam doctrinam Pythagoricam, divinae que
Scripturae omnino adversantem, de mobilitate Terrae et im-
mobilitate Solis."2
But a work of the Carmelite Foscarini3 is:
1 Didaci a Stunica. .. .In 7ob commentaria appeared at Toledo in
1584.
'"The false Pythagorean doctrine, absolutely opposed to the Holy
Scriptures, concerning the mobility of the earth and the immobility
of the sun/'
8 Paolo Antonio Foscarini (1580-1616), who taught theology and
philosophy at Naples and Messina, was one of the first to champion
the theories of Copernicus. This was in his Lettera sopra f opinion*
de' Pittagorici e del Copernico, della mobilita della Terra e stabilita
del Sole, e il nuovo pittagorico sistema del mondo, 4to,^ Naples, 1615.
The condemnation of the Congregation was published in the follow-
ing spring, and in the year of Foscarini's death at the early age of
thirty-six.
THE CONGREGATION OF THE INDEX, ON COPERNICUS. 91
"Omnino prohibendum atque damnandum," because "os-
tendere conatur prsef atam doctrinam .... consonam esse veri-
tati et non adversari Sacrae Scripturse."*
Works which teach the false doctrine of the earth's mo-
tion are to be corrected; those which declare the doctrine
conformable to Scripture are to be utterly prohibited.
In a "Monitum ad Nicolai Copernici lectorem, ejusque
emendatio, permissio, et correctio," dated 1620 without the
month or day, permission is given to reprint the work of
Copernicus with certain alterations ; and, by implication, to
read existing copies after correction in writing. In the pre-
amble the author is called nobilis astrologus-, not a compli-
ment to his birth, which was humble, but to his fame. The
suspension was because:
"Sacrse Scripturae, ejusque verse et Catholicse interpre-
tation! repugnantia (quod in homine Christiano minime
tolerandum) non per hypothesin tractare, sed ut verissima
adstruere non dubitat!"5
And the corrections relate:
"Locis in quibus non ex hypothesi, sed asserendo de situ
et motu Terrae disputat."6
That is, the earth's motion may be an hypothesis for
elucidation of the heavenly motions, but must not be as-
serted as a fact.
(In Pref. circa finem.) "Copernicus. Si fortasse erunt
/AaratoAoyot, qui cum omnium Mathematum ignari sint, tamen
de illis judicium sibi summunt, propter aliquem locum scrip-
turse, male ad suum propositum detortum, ausi fuerint meum
"To be wholly prohibited and condemned," because "it seeks to
show that the aforesaid doctrine is consonant with truth and is not
opposed to the Holy Scriptures."
" "As repugnant to the Holy Scriptures and to its true and Catho-
lic interpretation (which in a Christian man cannot be tolerated in
the least), he does not hesitate to treat (of his subject) 'by hypoth-
esis' but he even adds 'as most true' I"
'"To the places in which he discusses not by hypothesis but by
making assertions concerning the position and motion of the earth."
92 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
hoc institutum reprehendere ac insectari: illos nihil moror
adeo tit etiam illorum judicium tanquam temerarium con-
temnam. Non enim obscurum est Lactantium, celebrem
alioqui scriptorem, sed Mathematicum parum, admodum
pueriliter de forma terrse loqui, cum deridet eos, qui terram
globi formam habere prodiderunt. Itaque non debet mirum
videri studiosis, si qui tales nos etiam videbunt. Mathemata
Mathematicis scribuntur, quibus et hi nostri labores, si me
non fallit opinio, videbuntur etiam Reipub. ecclesiastics
conducere aUquid .... Emend. Ibi si fortasse dele omnia,
usque ad verbum hi nostri labores et sic accommoda — Ccete-
rum hi nostri labores."7
All the allusion to Lactantius, who laughed at the notion
of the earth being round, which was afterwards found true,
is to be struck out.
(Cap. 5. lib. i. p. 3) "Copernicus. Si tamen attentius
rem consideremus, videbitur hsec qusestio nondum absoluta,
et idcirco minime contemnenda. Emend. Si tamen atten-
tius rem consideremus, nihil refert an Terram in medio
Mundi, an extra Medium existere, quoad solvendas cceles-
tium motuum apparentias existimemus."8
7 "Copernicus, If by chance there shall be vain talkers who, al-
though ignorant of all mathematics, yet taking it upon themselves
to sit in judgment upon the subject on account of a certain passage
of Scripture badly distorted for their purposes, shall have dared
to criticize and censure this teaching of mine, I pay no attention
to them, even to the extent of despising their judgment as rash.
For it is not unknown that Lactantius, a writer of prominence
in other lines although but little versed in mathematics, spoke
very childishly about the form of the earth when he ridiculed
those who declared that it was spherical. Hence it should not seem
strange to the learned if some shall look upon us in the same way.
Mathematics is written for mathematicians, to whom these labors
of ours will seem, if I mistake not, to add something even to the
republic of the Church Emend. Here strike out everything from
'if by chance' to th'e words 'these labors of ours/ and adapt it thus :
'But these labors of ours/"
8 "Copernicus. However if we consider the matter more carefully
it will be seen that the investigation is not yet completed, and there-
fore ought by no means to be condemned. Emend. However, if we
consider the matter more carefully it is of no consequence whether
THE CONGREGATION OF THE INDEX, ON COPERNICUS. 93
We must not say the question is not yet settled, but
only that it may be settled either way, so far as mere ex-
planation of the celestial motions is concerned.
(Cap. 8. lib. i.) "Totum hoc caput potest expungi, quia
ex professo tractat de veritate motus Terrse, dum solvit
veterum rationes probantes ejus quietem. Cum tamen prob-
lematice videatur loqui ; ut studiosis satisfiat, seriesque et
ordo libri integer maneat ; emendetur ut infra."9
A chapter which seems to assert the motion should per-
haps be expunged; but it may perhaps be problematical;
and, not to break up the book, must be amended as below.
(p. 6.) "Copernicus. Cur ergo hesitamus adhuc, mobili-
tatem illi formae suse a natura congruentem concedere, ma-
gisquam quod totus labatur mundus, cujus finis ignoratur,
scirique nequit, neque fateamur ipsius cotidianae revolutio-
nis in coelo apparentiam esse, et in terra veritatem? Et
hsec perinde se habere, ac si diceret Virgilianus yEneas:
Provehimur portu .... Emend. Cur ergo non possum mobi-
litatem illi formse suse concedere, magisque quod totus laba-
tur mundus, cujus finis ignoratur scirique nequit, et quse
apparent in ccelo, perinde se habere ac si. . . ."10
we regard the earth as existing in the center of the universe or
outside of the center, so far as the solution of the phenomena of
celestial movements is concerned."
"The whole of this chapter may be cut out, since it avowedly
treats of the truth of the earth's motion, while it refutes the reasons
of the ancients proving its immobility. Nevertheless, since it seems
to speak problematically, in order that it may satisfy the learned and
keep intact the sequence and unity of the book let it be emended
as below."
0 "Copernicus. Therefore why do we still hesitate to concede to
it motion which is by nature consistent with its form, the more so
because the whole universe is moving, whose end is not and cannot
be known, and not confess that there is in the sky an appearance of
daily revolution, while on the earth there is the truth of it ? And in
like manner these things are as if Virgil's ^Eneas should say, 'We
are borne from the harbor'.... Emend. Hence I cannot concede
motion to this form, the more so because the universe would fall,
whose end is not and cannot be known, and what appears in the
heavens is just as if. ..."
94 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
"Why should we hesitate to allow the earth's motion,"
must be altered into "I cannot concede the earth's motion."
(p. 7.) "Copernicus. Addo etiam, quod satis absurdum
videretur, continenti sive locanti motum adscribi, et non
potius contento et locato, quod est terra. Emend. Addo etiam
difficilius non esse contento et locato, quod est Terra, motum
adscribere, quam continenti."11
We must not say it is absurd to refuse motion to the
contained and located, and to give it to the containing and
locating; say that neither is more difficult than the other.
(p. 7.) "Copernicus. Vides ergo quod ex his omnibus
probabilior sit mobilitas Terrae, quam ejus quies, prsesertim
in cotidiana revolutione, tanquam terrse maxime propria.
Emend. Fides. . . .delendus est usque ad finem capitis."12
Strike out the whole of the chapter from this to the
end; it says that the motion of the earth is the most prob-
able hypothesis.
(Cap. 9. lib. i. p. 7.) "Copernicus. Cum igitur nihil pro-
hibeat mobilitatem Terrae, videndum nunc arbitror, an etiam
plures illi motus conveniant, ut possit una errantium syde-
rum existimari. Emend. Cum igitur Terram moveri as-
sumpserim, videndum nunc arbitror, an etiam illi plures
possint convenire motus."13
^"Copernicus. I also add that it would seem very absurd that
motion should be ascribed to that which contains and ^locates, and
not rather to that which is contained and located, that is the earth.
Emend. I also add that it is not more difficult to ascribe motion to
the contained and located, which is the earth, than to that which
contains it."
" "Copernicus. You see, therefore, that from all these things
the motion of the earth is more probable than its immobility, espe-
cially in the daily revolution which is as it were a particular prop-
erty of it. Emend. Omit from 'You see' to the end of the chapter."
13 "Copernicus. Therefore, since there is nothing to hinder the
motion of the earth, it seems to me that we should consider whether
it has several motions, to the end that it may be looked upon as one
of the moving stars. Emend. Therefore, since I have assumed that
the earth moves, it seems to me that we should consider whether it
has several motions."
THE CONGREGATION OF THE INDEX, ON COPERNICUS. 95
We must not say that nothing prohibits the motion of
the earth, only that having assumed it, we may inquire
whether our explanations require several motions.
(Cap. 10. lib. i. p. 9.) "Copernicus. Non pudet nos
f ateri .... hoc potius in mobilitate terrse verificari. Emend.
Non pudet nos assumere .... hoc consequenter in mobilitate
verificari."14
(Cap. 10. lib. i. p. 10.) "Copernicus. Tanta nimirum est
divina haec. Opt. Max. fabrica. Emend. Dele ilia verba
postrema."15
(Cap. ii. lib. i.16) "Copernicus. De triplici motu telluris
demonstratio. Emend. De hypothesi triplicis motus Terrse,
ejusque demonstratione."17
(Cap. 10. lib. iv. p. 122.18) "Copernicus. De magnitudine
horum trium siderum, Solis, Lunse, et Terrse. Emend. Dele
verba horum trium siderum, quia terra non est sidus, ut
facit earn Copernicus."19
We must not say we are not ashamed to acknowledge; as-
sume is the word. We must not call this assumption a
Divine work. A chapter must not be headed demonstration,
but hypothesis. The earth must not be called a star; the
word implies motion.
It will be seen that it does not take much to reduce
Copernicus to pure hypothesis. No personal injury being
done to the author — who indeed had been 17 years out of
4 "Copernicus. We are not ashamed to acknowledge that
this is preferably verified in the motion of the earth. Emend. We
are not ashamed to assume that this is consequently verified in
the motion."
5 "Copernicus. So divine is surely this work of the Best and
Greatest. Emend. Strike out these last words."
18 This should be Cap. u, lib. i, p. 10.
7 "Copernicus. Demonstration of the threefold motion of the
earth. Emend. On the hypothesis of the threefold motion of the
earth and its demonstration."
18 This should be Cap. 20, lib. iv, p. 122.
8 "Copernicus. Concerning the size of these three stars, the sun,
the moon, and the earth. Emend. Strike out the words 'these three
stars,' because the earth is not a star as Copernicus would make it."
96 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
reach — the treatment of his book is now an excellent joke.
It is obvious that the Cardinals of the Index were a little
ashamed of their position, and made a mere excuse of a
few corrections. Their mode of dealing with chap. 8, this
problematice videtur loqui, ut studiosis satisfiat™ is an ex-
cuse to avoid corrections. But they struck out the stinging
allusion to Lactantius21 in the preface, little thinking, honest
men, for they really believed what they said — that the light
of Lactantius would grow dark before the brightness of
their own.
THE CONVOCATION AT OXFORD EQUALLY AT FAULT.
1622. I make no reference to the case of Galileo, except
this. I have pointed out (Penny Cycl. Suppl. "Galileo";
Engl Cycl. "Motion of the Earth") that it is clear the ab-
surdity was the act of the Italian Inquisition — for the private
and personal pleasure of the Pope, who knew that the course
he took would not commit him as Pope — and not of the
body which calls itself the Church. Let the dirty proceed-
ing have its right name. The Jesuit Riccioli,1 the stoutest
and most learned Anti-Copernican in Europe, and the Puri-
tan Wilkins, a strong Copernican and Pope-hater, are equally
positive that the Roman Church never pronounced any de-
cision : and this in the time immediately following the ridic-
ulous proceeding of the Inquisition. In like manner a deci-
sion of the Convocation of Oxford is not a law of the Eng-
lish Church; which is fortunate, for that Convocation, in
1622, came to a decision quite as absurd, and a great deal
20 He seems to speak problematically in order to satisfy the
learned.
21 One of the Church Fathers, born about 250 A. D., and died about
330, probably at Treves. He wrote Divinarum Institutionum Libri
VII, and other controversial and didactic works against the learning
and philosophy of the Greeks.
1 Giovanni Battista Riccioli (1598-1671) taught philosophy and
theology at Parma and Bologna, and was later professor of astron-
omy. His Almagestum novum appeared in 1651, and his Argomento
fisico-matematico contro il moto diurno della terra in 1668.
THE CONVOCATION AT OXFORD EQUALLY AT FAULT. 97
more wicked than the declaration against the motion of the
earth. The second was a foolish mistake; the first was a
disgusting surrender of right feeling. The story is told
without disapprobation by Anthony Wood, who never exag-
gerated anything against the university of which he is wri-
ting eulogistic history.
In 1622, one William Knight2 put forward in a sermon
preached before the University certain theses which, looking
at the state of the times, may have been improper and pos-
sibly of seditious intent. One of them was that the bishop
might excommunicate the civil magistrate: this proposition
the clerical body could not approve, and designated it by the
term erronea* the mildest going. But Knight also declared
as follows:
"Subditis mere privatis, si Tyrannus tanquam latro aut
stuprator in ipsos faciat impetum, et ipsi nee potestatem ordi-
nariam implorare, nee alia ratione effugere periculum pos-
sint, in presenti periculo se et suos contra tyrannum, sicut
contra privatum grassatorem, defendere licet."4
That is, a man may defend his purse or a woman her
honor, against the personal attack of a king, as against that
of a private person, if no other means of safety can be found.
The Convocation sent Knight to prison, declared the propo-
sition "falsa, periculosa, et impia" and enacted that all ap-
plicants for degrees should subscribe this censure, and make
oath that they would neither hold, teach, nor defend Knight's
opinions.
The thesis, in the form given, was unnecessary and im-
proper. Though strong opinions of the king's rights were
advanced at the time, yet no one ventured to say that, min-
2 He was a native of Arlington, Sussex, and a pensioner of Christ's
College, Cambridge. In 1603 he became a master of arts at Oxford.
8 Straying, i. e., from the right way.
4 "Private subjects may, in the presence of danger, defend them-
selves or their families against a monarch as against any malefactor,
if the monarch assaults them like a bandit or a ravisher, and pro-
vided they are unable to summon the usual protection and cannot in
any way escape the danger."
98 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
isters and advisers apart, the king might personally break
the law ; and we know that the first and only attempt which
his successor made brought on the crisis which cost him
his throne and his head. But the declaration that the propo-
sition was false far exceeds in all that is disreputable the
decision of the Inquisition against the earth's motion. We
do not mention this little matter in England. Knight was
a Puritan, and Neal5 gives a short account of his sermon.
From comparison with Wood,6 I judge that the theses, as
given, were not Knight's words, but the digest which it was
customary to make in criminal proceedings against opinion.
This heightens the joke, for it appears that the qualifiers
of the Convocation took pains to present their condemnation
of Knight in the terms which would most unequivocally
make their censure condemn themselves. This proceeding
took place in the interval between the two proceedings
against Galileo: it is left undetermined whether we must
say pot-kettle-pot or kettle-pot-kettle.
Liberti Fromondi. . . .Ant-Aristarchus, sive orbis terrae immo-
bilis. Antwerp, 1631, 8vo.T
This book contains the evidence of an ardent opponent
of Galileo to the fact, that Roman Catholics of the day did
not consider the decree of the Index or of the Inquisition
as a declaration of their Church. Fromond would have been
glad to say as much, and tries to come near it, but con-
fesses he must abstain. See Penny Cyclop. Suppl. "Galileo,"
and Eng. Cycl "Motion of the Earth." The author of a
celebrated article in the Dublin Review, in defence of the
"Daniel Neal (1678-1743), an independent minister, wrote a His-
tory of the Puritans that appeared in 1732. The account may be
found in the New York edition of 1843-44, vol. I, p. 271.
6 Anthony Wood (1632-1695), whose Historia et Antiquitates
Universitatis Oxoniensis (1674) and Athenae Oxoniensis (1691) are
among the classics on Oxford.
7 Part of the title, not here quoted, shows the nature of the work
more clearly: "liber unicus, in quo decretum S. Congregations S.
R. E. Cardinal, an. 1616, adversus Pythagorico-Copernicanos editum,
defenditur."
THE METIUS APPROXIMATION. 99
Church of Rome, seeing that Drinkwater Bethune8 makes
use of the authority of Fromondus, but for another purpose,
sneers at him for bringing up a "musty old Professor."
If he had known Fromondus, and used him he would have
helped his own case, which is very meagre for want of
knowledge.9
Advis a Monseigneur reminentissime Cardinal Due de Richelieu,
sur la Proposition faicte par le Sieur Morin pour 1'invention
des longitudes. Paris, 1634, 8vo.10
This is the Official Report of the Commissioners ap-
pointed by the Cardinal, of whom Pascal is the one now
best known, to consider Morin's plan. See the full account
in Delambre, Hist. Astr. Mod. ii. 236, etc.
THE METIUS APPROXIMATION.
Arithmetica et Geometria practica. By Adrian Metius. Leyden,
1640, 4to.1
This book contains the celebrated approximation guessed
at by his father, Peter Metius,2 namely that the diameter is
8 This was John Elliot Drinkwater Bethune (1801-1851), the
statesman who did so much for legislative and educational reform
in India. His father, John Drinkwater Bethune, wrote a history of
the siege of Gibraltar.
9 The article referred to is about thirty years old; since it ap-
peared another has been given (Dubl. Rev., Sept. 1865) which is of
much greater depth. In it will also be found the Roman view of
Bishop Virgil (ante, p. 32). — A. De M.
10 Jean Baptiste Morin (1583-1656), in his younger days physician
to the Bishop of Boulogne and the Duke of Luxemburg, became in
1630 professor of mathematics at the College Royale. His ^ chief
contribution to the problem of the determination of longitude is his
Longitudinum terrestrium et coelestium nova et hactenus optata
scientia (1634). He also wrote against Copernicus in his Famosi
problematis de telluris motu vel quiete hactenus optata solutio (1631),
and against Lansberg in his Responsio pro telluris quiete (1634).
1 The work appeared at Leyden in 1626, at Amsterdam in 1634, at
Copenhagen in 1640, and again at Leyden in 1650. The title of the
1640 edition is Arithmeticae Libri II et Geometriae Libri VI. The
work on which it is based is the Arithmeticae et Geometriae Prac-
tica, which appeared in 1611.
2 The father's name was Adriaan, and Lalande says that it was
Montucla who first made the mistake of calling him Peter, thinking
100 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
to the circumference as 113 to 355. The error it at the rate
'of about a foot in 2,000 miles. Peter Metius, having his
attention called to the subject by the false quadrature of
Duchesne, found that the ratio lay between 33%oe and 37%2o-
He then took the liberty of taking the mean of both numera-
tors and denominators, giving 35%is. He had no right to pre-
sume that this mean was better than either of the extremes ;
nor does it appear positively that he did so. He published
nothing; but his son Adrian,3 when Van Ceulen's work
showed how near his father's result came to the truth, first
made it, known in the work above. (See Eng. Cyclop., art.
"Quadrature.")
ON INHABITABLE PLANETS.
A discourse concerning a new world and another planet, in two
books. London, 1640, Svo.1
Cosmotheoros : or conjectures concerning the planetary worlds
and their inhabitants. Written in Latin, by Christianus Huy-
ghens. This translation was first published in 1698. Glasgow
1757, 8vo. [The original is also of 1698.] 2
The first work is by Bishop Wilkins, being the third
edition, [first in 1638] of the first book, "That the Moon
may be a Planet" ; and the first edition of the second work,
that the initials P. M. stood for Petrus Metius, when in reality they
stood for piae memoriae ! The ratio ""/us was known in China hun-
dreds of years before his time. See note 3, page 52.
'Adrian Metius (1571-1635) was professor of medicine at the
University of Franeker. His work was, however, in the domain of
astronomy, and in this domain he published several treatises.
1 The first edition was entitled : The Discovery of a World in the
Moone. Or, a Discourse Tending to prove that 'tis probable there
may be another habitable World in that Planet. 1638, Svo. The
fourth edition appeared in 1684. John Wilkins (1614-1672) was
Warden of Wadham College, Oxford ; master of Trinity, Cambridge ;
and, later, Bishop of Chester. He was influential in founding the
Royal Society.
2 The first edition was entitled: C. Hugenii Koo-^o^ewpos, give de
Terris coelestibus, earumque ornatu, conjecturae, The Hague, 1698,
4to. There were several editions. It was also translated into French
(1718), and there was another English edition (1722). Huyghens
(1629-1695) was one of the best mathematical physicists of his time.
ON INHABITABLE PLANETS. O
"That the Earth may be a Planet." [See more under the
reprint of 1802.] Whether other planets be inhabited or
not, that is, crowded with organisations some of them having
consciousness, is not for me to decide; but I should be
much surprised if, on going to one of them, I should find
it otherwise. The whole dispute tacitly assumes that, if
the stars and planets be inhabited, it must be by things of
which we can form some idea. But for aught we know,
what number of such bodies there are, so many organisms
may there be, of which we have no way of thinking nor
of speaking. This is seldom remembered. In like manner
it is usually forgotten that the matter of other planets may
be of different chemistry from ours. There may be no
oxygen and hydrogen in Jupiter, which may have gens of
its own.3 But this must not be said: it would limit the
omniscience of the a priori school of physical inquirers, the
larger half of the whole, and would be very unphilosophical.
Nine-tenths of my best paradoxers come out from among
this larger half, because they are just a little more than of
it at their entrance.
There was a discussion on the subject some years ago,
which began with
The plurality of worlds : an Essay. London, 1853, 8vo. [By Dr.
Wm. Whewell, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge]. A
dialogue on the plurality of worlds, being a supplement to the
Essay on that subject. [First found in the second edition,
1854; removed to the end in subsequent editions, and separate
copies issued.]4
A work of skeptical character, insisting on analogies
which prohibit the positive conclusion that the planets, stars,
etc., are what we should call inhabited worlds. It produced
8 It is hardly necessary to say that science has made enormous
advance in the chemistry of the universe since these words were
written.
4 William Whewell (1794-1866) is best known through his History
of the Inductive Sciences (1837) and Philosophy of the Inductive
Sciences (1840).
102 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
several works and a large amount of controversy in reviews.
The last predecessor of whom I know was
Plurality of Worlds By Alexander Maxwell. Second Edition.
London, 1820, 8vo.
This work is directed against the plurality by an author
who does not admit modern astronomy. It was occasioned
by Dr. Chalmers's5 celebrated discourses on religion in con-
nection with astronomy. The notes contain many citations
on the gravity controversy, from authors now very little
read: and this is its present value. I find no mention of
Maxwell, not even in Watt.6 He communicated with man-
kind without the medium of a publisher; and, from Vieta
till now, this method has always been favorable to loss of
books.
A correspondent informs me that Alex. Maxwell, who
wrote on the plurality of worlds, in 1820, was a law-book-
seller and publisher (probably his own publisher) in Bell
Yard. He had peculiar notions, which he was fond of dis-
cussing with his customers. He was a bit of a Sweden-
borgian.
INHABITED PLANETS IN FICTION.
There is a class of hypothetical creations which do not
belong to my subject, because they are acknowledged to be
fictions, as those of Lucian,1 Rabelais,2 Swift, Francis God-
5 Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847), the celebrated Scotch preacher.
These discourses were delivered while he was minister in a large
parish in the poorest part of Glasgow, and in them he attempted to
bring science into harmony with the Bible. He was afterwards
professor of moral philosophy at St. Andrew's (1823-28), and pro-
fessor of theology at Edinburgh (1828). He became the leader of
a schism from the Scotch Presbyterian Church, — the Free Church.
"That is, in Robert Watt's (1774-1819) Bibliotheca Britannica
(posthumous, 1824). Nor is it given in the Dictionary of National
Biography.
1 The late Greek satirist and poet, c. I2O-C. 200 A. D.
* Francois Rabelais (c. 1490-1553) the humorist who created Pan-
tagruel (1533) and Gargantua (1532). His work as a physician and
as editor of the works of Galen and Hippocrates is less popularly
known.
INHABITED PLANETS IN FICTION. 103
win,3 Voltaire, etc. All who have more positive notions as to
either the composition or organization of other worlds, than
the reasonable conclusion that our Architect must be quite
able to construct millions of other buildings on millions of
other plans, ought to rank with the writers just mentioned,
in all but self-knowledge. Of every one of their systems
I say, as the Irish Bishop said of Gulliver's book, — I don't
believe half of it. Huyghens had been preceded by Fon-
tenelle,4 who attracted more attention. Huyghens is very
fanciful and very positive ; but he gives a true account of his
method. "But since there's no hopes of a Mercury to carry
us such a journey, we shall e'en be contented with what's
in our power: we shall suppose ourselves there. ..." And
yet he says, "We have proved that they live in societies,
have hands and feet. ..." Kircher5 had gone to the stars
before him, but would not find any life in them, either animal
or vegetable.
The question of the inhabitants of a particular planet
is one which has truth on one side or the other : either there
are some inhabitants, or there are none. Fortunately, it is
of no consequence which is true. But there are many
cases where the balance is equally one of truth and false-
hood, in which the choice is a matter of importance. My
work selects, for the most part, sins against demonstration:
but the world is full of questions of fact or opinion, in which
a struggling minority will become a majority, or else will
8 Francis Godwin (1562-1633) bishop of Llandaff and Hereford.
Besides some valuable historical works he wrote The Man in the
Moone, or a Discourse of a voyage thither by Domingo Consoles,
the Speed Messenger of London, 1638.
* Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle (1657-1757), historian, critic,
mathematician, Secretary of the Academic des Sciences, and member
of the Academic Franchise. His Entretien sur la pluralite des
mondes appeared at Paris in 1686.
"Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680), Jesuit, professor of mathe-
matics and philosophy, and later of Hebrew and Syriac, at Wurz-
burg; still later professor of mathematics and Hebrew at Rome.
He wrote several works on physics. His collection of mathematical
instruments and other antiquities became the basis of the Kircherian
Museum at Rome.
104 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
be gradually annihilated: and each of the cases subdivides
into results of good, and results of evil. What is to be
done?
"Periculosum est credere et non credere;
Hippolitus obiit quia novercae creditum est;
Cassandrse quia non creditum ruit Ilium:
Ergo exploranda est veritas multum prius
Quam stulta prove judicet sententia."6
Nova Demonstratio immobilitatis terrse petita ex virtute mag-
netica. By Jacobus Grandamicus. Flexiae (La Fleche), 1645,
4to.7
No magnetic body can move about its poles: the earth
is a magnetic body, therefore, etc. The iron and its mag-
netism are typical of two natures in one person; so it is
said, "Si exaltatus fuero a terra, omnia traham ad me ip-
sum."8
A VENETIAN BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
Le glorie degli incogniti, o vero gli huomini illustri dell' acca-
demia de' signori incogniti di Venetia. Venice, 1647, 4to.
This work is somewhat like a part of my own: it is a
budget of Venetian nobodies who wished to be somebodies ;
but paradox is not the only means employed. It is of a
serio-comic character, gives genuine portraits in copper-
plate, and grave lists of works ; but satirical accounts. The
astrologer Andrew Argoli1 is there, and his son; both of
whom, with some of the others, have place in modern works
'"Both belief and non-belief are dangerous. Hippolitus died
because his stepmother was believed. Troy fell because Cassandra
was not believed. Therefore the truth should be investigated long
before foolish opinion can properly judge." (Proves probe?).
7 Jacobus Grandamicus (Jacques Grandami) was born at Nantes
in 1588 and died at Paris in 1672. He was professor of theology
and philosophy in the Jesuit colleges at Rennes, Tours, Rouen, and
other places. He wrote several works on astronomy.
8 "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto
me." John xii. 32.
1 Andrea Argoli (1568-1657) wrote a number of works on astron-
omy, and computed ephemerides from 1621 to 1700.
A VENETIAN BUDGET OF PARADOXES. 105
on biography. Argoli's discovery that logarithms facilitate
easy processes, but increase the labor of difficult ones, is
worth recording.
Controversise de vera circuli mensura inter C. S. Longo-
montanum et Jo. Pellium.2 Amsterdam, 1647, 4to.
Longomontanus,3 a Danish astronomer of merit, squared
the circle in 1644: he found out that the diameter 43 gives
the square root of 18252 for the circumference ; which gives
3.14185... for the ratio. Pell answered him, and being
a kind of circulating medium, managed to engage in the
controversy names known and unknown, as Roberval,
Hobbes, Carcavi, Lord Charles Cavendish, Pallieur, Mer-
senne, Tassius, Baron Wolzogen, Descartes, Cavalieri and
Golius.4 Among them, of course, Longomontanus was made
8 So in the original edition of the Budget. It is Johannem
Pellum in the original title. John Pell (1610 or 1611-1685) studied
at Cambridge and Oxford, and was professor of mathematics at
Amsterdam (1643-46) and Breda (1646-52). He left many manu-
scripts but published little. His name attaches by accident to an
interesting equation recently studied with care by Dit E. E. Whit-
ford (New York, 1912).
8Christianus Longomontanus (Christen Longberg or Lumborg)
was born in 1569 at Longberg, Jutland, and died in 1647 at Copen-
hagen. He was an assistant of Tycho Brahe and accepted the
diurnal while denying the orbital motion of the earth. His Cyclo-
metria e lunulis reciproce demonstrate, appeared in 1612 under the
name of Christen Severin, the latter being his family name. He
wrote several other works ,pn the quadrature problem, and some
treatises on astronomy.
*The names are really pretty well known. Giles Persone de
Roberval was born at Roberval near Beauvais in 1602, and died at
Paris in 1675. He was professor of philosophy at the College Ger-
vais at Paris, and later at the College Royal. He claimed to have
discovered the theory of indivisibles before Cavalieri, and his work
is set forth in his Traite des indivisibles which appeared post-
humously in 1693.
Hobbes (1588-1679), the political and social philosopher, lived
a good part of his time (1610-41) in France where he was tutor to
several young noblemen, including the Cavendishes. His Leviathan
(1651) is said to have influenced Spinoza, Leibnitz, and Rousseau.
His Quadratura circuli, cubatio sphaerae, duplicatio cubi. . . (London,
1669), Rosetum geometricum. .. (London, 1671), and Lux Mathe-
j censura doctrinae Wallisianae contra Rosetum Hobbesii (Lon-
106 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
mincemeat : but he is said to have insisted on the discovery
in his epitaph.5
don, 1674) are entirely forgotten to-day. (See a further note, in-
fra.)
Pierre de Carcavi, a native of Lyons, died at Paris in 1684. He
was a member of parliament, royal librarian, and member of the
Academic des Sciences. His attempt to prove the impossibility of
the quadrature appeared in 1645. He was a frequent correspondent
of Descartes.
Cavendish (1591-1654) was Sir (not Lord) Charles. He was,
like De Morgan himself, a bibliophile in the domain of mathematics.
His life was one of struggle, his term as member of parliament under
Charles I being followed by gallant service in the royal army. After
the war he sought refuge on the continent where he met most of the
mathematicians of his day. He left a number of manuscripts on
mathematics, which his widow promptly disposed of for waste paper.
If De Morgan's manuscripts had been so treated we should not have
had his revision of his Budget of Paradoxes.
Marin Mersenne (1588-1648), a minorite, living in the cloisters
at Nevers and Paris, was one of the greatest Franciscan scholars.
He edited Euclid, Apollonius, Archimedes, Theodosius, and Mene-
laus (Paris. 1626), translated the Mechanics of Galileo into French
(1634), wrote Harmonicorum Libri XII (1636), and Cogitata phy-
sico-mathematica (1644), and taught theology and philosophy at
Nevers.
Johann Adolph Tasse (Tassius) was born in 1585 and died at
Hamburg in 1654. He was professor of mathematics in the Gym-
nasium at Hamburg, and wrote numerous works on astronomy,
chronology, statics, and elementary mathematics.
Johann Ludwig, Baron von Wolzogen, seems to have been one
of the early Unitarians, called Fratres Polonorum because they took
refuge in Poland. Some of his works appear in the Bibliotheca
Fratrum Polonorum (Amsterdam, 1656). I find no one by the name
who was contributing to mathematics at this time.
Descartes is too well known to need mention in this connection.
Bonaventura Cavalieri (1598-1647) was a Jesuit, a pupil of Gali-
leo, and professor of mathematics at Bologna. His greatest work,
Geometric, indivisibilibus continuorum nova quadam ratione pro-
mota, in which he makes a noteworthy step towards the calculus,
appeared in 1635.
Jacob (Jacques) Golius was born at the Hague in 1596 and died
at Leyden in 1667. His travels in Morocco and Asia Minor (1622-
1629) gave him such knowledge of Arabic that he became professor
of that language at Leyden. After Snell's death he became pro-
fessor of mathematics there. He translated Arabic works on mathe-
matics and astronomy into Latin.
* It would be interesting to follow up these rumors, beginning
perhaps with the tomb of Archimedes. The Ludolph van Ceulen
story is very likely a myth. The one about Fagnano may be such.
The Bernoulli tomb does have the spiral, however (such as it is),
as any one may see in the cloisters at Basel to-day.
THE CIRCULATING MEDIA OF MATHEMATICS. 107
THE CIRCULATING MEDIA OF MATHEMATICS.
The great circulating mediums, who wrote to everybody,
heard from everybody, and sent extracts to everybody else,
have been Father Mersenne, John Collins, and the late
Professor Schumacher: all "late" no doubt, but only the
last recent enough to be so styled. If M.C.S. should ever
again stand for "Member of the Corresponding Society,"
it should raise an acrostic thought of the three. There is
an allusion to Mersenne's occupation in Hobbes's reply to
him. He wanted to give Hobbes, who was very ill at Paris,
the Roman Eucharist: but Hobbes said, "I have settled all
that long ago; when did you hear from Gassendi?" We
are reminded of William's answer to Burnet. John Collins
disseminated Newton, among others. Schumacher ought
to have been called the postmaster-general of astronomy,
as Collins was called the attorney-general of mathematics.1
'Collins (1625-1683) was secretary of the Royal Society, and
was "a kind of register of all new improvements in mathematics."
His office brought him into correspondence with all of the English
scientists, and he was influential in the publication of various im-
portant works, including Branker's translation of the algebra by
Rhonius, with notes by Pell, which was the first work to contain the
present English-American symbol of division. He also helped in
the publication of editions of Archimedes and Apollonius, of Ker-
sey's Algebra, and of the works of Wallis. His profession was that
of accountant and civil engineer, and he wrote three unimportant
works on mathematics (one published posthumously, and the others
in 1652 and 1658).
Heinrich Christian Schumacher (1780-1850) was professor of
astronomy at Copenhagen and director of the observatory at Al-
tona. His translation of Carnot's Geometric de position (1807)
brought him into personal relations with Gauss, and the friendship
was helpful to Schumacher. He was a member of many learned
societies and had a large circle of acquaintances. He published
numerous monographs and works on astronomy.
Gassendi (1592-1655) might well have been included by De
Morgan in the group, since he knew and was a friend of most of
the important mathematicians of his day. Like Mersenne, he was a
minorite, but he was a friend of Galileo and Kepler, and wrote a
work under the title Institutio astronomica, juxta hypotheses Coper-
nici, Tychonis-Brahaei et Ptolemaei (1645). He taught philosophy
at Aix, and was later professor of mathematics at the College
Royal at Paris.
Burnet is the Bishop Gilbert Burnet (1643-1715) who was so
strongly anti-Romanistic that he left England during the reign of
108 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
THE SYMPATHETIC POWDER.
A late discourse by Sir Kenelme Digby Rendered into
English by R. White. London, 1658, I2mo.
On this work see Notes and Queries, 2d series, vii. 231,
299, 445, viii. 190. It contains the celebrated sympathetic
powder. I am still in much doubt as to the connection of
Digby with this tract.1 Without entering on the subject
here, I observe that in Birch's History of the Royal Society,2
to which both Digby and White belonged, Digby, though
he brought many things before the Society, never mentioned
the powder, which is connected only with the names of
Evelyn3 and Sir Gilbert Talbot.4 The sympathetic powder
was that which cured by anointing the weapon with its
salve instead of the wound. I have long been convinced
that it was efficacious. The directions were to keep the
James II and joined the ranks of the Prince of Orange. William
made him bishop of Salisbury.
1 There is some substantial basis for De Morgan's doubts as to
the connection of that mirandula of his age, Sir Kenelm Digby
(1603-1665), with the famous poudre de sympathie. It is true that
he was just the one to prepare such a powder. A dilletante in
everything, — learning, war, diplomacy, religion, letters, and science,
— he was the one to exploit a fraud of this nature. He was an
astrologer, an alchemist, and a fabricator of tales, and well did
Henry Stubbes characterize him as "the very Pliny of our age for
lying." He first speaks of the powder in a lecture given at Mont-
pellier in 1658, and in the same year he published the address at
Paris under the title: Discours fait en une celebre assemblee par le
chevalier Digby ... .touchant la guerison de playes par la poudre de
sympathie. The London edition referred to by De Morgan also
came out in 1658, and several editions followed^ it in England, France,
and Germany. But Nathaniel Highmore in his History of Genera-
tion (1651) referred to the concoction as "Talbot's Powder" some
years before Digby took it up. The basis seems to have been vitriol,
and it was claimed that it would heal a wound by simply being
applied to a bandage taken from it.
'This work by Thomas Birch (1705-1766) came out in 1756-57.
Birch was a voluminous writer on English history. He was a friend
of Dr. Johnson and of Walpole, and he wrote a life of Robert Boyle.
8 We know so much about John Evelyn (1620-1706) through the
diary which he began at the age of eleven, that we forget his works
on navigation and architecture.
4 1 suppose this was the seventh Earl of Shrewsbury (1553-1616).
HOBBES AS A MATHEMATICIAN. 109
wound clean and cool, and to take care of diet, rubbing the
salve on the knife or sword.5 If we remember the dreadful
notions upon drugs which prevailed, both as to quantity
and quality, we shall readily see that any way of not dressing
the wound would have been useful. If the physicians had
taken the hint, had been careful of diet etc., and had poured
the little barrels of medicine down the throat of a practicable
doll, they would have had their magical cures as well as the
surgeons.8 Matters are much improved now; the quantity
of medicine given, even by orthodox physicians, would have
been called infinitesimal by their professional ancestors. Ac-
cordingly, the College of Physicians has a right to abandon
its motto, which is Ars longa, vita brevis, meaning Practice
is long, so life is short.
HOBBES AS A MATHEMATICIAN.
Examinatio et emendatio Mathematicae Hodiernse. By Thomas
Hobbes. London, 1666, 4to.
In six dialogues: the sixth contains a quadrature of the
circle.1 But there is another edition of this work, without
place or date on the title-page, in which the quadrature is
omitted. This seems to be connected with the publication
5 This is interesting in view of the modern aseptic practice of
surgery and the antiseptic treatment of wounds inaugurated by
the late Lord Lister.
6 Perhaps De Morgan had not heard the ban mot of Dr. Holmes :
"I firmly believe that if the whole materia medica could be sunk to
the bottom of the sea, it would be all the better for mankind and
all the worse for the fishes."
1 The full title is worth giving, because it shows the mathematical
interests of Hobbes, and the nature of the six dialogues : Examina-
tio et emendatio^ mathematicae hodiernae qualis explicatur in libris
Johannis Wallisii geometriae professoris Saviliani in Academia Oxo-
niensi: distributa in sex dialogos (i. De mathematicae origine...;
2. De principiis traditis ab Euclide; 3. De demonstratione operationum
arithmeticarum. . . ; 4. De rationibus; $.De angula contactus, de sec-
tionibus coni, et arithmetica infinitorum; 6. Dimensio circuli tribus
methodis demonstrata. . .item cycloidis verae descriptio et proprie-
tates aliquot.') Londini, 1660 (not 1666). For a full discussion of
the controversy over the circle, see George Croom Robertson's biog-
raphy of Hobbes in the eleventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britan-
nica.
110 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
of another quadrature, without date, but about 1670, as
may be judged from its professing to answer a tract of
Wallis, printed in 1669.2 The title is "Quadrature circuli
cubatio sphserse, duplicatio cubi," 4to.8 Hobbes, who began
in 1655, was very wrong in his quadrature; but, though
not a Gregory St. Vincent,4 he was not the ignoramus in
geometry that he is sometimes supposed. His writings,
erroneous as they are in many things, contain acute remarks
on points of principle. He is wronged by being coupled
with Joseph Scaliger, as the two great instances of men of
letters who have come into geometry to help the mathemati-
cians out of their difficulty. I have never seen Scaliger's quad-
rature,5 except in the answers of Adrianus Romanus,6 Vieta
and Clavius, and in the extracts of Kastner.7 Scaliger had
no right to such strong opponents: Erasmus or Bentley
might just as well have tried the problem, and either would
have done much better in any twenty minutes of his life.8
AN ESTIMATE OF SCALIGER.
Scaliger inspired some mathematicians with great respect
for his geometrical knowledge. Vieta, the first man of his
time, who answered him, had such regard for his opponent
/This is his Animadversions upon Mr. Hobbes* late book De
principiis et ratio cinatione geometrarum, 1666, or his Hobbianae
quadraturae circuli, cubationis sphaerae et duplications cubi con-
futatio, also of 1669.
"This is the work of 1669 referred to above.
4Gregoire de St. Vincent (1584-1667) published his Opus geo-
metricum quadraturae circuli et sectionum coni at Antwerp in 1647.
"This appears in 7. Scaligeri cyclometrica elementa duo, Lug-
duni Batav., 1594.
6Adriaen van Roomen (1561-1615) gave the value of if to sixteen
decimal places in his Ideae mathematicae pars prima (1593), and
wrote his In Ar chime dis circuli dimensionem expositio & analysis in
1597-
T Kastner. See note 5 on page 43.
8 Bentley (1662-1742) might have done it, for as the head of Trin-
ity College, Cambridge, and a follower of Newton, he knew some
mathematics. Erasmus (1466-1536) lived a little too early to at-
tempt it, although his brilliant satire might have been used to good
advantage against those who did try.
AN ESTIMATE OF SCALIGER. Ill
as made him conceal Scaliger's name. Not that he is very
respectful in his manner of proceeding: the following dry
quiz on his opponent's logic must have been very cutting,
being true. "In grammaticis, dare navibus Austros, et dare
naves Austris, sunt seque significantia. Sed in Geometricis,
aliud est adsumpsisse circulum BCD non esse majorem tri-
ginta sex segmentis BCDF, aliud circulo BCD non esse majora
triginta sex segmenta BCDF. Ilia adsumptiuncula vera est,
hsec falsa."1 Isaac Casaubon,2 in one of his letters to De
Thou,3 relates that, he and another paying a visit to Vieta,
the conversation fell upon Scaliger, of whom the host said
that he believed Scaliger was the only man who perfectly
understood mathematical writers, especially the Greek ones :
and that he thought more of Scaliger when wrong than of
many others when right ; "pluris se Scaligerum vel erran-
tem facere quam multos KaTopOovvras"* This must have been
before Scaliger's quadrature (1594). There is an old story
of some one saying, "Mallem cum Scaligero errare, quam
cum Clavio recte sapere."5 This I cannot help suspecting
to have been a version of Vieta's speech with Clavius satir-
ically inserted, on account of the great hostility which Vieta
showed towards Clavius in the latter years of his life.
Montucla could not have read with care either Scaliger's
quadrature or Clavius's refutation. He gives the first a
wrong date: he assures the world that there is no question
about Scaliger's quadrature being wrong, in the eyes of
geometers at least : and he states that Clavius mortified him
1 "In grammar, to give the winds to the ships and to give the ships
to the winds mean the same thing. But in geometry it is one thing
to assume the circle BCD not greater than thirty-six segments
BCDF, and another (to assume) the thirty-six segments BCDF not
greater than the circle. The one assumption is true, the other false."
3 The Greek scholar (1559-1614) who edited a Greek and Latin
edition of Aristotle in 1590.
'Jacques Auguste de Thou (1553-1617), the historian and states-
man.
' "To value Scaliger higher even when wrong, than the multitude
when right."
5 "I would rather err with Scaliger than be right with Clavius."
112 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
extremely by showing that it made the circle less than its
inscribed dodecagon, which is, of course, equivalent to as-
serting that a straight line is not always the shortest distance
between two points. Did Clavius show this? No, it was
Scaliger himself who showed it, boasted of it, and declared
it to be a "noble paradox" that a theorem false in geometry
is true in arithmetic; a thing, he says with great triumph,
not noticed by Archimedes himself! He says in so many
words that the periphery of the dodecagon is greater than
that of the circle; and that the more sides there are to the
inscribed figure, the more does it exceed the circle in which
it is. And here are the words, on the independent testi-
monies of Clavius and Kastner:
"Ambitus dodecagoni circulo inscribendi plus potest
quam circuli ambitus. Et quanto deinceps plurium laterum
fuerit polygonum circulo inscribendum, tanto plus poterit
ambitus polygoni quam ambitus circuli."6
There is much resemblance between Joseph Scaliger
and William Hamilton,7 in a certain impetuousity of char-
acter, and inaptitude to think of quantity. Scaliger main-
tained that the arc of a circle is less than its chord in arith-
metic, though greater in geometry; Hamilton arrived at
two quantities which are identical, but the greater the one
the less the other. But, on the whole, I liken Hamilton
rather to Julius than to Joseph. On this last hero of litera-
ture I repeat Thomas Edwards,8 who says that a man is un-
learned who, be his other knowledge what it may, does not
8 " The perimeter of the dodecagon to be inscribed in a circle is
greater than the perimeter of the circle. And the more sides a
polygon to be inscribed in a circle successively has, so much the
greater will the perimeter of the polygon be than the perimeter of
the circle."
7De Morgan took, perhaps, the more delight in speaking thus of
Sir William Hamilton (1788-1856) because of a spirited controversy
that they had in 1847 over the theory of logic. Possibly, too, Sir
William's low opinion of mathematics had its influence.
8 Edwards (1699-1757) wrote The canons of criticism (1747) in
which he gave a scathing burlesque on Warburton's Shakespeare.
It went through six editions.
JOHN GRAUNT AS A PARADOXER. 113
understand the subject he writes about. And now one of
many instances in which literature gives to literature char-
acter in science. Anthony Teissier,9 the learned annotator
of De Thou's biographies, says of Finseus, "II se vanta
sans raison avoir trouve la quadrature du cercle; la gloire
de cette admirable decouverte etait reservee a Joseph Sca-
liger, comme 1'a ecrit Scevole de St. Marthe."10
JOHN GRAUNT AS A PARADOXER.
Natural and Political Observations upon the Bills of Mor-
tality. By John Graunt, citizen of London. London, 1662, 4to.1
This is a celebrated book, the first great work upon mor-
tality. But the author, going ultra crepidam, has attributed
to the motion of the moon in her orbit all the tremors which
she gets from a shaky telescope.2 But there is another para-
dox about this book : the above absurd opinion is attributed
to that excellent mechanist, Sir William Petty, who passed
his days among the astronomers. Graunt did not write his
own book! Anthony Wood3 hints that Petty "assisted, or
put into a way" his old benefactor : no doubt the two friends
talked the matter over many a time. Burnet and Pepys4
state that Petty wrote the book. It is enough for me that
9 Antoine Teissier (born in 1632) published his Eloges des hommes
savants, tires de I'histoire de M. de Thou in 1683.
" He boasted without reason of having found the quadrature of
the circle. The glory of this admirable discovery was reserved for
Joseph Scaliger, as Scevole de St. Marthe has written."
1 Natural and political observations mentioned in the following
Index, and made upon the Bills of Mortality With reference to
the government, religion, trade, growth, ayre, and diseases of the
said city. London, 1662, 4to. The book went through several editions.
*Ne sutor ultra crepidam, "Let the cobbler stick to his last," as
we now say.
8 The author (1632-1695) of the Historia et Antiquitates Universi-
tatis Oxoniensis (1674). See note 6, page 98.
4 The mathematical guild owes Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) for
something besides his famous diary (1659-1669). Not ^only was he
president of the Royal Society (1684), but he was interested in
establishing Sir William Boreman's mathematical school at Green-
wich.
114 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
Graunt, whose honesty was never impeached, uses the plain-
est incidental professions of authorship throughout ; that he
was elected into the Royal Society because he was the
author; that Petty refers to him as author in scores of
places, and published an edition, as editor, after Graunt's
death, with Graunt's name of course. The note on Graunt
in the Biographia Britannica may be consulted; it seems
to me decisive. Mr. C. B. Hodge, an able actuary, has done
the best that can be done on the other side in the Assurance
Magazine, viii. 234. If I may say what is in my mind,
without imputation of disrespect, I suspect some actuaries
have a bias: they would rather have Petty the greater for
their Coryphaeus than Graunt the less.5
Pepys is an ordinary gossip: but Burnet's account has
an animus which is of a worse kind. He talks of "one
Graunt, a Papist, under whose name Sir William Petty6
published his observations on the bills of mortality." He
then gives the cock without a bull story of Graunt being
a trustee of the New River Company, and shutting up the
cocks and carrying off their keys, just before the fire of
London, by which a supply of water was delayed.7 It was
one of the first objections made to Burnet's work, that
Graunt was not a trustee at the time; and Maitland, the
historian of London, ascertained from the books of the
Company that he was not admitted until twenty-three days
after the breaking out of the fire. Graunt's first admission
"John Graunt (1620-1674) was a draper by trade, and was a
member of the Common Council of London until he lost office by
turning Romanist. Although a shopkeeper, he was elected to the
Royal Society on the special recommendation of Charles II. Petty
edited the fifth edition of his work, adding much to its size and value,
and this may be the basis of Burnet's account of the authorship.
0 Petty (1623-1687) was a mathematician and economist, and a
friend of Pell and Sir Charles Cavendish. His survey of Ireland,
made for Cromwell, was one of the first to be made on a large scale
in a scientific manner. He was one of the founders of the Royal
Society.
TThe story probably arose from Graunt's recent conversion to
the Roman Catholic faith.
MANKIND A GULLIBLE LOT. 115
to the Company took place on the very day on which a com-
mittee was appointed to inquire into the cause of the fire.
So much for Burnet. I incline to the view that Graunt's
setting London on fire strongly corroborates his having
written on the bills of mortality: every practical man takes
stock before he commences a grand operation in business.
MANKIND A GULLIBLE LOT.
De Cometis : or a discourse of the natures and effects of Comets,
as they are philosophically, historically, and astrologically con-
sidered. With a brief (yet full) account of the III late Comets,
or blazing stars, visible to all Europe. And what (in a natural
way of judicature) they portend. Together with some obser-
vations on the nativity of the Grand Seignior. By John Gad-
bury, ^iXo/cta^/AciTi/ciSs. London, 1665, 4to.
Gadbury, though his name descends only in astrology,
was a well-informed astronomer.1 D'Israeli2 sets down Gad-
bury, Lilly, Wharton, Booker, etc., as rank rogues: I think
him quite wrong. The easy belief in roguery and inten-
tional imposture which prevails in educated society is, to
my mind, a greater presumption against the honesty of
mankind than all the roguery and imposture itself. Putting
aside mere swindling for the sake of gain, and looking at
speculation and paradox, I find very little reason to suspect
wilful deceit.3 My opinion of mankind is founded upon the
1He was born in 1627 and died in 1704. He published a series
of ephemerides, beginning in 1659.- He was imprisoned in 1679, at
the time of the "Popish Plot," and again for treason in 1690. His
important astrological works are the Animal Cornatum, or the Horn'd
Beast (1654) and The Nativity of the late King Charls (1659).
3 Isaac DTsraeli (1766-1848), in his Curiosities of Literature
(1791), speaking of Lilly, says: "I shall observe of this egregious
astronomer, that there is in this work, so much artless narrative,
and at the same time so much palpable imposture, that it is difficult
to know when he is speaking what he really believes to be the truth."
He goes on to say that Lilly relates that "those adepts whose char-
acters he has drawn were the lowest miscreants of the town. Most
of them had taken the air in the pillory, and others had conjured
themselves up to the gallows. This seems a true statement of facts.
8 It is difficult to estimate William Lilly (1602-1681) fairly. His
Merlini Anglici ephemeris, issued annually from 1642 to 1681, brought
116 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
mournful fact that, so far as I can see, they find within
themselves the means of believing in a thousand times as
much as there is to believe in, judging by experience. I do
not say anything against Isaac D'Israeli for talking his time.
We are all in the team, and we all go the road, but we do
not all draw.
A FORERUNNER OF A WRITTEN ESPERANTO.
An essay towards a real character and a philosophical language.
By John Wilkins [Dean of Ripon, afterwards Bishop of Ches-
ter].1 London, 1668, folio.
This work is celebrated, but little known. Its object
gives it a right to a place among paradoxes. It proposes a
language — if that be the proper name — in which things
and their relations shall be denoted by signs, not words:
so that any person, whatever may be his mother tongue,
may read it in his own words. This is an obvious possi-
bility, and, I am afraid, an obvious impracticability. One
man may construct such a system — Bishop Wilkins has done
it — but where is the man who will learn it? The second
tongue makes a language, as the second blow makes a fray.
There has been very little curiosity about his performance,
the work is scarce ; and I do not know where to refer the
reader for any account of its details, except, to the partial
reprint of Wilkins presently mentioned under 1802, in which
there is an unsatisfactory abstract. There is nothing in the
Biographia Britannica, except discussion of Anthony Wood's
statement that the hint was derived from Dalgarno's book,
him a great deal of money. Sir George Wharton (1617-1681) also
published an almanac annually from 1641 to 1666. He tried to ex-
pose John Booker (1603-1667) by a work entitled Mercurio-Coelicio-
Mastix; or, an Anti-caveat to all such, as have (heretofore} had the
misfortune to be Cheated and Deluded by that Grand and Traiterous
Impostor of this Rebellious Age, John Booker, 1644. Booker was
"licenser of mathematical [astrological] publications," and as such
he had quarrels with Lilly, Wharton, and others.
JSee note i on page 100.
GREGOIRE DE ST. VINCENT. 117
De Signis, 1661. 2 Hamilton (Discussions, Art. 5, "Dal-
garno") does not say a word on this point, beyond quoting
Wood; and Hamilton, though he did now and then write
about his countrymen with a rough-nibbed pen, knew per-
fectly well how to protect their priorities.
GREGOIRE DE ST. VINCENT.
Problema Austriacum. Plus ultra Quadratura Circuli. Auctore
P. Gregorio a Sancto Vincentio Soc. Jesu., Antwerp, 1647,
folio. — Opus Geometricum posthumum ad Mesolabium. By
the same. Gandavi [Ghent], 1668, folio.1
The first book has more than 1200 pages, on all kinds of
geometry. Gregory St. Vincent is the greatest of circle-
squarers, and his investigations led him into many truths:
he found the property of the area of the hyperbola2 which \
led to Napier's logarithms being called hyperbolic. Mon-
tucla says of him, with sly truth, that no one has ever
squared the circle with so much genius, or, excepting his
principal object, with so much success.3 His reputation, and
the many merits of his work, led to a sharp controversy on
his quadrature, which ended in its complete exposure by
Huyghens and others. He had a small school of followers,
who defended him in print.
2 This is the Ars Signorum, vulgo character universalis et lingua
philosophica, that appeared at London in 1661, 8vo. George Dal-
garno anticipated modern methods in the teaching of the deaf and
dumb.
1 See note 4 on page no.
2 If the hyperbola is referred to the asymptotes as axes, the area
between two ordinates (x-=a, x = b) is the difference of the loga-
rithms of a and b to the base e. E. g., in the case of the hyperbola
xy •=. i, the area between x = a and x = I is log a.
"'On ne peut lui refuser la justice de remarquer que personne
avant lui ne s'est porte dans cette recherche ayec autant de genie,
& meme, si nous en exceptons son objet principal, avec autant de
succes." Quadrature du Cercle, p. 66.
118 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
RENE DE SLUSE.
Renati Francisci Slusii Mesolabum. Leodii Eburonum [Liege],
1668, 410.1
The Mesolabum is the solution of the problem of finding
two mean proportionals, which Euclid's geometry does not
attain. Slusius is a true geometer, and uses the ellipse, etc. :
but he is sometimes ranked with the trisecters, for which
reason I place him here, with this explanation.
The finding of two mean proportionals is the prelim-
inary to the famous old problem of the duplication of the
cube, proposed by Apollo (not Apollonius) himself. D'ls-
raeli speaks of the "six follies of science," — the quadrature,
the duplication, the perpetual motion, the philosopher's
stone, magic, and astrology. He might as well have added
the trisection, to make the mystic number seven : but had he
done so, he would still have been very lenient; only seven
follies in all science, from mathematics to chemistry! Sci-
ence might have said to such a judge — as convicts used to
say who got seven years, expecting it for life, "Thank you,
my Lord, and may you sit there till they are over," — may
the Curiosities of Literature outlive the Follies of Science!
JAMES GREGORY.
1668. In this year James Gregory, in his Vera Circuli
et Hyperboles Quadratura* held himself to have proved that
1The title proceeds: Seu duae mediae proportionates inter ex-
tremas datas per circulum et per infinitas hyperbolas, vel ellipses et
per quamlibet exhibitae. . . .Rene Francois, Baron de Sluse (1622-
1685) was canon and chancellor of Liege, and a member of the Royal
Society. He also published a work on tangents (1672). The word
mesolabium is from the Greek neffo\dptoi> or pecroXapov, an instru-
ment invented by Eratosthenes for finding two mean proportionals.
*The full title has some interest: Vera circuit et hyperbolae quad-
ratura cui accedit geometriae^ pars universalis inserviens quantita-
tum curvarum transmutationi et mensurae. Authore Jacobo Gre-
gorio Abredonensi Scoto Patavii, 1667. That is, James Greg-
ory (1638-1675) of Aberdeen (he was really born near but not in
the city), a good Scot, was publishing his work down in Padua.
The reason was that he had been studying in Italy, and that this
BEAULIEU'S QUADRATURE. 1 19
the geometrical quadrature of the circle is impossible. Few
mathematicians read this very abstruse speculation, and
opinion is somewhat divided. The regular circle-squarers
attempt the arithmetical quadrature, which has long been
proved to be impossible. Very few attempt the geometrical
quadrature. One of the last is Malacarne, an Italian, who
published his Solution Geometrique, at Paris, in 1825. His
method would make the circumference less than three times
the diameter.
BEAULIEU'S QUADRATURE.
La Geometric Frangoise, ou la Pratique aisee La quadracture
du cercle. Par le Sieur de Beaulieu, Ingenieur, Geographe du
Roi Paris, 1676, 8vo. [not Pontault de Beaulieu, the cele-
brated topographer; he died in 1674] -1
If this book had been a fair specimen, I might have
pointed to it in connection with contemporary English works,
and made a scornful comparison. But it is not a fair speci-
men. Beaulieu was attached to the Royal Household, and
throughout the century it may be suspected that the house-
hold forced a royal road to geometry. Fifty years before,
Beaugrand, the king's secretary, made a fool of himself,
and [so?] contrived to pass for a geometer. He had inter-
est enough to get Desargues, the most powerful geometer
of his time,2 the teacher and friend of Pascal, prohibited from
was a product of his youth. He had already (1663) published his
Optica promota, and it is not remarkable that his brilliancy
brought him a wide circle of friends on the continent and the offer
of a pension from Louis XIV. He became professor of mathematics
at St. Andrews and later at Edinburgh, and invented the first suc-
cessful reflecting telescope. The distinctive feature of his Vera
quadrature, is his use of an infinite converging series, a plan that
Archimedes used with the parabola.
1 Jean^de Beaulieu wrote several works on mathematics, including
La lumiere de I'arithmetique (n. d.), La lumie're des mathematiques
(1673), Nouvelle invention d'arithmetique (1677), and some mathe-
matical tables.
a A just estimate. There were several works published by Gerard
Desargues (1593-1661), of which the greatest was the Brouillon
Prole ct (Paris, 1639). There is an excellent edition of the (Euvres
de Desargues by M. Poudra, Paris, 1864.
120 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
lecturing. See some letters on the History of Perspective,
which I wrote in the Athen&um, in October and November,
1861. Montucla, who does not seem to know the true secret
of Beaugrand's greatness, describes him as "un certain M.
de Beaugrand, mathematicien, fort mal traite par Descartes,
et a ce qu'il paroit avec justice."3
Beaulieu's quadrature amounts to a geometrical con-
struction* which gives Tr=\/I0. His depth may be ascer-
tained from the following extracts. First on Copernicus:
"Copernic, Allemand, ne s'est pas moins rendu illustre
par ses doctes ecrits; et nous pourrions dire de luy, qu'il
seroit le seul et unique en la force de ses Problemes, si sa
trop grande presomption ne Tavoit porte a avancer en cette
Science une proposition aussi absurde, qu'elle est contre la
Foy et raison, en faisant la circonference d'un Cercle fixe,
immobile, et le centre mobile, sur lequel principe Geome-
trique, il a avance en son Traitte Astrologique le Soleil fixe,
et la Terre mobile."5
I digress here to point out that though our quadrators,
etc., very often, and our historians sometimes, assert that
men of the character of Copernicus, etc., were treated with
contempt and abuse until their day of ascendancy came,
nothing can be more incorrect. From Tycho Brahe6 to
Beaulieu, there is but one expression of admiration for the
genius of Copernicus. There is an exception, which, I
8 "A certain M. de Beaugrand, a mathematician, very badly treated
by Descartes, and, as it appears, rightly so."
*This is a very old approximation for IT. One of the latest pre-
tended geometric proofs resulting in this value appeared in New
York in 1910, entitled Quadrimetry (privately printed).
5 "Copernicus, a German, made himself no less illustrious by his
learned writings ; and we might say of him that he stood alone and
unique in the strength of his problems, if his excessive presumption
had not led him to set forth in this science a proposition so absurd
that it is contrary to faith and reason, namely that the circumference
of a circle is fixed and immovable while the center is movable; on
which geometrical principle he has declared in his astrological treat-
ise that the sun is fixed and the earth is in motion."
6 So in the original.
BEAULIEU'S QUADRATURE. 121
believe, has been quite misunderstood. Maurolycus,7 in his
De Sphara, written many years before its posthumous pub-
lication in 1575, and which it is not certain he would have
published, speaking of the safety with which various authors
may be read after his cautions, says, "Toleratur et Nicolaus
Copernicus qui Solem fixum et Terram in girum circumverti
posuit: et scutica potius, aut flagello, quam reprehensione
dignus est."s Maurolycus was a mild and somewhat con-
temptuous satirist, when expressing disapproval: as we
should now say, he pooh-poohed his opponents ; but, unless
the above be an instance, he was never savage nor impetuous.
I am fully satisfied that the meaning of the sentence is, that
Copernicus, who turned the earth like a boy's top, ought
rather to have a whip given him wherewith to keep up his
plaything than a serious refutation. To speak of tolerating
a person as being more worthy of a flogging than an argu-
ment, is almost a contradiction.
I will now extract Beaulieu's treatise on algebra, entire.
"L'Algebre est la science curieuse des Sgavans et speciale-
ment d'un General d'Armee ou Capitaine, pour promptement
ranger une Armee en bataille, et nombre de Mousquetaires
et Piquiers qui composent les bataillons d'icelle, outre les
figures de 1'Arithmetique. Cette science a 5 figures par-
ticulieres en cette sorte. P signifie plus au commerce, et
a TArmee Piquiers. M signifie moins, et Mousquetaire en
1'Art des bataillons. [It is quite true that P and M were
used for plus and minus in a great many old works.] R
signifie racine en la mesure du Cube, et en TArmee rang. Q
signifie quare en 1'un et Tautre usage. C signifie cube en
la mesure, et Cavallerie en la composition des bataillons et
escadrons. Quant a Toperation de cette science, c'est d'ad-
7Franciscus Maurolycus (1494-1575) was really the best mathe-
matician produced by Sicily for a long period. He made Latin trans-
lations of Theodosius, Menelaus, Euclid, Apollonius, and Archi-
medes, and wrote on cosmography and other mathematical subjects.
8 "Nicolaus Copernicus is also tolerated who asserted that the sun
is fixed and that the earth whirls about it ; and he rather deserves a
whip or a lash than a reproof."
122 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
ditionner un plus d'avec plus, la somme sera plus, et moins
d'avec plus, on soustrait le moindre du plus, et la reste est
la somme requise ou nombre trouve. Je dis settlement cecy
en passant pour ceux qui n'en sgavent rien du tout."9
This is the algebra of the Royal Household, seventy-
three years after the death of Vieta. Quaere, is it possible
that the fame of Vieta, who himself held very high stations
in the household all his life, could have given people the
notion that when such an officer chose to declare himself
an algebraist, he must be one indeed? This would explain
Beaugrand, Beaulieu, and all the beaux. Beaugrand — not
only secretary to the king, but "mathematician" to the Duke
of Orleans — I wonder what his "fool" could have been like,
if indeed he kept the offices separate, — would have been in
my list if I had possessed his Geostatique, published about
1638.10 He makes bodies diminish in weight as they approach
the earth, because the effect of a weight on a lever is less
as it approaches the fulcrum.
""Algebra is the curious science of scholars, and particularly for
a general of an army, or a captain, in order quickly to draw up an
army in battle array and to number the musketeers and pikemen
who compose it, without the figures of arithmetic. This science
has five special figures of this kind: P means plus in commerce and
pikemen in the army; M means minus, and musketeer in the art of
war;. . . .R signifies root in the measurement of a cube, and rank in
the army, Q means square (French quare, as then spelled) in both
cases; C means cube in mensuration, and cavalry in arranging ba-
tallions and squadrons. As for the operations of this science, they
are as follows : to add a plus and a plus, the sum will be plus-, to add
minus with plus, take the less from the greater and the remainder
will be the sum required or the number to be found. I say this only in
passing, for the benefit of those who are wholly ignorant of it."
10 He refers to the Joannis de Beaugrand Geostatice, seu de
vario ponder e graviitm secundum varia a terrae (centro) intervalla
dissertatio mathematica, Paris, 1636. Pascal relates that de Beau-
grand sent all of Roberval's theorems on the cycloid and Fermat s
on maxima and minima to Galileo in 1638, pretending that they were
his own.
SIR MATTHEW HALE. 123
SIR MATTHEW HALE.
Remarks upon two late ingenious discourses By Dr. Henry
More.1 London, 1676, 8vo.
In 1673 and 1675, Matthew Hale,2 then Chief Justice,
published two tracts, an "Essay touching Gravitation," and
"Difficiles Nugae" on the Torricellian experiment. Here
are the answers by the learned and voluminous Henry
More. The whole would be useful to any one engaged in
research about ante-Newtonian notions of gravitation.
Observations touching the principles of natural motions; and
especially touching rarefaction and condensation. .. .By the
author of Difficiles Nuga. London, 1677, 8vo.
This is another tract of Chief Justice Hale, published
the year after his death. The reader will remember that
motion, in old philosophy, meant any change from state to
state: what we now describe as motion was local motion.
This is a very philosophical book, about flux and materia
prima, virtus activa and essentialis, and other fundamentals.
I think Stephen Hales, the author of the "Vegetable Statics,"
has the writings of the Chief Justice sometimes attributed
to him, which is very puny justice indeed.3 Matthew Hale
died in 1676, and from his devotion to science it probably
arose that his famous Pleas of the Crown* and other law
works did not appear until after his death. One of his
1More (1614-1687) was a theologian, a fellow of Christ College,
Cambridge, and a Christian Platonist.
2 Matthew Hale (1609-1676) the famous jurist, wrote a number
of tracts on scientific, moral, and religious subjects. These were
collected and published in 1805.
3 They might have been attributed to many a worse man than Dr.
Hales (1677-1761), who was a member of the Royal Society and of
the Paris Academy, and whose scheme for the ventilation of prisons
reduced the mortality at the Savoy prison from one hundred to only
four a year. The book to which reference is made is Vegetable
Staticks or an Account of some statical experiments on the sap in
Vegetables, 1727.
* Pleas of the Crown; or a Methodical Summary of the Principal
Matters relating to the subject, 1678.
124 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
contemporaries was the astronomer Thomas Street, whose
Caroline Tables5 were several times printed: another con-
temporary was his brother judge, Sir Thomas Street.6 But
of the astronomer absolutely nothing is known: it is very
unlikely that he and the judge were the same person, but
there is not a bit of positive evidence either for or against,
so far as can be ascertained. Halley7 — no less a person —
published two editions of the Caroline Tables, no doubt
after the death of the author: strange indeed that neither
Halley nor any one else should leave evidence that Street
was born or died.
Matthew Hale gave rise to an instance of the lengths
a lawyer will go when before a jury who cannot detect him.
Sir Samuel Shepherd,8 the Attorney General, in opening
Hone's9 first trial, calls him "one who was the most learned
man that ever adorned the Bench, the most even man
that ever blessed domestic life, the most eminent man that
ever advanced the progress of science, and one of the
[very moderate] best and most purely religious men that
ever lived."
B Thomae Streete Astronomia Carolina, a new theory of the celes-
tial motions, 1661. It also appeared at Nuremberg in 1705, and at
London in 1710 and 1716 ( Halley' s editions). He wrote other works
on astronomy.
8 This was the Sir Thomas Street (1626-1696) who passed sen-
tence of death on a Roman Catholic priest for saying mass. The
priest was reprieved by the king, but in the light of the present day
one would think the justice more in need of pardon. He took part
in the trial of the Rye House Conspirators in 1683.
'Edmund Halley (1656-1742), who succeeded Wallis (1703) as
Savilian professor of mathematics at Oxford, and Flamsteed (1720)
as head of the Greenwich observatory. It is^ of interest to note that
he was instrumental in getting Newton's Principia printed.
8 Shepherd (born in 1760) was one of the most famous lawyers
of his day. He was knighted in 1814 and became Attorney General
in 1817.
"This was William Hone (1780-1842), a book publisher, who
wrote satires against the government, and who was tried three
times because of his parodies on the catechism, creed, and litany
(illustrated by Cruikshank). He was acquitted on all of the charges.
ON THE DISCOVERY OF ANTIMONY. 125
ON THE DISCOVERY OF ANTIMONY.
Basil Valentine his triumphant Chariot of Antimony, with an-
notations of Theodore Kirkringius, M.D. With the true book
of the learned Synesius, a Greek abbot, taken out of the Em-
perour's library, concerning the Philosopher's Stone. Lon-
don, 1678, Svo.1
There are said to be three Hamburg editions of the col-
lected works of Valentine, who discovered the common
antimony, and is said to have given the name antimoine,
in a curious way. Finding that the pigs of his convent
throve upon it, he gave it to his brethren, who died of it.2
The impulse given to chemistry by R. Boyle3 seems to
have brought out a vast number of translations, as in the
following tract:
ON ALCHEMY.
Collectanea Chymica : A collection of ten several treatises in
chymistry, concerning the liquor Alkehest, the Mercury of
Philosophers, and other curiosities worthy the perusal. Writ-
ten by Eir. Philaletha,1 Anonymus, J. B. Van-Helmont,2 Dr. Fr.
1 Valenlinus was a Benedictine monk and was still living at Erfurt
in 1413. His Currus triumphalis antimonii appeared in 1624. Syne-
sius was Bishop of Ptolemaide, who died about 430. His works
were printed at Paris in 1605. Theodor Kirckring (1640-1693) was
a fellow-student of Spinoza's. Besides the commentary on Valen-
tine he left several works on anatomy. His commentary appeared at
Amsterdam in 1671. There were several editions of the Chariot.
2 The chief difficulty with this curious "monk-bane" etymology is
its absurdity. The real origin of the word has given etymologists
a good deal of trouble.
"Robert Boyle (1627-1691), son of "the Great Earl" (of Cork).
Perhaps his best-known discovery is the law concerning the volume
of gases.
1 The real name of Eirenaeus Philalethes (born in 1622) is un-
known. It may have been Childe. He claimed to have discovered
the philosopher's stone in 1645. His tract in this work is The Secret
of the Immortal Liquor Alkahest or Ignis- A qua. See note 7, infra.
"Johann Baptist van Helmont, Herr von Merode, Royenborg
etc. (1577-1644). His chemical discoveries appeared in his Ortus
medicinae (1648), which went through many editions.
126 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
Antonie,3 Bernhard Earl of Trevisan,4 Sir Geo. Ripley,5 Rog.
Bacon,6 Geo. Starkie,7 Sir Hugh Platt,8 and the Tomb of Sem-
iramis. See more in the contents. London, 1684, 8vo.
In the advertisements at the ends of these tracts there
are upwards of a hundred English tracts, nearly all of the
period, and most of them translations. Alchemy looks up
since the chemists have found perfectly different substances
composed of the same elements and proportions. It is true
the chemists cannot yet transmute', but they may in time:
they poke about most assiduously. It seems, then, that the
conviction that alchemy must be impossible was a delusion :
but we do not mention it.
8 De Morgan should have written up Francis Anthony (1550-1623),
whose Panacea aurea sive tractatus duo de auro potabili (Hamburg,
1619) described a panacea that he gave for every ill. He was re-
peatedly imprisoned for practicing medicine without a license from
the Royal College of Physicians.
4Bernardus Trevisanus (1406-1490), who traveled even through
Barbary, Egypt, Palestine, and Persia in search of the philosopher's
stone. He wrote several works on alchemy, — De Chemica (1567),
De Chemico Miraculo (1583), Trait e de la nature de I'oeuf des phi-
losophes (1659), etc., all published long after his death.
"George Ripley (1415-1490) was an Augustinian monk, later a
chamberlain of Innocent VIII, and still later a Carmelite monk.
His Liber de mercuris philosophico and other tracts first appeared
in Opuscula quaedam chymica (Frankfort, 1614).
6 Besides the Opus majus, and other of the better known works
of this celebrated Franciscan (1214-1294), there are numerous tracts
on alchemy that appeared in the Thesaurus chymicus (Frankfort,
1603).
7 George Starkey (1606-1665 or 1666) has special interest for
American readers. He seems to have been born in the Bermudas
and to have obtained the bachelor's degree in England. He then
went to America and in 1646 obtained the master's degree at Har-
vard, apparently under the name of Stirk. He met Eirenaeus Phila-
lethes (see note I above) in America and learned alchemy from
him. Returning to England, he sold quack medicines there, and
died in 1666 from the plague after dissecting a patient who had
died of the disease. Among his works was the Liquor Alcahest, or
a Discourse of that Immortal Dissolvent of Paracelsus and Helmont,
which appeared (1675) some nine years after his death.
8 Platt (1552-1611) was the son of a London brewer. Although
he left a manuscript on alchemy, and wrote a book entitled Delights
for Ladies to adorne their Persons (1607), he was knighted for
some serious work on the chemistry of agriculture, fertilizing, brew-
ing, and the preserving of foods, published in The Jewell House of
Art and Nature (1594).
ON ALCHEMY. 127
The astrologers and the alchemists caught it in company
in the following, of which I have an unreferenced note.
"Mendacem et futilem hominem nominare qui volunt,
calendariographum dicunt; at qui sceleratum simul ac im-
postorem, chimicum.9
"Crede ratem ventis corpus ne crede chimistis ;
Est qusevis chimica tutior aura fide."10
Among the smaller paradoxes of the day is that of the
Times newspaper, which always spells it chymistry: but so,
I believe, do Johnson, Walker, and others. The Arabic
work is very likely formed from the Greek: but it may be
connected either with xrllji*la or w^tn
Lettre d'un gentil-homme de province a une dame de qualite,
sur le sujet de la Comete. Paris, 1681, 4to.
An opponent of astrology, whom I strongly suspect to
have been one of the members of the Academy of Sciences
under the name of a country gentleman,11 writes very good
sense on the tremors excited by comets.
The Petitioning-Comet : or a brief Chronology of all the famous
Comets and their events, that have happened from the birth of
Christ to this very day. Together with a modest enquiry into
this present comet, London, 1681, 4to.
A satirical tract against the cometic prophecy:
"This present comet (it's true) is of a menacing aspect,
but if the new parliament (for whose convention so many
good men pray) continue long to sit, I fear not but the star
will lose its virulence and malignancy, or at least its portent
be averted from this our nation ; which being the humble
request to God of all good men, makes me thus entitle it,
a Petitioning-Comet."
' "Those who wish to call a man a liar and deceiver speak of him
as a writer of almanacs; but those who (would call him) a scoun-
drel and an imposter (speak of him as) a chemist."
1 "Trust your barque to the winds but not your body to a chem-
ist ; any breeze is safer than the faith of a chemist."
"Probably the Jesuit, Pere Claude Frangois Menestrier (1631-
1705)5 a well-known historian.
128 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
The following anecdote is new to me :
"Queen Elizabeth (1558) being then at Richmond, and
being disswaded from looking on a comet which did then
appear, made answer, jacta est alea, the dice are thrown;
thereby intimating that the pre-order'd providence of God
was above the influence of any star or comet."
The argument was worth nothing: for the comet might
have been on the dice with the event; the astrologers said
no more, at least the more rational ones, who were about
half of the whole.
An astrological and theological discourse upon this present
great conjunction (the like whereof hath not (likely) been in
some ages) ushered in by a great comet. London, 1682, 4to.
By C. N.i2
The author foretells the approaching "sabbatical jubilee,"
but will not fix the date: he recounts the failures of his
predecessors.
A judgment of the comet which became first generally visible
to us in Dublin, December 13, about 15 minutes before 5 in
the evening, A. D. 1680. By a person of quality. Dublin, 1682,
4to.
The author argues against cometic astrology with great
ability.
A prophecy on the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in this
present year 1682 . With some prophetical predictions of what
is likely to ensue therefrom in the year 1684. By John Case,
Student in physic and astrology.13 London, 1682, 4to.
"The author was Christopher Nesse (1621-1705), a belligerent
Calvinist, who wrote many controversial works and succeeded in
getting excommunicated four times. One of his most virulent works
was A Protestant Antidote against the Poison of Popery.
M John Case (c. 1660-1700) was a famous astrologer and physician.
He succeeded to Lilly's practice in London. In a darkened room,
wherein he kept an array of mystical apparatus, he pretended to
show the credulous the ghosts of their departed relatives. Besides
his astrological works he wrote one serious treatise, the Compendium
Anatomicum nova methodo insiitutum (1695), m which he defends
Harvey^s theories of embryology.
MATHEMATICAL THEOLOGY. 129
According to this writer, great conjunctions of Jupiter
and Saturn occur "in the fiery trigon," about once in 800
years. Of these there are to be seven : six happened in the
several times of Enoch, Noah, Moses, Solomon, Christ,
Charlemagne. The seventh, which is to happen at "the
lamb's marriage with the bride," seems to be that of 1682 ;
but this is only vaguely hinted.
De Quadrature van de Circkel. By Jacob Marcelis. Amsterdam,
1698, 4to.
Ampliatie en demonstratie wegens de Quadrature. .. .By Jacob
Marcelis. Amsterdam, 1699, 4to.
Eenvoudig vertoog briev-wys geschrevem am J. Marcelis
Amsterdam, 1702, 4to.
De sleutel en openinge van de quadrature Amsterdam, 1704,
4to.
Who shall contradict Jacob Marcelis ?14 He says the cir-
cumference contains the diameter exactly times
~ 1008449087377541679894282184894
0 6997183637540819440035239271702
But he does not come very near, as the young arithmetician
will find.
MATHEMATICAL THEOLOGY.
Theologiae Christianae Principia Mathematica. Auctore Johanne
Craig.1 London, 1699, 4to.
This is a celebrated speculation, and has been reprinted
abroad, and seriously answered. Craig is known in the
early history of fluxions, and was a good mathematician.
"Marcelis (1636— after 1714) was a soap maker of Amsterdam.
It is to be hoped that he made better soap than values of n\
*John Craig (died in 1731) was a Scotchman, but most of his
life was spent at Cambridge reading and writing on mathematics.
He endeavored to introduce the Leibnitz differential calculus into
England. His mathematical works include the Methodus Figurarum
. . . Quadraturas dcterminandi ( 1685) , Tractatus. . . de Figurarum Cur-
vilincarum Quadratures et locis Geometricis (1693), andDeCalculo
Flucntium libri duo (1718).
130 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
He professed to calculate, on the hypothesis that the sus-
picions against historical evidence increase with the square
of the time, how long it will take the evidence of Chris-
tianity to die out. He finds, by formulae, that had it been
oral only, it would have gone out A. D. 800 ; but, by aid of
the written evidence, it will last till A. D. 3150. At this
period he places the second coming, which is deferred until
the extinction of evidence, on the authority of the question
"When the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the
earth?" It is a pity that Craig's theory was not adopted:
it would have spared a hundred treatises on the end of the
world, founded on no better knowledge than his, and many
of them falsified by the event. The most recent (October,
1863) is a tract in proof of Louis Napoleon being Anti-
christ, the Beast, the eighth Head, etc. ; and the present dis-
pensation is to close soon after 1864.
In order rightly to judge Craig, who added speculations
on the variations of pleasure and pain treated as functions
of time, it is necessary to remember that in Newton's day
the idea of force, as a quantity to be measured, and as
following a law of variation, was very new: so likewise
was that of probability, or belief, as an object of measure-
ment.2 The success of the Principia of Newton put it into
many heads to speculate about applying notions of quantity
to other things not then brought under measurement. Craig
imitated Newton's title, and evidently thought he was mak-
ing a step in advance: but it is not every one who can
plough with Samson's heifer.
It is likely enough that Craig took a hint, directly or
indirectly, from Mohammedan writers, who make a reply
to the argument that the Koran has not the evidence derived
2 As is well known, this subject owes much to the Bernoullis.
Craig's works on the calculus brought him into controversy with
them. He also wrote on other subjects in which they were interested,
as in his memoir On the Curve of the quickest descent (1700), On the
Solid of least resistance (1700), and the Solution of Bernoulli's
problem on Curves (1704).
THE ARISTOCRAT AS A SCIENTIST. 131
from miracles. They say that, as evidence of Christian
miracles is daily becoming weaker, a time must at last arrive
when it will fail of affording assurance that they were mir-
acles at all: whence would arise the necessity of another
prophet and other miracles. Lee,s the Cambridge Orientalist,
from whom the above words are taken, almost certainly
never heard of Craig or his theory.
THE ARISTOCRAT AS A SCIENTIST.
Copernicans of all sorts convicted. . . .to which is added a Treat-
ise of the Magnet. By the Hon. Edw. Howard, of Berks.
London, 1705, 8vo.
Not all the blood of all the Howards will gain respect
for a writer who maintains that eclipses admit no possible
explanation under the Copernican hypothesis, and who asks
how a man can "go 200 yards to any place if the moving
superficies of the earth does carry it from him?" Horace
Walpole, at the beginning of his Royal and Noble Authors,
has mottoed his book with the Cardinal's address to Ariosto,
"Dove diavolo, Messer Ludovico, avete pigliato tante co-
glionerie?"1 Walter Scott says you could hardly pick out,
on any principle of selection — except badness itself, he
means of course — the same number of plebeian authors
whose works are so bad. But his implied satire on aristo-
cratic writing forgets two points. First, during a large
period of our history, when persons of rank condescended
to write, they veiled themselves under "a person of honor,"
"a person of quality," and the like, when not wholly un-
described. Not one of these has Walpole got; he omits,
8 This is Samuel Lee (1783-1852), the young prodigy in lan-
guages. He was apprenticed to a carpenter at twelve and learned
Greek while working at the trade. Before he was twenty-five he
knew Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, Samaritan, Persian, and Hindustani.
He later became Regius professor of Hebrew at Cambridge.
1 "Where the devil, Master Ludovico, did you pick up such a
collection ?"
132 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
for instance, Lord Brounker's2 translation of Descartes on
Music. Secondly, Walpole only takes the heads of houses:
this cuts both ways; he equally eliminates the Hon. Robert
Boyle and the precious Edward Howard. The last writer is
hardly out of the time in which aristocracy suppressed its
names; the avowal was then usually meant to make the
author's greatness useful to the book. In our day, literary
peers and honorables are very favorably known, and con-
tain an eminent class.3 They rough it like others, and if
such a specimen as Edw. Howard were now to appear, he
would be greeted with
"Hereditary noodle ! knowest thou not
Who would be wise, himself must make him so?"
THE LONGITUDE PROBLEM.
A new and easy method to find the longitude at land or sea.
London, 1710, 4to.
This tract is a little earlier than the great epoch of such
publications (1714), and professes to find the longitude by
the observed altitudes of the moon and two stars,1
2 Lord William Brounker (c. 1620-1684), the first president of
the Royal Society, is best known in mathematics for his contribu-
tions to continued fractions.
"Horace Walpole (1717-1797) published his Catalogue of the
Royal and Noble Authors of England in 1758. Since his time a
number of worthy names in the domain of science in general and of
mathematics in particular might be added from the peerage of
England.
*It was written by Charles Hayes (1678-1760), a mathematician
and scholar of no mean attainments. He travelled extensively, and
was deputy governor of the Royal African Company. His Treatise
on Fluxions (London, 1704) was the first work in English to ex-
plain Newton's calculus. He wrote a work entitled The Moon
(1723) to prove that our satellite shines by its own as well as by
reflected light. His Chronographia Asiatica & Aegyptica (1758)
gives the results of his travels.
THE LONGITUDE PROBLEM. 133
A new method for discovering the longitude both at sea and
land, humbly proposed to the consideration of the public.2 By
Wm. Whiston3 and Humphry Ditton.4 London, 1714, 8vo.
This is the celebrated tract, written by the two Arian
heretics. Swift, whose orthodoxy was as undoubted as his
meekness, wrote upon it the epigram — if, indeed, that be
epigram of which the point is pious wish — which has been
so often recited for the purity of its style, a purity which
transcends modern printing. Perhaps some readers may
think that Swift cared little for Whiston and Ditton, except
as a chance hearing of their plan pointed them out as good
marks. But it was not so: the clique had their eye on the
guilty pair before the publication of the tract. The preface
is dated July 7 ; and ten days afterwards Arbuthnot5 writes
as follows to Swift:
"Whiston has at last published his project of the longi-
tude; the most ridiculous thing that ever was thought on.
But a pox on him! he has spoiled one of my papers of
Scriblerus, which was a proposition for the longitude not
very unlike his, to this purpose; that since there was no
pole for east and west, that all the princes of Europe should
join and build two prodigious poles, upon high mountains,
"Publick in the original.
8 Whiston (1667-1752) succeeded Newton as Lucasian professor
of mathematics at Cambridge. In 1710 he turned Arian and was
expelled from the university. His work on Primitive Christianity
appeared the following year. He wrote many works on astronomy
and religion.
* Ditton (1675-1715) was, on Newton's recommendation, made
head of the mathematical school at Christ's Hospital, London. He
wrote a work on fluxions (1706). His idea for rinding longitude
at sea was to place stations in the Atlantic to fire off bombs at regu-
lar intervals, the time between the sound and the flash giving the
distance. He also corresponded with Huyghens concerning the
use of chronometers for the purpose.
5 This was John Arbuthnot (c. 1658-1735), the mathematician,
physician and wit. He was intimate with Pope and Swift, and
was Royal physician to Queen Anne. Besides various satires he
published a translation of Huyghens's work on probabilities (1692)
and a well-known treatise on ancient coins, weights, and measures
(1727).
134 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
with a vast lighthouse to serve for a polestar. I was think-
ing of a calculation of the time, charges, and dimensions.
Now you must understand his project is by lighthouses,
and explosion of bombs at a certain hour."
The plan was certainly impracticable; but Whiston and
Ditton might have retorted that they were nearer to the
longitude than their satirist to the kingdom of heaven, or
even to a bishopric. Arbuthnot, I think, here and else-
where, reveals himself as the calculator who kept Swift
right in his proportions in the matter of the Lilliputians,
Brobdingnagians, etc. Swift was very ignorant about things
connected with number. He writes to Stella that he has
discovered that leap-year comes every four years, and that
all his life he had thought it came every three years. Did
he begin with the mistake of Caesar's priests? Whether
or no, when I find the person who did not understand leap-
year inventing satellites of Mars in correct accordance with
Kepler's third law, I feel sure he must have had help.
THE AURORA BOREALIS.
An essay concerning the late apparition in the heavens on the
6th of March. Proving by mathematical, logical, and moral
arguments, that it cou'd not have been produced meerly by the
ordinary course of nature, but must of necessity be a prodigy.
Humbly offered to the consideration of the Royal Society. Lon-
don, 1716, 8vo.
The prodigy, as described, was what we should call a
very decided and unusual aurora borealis. The inference
was, that men's sins were bringing on the end of the world.
The author thinks that if one of the old "threatening
prophets" were then alive, he would give "something like
the following." I quote a few sentences of the notion
which the author had of the way in which Ezekiel, for in-
stance, would have addressed his Maker in the reign of
George the First :
"Begin! Begin! O Sovereign, for once, with an effec-
THE AURORA BOREALIS. 135
tual clap of thunder O Deity! either thunder to us no
more, or when you thunder, do it home, and strike with
vengeance to the mark Tis not enough to raise a storm,
unless you follow it with a blow, and the thunder without
the bolt, signifies just nothing at all Are then your
lightnings of so short a sight, that they don't know how to
hit, unless a mountain stands like a barrier in their way?
Or perhaps so many eyes open in the firmament make you
lose your aim when you shoot the arrow? Is it this? No!
but, my dear Lord, it is your custom never to take hold
of your arms till you have first bound round your majestic
countenance with gathered mists and clouds."
The principles of the Philosophy of the Expansive and Con-
tractive Forces.... By Robert Greene,1 M.A., Fellow of Clare
Hall. Cambridge, 1727, folio.
Sanderson2 writes to Jones,3 "The gentleman has been
reputed mad for these two years last past, but never gave
the world such ample testimony of it before." This was
said of a former work of Greene's, on solid geometry, pub-
lished in 1712, in which he gives a quadrature.4 He gives
the same or another, I do not know which, in the present
work, in which the circle is 3% diameters. This volume is
of 981 good folio pages, and treats of all things, mental and
material. The author is not at all mad, only wrong on
1 Greene (1678-1730) was a very eccentric individual and was
generally ridiculed by his contemporaries. In his will he directed
that his body be dissected and his skeleton hung in the library of
King's College, Cambridge. Unfortunately for his fame, this wish
was never carried out.
2 This was the historian, Robert Sanderson (1660-1741), who
spent most of his life at Cambridge.
al presume this was William Jones (1675-1749) the friend of
Newton and Halley, vice-president of the Royal Society, in whose
Synopsis Palmariorum Matheseos (1706) the symbol v is first used
for the circle ratio.
4 This was the Geometrica solidorum, sive materiae, seu de varia
composition?, progressione, rationeque velo citatum, Cambridge, 1712.
The work was parodied in A Taste of Philosophical Fanaticism. . .by
a gentleman of the University of Gratz.
136 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
many points. It is the weakness of the orthodox follower
of any received system to impute insanity to the solitary
dissentient: which is voted (in due time) a very wrong
opinion about Copernicus, Columbus, or Galileo, but quite
right about Robert Greene. If misconceptions, acted on by
too much self-opinion, be sufficient evidence of madness, it
would be a curious inquiry what is the least per-centage
of the reigning school which has been insane at any one
time. Greene is one of the sources for Newton being led
to think of gravitation by the fall of an apple : his authority
is the gossip of Martin Folkes.5 Probably Folkes had it
from Newton's niece, Mrs. Conduitt, whom Voltaire ac-
knowledges as his authority.6 It is in the draft found among
Conduitt's papers of memoranda to be sent to Fontenelle.
But Fontenelle, though a great retailer of anecdote, does
not mention it in his eloge of Newton ; whence it may be
suspected that it was left out in the copy forwarded to
France. D'Israeli has got an improvement on the story :
the apple "struck him a smart blow on the head" : no doubt
taking him just on the organ of causality. He was "sur-
prised at the force of the stroke" from so small an apple:
but then the apple had a mission ; Homer would have said
8 The antiquary and scientist (1690-1754), president of the Royal
Society, member of the Academic, friend of Newton, and authority
on numismatics.
6 She was Catherine Barton, Newton's step-niece. She marrie'd
John Conduitt, master of the mint, who collected materials for a
life of Newton.
A propos of Mrs. Conduitt's life of her illustrious uncle, Sir
George Greenhill tells a very good story on Poincare\ the well-known
French mathematician. At an address given by the latter at the
International Congress of Mathematicians held in Rome in 1908 he
spoke of the story of Newton and the apple as a mere fable. After
the address Sir George asked him why he had done so, saying that
the story was first published by Voltaire,^ who had heard it from
Newton s niece, Mrs. Conduitt. Poincare looked blank and said,
"Newton, et la niece de Newton, et Voltaire,— non ! je ne vous com-
prends pas !" He had thought Sir George meant Professor Volterra
of Rome, whose name in French is Voltaire, and who could not
possibly have known a niece of Newton without bridging a century
or so.
THE AURORA BOREALIS. 137
it was Minerva in the form of an apple. "This led him to
consider the accelerating motion of falling bodies," which
Galileo had settled long before: "from whence he deduced
the principle of gravity," which many had considered be-
fore him, but no one had deduced anything from it. I can-
not imagine whence D'Israeli got the rap on the head, I
mean got it for Newton: this is very unlike his usual ac-
counts of things. The story is pleasant and possible: its
only defect is that various writings, well known to Newton,
a very learned mathematician, had given more suggestion
than a whole sack of apples could have done, if they had
tumbled on that mighty head all at once. And Pemberton,
speaking from Newton himself, says nothing more than that
the idea of the moon being retained by the same force which
causes the fall of bodies struck him for the first time while
meditating in a garden. One particular tree at Wools-
thorpe has been selected as the gallows of the appleshaped
goddess: it died in 1820, and Mr. Turner7 kept the wood;
but Sir D. Brewster8 brought away a bit of root in 1814,
and must have had it on his conscience for 43 years that
he may have killed the tree. Kepler's suggestion of gravi-
tation with the inverse distance, and Bouillaud's proposed
substitution of the inverse square of the distance, are things
which Newton knew better than his modern readers. I
discovered two anagrams on his name, which are quite* con-
clusive : the notion of gravitation was not new ; but Newton
went on. Some wandering spirit, probably whose business
it was to resent any liberty taken with Newton's name, put
into the head of a friend of mine eighty-one anagrams on
my own pair, some of which hit harder than any apple.
7 This was the Edmund Turner (1755-1829) who wrote the Col-
lections for the Town and Soke of Grantham, containing authentic
Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton, from Lord Portsmouth's Manuscripts,
London, 1806.
8 It may be recalled to mind that Sir David (1781-1868) wrote
a life of Newton (1855).
138 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
DE MORGAN ANAGRAMS.
This friend, whom I must not name, has since made it
up to about 800 anagrams on my name, of which I have
seen about 650. Two of them I have joined in the title-
page: the reader may find the sense. A few of the others
are personal remarks.
"Great gun ! do us a sum !"
is a sneer at my pursuits : but,
"Go ! great sum ! fa*ndu"
is more dignified.
"Sunt agro! gaudemus,"1
is happy as applied to one of whom it may be said :
"Ne'er out of town ; 'tis such a horrid life ;
But duly sends his family and wife."
"Adsum, nugator, suge!"2
is addressed to a student who continues talking after the
lecture has commenced : oh ! the rascal !
"Graduatus sum ! nego"3
applies to one who declined to subscribe for an M.A. de-
gree.
"Usage mounts guard"
symbolizes a person of very fixed habits.
"Gus! Gus! a mature don!
August man! sure, god!
And Gus must argue, O !
Snug as mud to argue,
Must argue on gauds.
A mad rogue stung us.
Gag a numerous stud.
Go! turn us! damage us!
Tug us ! O drag us ! Amen.
Grudge us ! moan at us !
1 "They are in the country. We rejoice."
2 "I am here, chatterbox, suck!"
8 "I have been graduated ! I decline !"
NEWTON'S DE MUNDI SYSTEMATE LIBER. 139
Daunt us ! gag us more !
Dog-ear us, man! gut us!
D — us ! a rogue tugs !"
are addressed to me by the circle-squarers ; and,
"O ! Gus ! tug a mean surd!"
is smart upon my preference of an incommensurable value
of TT to 3%, or some such simple substitute. While,
"Gus ! Gus ! at 'em a' round !"
ought to be the backing of the scientific world to the author
of the Budget of Paradoxes.
The whole collection commenced existence in the head
of a powerful mathematician during some sleepless nights.
Seeing how large a number was practicable, he amused
himself by inventing a digested plan of finding more.
Is there any one whose name cannot be twisted into
either praise or satire? I have had given to me,
"Thomas Babington Macaulay
Mouths big: a Cantab anomaly."
NEWTON'S DE MUNDI SYSTEMATE LIBER.
A treatise of the system -of the world. By Sir Isaac Newton.
Translated into English. London, 1728, 8vo.
I think I have a right to one little paradox of my own:
I greatly doubt that Newton wrote this book. Castiglione,1
in his Newtoni Opuscula,2 gives it in the Latin which ap-
peared in 1731,8 not for the first time; he says Angli omnes
Newtono tribuunt.4 It appeared just after Newton's death,
without the name of any editor, or any allusion to Newton's
^Giovanni Castiglioni (Castillon, Castiglione), was born at Cas-
tiglione, in Tuscany, in 1708, and died at Berlin in 1791. He was
professor of mathematics at Utrecht and at Berlin. He wrote on
De Moivre's equations (1762), Cardan's rule (1783), and Euclid's
treatment of parallels (1788-89).
'This was the Isaaci Newtoni, equitis aurati, opuscula mathe-
matica, philosophica et philologica, Lausannae & Genevae, 1744.
"At London, 4to.
"All the English attribute it to Newton.'"
140 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
recent departure, purporting to be that popular treatise
which Newton, at the beginning of the third book of the
Principia, says he wrote, intending it to be the third book.
It is very possible that some observant turnpenny might
construct such a treatise as this from the third book, that
it might be ready for publication the moment Newton could
not disown it. It has 'been treated with singular silence :
the name of the editor has never been given. Rigaud5 men-
tions it without a word : I cannot find it in Brewster's New-
ton, nor in the Biographia Britannica. There is no copy in
the Catalogue of the Royal Society's Library, either in Eng-
lish or Latin, except in Castiglione. I am open to correc-
tion; but I think nothing from Newton's acknowledged
works will prove — as laid down in the suspected work —
that he took Numa's temple of Vesta, with a central fire, to
be intended to symbolize the sun as the center of our sys-
tem, in the Copernican sense.6
Mr. Edleston7 gives an account of the lectures "de motu
corporum," and gives the corresponding pages of the Latin
"De Systemate Mundi" of 1731. But no one mentions the
English of 1728. This English seems to agree with the
Latin; but there is a mystery about it. The preface says,
"That this work as here published is genuine will so clearly
appear by the intrinsic marks it bears, that it will be but
losing words and the reader's time to take pains in giving
him any other satisfaction." Surely fewer words would
have been lost if the prefator had said at once that the work
was from the manuscript preserved at Cambridge. Perhaps
it was a mangled copy clandestinely taken and interpreted.
6 Stephen Peter Rigaud (1774-1839), Savilian professor of geom-
etry at Oxford (1810-27) and later professor of astronomy and head
of the Radcliffe Observatory. He wrote An historical Essay on the
first publication of Sir Isaac Newton's Principia, Oxford, 1838, and
a two-volume work entitled Correspondence of Scientific Men of the
i^th Century, 1841.
6 It is no longer considered by scholars as the work of Newton.
7J. Edleston, the author of the Correspondence of Sir Isaac
Newton and Professor Cotes, London, 1850.
A BACONIAN CONTROVERSY. 141
A BACONIAN CONTROVERSY.
Lord Bacon not the author of "The Christian Paradoxes," being
a reprint of "Memorials of Godliness and Christianity," by
Herbert Palmer, B.D.1 With Introduction, Memoir, and Notes,
by the Rev. Alexander B. Grosart,2 Kenross. (Private circula-
tion, 1864).
I insert the above in this place on account of a slight
connection with the last. Bacon's Paradoxes, — so attributed
— were first published as his in some asserted "Remains,"
1648.3 They were admitted into his works in 1730, and re-
main there to this day. The title is "The Character of a
believing Christian, set forth in paradoxes and seeming
contradictions." The following is a specimen:
"He believes three to be one and one to be three ; a father
not to be older than his son; a son to be equal with his
father; and one proceeding from both to be equal with
both: he believes three persons in one nature, and two
natures in one person. . . .He believes the God of all grace
to have been angry with one that never offended Him ; and
that God that hates sin to be reconciled to himself though
sinning continually, and never making or being able to make
Him any satisfaction. He believes a most just God to have
punished a most just person, and to have justified himself,
though a most ungodly sinner. He believes himself freely
pardoned, and yet a sufficient satisfaction was made for
him."
Who can doubt that if Bacon had written this it must
have been wrong? Many writers, especially on the Con-
1 Palmer (1601-1647) was Master of Queen's College, Cam-
bridge, a Puritan but not a separatist. His work, The Characters of
a believing Christian, in Paradoxes and seeming contradictions, ap-
peared in 1645.
2 Grosart (1827-1899) was a Presbyterian clergyman. He was a
great bibliophile, and issued numerous reprints of rare books.
8 This was the year after Palmer's death. The title was, The
Remaines of Francis Lord Verulam ; being Essays and sev-
eral! Letters to severall great personages, and other pieces of various
and high concernment not heretofore published, London, 1648, 4to.
142 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
tinent, have taken him as sneering at (Athanasian) Chris-
tianity right and left. Many Englishmen have taken him
to be quite in earnest, and to have produced a body of edi-
fying doctrine. More than a century ago the Paradoxes were
published as a penny tract; and, again, at the same price,
in the Penny Sunday Reader, vol. vi, No. 148, a few pas-
sages were omitted, as too strong. But all did not agree:
in my copy of Peter Shaw's4 edition (vol. ii, p. 283) the
Paradoxes have been cut out by the binder, who has left
the backs of the leaves. I never had the curiosity to see
whether other copies of the edition have been served in the
same way. The Religious Tract Society republished them
recently in Selections from the Writings of Lord Bacon, (no
date; bad plan; about 1863, I suppose). No omissions were
made, so far as I find.
I never believed that Bacon wrote this paper ; it has
neither his sparkle nor his idiom. I stated my doubts even
before I heard that Mr. Spedding, one of Bacon's editors,
was of the same mind. (Athenceum, July 16, 1864). I was
little moved by the wide consent of orthodox men: for I
knew how Bacon, Milton, Newton, Locke, etc., were always
claimed as orthodox until almost the present day. Of this
there is a remarkable instance.
LOCKE AND SOCINIANISM.
Among the books which in my younger day were in
some orthodox publication lists — I think in the list of the
Christian Knowledge Society, but I am not sure — was
Locke's1 "Reasonableness of Christianity." It seems to have
come down from the eighteenth century, when the battle
was belief in Christ against unbelief, simpliciter, as the logi-
4 Shaw (1694-1763) was physician extraordinary to George II.
He wrote on chemistry and medicine, and his edition of the Philo-
sophical Works of Francis Bacon appeared at London in 1733.
1 John Locke (1632-1704), the philosopher. This particular work
appeared in 1695. There was an edition in 1834 (vol. 25 of the
Sacred Classics} and one in 1836 (vol. 2 of the Christian Library).
LOCKE AND SOCINIANISM. 143
cians say. Now, if ever there was a Socinian2 book in the
world, it is this work of Locke. ' These two," says Locke,
"faith and repentance, i. e., believing Jesus to be the Mes-
siah, and a good life, are the indispensable conditions of
the new covenant, to be performed by all those who would
obtain eternal life." All the book is amplification of this
doctrine. Locke, in this and many other things, followed
Hobbes, whose doctrine, in the Leviathan, is fidem, quanta
ad salutem necessaria est, contineri in hoc articulo, Jesus
est Christus.3 For this Hobbes was called an atheist, which
3 1 use the word Socinian because it was so much used in Locke's
time; it is used in our own day by the small fry, the unlearned
clergy and their immediate followers, as a term of reproach for all
Unitarians. I suspect they have a kind of liking for the word; it
sounds like so sinful. The learned clergy and the higher laity know
better : they know that the bulk of the modern Unitarians go farther
than Socinus, and are not correctly named as his followers. The
Unitarians themselves neither desire nor deserve a name which puts
them one point nearer to orthodoxy than they put themselves. That
point is the doctrine that direct prayer to Jesus Christ is lawful and
desirable : this Socinus held, and the modern Unitarians do not hold.
Socinus, in treating the subject in his own Institutio, an imperfect cat-
echism which he left, lays much more stress on John xiv. 13 than on xv.
16 and xvi. 23 . He is not disinclined to think that Patrem should be
in the first citation, where some put it; but he says that to ask the
Father in the name of the Son is nothing but praying to the Son in
prayer to the Father. He labors the point with obvious wish to secure
a conclusive sanction. In the Racovian Catechism, of which Faustus
Socinus probably drew the first sketch, a clearer light is arrived at.
The translation says : "But wherein consists the divine honor due to
Christ? In adoration likewise and invocation. For we ought at all
times to adore Christ, and may in our necessities address our prayers
to him as often as we please ; and there are many reasons to induce
us to do this freely." There are some who like accuracy, even in
aspersion. — A. De M.
Socinus, or Fausto Paolo Sozzini (1539-1604), was an anti-
trinitarian who believed in prayer and homage to Christ. Leaving
Italy after his views became known, he repaired to Basel, but his
opinions were too extreme even for the ^ Calyinists. He then tried
Transylvania, attempting to convert to his views the antitrinitarian
Bishop David. The only result of his efforts was the imprisonment
of David and his own flight to Poland, in which country he spent the
rest of his life (1579-1604). His complete works appeared first at
Amsterdam in 1668, in the Bibliotheca Fratres Polonorum. The Ra-
covian Catechism (1605) appeared after his death, but it seems to
have been planned by him.
8 "As much of faith as is necessary to salvation is contained in
this article, Jesus is the Christ."
144 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
many still believe him to have been: some of his contem-
poraries called him, rightly, a Socinian. Locke was known
for a Socinian as soon as his work appeared : Dr. John Ed-
wards,4 his assailant, says he is "Socinianized all over."
Locke, in his reply, says "there is not one word of Socinian-
ism in it:" and he was right: the positive Socinian doctrine
has not one word of Socinianism in it ; Socinianism consists
in omissions. Locke and Hobbes did not dare deny the
Trinity: for such a thing Hobbes might have been roasted,
and Locke might have been strangled. Accordingly, the
well-known way of teaching Unitarian doctrine was the
collection of the asserted essentials of Christianity, without
naming the Trinity, etc. This is the plan Newton followed,
in the papers which have at last been published.5
So I, for one, thought little about the general tendency
of orthodox writers to claim Bacon by means of the Para-
doxes. I knew that, in his "Confession of Faith"8 he is a
Trinitarian of a heterodox stamp. His second Person takes
human nature before he took flesh, not for redemption, but
as a condition precedent of creation. "God is so holy, pure,
and jealous, that it is impossible for him to be pleased in
any creature, though the work of his own hands. . . . [Gen.
i. 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31, freely rendered]. But— purposing
to become a Creator, and to communicate to his creatures,
he ordained in his eternal counsel that one person of the
Godhead should be united to one nature, and to one par-
ticular of his creatures ; that so, in the person of the Media-
tor, the true ladder might be fixed, whereby God might
'Edwards (1637-1716) was a Cambridge fellow, strongly Cal-
vinistic. He published many theological works, attacking the Ar-
minians and Socinians. Locke and Whiston were special objects of
attack.
*Sir I. Newton's views on points of Trinitarian Doctrine; his
Articles of Faith, and the General Coincidence of his Opinions with
those of J. Locke; a Selection of Authorities, with Observations,
London, 1856.
* A Confession of the Faith, Bristol, 1752, 8vo.
LOCKE AND SOCINIANISM. 145
descend to his creatures and his creatures might ascend to
God...."
This is republished by the Religious Tract Society, and
seems to suit their theology, for they confess to having
omitted some things of which they disapprove.
In 1864, Mr. Grosart published his discovery that the
Paradoxes are by Herbert Palmer ; that they were first pub-
lished surreptitiously, and immediately afterwards by him-
self, both in 1645; that the "Remains" of Bacon did not
appear until 1648 ; that from 1645 to 1708, thirteen editions
of the "Memorials" were published, all containing the Para-
doxes. In spite of this, the Paradoxes were introduced
into Bacon's works in 1730, where they have remained.
Herbert Palmer was of good descent, and educated as
a Puritan. He was an accomplished man, one of the few
of his day who could speak French as well as English. He
went into the Church, and was beneficed by Laud,7 in spite
of his puritanism; he sat in the Assembly of Divines, and
was finally President of Queens' College, Cambridge, in
which post he died, August 13, 1647, in the 46th year of
his age.
Mr. Grosart says, speaking of Bacon's "Remains," "All
who have had occasion to examine our early literature are
aware that it was a common trick to issue imperfect, false,
and unauthorized writings under any recently deceased
name that might be expected to take. The Puritans, down
to John Bunyan, were perpetually expostulating and pro-
testing against such procedure." I have met with instances
of all this ; but I did not know that there was so much of
it: a good collection would be very useful. The work of
1728, attributed to Newton, is likely enough to be one of
the class.
TThis was really very strange, because Laud (1573-1644), while
he was Archbishop of Canterbury, forced a good deal of High
Church ritual on the Puritan clergy, and even wished to compel the
use of a prayer book in Scotland. It was this intolerance that led
to his impeachment and execution.
146 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
Demonstration de I'immobiHtez de la Terre....Par M. de la
Jonchere,1 Ingenieur Francois. Londres, 1728, 8vo.
A synopsis which is of a line of argument belonging
to the beginning of the preceding century.
TWO FORGOTTEN CIRCLE SQUARERS.
The Circle squared; together with the Ellipsis and several re-
flections on it. The finding two geometrical mean propor-
tionals, or doubling the cube geometrically. By Richard Locke1
....London, no date, probably about 1730, 8vo.
According to Mr. Locke, the circumference is three
diameters, three-fourths the difference of the diameter and
the side of the inscribed equilateral triangle, and three-
fourths the difference between seven-eighths of the diameter
and the side of the same triangle. This gives, he says,
3. 18897. There is an addition to this tract, being an appen-
dix to a book on the longitude.
The Circle squar'd. By Thos. Baxter, Crathorn, Cleaveland,
Yorkshire. London, 1732, 8vo.
Here 7r = 3.0625. No proof is offered.2
The longitude discovered by the Eclipses, Occultations, and
Conjunctions of Jupiter's planets. By William Whiston. Lon-
don, 1738.
This tract has, in some copies, the celebrated preface
containing the account of Newton's appearance before the
Parliamentary Committee on the longitude question, in 1714
"The name is Jonchere. He was a man of some merit^ pro-
posing (1718) an important canal in Burgundy, and publishing a
work on the Decouverte des longitudes estimees generalement im-
possible a trouver, 1734 (or 1735).
1 Locke invented a kind of an instrument for finding longitude,
and it is described in the appendix, but I can find nothing about the
man. There was published some years later (London, 1751) another
work of his, A new Problem to discover the longitude at sea,
* Baxter, concerning whom I know merely that he was a school-
master, starts with the assumption of this value, and deduces from
it some fourteen properties relating to the circle.
THE STEAMSHIP SUGGESTED. 147
(Brewster, ii. 257-266). This "historical preface," is an
insertion and is dated April 28, 1741, with four additional
pages dated August 10, 1741. The short "preface" is by the
publisher, John Whiston,3 the author's son.
THE STEAMSHIP SUGGESTED.
A description and draught of a new-invented machine for carry-
ing vessels or ships out of, or into any harbour, port, or river,
against wind and tide, or in a calm. For which, His Majesty
has granted letters patent, for the sole benefit of the author,
for the space of fourteen years. By Jonathan Hulls.1 London :
printed for the author, 1737. Price sixpence (folding plate and
pp. 48, beginning from title).
(I ought to have entered this tract in its place. It is
so rare that its existence was once doubted. It is the earliest
description of steam-power applied to navigation. The
plate shows a barge, with smoking funnel, and paddles at
the stem, towing a ship of war. The engine, as described,
is Newcomen's.2
In 1855, John Sheepshanks,^ so well known as a friend of
Art and a public donor, reprinted this tract, in fac-simile,
from his own copy ; twenty-seven copies of the original
12mo size, and twelve on old paper, small 4to. I have an
original copy, wanting the plate, and with "Price sixpence"
carefully erased, to the honor of the book.*
8 John, who died in 1780, was a well-known character in his way.
He was a bookseller on Fleet Street, and his shop was a general
rendezvous for the literary men of his time. He wrote the Memoirs
of the Life and Writings of Mr. William Whiston (1749, with an-
other edition in 1753). He was one of the first to issue regular
catalogues of books with prices affixed.
1 The name appears both as Hulls and as Hull. He was born in
Gloucestershire in 1699. In 1754 he published The Art of Measuring
made Easy by the help of a new Sliding Scale.
"Thomas Newcomen (1663-1729) invented the first practical
steam engine about 1710. It was of about five and a half horse
power, and was used for pumping water from coal mines. Savery
had described such an engine in 1702, but Newcomen improved upon
it and made it practical.
"The well-known benefactor of art (1787-1863).
4 The tract was again reprinted in 1860.
148 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
It is not known whether Hulls actually constructed a
boat.5 In all probability his tract suggested to Symington,
as Symington6 did to Fulton.)
THE NEWTONIANS ATTACKED.
Le vrai systeme de physique generate de M. Isaac Newton ex-
pose et analyse en parallele avec celui de Descartes. By Louis
Castel1 [Jesuit and F.R.S.] Paris, 1743, 4to.
This is an elaborate correction of Newton's followers,
and of Newton himself, who it seems did not give his own
views with perfect fidelity. Father Castel, for instance,
assures us that Newton placed the sun at rest in the center
of the system. Newton left the sun to arrange that matter
with the planets and the rest of the universe. In this vol-
ume of 500 pages there is right and wrong, both clever.
A dissertation on the yEther of Sir Isaac Newton. By Bryan
Robinson,2 M.D. Dublin, 1743, 8vo.3
8 Hulls made his experiment on the Avon, at Evesham, in 1737,
having patented his machine in 1736. He had a Newcomen engine
connected with six paddles. This was placed in the front of a small
tow boat. The experiment was a failure.
"William Symington (1763-1831). In 1786 he contructed a
working model of a steam road carriage. The machinery was applied
to a small boat in 1788, and with such success as to be tried on a
larger boat in 1789. The machinery was clumsy, however, and in
1801 he took out a new patent for the style of engine still used on
paddle wheel steamers. This engine was successfully used in 1802,
on the Charlotte Dundas. Fulton (1765-1815) was on board, and so
impressed Robert Livingston with the idea that the latter furnished
the money to build the Clermont (1807), the beginning of successful
river navigation.
1 Louis Bertrand Castel (1688-1757), most of whose life was
spent in trying to perfect his Clavecin oculaire, an instrument on the
order of the harpsichord, intended to produce melodies and har-
monies of color. He also wrote L'Optique des couleurs (1740) and
Sur le fond de la Musique (1754).
8 Dr. Robinson (1680-1754) was professor of physic at Trinity
College, Dublin, and three times president of King and Queen's
College of Physicians. In his Treatise on the Animal Economy
(1732-3, with a third edition in 1738) he anticipated the discoveries
of Lavoisier and Priestley on the nature of oxygen.
3 There was another edition, published at London in 1747, 8vo.
MATHEMATICAL THEOLOGY. 149
A mathematical work professing to prove that the as-
sumed ether causes gravitation.
MATHEMATICAL THEOLOGY.
Mathematical principles of theology, or the existence of God
geometrically demonstrated. By Richard Jack, teacher of
Mathematics. London, 1747, Svo.1
Propositions arranged after the manner of Euclid, with
beings represented by circles and squares. But these circles
and squares are logical symbols, not geometrical ones. I
brought this book forward to the Royal Commission on the
British Museum as an instance of the absurdity of attempt-
ing a classed catalogue from the titles of books. The title of
this book sends it either to theology or geometry: when,
in fact, it is a logical vagary. Some of the houses which
Jack built were destroyed by the fortune of war in 1745, at
Edinburgh: who will say the rebels did no good whatever?
I suspect that Jack copied the ideas of J. B. Morinus, "Quod
Deus sit," Paris, 1636,2 4to, containing an attempt of the
same kind, but not stultified with diagrams.
TWO MODEL INDORSEMENTS.
Dissertation, decouverte, et demonstrations de la quadrature
mathematique du cercle. Par M. de Faure, geometre. [s. I,
probably Geneva] 1747, Svo.
Analyse de la Quadrature du Cercle. Par M. de Faure, Gentil-
homme Suisse. Hague, I749,1 4to.
According to this octavo geometer and quarto gentle-
man, a diameter of 81 gives a circumference of 256. There
is an amusing circumstance about the quarto which has
been overlooked, if indeed the book has ever been ex-
*The author seems to have shot his only bolt in this work. I
can find nothing about him.
3 Quod Deus sit, mundusque ab ipso creatus fuerit in tempore,
ejusque providentia gubernetur. Selecta aliquot theoremata adver-
sos atheos, etc., Paris, 1635, 4to.
*The British Museum Catalogue mentions a copy of 1740, but
this is possibly a misprint.
150 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
amined. John Bernoulli (the one of the day)2 and Koenig^
have both given an attestation: my mathematical readers
may stare as they please, such is the fact. But, on examina-
tion, there will be reason to think the two sly Swiss played
their countryman the same trick as the medical man played
Miss Pickle, in the novel of that name. The lady only
wanted to get his authority against sousing her little nephew,
and said, "Pray, doctor, is it not both dangerous and cruel
to be the means of letting a poor tender infant perish by
sousing it in water as cold as ice?" — "Downright murder,
I affirm," said the doctor; and certified accordingly. De
Faure had built a tremendous scaffolding of equations, quite
out of place, and feeling cock-sure that his solutions, if
correct, would square the circle, applied to Bernoulli and
Koenig — who after his tract of two years before, must have
known what he was at — for their approbation of the solu-
tions. And he got it, as follows, well guarded:
"Suivant les suppositions posees dans ce Memoire, il est
si evident que / doit etre = 34, y = 1, et z= 1, que cela n'a
besoin ni de preuve ni d'autorite pour etre reconnu par tout
le monde.4
"a Basle le 7e Mai 1749. JEAN BERNOULLI."
"Je souscris au jugement de Mr. Bernoulli, en conse-
quence de ces suppositions.5
"a la Haye le 21 Juin 1749. S. KOENIG."
On which de Faure remarks with triumph — as I have
no doubt it was intended he should do — "il conste clairement
par ma presente Analyse et Demonstration, qu'ils y ont deja
'This was Johann II (1710-1790), son of Johann I, who suc-
ceeded his father as professor of mathematics at Basel.
'Samuel Koenig (1712-1757), who studied under Johann Ber-
noulli I. He became professor of mathematics at Franeker (1747)
and professor of philosophy at the Hague (1749).
4 "In accordance with the hypotheses laid down in this memoir it
is so evident that / must =34, y = I, and « = i, that there is no
need of proof or authority for it to be recognized by every one."
B"I subscribe to the judgment of Mr. Bernoulli as a result of
these hypotheses."
THOMAS WRIGHT OF DURHAM. 151
reconnu et approuve parfaitement que la quadrature du
cercle est mathematiquement demontree."6 It should seem
that it is easier to square the circle than to get round a
mathematician.
An attempt to demonstrate that all the Phenomena in Nature
may be explained by two simple active principles, Attraction
and Repulsion, wherein the attraction of Cohesion, Gravity
and Magnetism are shown to be one and the same. By Gowin
Knight. London, 1748, 4to.
Dr. Knight7 was Mr. Panizzi's8 archetype, the first Prin-
cipal Librarian of the British Museum. He was celebrated
for his magnetical experiments. This work was long neg-
lected ; but is now recognized as of remarkable resemblance
to modern speculations.
THOMAS WRIGHT OF DURHAM.
An original theory or Hypothesis of the Universe. By Thomas
Wright1 of Durham. London, 4to, 1750.
Wright is a speculator whose thoughts are now part of
our current astronomy. He took that view — or most of it —
of the milky way which afterwards suggested itself to Wil-
liam Herschel. I have given an account of him and his
work in the Philosophical Magazine for April, 1848.
Wright was mathematical instrument maker to the King ;
8 "It clearly appears from my present analysis and demonstration
that they have already recognized and perfectly agreed to the fact
that the quadrature of the circle is mathematically demonstrated."
TDr. Knight (died in 1772) made some worthy contributions to
the literature of the mariner's compass. As De Morgan states, he
was librarian of the British Museum.
8 Sir Anthony Panizzi (1797-1879) fled from Italy under sen-
tence of death (1822). He became assistant (1831) and chief
(1856) librarian of the British Museum, and was knighted in 1869.
He began the catalogue of printed books of the Museum.
1 Wright (1711-1786) was a physicist. He was offered the pro-
fessorship of mathematics at the Imperial Academy of St. Peters-
burg but declined to accept it. This work is devoted chiefly to the
theory of the Milky Way, the via lactea as he calls it after the man-
ner of the older writers.
152 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
and kept a shop in Fleet Street. Is the celebrated business
of Troughton & Simms, also in Fleet Street, a lineal des-
cendant of that of Wright ? It is likely enough, more likely
that that — as I find him reported to have affirmed — Prester
John was the descendant of Solomon and the Queen of
Sheba. Having settled it thus, it struck me that I might
apply to Mr. Simms, and he informs me that it is as I
thought, the line of descent being Wright, Cole, John
Troughton, Edward Troughton,2 Troughton & Simms.s
BISHOP HORNE ON NEWTON.
The theology and philosophy in Cicero's Somnium Scipionis
explained. Or, a brief attempt to demonstrate, that the New-
tonian system is perfectly agreeable to the notions of the
wisest ancients : and that mathematical principles are the only
sure ones. [By Bishop Home,1 at the age of nineteen.] Lon-
don, 1751, 8vo.
This tract, which was not printed in the collected works,
and is now excessively rare, is mentioned in Notes and Que-
ries, 1st S., v, 490, 573; 2d S., ix, 15. The boyish satire
on Newton is amusing. Speaking of old Benjamin Martin,2
he goes on as follows:
2 Troughton (1753-1835) was one of the world's greatest in-
strument makers. He was apprenticed to his brother John, and the
two succeeded (1770) Wright and Cole in Fleet Street. Airy called
his method of graduating circles the greatest improvement ever
made in instrument making. He constructed (1800) the first modern
transit circle, and his instruments were used in many of the chief
observatories of the world.
'William Simms (1793-1860) was taken into partnership by
Troughton (1826) after the death of the latter's brother. The firm
manufactured some well-known instruments.
JThis was George Home (1730-1792), fellow of Magdalen Col-
lege, Oxford, vice-Chancellor of the University (1776), Dean of
Canterbury (1781), and Bishop of Norwich (1790). He was a great
satirist, but most of his pamphlets against men like Adam Smith,
Swedenborg, and Hume, were anonymous, as in the case of this
one against Newton. He was so liberal in his attitude towards the
Methodists that he would not have John Wesley forbidden to preach
in his diocese. He was twenty-one when this tract appeared.
a Martin (1704-1782) was by no means "old Benjamin Martin"
when Home wrote this pamphlet in 1749. In fact he was then only
BISHOP HORNE ON NEWTON. 153
"But the most elegant account of the matter [attraction]
is by that hominiform animal, Mr. Benjamin Martin, who
having attended Dr. Desaguliers'3 fine, raree, gallanty shew
for some years [Desaguliers was one of the first who gave
public experimental lectures, before the saucy boy was born]
in the capacity of a turnspit, has, it seems, taken it into his
head to set up for a philosopher."
Thus is preserved the fact, unknown to his biographers,
that Benj. Martin was an assistant to Desaguliers in his
lectures. Hutton* says of him, that "he was well skilled in the
whole circle of the mathematical and philosophical sciences,
and wrote useful books on every one of them" : this is quite
true ; and even at this day he is read by twenty where Home
is read by one ; see the stalls, passim. All that I say of him, in-
deed my knowledge of the tract, is due to this contemptuous
mention of a more durable man than himself. My assistant
secretary at the Astronomical Society, the late Mr. Epps,s
bought the copy at a stall because his eye was caught by the
notice of "Old Ben Martin," of whom he was a great reader.
Old Ben could not be a Fellow of the Royal Society, because he
kept a shop: even though the shop sold nothing but philo-
sophical instruments. Thomas Wright, similarly situated
as to shop and goods, never was a Fellow. The Society
of our day has greatly degenerated : those of the old time
would be pleased, no doubt, that the glories of their day
forty-five. He was a physicist and a well-known writer on scientific
instruments. He also wrote Philosophic, Britannica or a new and
comprehensive system of the Newtonian Philosophy (1759).
3 Jean Theophile Desaguliers, or Des Aguliers (1683-1744) was
the son of a Protestant who left France after the revocation of the
Edict of Nantes. He became professor of physics at Oxford, and
afterwards gave lectures in London. Later he became chaplain to
the Prince of Wales. He published several works on physics.
4 Charles Hutton (1737-1823), professor of mathematics at Wool-
wich (1772-1807). His Mathematical Tables (1785) and Mathemat-
ical and Philosophical Dictionary (1795-1796) are well known.
5 James Epps (1773-1839) contributed a number of memoirs on
the use and corrections of instruments. He was assistant secretary
of the Astronomical Society.
154 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
should be commemorated. In the early days of the Society,
there was a similar difficulty about Graunt, the author of
the celebrated work on mortality. But their royal patron,
"who never said a foolish thing," sent them a sharp mes-
sage, and charged them if they found any more such trades-
men, they should "elect them without more ado."
Home's first pamphlet was published when he was but
twenty-one years old. Two years afterwards, being then
a Fellow of his college, and having seen more of the world,
he seems to have felt that his manner was a little too pert.
He endeavored, it is said, to suppress his first tract: and
copies are certainly of extreme rarity. He published the
following as his maturer view:
A fair, candid, and impartial state of the case between Sir
Isaac Newton and Mr. Hutchinson.6 In which is shown how
far a system of physics is capable of mathematical demonstra-
tion ; how far Sir Isaac's, as such a system, has that demon-
stration; and consequently, what regard Mr. Hutchinson' s
claim may deserve to have paid to it. By George Home, M.A.
Oxford, 1753, 8vo.
It must be remembered that the successors of Newton
were very apt to declare that Newton had demonstrated
attraction as a physical cause : he had taken reasonable pains
to show that he did not pretend to this. If any one had
said to Newton, I hold that every particle of matter is a
responsible being of vast intellect, ordered by the Creator
to move as it would do if every other particle attracted it,
and gifted with- power to make its way in true accordance
with that law, as easily as a lady picks her way across the
street ; what have you to say against it ? — Newton must
have replied, Sir! if you really undertake to maintain this
as demonstrable, your soul had better borrow a little power
'John Hutchinson (1674-1737) was one of the first to ^ try to
reconcile the new science of geology with Genesis. He denied the
Newtonian hypothesis as dangerous to religion, and because it ne-
cessitated a vacuum. He was a mystic in his interpretation of the
Scriptures, and created a sect that went under the name of Hutchin-
sonians.
BISHOP HORNE ON NEWTON. 155
from the particles of which your body is made: if you
merely ask me to refute it, I tell you that I neither can nor
need do it ; for whether attraction comes in this way or in
any other, it comes, and that is all I have to do with it.
The reader should remember that the word attraction,
as used by Newton and the best of his followers, only meant
a drawing towards, without any implication as to the cause.
Thus whether they said that matter attracts .matter, or that
young lady attracts young gentleman, they were using one
word in one sense. Newton found that the law of the first
is the inverse square of the distance: I am not aware that
the law of the second has been discovered ; if there be any
chance, we shall see it at the year 1856 in this list.
In this point young Home made a hit. He justly cen-
sures those who fixed upon Newton a more positive knowl-
edge of what attraction is than he pretended to have. "He
has owned over and over he did not know what he meant
by it — it might be this, or it might be that, or it might be
anything, or it might be nothing." With the exception of
the nothing clause, this is true, though Newton might have
answered Home by "Thou hast said it."
(I thought everybody knew the meaning of "Thou hast
said it": but I was mistaken. In three of the evangelists
2v Aeyeis is the answer to "Art thou a king?" The force of
this answer, as always understood, is "That is your way
of putting it." The Puritans, who lived in Bible phrases,
so understood it : and Walter Scott, who caught all peculiar-
ities of language with great effect, makes a marked instance,
"Were you armed? — I was not — I went in my calling, as
a preacher of God's word, to encourage them that drew
the sword in His cause. In other words, to aid and abet
the rebels, said the Duke. Thou hast spoken it, replied the
prisoner.")
Again, Home quotes Rowning7 as follows:
7 John Rowning, a Lincolnshire rector, died in 1771. He wrote on
156 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
"Mr. Rowning, pt. 2, p. 5 in a note, has a very pretty
conceit upon this same subject of attraction, about every
particle of a fluid being intrenched in three spheres of
attraction and repulsion, one within another, 'the innermost
of which (he says) is a sphere of repulsion, which keeps
them from approaching into contact; the next, a sphere of
attraction, diffused around this of repulsion, by which the
particles are disposed to run together into drops; and the
outermost of all, a sphere of repulsion, whereby they repel
each other, when removed out of the attraction.' So that
between the urglngs, and solicitations, of one and t'other,
a poor unhappy particle must ever be at his wit's end, not
knowing which way to turn, or whom to obey first."
Rowning has here started the notion which Boscovich8
afterwards developed.
I may add to what precedes that it cannot be settled that,
as Grange^ says, Desaguliers was the first who gave ex-
perimental lectures in London. William Whiston gave some,
and Francis Hauksbee10 made the experiments. The prospec-
tus, as we should now call it, is extant, a quarto tract of
plates and descriptions, without date. Whiston, in his life,
physics, and published a memoir on A machine for finding the roots
of equations universally (1770).
8 It is always difficult to sanction this spelling of the name of this
Jesuit father who is so often mentioned in the analytic treatment of
conies. He was born in Ragusa in 1711, and the original spelling was
RuSer Josip Boskovic. When he went to live in Italy, as professor
of mathematics at Rome (1740) and at Pavia, the name was spelled
Ruggiero Giuseppe Boscovich, although Boscovicci would seem to
a foreigner more natural. His astronomical work was notable, and
in his De maculis solaribus (1736) there is the first determination
of the equator of a planet by observing the motion of spots on its
surface. Boscovich came near having some contact with America,
for he was delegated to observe in California the transit of Venus
in 1755, being prevented by the dissolution of his order just at that
time. He died in 1787, at Milan.
* James Granger (1723-1776) who wrote the Biographical His-
tory of England, London, 1769. His collection of prints was re-
markable, numbering some fourteen thousand.
10 He was curator of experiments for the Royal Society. He
wrote a large number of books and monographs on physics. He
died about 1713.
FALLACIES IN A THEORY OF ANNUITIES. 157
gives 1714 as the first date of publication, and therefore,
no doubt, of the lectures. Desaguliers removed to London
soon after 1712, and commenced his lectures soon after that.
It will be rather a nice point to settle which lectured first;
probabilities seem to go in favor of Whiston.
FALLACIES IN A THEORY OF ANNUITIES.
An Essay to ascertain the value of leases, and annuities for
years and lives. By W[eyman] L[ee]. London, 1737, 8vo.
A valuation of Annuities and Leases certain, for a single life.
By Weyman Lee, Esq. of the Inner Temple. London, 1751,
8vo. Third edition, 1773.
. Every branch of exact science has its paradoxer. The
world at large cannot tell with certainty who is right in
such questions as squaring the circle, etc. Mr. Weyman
Lee1 was the assailant of what all who had studied called
demonstration in the question of annuities. He can be ex-
posed to the world : for his error arose out of his not being
able to see that the whole is the sum of all its parts.
By an annuity, say of £100, now bought, is meant that
the buyer is to have for his money £100 in a year, if he be
then alive, £100 at the end of two years, if then alive, and so
on. It is clear that he would buy a life annuity if he should
buy the first £100 in one office, the second in another, and
so on. All the difference between buying the whole from
one office and buying all the separate contingent payments
at different offices, is immaterial to calculation. Mr. Lee
would have agreed with the rest of the world about the
payments to be made to the several different offices, in con-
sideration of their several contracts: but he differed from
every one else about the sum to be paid to one office. He
contended that the way to value an annuity is to find out
the term of years which the individual has an even chance
of surviving, and to charge for the life annuity the value of
an annuity certain for that term.
1Lee seems to have made no impression on biographers.
158 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
It is very common to say that Lee took the average life,
or expectation, as it is wrongly called, for his term: and
this I have done myself, taking the common story. Having
exposed the absurdity of this second supposition, taking it
for Lee's, in my Formal Logic,2 I will now do the same with
the first.
A mathematical truth is true in its extreme cases. Lee's
principle is that an annuity on a life is the annuity made
certain for the term within which it is an even chance the
life drops. If, then, of a thousand persons, 500 be sure to
die within a year, and the other 500 be immortal, Lee's
price of an annuity to any one of these persons is the
present value of one payment: for one year is the term
which each one has an even chance of surviving and not
surviving. But the true value is obviously half that of a
perpetual annuity: so that at 5 percent Lee's rule would
give less than the tenth of the true value. It must be said
for the poor circle-squarers, that they never err so much
as this.
Lee would have said, if alive, that I have put an extreme
case: but any universal truth is true in its extreme cases.
It is not fair to bring forward an extreme case against a
person who is speaking as of usual occurrences: but it is
quite fair when, as frequently happens, the proposer insists
upon a perfectly general acceptance of his assertion. And
yet many who go the whole hog protest against being tickled
with the tail. Counsel in court are good instances : they are
paradoxers by trade. June 13, 1849, at Hertford, there was
an action about a ship, insured against a total loss: some
planks were saved, and the underwriters refused to pay.
Mr. Z. (for deft.) "There can be no degrees of totality; and
some timbers were saved." — L. C. B. "Then if the vessel
were burned to the water's edge, and some rope saved in
the boat, there would be no total loss." — Mr. Z. "This is
putting a very extreme case." — L. C. B. "The argument
2 This work appeared at London in 1852.
MONTUCLA'S WORK ON THE QUADRATURE. 159
would go that length." What would Judge Z. — as he now
is — say to the extreme case beginning somewhere between
six planks and a bit of rope?
MONTUCLA'S WORK ON THE QUADRATURE.
Histoire des recherches sur la quadrature du cercle. . . .avec
une addition concernant les problemes de la duplication du
cube et de la trisection de Tangle. Paris, 1754, I2mo. [By
Montucla.]
This is the history of the subject.1 It was a little episode
to the great history of mathematics by Montucla, of which
the first edition appeared in 1758. There was much addition
at the end of the fourth volume of the second edition ; this
is clearly by Montucla, though the bulk of the volume is put to-
gether, with help from Montucla's papers, by Lalande.2 There
is also a second edition of the history of the quadrature,
Paris, 1831, 8vo, edited, I think, by Lacroix; of which it
is the great fault that it makes hardly any use of the addi-
tional matter just mentioned.
Montucla is an admirable historian when he is writing
from his own direct knowledge : it is a sad pity that he did
not tell us when he was depending on others. We are not
to trust a quarter of his book, and we must read many
other books to know which quarter. The fault is common
enough, but Montucla's good three-quarters is so good that
the fault is greater in him than in most others: I mean the
fault of not acknowledging; for an historian cannot read
everything. But it must be said that mankind give little
encouragement to candor on this point. Hallam, in his
1 Of course this is no longer true. The most scholarly work
to-day is that of Rudio, Archimedes, Huygens, Lambert, Legendre,
vier Abhandlungen uber die Kreismessung. . . .mit einer Uebersicht
iibcr die Geschichte des Problems von der Quadratur des Zirkels,
von den 'dltesten Zeiten bis auf unsere Tage, Leipsic, 1892.
2 Joseph Jerome le Francois de Lalande (1732-1807), professor
of astronomy in the College de France (1753) and director of the
Paris Observatory (1761). His writings on astronomy and his Bib-
liographic astronomique, avec I'histoire de I'astronomie depuis 1781
jusqu'en 1802 (Paris, 1803) are well known.
160 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
History of Literature, states with his own usual instinct
of honesty every case in which he depends upon others :
Montucla does not. And what is the consequence? — Mon-
tucla is trusted, and believed in, and cried up in the bulk ;
while the smallest talker can lament that Hallam should
be so unequal and apt to depend on others, without remem-
bering to mention that Hallam himself gives the informa-
tion. As to a universal history of any great subject being
written entirely upon primary knowledge, it is a thing of
which the possibility is not yet proved by an example. De-
lambre attempted it with astronomy, and was removed by
death before it was finished,3 to say nothing of the gaps
he left.
Montucla was nothing of a bibliographer, and his de-
scriptions of books in the first edition were insufficient. The
Abbe Rive4 fell foul of him, and as the phrase is, gave it
him. Montucla took it with great good humor, tried to
mend, and, in his second edition, wished his critic had lived
to see the vernis de bibliographe which he had given himself.
I have seen Montucla set down as an esprit fort, more
than once: wrongly, I think. When he mentions Barrow'ss
address to the Almighty, he adds, "On voit, au reste, par la,
que Barrow etoit un pauvre philosophe; car il croyait en
rimmortalite de Tame, et en une Divinite autre que la nature
8 De Morgan refers to his Histoire de I' Astronomic au i8e siccle,
which appeared in 1827, five years after Delambre's death. Jean
Baptiste Joseph Delambre (1749-1822) was a pupil of and a collabo-
rator with Lalande, following his master as professor of astronomy
in the College de France. His work on the measurements for the
metric system is well known, and his four histories of astronomy,
ancienne (1817), au moyen age (1819), moderne (1821), and au i8e
siecle (posthumous, 1827) are highly esteemed.
4 Jean- Joseph Rive (1730-1792), a priest who left his cure under
grave charges, and a quarrelsome character. His attack on Mon-
tucla was a case of the pot calling the kettle black ; for while he was
a brilliant writer he was a careless bibliographer.
5 Isaac Barrow (1630-1677) was quite as well known as a theo-
logian as he was from his Lucasian professorship of mathematics at
Cambridge.
MONTUCLA'S WORK ON THE QUADRATURE. 161
universelle."0 This is irony, not an expression of opinion.
In the book of mathematical recreations which Montucla
constructed upon that of Ozanam,7 and Ozanam upon that
of Van Etten,8 now best known in England by Hutton's
similar treatment of Montucla, there is an amusing chapter
on the quadrators. Montucla refers to his own anonymous
book of 1754 as a curious book published by Jombert.9 He
seems to have been a little ashamed of writing about circle-
squarers : what a slap on the face for an unborn Budgeteer !
Montucla says, speaking of France, that he finds three
notions prevalent among the cyclometers: (1) that there
is a large reward offered for success; (2) that the longitude
problem depends on that success; (3) that the solution is
the great end and object of geometry. The same three
8 "Besides we can see by this that Barrow was a poor philosopher ;
for he believed in the immortality of the soul and in a Divinity
other than universal nature."
TThe Recreations mathematiques et physiques (Paris, 1694) of
Jacques Ozanam (1640-1717) is a work that is still highly esteemed.
Among various other works he wrote a Dictionnaire mathematique
ou Idee generate des mathematiques (1690) that was not without
merit. The Recreations went through numerous editions (Paris,
1694, 1696, 1741, 1750, 1770, 1778, and the Montucla edition of 1790;
London, 1708, the Montucla-Hutton edition of 1803 and the Riddle
edition of 1840; Dublin, 1790).
8Hendryk van Etten, the nom de plume of Jean Leurechon
(1591-1670), rector of the Jesuit college at Bar, and professor of
philosophy and mathematics. He wrote on astronomy (1619) and
horology (1616), and is known for his Selecta Propositipnes in tota
sparsim mathematica pulcherrime propositae in solemni festo SS.
Ignatii et Francesci Xaverii, 1622. The book to which De Morgan
refers is his Recreation mathematicque, composee de plusieurs pro-
blcmes plaisants et facetieux, Lyons, 1627, with an edition at Pont-
a-Mousson, 1629. There were English editions published at London
in 1633, 1653, and 1674, and Dutch editions in 1662 and 1672.
I do not understand how De Morgan happened to miss own-
ing the work by Claude Caspar Bachet de Meziriac (1581-1638),
Problcmes plaisans et detectable*, which appeared at Lyons in 1612,
8vo, with a second edition in 1624. There was a fifth edition pub-
lished at Paris in 1884.
9 His title page closes with "Paris, Chez Ch. Ant. Jombert
M.DCC.LIV."
This was Charles- Antoine Jombert (1712-1784), a printer and
bookseller with some taste for painting and architecture. He wrote
several works and edited a number of early treatises.
162 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.-
notions are equally prevalent among the same class in Eng-
land. No reward has ever been offered by the government
of either country. The longitude problem in no way de-
pends upon perfect solution; existing approximations are
sufficient to a point of accuracy far beyond what can be
wanted.10 And geometry, content with what exists, has long
passed on to other matters. Sometimes a cyclometer per-
suades a skipper who has made land in the wrong place
that the astronomers are in fault, for using a wrong measure
of the circle; and the skipper thinks it a very comfortable
solution ! And this is the utmost that the problem ever has
to do with longitude.
ANTINEWTONIANISMUS.
Antinewtonianismus.1 By Caelestino Cominale,2 M.D. Naples,
1754 and 1756, 2 vols. 4to.
The first volume upsets the theory of light; the second
vacuum, vis inertise, gravitation, and attraction. I confess
I never attempted these big Latin volumes, numbering 450
closely-printed quarto pages. The man who slays Newton
in a pamphlet is the man for me. But I will lend them to
anybody who will give security, himself in £500, and two
sureties in £250 each, that he will read them through, and
give a full abstract; and I will not exact security for their
return. I have never seen any mention of this book : it has
a printer, but not a publisher, as happens with so many un-
recorded books.
10 The late Professor Newcomb made the matter plain even to
the non-mathematical mind, when he said that "ten decimal places
are sufficient to give the circumference of the earth to the fraction
of an inch, and thirty decimal places would give the circumference
of the whole visible universe to a quantity imperceptible with the
most powerful microscope."
1 Antinewtonianismi pars prima, in qua Newtoni de coloribus
systema ex propriis principiis geometrice evertitur, et nova de colori-
bus theoria luculentissimis experiments demonstrantur . .. .Naples,
1754'> pars secunda, Naples, 1756.
2Celestino Cominale (1722-1785) was professor of medicine at
the University of Naples.
OFFICIAL BLOW TO CIRCLE SQUARERS. 163
OFFICIAL BLOW TO CIRCLE SQUARERS.
1755. The French Academy of Sciences came to the
determination not to examine any more quadratures or
kindred problems. This was the consequence, no doubt,
of the publication of Montucla's book: the time was well
chosen ; for that book was a full justification of the resolu-
tion. The Royal Society followed the same course, I be-
lieve, a few years afterwards. When our Board of Longi-
tude was in existence, most of its time was consumed in
listening to schemes, many of which included the quadrature
of the circle. It is certain that many quadrators have im-
agined the longitude problem to be connected with theirs:
and no doubt the notion of a reward offered by Government
for a true quadrature is a result of the reward offered for
the longitude. Let it also be noted that this longitude re-
ward was not a premium upon excogitation of a mysterious
difficulty. The legislature was made to know that the
rational hopes of the problem were centered in the improve-
ment of the lunar tables and the improvement of chronom-
eters. To these objects alone, and by name, the offer was
directed: several persons gained rewards for both; and the
offer was finally repealed.
AN INTERESTING HOAX.
Fundamentalis Figura Geometrica, primas tantum lineas circuli
quadrature possibilitatis ostendens. By Niels Erichsen (Nico-
laus Ericius), shipbuilder, of Copenhagen. Copenhagen, 1755,
I2mo.
This was a gift from my oldest friend who was not a
relative, Dr. Samuel Maitland of the "Dark Ages."1 He
found it among his books, and could not imagine how he
came by it: I could have told him. He once collected
interpretations of the Apocalypse: and auction lots of such
1 The work appeared in the years from 1844 to 1849.
164 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
books often contain quadratures. The wonder is he never
found more than one.
The quadrature is not worth notice. Erichsen is the only
squarer I have met with who has distinctly asserted the par-
ticulars of that reward which has been so frequently thought
to have been offered in England. He says that in 1747 the
Royal Society on the 2d of June, offered to give a large re-
ward for the quadrature of the circle and a true explanation
of magnetism, in addition to £30,000 previously promised for
the same. I need hardly say that the Royal Society had
not £30,000 at that time, and would not, if it had had such
a sum, have spent it on the circle, nor on magnetic theory;
nor would it have coupled the two things. On this book,
see Notes and Queries, 1st S., xii, 306. Perhaps Erichsen
meant that the £30,000 had been promised by the Govern-
ment, and the addition by the Royal Society.
October 8, 1866. I receive a letter from a cyclometer
who understands that a reward is offered to any one who
will square the circle, and that all competitors are to send
their plans to me. The hoaxers have not yet failed out of
the land.
TWO JESUIT CONTRIBUTIONS.
Theoria Philosophise Naturalis redacta ad unicam legem virium
in natura existentium. Editio Veneta prima. By Roger Joseph
Boscovich. Venice, 1763, 4to.
The first edition is said to be of Vienna, 1758.1 This
is a celebrated work on the molecular theory of matter,
grounded on the hypothesis of spheres of alternate attrac-
tion and repulsion. Boscovich was a Jesuit of varied pur-
suit. During his measurement of a degree of the meridian,
while on horseback or waiting for his observations, he com-
posed a Latin poem of about five thousand verses on eclipses,
1 There was a Vienna edition in 1758, 4to, and another in 1759,
4to. This edition is described on the title page as Editio Veneta
prima ipso auctore praesente, et corrigente.
TWO JESUIT CONTRIBUTIONS. 165
[with notes, which he dedicated to the Royal Society: De
\Solis et LuncE defectibus,2 London, Millar and Dodsley,
1760, 4to.
Traite de paix entre Des Cartes et Newton, precede des vies
litteraires de ces deux chefs de la physique moderne. . .By Aime
Henri Paulian.3 Avignon, 1763, I2mo.
I have had these books for many years without feeling
the least desire to see how a lettered Jesuit would atone
Descartes and Newton. On looking at my two volumes, I
find that one contains nothing but the literary life of Des-
cartes; the other nothing but the literary life of New-
ton. The preface indicates more: and Watt mentions three
volumes.4 I dare say the first two contain all that is valu-
able. On looking more attentively at the two volumes, I
find them both readable and instructive; the account of
Newton is far above that of Voltaire, but not so popular.
But he should not have said that Newton's family came from
Newton in Ireland. Sir Rowland Hill gives fourteen New-
tons in Ireland :S twice the number of the cities that con-
tended for the birth of Homer may now contend for the
origin of Newton, on the word of Father Paulian.
Philosophical Essays, in three parts. By R. Lovett, Lay Clerk
of the Cathedral Church of Worcester. Worcester, 1766, 8vo.
The Electrical Philosopher: containing a new system of physics
8 The first edition was entitled De solis ac lunae defectibus libri
V. P. Rogerii Jose phi Boscovich. . . . cum ejusdem auctoris adnota-
tionibus, London, 1760. It also appeared in Venice in 1761, and in
French translation by the Abbe de Baruel in 1779, and was a work
of considerable influence.
Paulian (1722-1802) was professor of physics at the Jesuit
college at Avignon. He wrote several works, the most popular of
which, the Dictionnaire de physique (Avignon, 1761), went through
nine editions by 1789.
4 This is correct.
5 Probably referring to the fact that Hill (1795-1879), who had
done so much for postal reform, was secretary to the postmaster
general (1846), and his name was a synonym for the post office
directory.
166 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
founded upon the principle of an universal Plenum of ele-
mentary fire By R. Lovett, Worcester, 1774, 8vo.
Mr. Lovett6 was one of those ether philosophers who
bring in elastic fluid as an explanation by imposition of
words, without deducing any one phenomenon from what
we know of it. And yet he says that attraction has received
no support from geometry; though geometry, applied to
a particular law of attraction, had shown how to predict the
motions of the bodies of the solar system. He, and many
of his stamp, have not the least idea of the confirmation
of a theory by accordance of deduced results with observa-
tion posterior to the theory.
BAILLY'S EXAGGERATED VIEW OF ASTRONOMY.
Lettres sur 1'Atlantide de Platon, et sur 1'ancien Histoire de
1'Asie, pour servir de suite aux lettres sur 1'origine des Sci-
ences, adressees a M. de Voltaire, par M. Bailly.1 London and
Paris, 1779, 8vo.
I might enter here all Bailly's histories of astronomy.2
The paradox which runs through them all more or less, is
the doctrine that astronomy is of immense antiquity, com-
ing from some forgotten source, probably the drowned island
of Plato, peopled by a race whom Bailly makes, as has
'Richard Lovett (1692-1780) was a good deal of a charlatan.
He claimed to have studied electrical phenomena, and in 1758 ad-
vertised that he could effect marvelous cures, especially of sore
throat, by means of electricity. Before publishing the works men-
tioned by De Morgan he had issued others of similar character,
including The Subtile Medium proved (London, 1756) and The
Reviewers Reviewed (London, 1760).
1Jean Sylvain Bailly (1736-1793), member of the Academic
francaise and of the Academic des sciences, first deputy elected to
represent Paris in the Etats-generaux (1789), president of the first
National Assembly, and mayor of Paris (1789-1791). For his vigor
as mayor in keeping the peace, and for his manly defence of the
Queen, he was guillotined. He was an astronomer of ability, but
is best known for his histories of the science.
'These were the Histoire de T Astronomic ancienne (1775), His-
toire de V Astronomic moderne (1778-1783), Histoire de I'Astronomie
indienne et orientale (1787), and Lettres sur ? origin* des peuples de
I'Asie (1775).
SAINT-MARTIN ON ERRORS AND TRUTH. 167
been said, to teach us everything except their existence and
their name. These books, the first scientific histories which
belong to readable literature, made a great impression by
power of style: Delambre created a strong reaction, of in-
jurious amount, in favor of history founded on contemporary
documents, which early astronomy cannot furnish. These
letters are addressed to Voltaire, and continue the discussion.
There is one letter of Voltaire, being the fourth, dated Feb.
27, 1777, and signed "le vieux malade de Ferney, V. puer
centum annorum."3 Then begin Bailly's letters, from Jan-
uary 16 to May 12, 1778. From some ambiguous expres-
sions in the Preface, it would seem that these are fictitious
letters, supposed to be addressed to Voltaire at their dates.
Voltaire went to Paris February 10, 1778, and died there
May 30. Nearly all this interval was his closing scene, and
it is very unlikely that Bailly would have troubled him with
these letters.*
An inquiry into the cause of motion, or a general theory of
physics. By S. Miller. London, 1781, 4to.
Newton all wrong: matter consists of two kinds of par-
ticles, one inert, the other elastic and capable of expanding
themselves ad infinitum.
SAINT-MARTIN ON ERRORS AND TRUTH.
Des Erreurs et de la Verite, ou les hommes rappeles au prih-
cipe universel de la science; ouvrage dans lequel, en faisant
remarquer aux observateurs 1'incertitude de leurs recherches,
et leurs meprises continuelles, on leur indique la route qu'ils
auroient du suivre, pour acquerir 1'evidence physique sur
Torigine du bien et du mal, sur 1'homme, sur la nature mate-
rielle, et la nature sacree; sur la base des gouvernements
"The sick old man of Ferney, V., a boy of a hundred years."
Voltaire was born in 1694, and hence was eighty-three at this time.
4 In Palmezeaux's Vie de Bailly, in Bailly's Ouvrage Posthume
(1810), M. de Sales is quoted as saying that the Lettres sur I'Atlan-
tide were sent to Voltaire and that the latter did not approve of the
theory set forth.
168 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
politiques, sur 1'autorite des souverains, sur la justice civile
et criminelle, sur les sciences, les langues, et les arts. Par
un Ph.... Inc A Edimbourg. I782.1 Two vols. 8vo.
This is the famous work of Louis Claude de Saint-
Martin2 (1743-1803), for whose other works, vagaries in-
cluded, the reader must look elsewhere : among other things,
he was a translator of Jacob Behmen.3 The title promises
much, and the writer has smart thoughts now and then ;
but the whole is the wearisome omniscience of the author's
day and country, which no reader of our time can tolerate.
Not that we dislike omniscience ; but we have it of our own
country, both home-made and imported ; and fashions vary.
But surely there can be but one omniscience? Must a man
have but one wife? Nay, may not a man have a new wife
while the old one is living? There was a famous instru-
mental professor forty years ago, who presented a friend
to Madame . The friend started, and looked surprised ;
for, not many weeks before, he had been presented to another
lady, with the same title, at Paris. The musician observed
his surprise, and quietly said, "Celle-ci est Madame -
de Londres." In like manner we have a London omniscience
now current, which would make any one start who only
knew the old French article.
The book was printed at Lyons, but it was a trick of
French authors to pretend to be afraid of prosecution: it
1The British Museum catalogue gives two editions, 1781 and
1782.
a A mystic and a spiritualist. His chief work was the one men-
tioned here.
3 Jacob Behmen, or Bohme (1575-1624), known as "the German
theosophist," was founder of the sect of Boehmists, a cult allied
to the Swedenborgians. He was given to the study of alchemy,
and brought the vocabulary of the science into his mystic writings.
His sect was revived in England in the eighteenth century through
the efforts of William Law. Saint-Martin translated into French
two of his Latin works under the titles L'Aurore naissante, ou la
Racine de la philosophie (1800), and Les trois principes de V essence
divine (1802). The originals had appeared nearly two hundred
years earlier,— Aurora in 1612, and De tribus principiis in 1619.
SAINT-MARTIN ON ERRORS AND TRUTH. 169
made a book look wicked-like to have a feigned place of
printing, and stimulated readers. A Government which
had undergone Voltaire would never have drawn its sword
upon quiet Saint-Martin. To make himself look still worse,
he was only ph[ilosophe] Inc. . . ., which is generally read
Inconnu? but sometimes Incredule:* most likely the am-
biguity was intended. There is an awful paradox about the
book, which explains, in part, its leaden sameness. It is all
about I'homme, I'homme, I'homme,6 except as much as treats
of les hommes, les hommes, les hommes ;7 but not one single
man is mentioned by name in its 500 pages. It reminds
one of
"Water, water everywhere,
And not a drop to drink."
Not one opinion of any other man is referred to, in the way
of agreement or of opposition. Not even a town is men-
tioned: there is nothing which brings a capital letter into
the middle of a sentence, except, by the rarest accident,
such a personification as Justice. A likely book to want an
Edimbourg godfather !
Saint-Martin is great in mathematics. The number four
essentially belongs to straight lines, and nine to curves.
The object of a straight line is to perpetuate ad infinitum
the production of a point from which it emanates. A circle
O bounds the production of all its radii, tends to destroy
them, and is in some sort their enemy. How is it possible
that things so distinct should not be distinguished in their
number as well as in their action? If this important ob-
servation had been made earlier, immense trouble would
have been saved to the mathematicians, who would have
been prevented from searching for a common measure to
lines which have nothing in common. But, though all
straight lines have the number four, it must not be supposed
that they are all equal, for a line is the result of its law and
'"Unknown." ""Skeptical."
8 "Man, man, man." 7 "Men, men, men."
170 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
its number; but though both are the same for all lines of
a sort, they act differently, as to force, energy, and duration,
in different individuals ; which explains all differences of
length, etc. I congratulate the reader who understands this ;
and I do not pity the one who does not.
Saint-Martin and his works are now as completely for-
gotten as if they had never been born, except so far as this,
that some one may take up one of the works as of heretical
character, and lay it down in disappointment, with the re-
flection that it is as dull as orthodoxy. For a person who
was once in some vogue, it would be difficult to pick out
a more fossil writer, from Aa to Zypoeus, except, — though
it is unusual for (, — ) to represent an interval of more
than a year — his unknown opponent. This opponent, in the
very year of the Des Erreurs. . . .published a book in two
parts with the same fictitious place of printing;
Tableau Nature! des Rapports qui existent entre Dieu, I'Homme,
et 1'Univers. A Edimbourg, 1782, 8vo.8
There is a motto from the Des Erreurs itself, "Expliquer
les choses par I'homme, et non 1'homme par les choses. Des
Erreurs et de la Verite, par un PH INC , p. 9."9
This work is set down in various catalogues and biographies
as written by the PH INC himself. But it is not
usual for a writer to publish two works in the same year,
one of which takes a motto from the other. And the second
work is profuse in capitals and italics, and uses Hebrew
learning: its style differs much from the first work. The
first work sets out from man, and has nothing to do with
God: the second is religious and raps the knuckles of the
first as follows: "Si nous voulons nous preserver de toutes
8 It is interesting to read De Morgan's argument against Saint-
Martin's authorship of this work. It is attributed to Saint-Martin
both by the Biographic Universelle and by the British Museum Cata-
logue, and De Morgan says by "various catalogues and biographies."
' "To explain things by man and not man by things. On Errors
and Truth, by a Ph.. . . Inc.. . ."
A FORERUNNER OF THE METRIC SYSTEM. 171
les illusions, et surtout des amorces de 1'orgueil par les-
quelles I'homme est si souvent seduit, ne prenons jamais les
hommes, mais tou jours Dieu pour notre terme de compa-
raison."10 The first uses four and nine in various ways, of
which I have quoted one: the second says, "Et ici se trouve
deja une explication des nombres qualre et neuf, qui ont
peu embarrasse dans 1'ouvrage deja cite. L'homme s'est
egare en allant de quatre a neuf . . . ."11 The work cited is
the Erreurs, etc., and the citation is in the motto, which is
the text of the opposition sermon.
A FORERUNNER OF THE METRIC SYSTEM.
Method to discover the difference of the earth's diameters;
proving its true ratio to be not less variable than as 45 is to
46, and shortest in its pole's axis 174 miles likewise a
method for fixing an universal standard for weights and meas-
ures. By Thomas Williams.1 London, 1788, 8vo.
Mr. Williams was a paradoxer in his day, and proposed
what was, no doubt, laughed at by some. He proposed
the sort of plan which the French — independently of course
— carried into effect a few years after. He would have the
52d degree of latitude divided into 100,000 parts and each
part a geographical yard. The geographical ton was to
be the cube of a geographical yard filled with sea-water
taken some leagues from land. All multiples and sub-
divisions were to be decimal.
I was beginning to look up those who had made similar
proposals, when a learned article on the proposal of a
9 "If we would preserve ourselves from all illusions, and above
all from the allurements of pride, by which man is so often seduced,
we should never take man, but always God, for our term of com-
parison."
1 "And here is found already an explanation of the numbers four
and nine which caused some perplexity in the work cited above.
Man is lost in passing from four to nine."
1 Williams also took part in the preparation of some tables for
the government to assist in the determination of longitude. He had
published a work two years before the one here cited, on the same
subject, — An entire new work and method to discover the variation
of the Earth's Diaameters, London, 1786.
172 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
metrical system came under my eye in the Times of Sept.
15, 1863. The author cites Mouton,2 who would have the
minute of a degree divided into 10,000 virgulce', James
Cassini,3 whose foot was to be six thousandths of a minute ;
and Paucton,* whose foot was the 400,000th of a degree. I
have verified the first and third statements ; surely the
second ought to be the six-thousandth.
An inquiry into the Copernican system. .. -wherein it is proved,
in the clearest manner, that the earth has only her diurnal
motion with an attempt to point out the only true way
whereby mankind can receive any real benefit from the study
of the heavenly bodies. By John Cunningham.5 London,
1789, 8vo.
The "true way" appears to be the treatment of heaven
and earth as emblematical of the Trinity.
Cosmology. An inquiry into the cause of what is called gravi-
tation or attraction, in which the motions of the heavenly
bodies, and the preservation and operations of all nature, are
deduced from an universal principle of efflux and reflux. By
T. Vivian,6 vicar of Cornwood, Devon. Bath, 1792, I2mo.
2 This is Gabriel Mouton (1618-1694), a vicar at Lyons, who
suggested as a basis for a natural system of measures the mille,
a minute of a degree of the meridian. This appeared in his Ob-
servationes diametrorum soils et lunae apparentium, meridianarum-
que aliquot altitudinum cum tabula declinationum solis. . . . Lyons,
1670.
3 Jacques Cassini (1677-1756), one of the celebrated Cassini fam-
ily of astronomers. After the death of his father he became director
of the observatory at Paris. The basis for a metric unit was set
forth by him in his Traite de la grandeur et de la figure de la terre,
Paris, 1720. He was a prolific writer on astronomy.
* Alexis Jean Pierre Paucton (1732-1798). He was, for a time,
professor of mathematics at Strassburg, but later (1796) held office
in Paris. His leading contribution to metrology was his Metrologie
ou Traite des mesures, Paris, 1780.
8 He was an obscure writer, born at Deptford.
"He was also a writer of no scientific merit, his chief contribu-
tions being religious tracts. One of his productions, however, went
through many editions, even being translated into French, Three
dialogues between a Minister and one of his Parishioners; on the
true principles of Religion and salvation for sinners by Jesus Christ.
The twentieth edition appeared at Cambridge in 1786.
173
Attraction, an influx of matter to the sun ; centrifugal
force, the solar rays ; cohesion, the pressure of the atmos-
phere. The confusion about centrifugal force, so called, as
demanding an external agent, is very common.
THOMAS PAINE'S RIGHTS OF MAN.
The rights of MAN, being an answer to Mr. Burke's attack on
the French Revolution.1 By Thomas Paine.2 In two parts.
1791-1792. 8vo. (Various editions.)3
A vindication of the rights of WOMAN, with strictures on polit-
ical and moral subjects. By Mary Wollstonecraft.4 1792. Svo.
A sketch of the rights of BOYS and GIRLS. By Launcelot Light,
of Westminster School; and Lsetitia Lookabout, of Queen's
Square, Bloomsbury. [By the Rev. Samuel Parr,5 LL.D.]
1792. 8vo. (pp.64).
When did we three meet before? The first work has
sunk into oblivion: had it merited its title, it might have
1 This was the Reflections on the Revolution in France, and on
the proceedings in certain societies in London relative to that event
(London, 1790) by Edmund Burke (1729-1797). Eleven editions
of the work appeared the first year.
2 Paine (1736-1809) was born in Norfolkshire, of Quaker par-
ents. He went to America at the beginning of the Revolution and
published, in January 1776, a violent pamphlet entitled Common Sense.
He was a private soldier under Washington, and on his return to
England after the war he published The Rights of Man. He was
indicted for treason and was outlawed to France. He was elected
to represent Calais at the French convention, but his plea for mod-
eration led him perilously near the guillotine. His Age of Reason
(1794) was dedicated to Washington. He returned to America in
1802 and remained there until his death.
8 Part I appeared in 1791 and was so popular that eight editions
appeared in that year. It was followed in 1792 by Part II, of which
nine editions appeared in that year. Both parts were immediately
republished in Paris, and there have been several subsequent edi-
tions.
*Mary Wollstonecraft (i759-i797) was only thirty-three when
this work came out She had already published An historical and
moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution
(1790), and Original Stories from Real Life (1791). She went to
Paris in 1792 and remained during the Reign of Terror.
6 Samuel Parr (1747-1827) was for a time head assistant at
Harrow (1767-1771), and afterwards headmaster in other schools.
At the time this book was written he was vicar of Hatton, where he
took private pupils (1785-1798) to the strictly limited number of
seven. He was a violent Whig and a caustic writer.
174 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
lived. It is what the French call a piece de circonstance ; it
belongs in time to the French Revolution, and in matter to
Burke's opinion of that movement. Those who only know
its name think it was really an attempt to write a philosoph-
ical treatise on what we now call socialism. Silly govern-
ment prosecutions gave it what it never could have got for
itself.
Mary Wollstonecraft seldom has her name spelled right.
I suppose the O ! O ! character she got made her Waolstone-
craft. Watt gives double insinuation, for his cross-reference
sends us to Goodwin.6 No doubt the title of the book was
an act of discipleship to Paine's Rights of Man ; but this
title is very badly chosen. The book was marred by it,
especially when the authoress and her husband assumed the
right of dispensing with legal sanction until the approach of
offspring brought them to a sense of their child's interest.?
Not a hint of such a claim is found in the book, which is
mostly about female education. The right claimed for wo-
man is to have the education of a rational human being,
and not to be considered as nothing but woman throughout
youthful training. The maxims of Mary Wollstonecraft are
now, though not derived from her, largely followed in the
education of girls, especially in home education: just as
many of the political principles of Tom Paine, again not
derived from him, are the guides of our actual legislation.
I remember, forty years ago, an old lady used to declare
that she disliked girls from the age of sixteen to five-and-
twenty. "They are full," said she, "of femalities." She
spoke of their behavior to women as well as to men. She
9 On Mary Wollstonecraft's return from France she married
(1797) William Godwin (1756-1836). He had started as a strong
Calvinistic Nonconformist minister, but had become what would now
be called an anarchist, at least by conservatives. He had written an
Inquiry concerning Political Justice (1793) and a novel entitled
Caleb Williams, or Things as they are (1794), both of which were
of a nature to attract his future wife.
TThis child was a daughter. She became Shelley's wife, and
Godwin's influence on Shelley was very marked.
THOMAS PAINE'S RIGHTS OF MAN. 175
would have been shocked to know that she was a follower
of Mary Wollstonecraft, and had packed half her book into
one sentence.
The third work is a satirical attack on Mary Wollstone-
craft and Tom Paine. The details of the attack would con-
vince any one that neither has anything which would now
excite reprobation. It is utterly unworthy of Dr. Parr, and
has quite disappeared from lists of his works, if it were ever
there. That it was written by him I take to be evident, as
follows. Nichols,8 who could not fail to know, says (Anecd.,
vol. ix, p. 120) : "This is a playful essay by a first-rate
scholar, who is elsewhere noticed in this volume, but whose
name I shall not bring forward on so trifling an occasion."
Who the scholar was is made obvious by Master Launcelot
being made to talk of Bellendenus.9 Further, the same boy
is made to say, "Let Dr. Parr lay his hand upon his heart,
if his conscience will let him, and ask himself how many
thousands of wagon-loads of this article [birch] he has
cruelly misapplied." How could this apply to Parr, with his
handful of private pupils,10 and no reputation for severity?
Any one except himself would have called on the head-
master of Westminster or Eton. I doubt whether the name
of Parr could be connected with the rod by anything in
print, except the above and an anecdote of his pupil, Tom
Sheridan.11 The Doctor had dressed for a dinner visit, and
8 This was John Nichols (1745-1826), the publisher and anti-
quary. He edited the Gentleman's Magazine (1792-1826) and his
works include the Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century
(1812-1815), to which De Morgan here refers.
9 William Bellenden, a Scotch professor at the University of
Paris, who died about 1633. His textbooks are now forgotten, but
Parr edited an edition of his works in 1787. The Latin preface,
Pracfatio ad Bellendum de Statu, was addressed to Burke, North,
and Fox, and was a satire on their political opponents.
10 As we have seen, he had been head-master before he began
taking "his handful of private pupils."
11 The story has evidently got mixed up in the telling, for Tom
Sheridan (1721-1788), the great actor, was old enough to have been
Dr. Parr's father. It was his son, Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-
1816), the dramatist and politician, who was the pupil of Parr. He
176 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
was ready a quarter of an hour too soon to set off. "Tom,"
said he, "I think I had better whip you now ; you are sure to
do something while I am out." — "I wish you would, sir!"
said the boy ; "it would be a letter of licence for the whole
evening." The Doctor saw the force of the retort: my two
tutelaries will see it by this time. They paid in advance;
and I have given liberal interpretation to the order.
The following story of Dr. Parr was told me and
others, about 1829, by the late Leonard Horner,12who knew
him intimately. Parr was staying in a house full of com-
pany, I think in the north of England. Some gentlemen
from America were among the guests, and after dinner they
disputed some of Parr's assertions or arguments. So the
Doctor broke out with "Do you know what country you
come from? You come from the place to which we used
to send our thieves!" This made the host angry, and he
gave Parr such a severe rebuke as sent him from the room
in ill-humor. The rest walked on the lawn, amusing the
Americans with sketches of the Doctor. There was a dark
cloud overhead, and from that cloud presently came a voice
which called Tham (Parr-lisp for Sam). The company
were astonished for a moment, but thought the Doctor was
calling his servant in the house, and that the apparent direc-
tion was an illusion arising out of inattention. But presently
the sound was repeated, certainly from the cloud,
"And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before."
There was now a little alarm : where could the Doctor have
got to? They ran to his bedroom, and there they discovered
a sufficient rather than satisfactory explanation. The Doctor
had taken his pipe into his bedroom, and had seated himself,
in sulky mood, upon the higher bar of a large and deep old-
fashioned grate with a high mantelshelf. Here he had turn-
wrote The Rivals (1775) and The School for Scandal (1777) soon
after Parr left Harrow.
"Horner (1785-1864) was a geologist and social reformer. He
was very influential in improving the conditions of child labor.
ATTACKS ON RELIGIOUS CUSTOMS. 177
bled backwards, and doubled himself up between the bars
and the back of the grate. He was fixed tight, and when
he called for help, he could only throw his voice up the
chimney. The echo from the cloud was the warning which
brought his friends to the rescue.
ATTACKS ON RELIGIOUS CUSTOMS.
Days of political paradox were coming, at which we now
stare. Cobbett1 said, about 1830, in earnest, that in the
country every man who did not take off his hat to the
clergyman was suspected, and ran a fair chance of having
something brought against him. I heard this assertion can-
vassed, when it was made, in a party of elderly persons.
The Radicals backed it, the old Tories rather denied it,
but in a way which satisfied me they ought to have denied
it less if they could not deny it more. But it must be said
that the Governments stopped far short of what their parti-
sans would have had them do. All who know Robert Robin-
son's2 very quiet assault on church-made festivals in his
History and Mystery of Good Friday (1777)3 will hear or
remember with surprise that the British Critic pronounced
it a direct, unprovoked, and malicious libel on the most
1 William Cobbett (1762-1835), the journalist, was a character
not without interest to Americans. Born in Surrey, he went to
America at the age of thirty and remained there eight years. Most
of this time he was occupied as a bookseller in Philadelphia, and
while thus engaged he was fined for libel against the celebrated Dr.
Rush. On his return to England he edited the Weekly Political
Register (1802-1835), a popular journal among the working classes.
He was fined and imprisoned for two years because of his attack
(1810) on military flogging, and was also (1831) prosecuted for
sedition. He further showed his paradox nature by his History of
the Protestant Reformation (1824-1827), an attack on the prevail-
ing Protestant opinion. He also wrote a Life of Andrew Jackson
(1834). After repeated attempts he succeeded in entering parlia-
ment, a result of the Reform Bill.
'Robinson (1735-1790) was a Baptist minister who wrote sev-
eral theological works and a number of hymns. His work at Cam-
bridge so offended the students that they at one time broke up the
services.
8 This work had passed through twelve editions by 1823.
178 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
sacred institutions of the national Church. It was reprinted
again and again: in 1811 it was in a cheap form at 6s. 6d.
a hundred. When the Jacobin day came, the State was
really in a fright: people thought twice before they pub-
lished what would now be quite disregarded. I examined
a quantity of letters addressed to George Dyer4 (Charles
Lamb's G.D.) and what between the autographs of Thel-
wall, Hardy, Home Tooke, and all the rebels,* put together
a packet which produced five guineas, or thereabouts, for
the widow. Among them were the following verses, sent
by the author — who would not put his name, even in a pri-
vate letter, for fear of accidents — for consultation whether
they could safely be sent to an editor: and they were not
sent. The occasion was the public thanksgiving at St. Paul's
for the naval victories, December 19, 1797.
"God bless me! what a thing!
Have you heard that the King
Goes to St. Paul's?
4 Dyer (1755-1841), the poet and reformer, edited Robinson's
Ecclesiastical Researches (1790). He was a life-long friend of
Charles Lamb, and in their boyhood they were schoolmates at
Christ's Hospital. His Complaints of the Poor People of England
(1793) made him a worthy companion of the paradoxers above
mentioned.
8 These were John Thelwall (1764-1834) whose Politics for the
People or Hogswash (1794) took its title from the fact that Burke
called the people the "swinish multitude." The book resulted in send-
ing the author to the Tower for sedition. In 1798 he gave up poli-
tics and start a school of elocution which became very famous.
Thomas Hardy (1752-1832), who kept a bootmaker's shop in Picca-
dilly, was a fellow prisoner with Thelwall, being arrested for high
treason. He was founder (1792) of The London Corresponding
Society, a kind of clearing house for radical associations throughout
the country. Home Tooke was really John Home (1736-1812), he
having taken the name of his friend William Tooke in 1782. He
was a radical of the radicals, and organized a number of reform
societies. Among these was the Constitutional Society that voted
money (1775) to assist the American revolutionists, appointing him
to give the contribution to Franklin. For this he was imprisoned
for a year. With his fellow rebels in the Tower in 1794, however,
he was acquitted. As a philologist he is known for his early ad-
vocacy of the study of Anglo-Saxon and Gothic, and his Diversions
of Purley ( 1786) is still known to readers.
ATTACKS ON RELIGIOUS CUSTOMS. 179
Good Lord ! and when he's there,
He'll roll his eyes in prayer,
To make poor Johnny stare
At this fine thing.
"No doubt the plan is wise
To blind poor Johnny's eyes
By this grand show;
For should he once suppose
That he's led by the nose,
Down the whole fabric goes,
Church, lords, and king.
"As he shouts Duncan's6 praise,
Mind how supplies they'll raise
In wondrous haste.
For while upon the sea
We gain one victory,
John still a dupe will be
And taxes pay.
"Till from his little store
Three-fourths or even more
Goes to the Crown.
Ah, John! you little think
How fast we downward sink
And touch the fatal brink
At which we're slaves."
I would have indicted the author for not making his
thirds and sevenths rhyme. As to the rhythm, it is not
much better than what the French sang in the Calais theater
when the Duke of Clarence? took over Louis XVIII in 1814.
"God save noble Clarence,
Who brings our king to France ;
God save Clarence !
He maintains the glory
Of the British navy,
etc., etc."
"This was the admiral, Adam Viscount Duncan (1731-1804),
who defeated the Dutch off Camperdown in 1797.
7 He was created Duke of Clarence and St. Andrews in 1789
and was Admiral of the Fleet escorting Louis XVIII on his return
180 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
Perhaps had this been published, the Government would
have assailed it as a libel on the church service. They got
into the way of defending themselves by making libels on
the Church, of what were libels, if on anything, on the
rulers of the State ; until the celebrated trials of Hone
settled the point for ever, and established that juries will
not convict for one offence, even though it have been com-
mitted, when they know the prosecution is directed at an-
other offence and another intent.
HONE'S FAMOUS TRIALS.
The results of Hone's trials (William Hone, 1779-1842)
are among the important constitutional victories of our cen-
tury. He published parodies on the Creeds, the Lord's
Prayer, the Catechism, etc., with intent to bring the Ministry
into contempt: everybody knew that was his purpose. The
Government indicted him for impious, profane, blasphemous
intent, but not for seditious intent. They hoped to wear
him out by proceeding day by day. December 18, 1817,
they hid themselves under the Lord's Prayer, the Creed,
and the Commandments ; December 19, under the Litany ;
December 20, under the Athanasian Creed, an odd place for
shelter when they could not find it in the previous places.
Hone defended himself for six, seven, and eight hours on
the several days: and the jury acquitted him in 15, 105, and
20 minutes. In the second trial the offense was laid both
as profanity and as sedition, which seems to have made the
jury hesitate. And they probably came to think that the
second count was false pretence : but the length of their de-
liberation is a satisfactory addition to the value of the whole.
In the first trial the Attorney-General (Shepherd) had the
impudence to say that the libel had nothing of a political
tendency about it, but was avowedly set off against the
religion and worship of the Church of England. The whole
to France in 1814. He became Lord High Admiral in 1827, and
reigned as William IV from 1830 to 1837.
HONE'S FAMOUS TRIALS. 181
is political in every sentence ; neither more nor less political
than the following, which is part of the parody on the Cat-
echism: "What is thy duty towards the Minister? My duty
towards the Minister is, to trust him as much as I can; to
honor him with all my words, with all my bows, with all
my scrapes, and with all my cringes ; to flatter him ; to give
him thanks; to give up my whole soul to him; to idolize
his name, and obey his word, and serve him blindly all the
days of his political life." And the parody on the Creed
begins, "I believe in George, the Regent almighty, maker
of new streets and Knights of the Bath." This is what the
Attorney-General said had nothing of a political tendency
about it. But this was on the first trial: Hone was not
known. The first day's trial was under Justice Abbott
(afterwards C. J. Tenterden).1 It was perfectly understood,
when Chief Justice Ellenborough2 appeared in Court on the
second day, that he was very angry at the first result, and
put his junior aside to try his own rougher dealing. But
Hone tamed the lion. An eye-witness told me that when
he implored of Hone not to detail his own father Bishop
Law'ss views on the Athanasian Creed, which humble peti-
tion Hone kindly granted, he held by the desk for support.
And the same when — which is not reported — the Attorney-
General appealed to the Court for protection against a
1This was Charles Abbott (1762-1832) first Lord Tenterden.
He succeeded Lord Ellenborough as Chief Justice (1818) and was
raised to the peerage in 1827. He was a strong Tory and opposed
the Catholic Relief Bill, the Reform Bill, and the abolition of the
death penalty for forgery.
'Edward Law (1750-1818), first Baron Ellenborough. He was
chief counsel for Warren Hastings, and his famous speech in de-
fense of his client is well known. He became Chief Justice and was
raised to the peerage in 1802. He opposed all efforts to modernize
the criminal code, insisting upon the reactionary principle of new
death penalties.
"Edmund Law (1703-1787), Bishop of Carlisle (1768), was a
good deal more liberal than his son. His Considerations on the
Propriety of requiring subscription to the Articles of Faith (1774)
was published anonymously. In it he asserts that not even the
clergy should be required to subscribe to the thirty-nine articles.
182 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
stinging attack which Hone made on the Bar: he held on,
and said, "Mr. Attorney, what can I do!" I was a boy of
twelve years old, but so strong was the feeling of exultation
at the verdicts that boys at school were not prohibited from
seeing the parodies, which would have been held at any
other time quite unfit to meet their eyes. I was not able
to comprehend all about the Lord Chief Justice until I read
and heard again in after years. In the meantime, Joe Miller
had given me the story of the leopard which was sent home
on board a ship of war, and was in two days made as docile
as a cat by the sailors/ "You have got that fellow well
under," said an officer. "Lord bless your Honor!" said
Jack, "if the Emperor of Marocky would send us a cock
rhinoceros, we'd bring him to his bearings in no time!"
When I came to the subject again, it pleased me to enter-
tain the question whether, if the Emperor had sent a cock
rhinoceros to preside on the third day in the King's Bench,
Hone would have mastered him: I forget how I settled it.
There grew up a story that Hone caused Lord Ellenbor-
ough's death, but this could not have been true. Lord Ellen-
borough resigned his seat in a few months, and died just
a year after the trials ; but sixty-eight years may have had
more to do with it than his defeat.
A large subscription was raised for Hone, headed by
the Duke of Bedford* for £105. Many of the leading anti-
ministerialists joined : but there were many of the other side
who avowed their disapprobation of the false pretense.
Many could not venture their names. In the list I find:
/Joe Miller (1684-1738), the famous Drury Lane comedian, was
so illiterate that he could not have written the Joe Miller's Jests, or
the Wit's Vade-Mecum that appeared the year after his death. It
was often reprinted and probably contained more or less of Miller's
own jokes.
6 The sixth duke (1766-1839) was much interested in parliamen-
tary reform. He was a member of the Society of Friends of the
People. He was for fourteen years a member of parliament (1788-
1802) and was later Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1806-1807). He
afterwards gave up politics and became interested in agricultural
matters.
HONE'S FAMOUS TRIALS. 183
A member of the House of Lords, an enemy to persecution,
and especially to religious persecution employed for political
purposes — No parodist, but an enemy to persecution — A
juryman on the third day's trial — Ellen Borough — My name
would ruin me — Oh ! minions of Pitt — Oil for the Hone —
The Ghosts of Jeffries6 and Sir William Roy [Ghosts of
Jeffries in abundance] — A conscientious Jury and a con-
scientious Attorney, £1 6s. 8d. — To Mr. Hone, for defend-
ing in his own person the freedom of the press, attacked
for a political object, under the old pretense of supporting
Religion — A cut at corruption — An Earldom for myself
and a translation for my brother — One who disapproves of
parodies, but abhors persecution — From a schoolboy who
wishes Mr. Hone to have a very grand subscription — "For
delicacy's sake forbear/5 and "Felix trembled"— "I will go
myself to-morrow" — Judge Jeffries' works rebound in calf
by Law — Keep us from Law, and from the Shepherd's
paw — I must not give you my name, but God bless you! —
As much like Judge Jeffries as the present times will permit
—May Jeffries' fame and Jeffries' fate on every modern
Jeffries wait — No parodist, but an admirer of the man who
has proved the fallacy of the Lawyer's Law, that when a
man is his own advocate he has a fool for his client — A
Mussulman who thinks it would not be an impious libel to
parody the Koran — May the suspenders of the Habeas
Corpus Act be speedily suspended — Three times twelve for
thrice-tried Hone, who cleared the cases himself alone,
and won three heats by twelve to one, £1 16s. — A conscien-
tious attorney, i\ 6s. 8d. — Rev. T. B. Morris, rector of
Shelf anger, who disapproves of the parodies, but abhors
the making an affected zeal for religion the pretext for
political persecution — A Lawyer opposed in principle to
'George Jeffreys (c. 1648-1689), the favorite of James II, who
was active in prosecuting the Rye House conspirators. He was
raised to the peerage in 1684 and held the famous "bloody assize"
in the following year, being made Lord Chancellor as a result. He
was imprisoned in the Tower by William III and died there.
184 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
Law — For the Hone that set the razor that shaved the rats
— Rev. Dr. Samuel Parr, who most seriously disapproves
of all parodies upon the hallowed language of Scripture
and the contents of the Prayer-book, but acquits Mr. Hone
of intentional impiety, admires his talents and fortitude,
and applauds the good sense and integrity of his juries —
Religion without hypocrisy, and Law without impartiality
— O Law ! O Law ! O Law !
These are specimens of a great many allusive mottoes.
The subscription was very large, and would have bought
a handsome annuity, but Hone employed it in the bookselling
trade, and did not thrive. His Everyday Book7 and his Apoc-
ryphal New Testament? are useful books. On an annuity
he would have thriven as an antiquarian writer and collec-
tor. It is well that the attack upon the right to ridicule
Ministers roused a dormant power which was equal to the
occasion. Hone declared, on his honor, that he had never
addressed a meeting in his life, nor spoken a word before
more than twelve persons. Had he — which however could
not then be done — employed counsel and had a guilty de-
fense made for him, he would very likely have been con-
victed, and the work would have been left to be done by
another. No question that the parodies disgusted all who
reverenced Christianity, and who could not separate the
serious and the ludicrous, and prevent their existence in
combination.
My extracts, etc., are from the nineteenth, seventeenth,
and sixteenth editions of the three trials, which seem to have
been contemporaneous (all in 1818) as they are made up
into one book, with additional title over all, and the motto
"Thrice the brindled cat hath mew'd." They are published
by Hone himself, who I should have said was a publisher
T The Every Day Book, forming a Complete History of the Year,
Months, and Seasons, and a perpetual Key to the Almanack, 1826-
1827.
8 The first and second editions appeared in 1820. Two others
followed in 1821.
HONE'S FAMOUS TRIALS. 185
as well as was to be. And though the trials only ended
Dec. 20, 1817, the preface attached to this common title is
dated Jan. 23, 1818.9
The spirit which was roused against the false dealing of
the Government, i. e., the pretense of prosecuting for im-
piety when all the world knew the real offense was, if any-
thing, sedition — was not got up at the moment: there had
been previous exhibitions of it. For example, in the spring
of 1818 Mr. Russell, a little printer in Birmingham, was
indicted for publishing the Political Litany10 on which Hone
was afterwards tried. He took his witnesses to the summer
Warwick assizes, and was told that the indictment had been
removed by certiorari into the King's Bench. He had no-
tice of trial for the spring assizes at Warwick : he took his
witnesses there, and the trial was postponed by the Crown.
He then had notice for the summer assizes at Warwick ;
and so on. The policy seems to have been to wear out the
obnoxious parties, either by delays or by heaping on trials.
The Government was odious, and knew it could not get
verdicts against ridicule, and could get verdicts against im-
piety. No difficulty was found in convicting the sellers of
Paine's works, and the like. When Hone was held to bail
it was seen that a crisis was at hand. All parties in politics
furnished him with parodies in proof of religious persons
having made instruments of them. The parodies by Addi-
son and Luther were contributed by a Tory lawyer, who was
afterwards a judge.
Hone had published, in 1817, tracts of purely political
ridicule: Official Account of the Noble Lord's Bite,™ Trial of
the Dog for Biting the Noble Lord, etc. These were not
touched. After the trials, it is manifest that Hone was
8 The three trials of W. H., for publishing three parodies; viz.
the late John Wilkes' Catechism, the Political Litany, and the Sine-
curist's Creed; on three ex-ofhcio informations, at Guildhall, London,
Dec. 18, 19, & 20, 1817, London, 1818.
10 The Political Litany appeared in 1817.
"That is, Castlereagh's.
186 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
to be unassailed, do what he might. The Political House
that Jack built, in 1819; The Man in the Moon, 1820; The
Queen's Matrimonial Ladder, Non mi ricordo, The R — /
Fowls, 1820; The Political Showman at Home, with plates
by G. Cruickshank,12 1821 [he did all the plates] ; The Spirit
of Despotism, 1821 — would have been legitimate marks for
prosecution in previous years. The biting caricature of sev-
eral of these works are remembered to this day. The Spirit
of Despotism was a tract of 1795, of which a few copies had
been privately circulated with great secrecy. Hone reprinted
it, and prefixed the following address to "Robert Stewart,
alias Lord Castlereagh"^ : "It appears to me that if, un-
happily, your counsels are allowed much longer to prevail
in the Brunswick Cabinet, they will bring on a crisis, in
which the king may be dethroned or the people enslaved.
Experience has shown that the people will not be enslaved
— the alternative is the affair of your employers." Hone
might say this without notice.
In 1819 Mr. Murray1* published Lord Byron's Don Juan,1*
and Hone followed it with Don John, or Don Juan Un-
masked, a little account of what the publisher to the Ad-
miralty was allowed to issue without prosecution. The
parody on the Commandments was a case very much in
point : and Hone makes a stinging allusion to the use of the
"unutterable Name, with a profane levity unsurpassed by
12 The well-known caricaturist (1792-1878), then only twenty-nine
years old.
"Robert Stewart (1769-1822) was second Marquis of London-
derry and Viscount Castlereagh. As Chief Secretary for Ireland
he was largely instrumental in bringing about the union of Ireland
and Great Britain. He was at the head of the war department dur-
ing most of the Napoleonic wars, and was to a great extent respon-
sible for the European coalition against the Emperor. He suicided
in 1822.
"John Murray (1778-1843), the well-known London publisher.
He refused to finish the publication of Don Juan, after the first five
cantos, because of his Tory principles.
"Only the first two cantos appeared in 1819.
HONE'S FAMOUS TRIALS. 187
any other two lines in the English language." The lines
are
'"Tis strange — the Hebrew noun which means 'I am/
The English always use to govern d n."
Hone ends with : "Lord Byron's dedication of 'Don Juan' to
Lord Castlereagh was suppressed by Mr. Murray from deli-
cacy to Ministers. Q. Why did not Mr. Murray suppress Lord
Byron's parody on the Ten Commandments? A. Because
it contains nothing in ridicule of Ministers, and therefore
nothing that they could suppose would lead to the displeas-
ure of Almighty God."
The little matters on which I have dwelt will never ap-
pear in history from their political importance, except in a
few words of result. As a mode of thought, silly evasions
of all kinds belong to such a work as the present. Ignorance,
which seats itself in the chair of knowledge, is a mother
of revolutions in politics, and of unread pamphlets in circle-
squaring. From 1815 to 1830 the question of revolution or
no revolution lurked in all our English discussions. The
high classes must govern ; the high classes shall not govern ;
and thereupon issue was to be joined. In 1828-33 the ques-
tion came to issue; and it was, Revolution with or without
civil war; choose. The choice was wisely made; and the
Reform Bill started a new system so well dovetailed into
the old that the joinings are hardly visible. And now, in
1867, the thing is repeated with a marked subsidence of
symptoms ; and the party which has taken the place of the
extinct Tories is carrying through Parliament a wider ex-
tension of the franchise than their opponents would have ven-
tured. Napoleon used to say that a decided nose was a sign
of power: on which it has been remarked that he had good
reason to say so before the play was done. And so had
our country ; it was saved from a religious war, and from
a civil war, by the power of that nose over its colleagues.
188 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
THOMAS TAYLOR, THE PLATONIST.
The Commentaries of Proclus.1 Translated by Thomas Taylor.2
London, 1792, 2 vols. 4to.3
The reputation of "the Platonist" begins to grow, and
will continue to grow. The most authentic account is in
the Penny Cyclopaedia, written by one of the few persons
who knew him well, and one of the fewer who possess all
his works. At page Ivi of the Introduction is Taylor's no-
tion of the way to find the circumference. It is not geo-
metrical, for it proceeds on the motion of a point : the words
"on account of the simplicity of the impulsive motion, such
a line must be either straight or circular" will suffice to
show how Platonic it is. Taylor certainly professed a kind
of heathenism. D'Israeli said, "Mr. T. Taylor, the Platonic
philosopher and the modern Plethon,4 consonant to that phi-
losophy, professes polytheism." Taylor printed this in large
type, in a page by itself after the dedication, without any dis-
avowal. I have seen the following, Greek and translation
both, in his handwriting: "lias dyaflos fj ayaObs c0nKos- /cat Tras
XpicTTiavos y ;(/3«mavos /caicos. Every good man, so far as he
is a good man, is a heathen ; and every Christian, so far as
he is a Christian, is a bad man." Whether Taylor had in his
head the Christian of the New Testament, or whether he
drew from those members of the "religious world" who
make manifest the religious flesh and the religious devil,
* Proclus (412-485), one of the greatest of the neo-Platonists,
studied at Alexandria and taught philosophy at Athens. He left
commentaries on Plato and on part of Euclid's Elements.
3 Thomas Taylor (1758-1835), called "the Platonist," had a lik-
ing for mathematics, and was probably led by his interest in number
mysticism to a study of neo-Platonism. He translated a number of
works from the Latin and Greek, and wrote two works on theoretical
arithmetic (1816, 1823).
'There was an earlier edition, 1788-89.
*Georgius Gemistus, or Georgius Pletho (Plethon), lived in
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. He was a native of Constan-
tinople, but spent most of his time in Greece. He devoted much
time to the propagation of the Platonic philosophy, but also wrote on
divinity, geography, and history.
A NEW ERA IN FICTION. 189
cannot be decided by us, and perhaps was not known to
himself. If a heathen, he was a virtuous one.
A NEW ERA IN FICTION.
(1795.) This is the date of a very remarkable paradox.
The religious world — to use a name claimed by a doctrinal
sect — had long set its face against amusing literature, and
all works of imagination. Bunyan, Milton, and a few others
were irresistible ; but a long face was pulled at every at-
tempt to produce something readable for poor people and
poor children.' In 1795, a benevolent association began to
circulate the works of a lady who had been herself a drama-
tist, and had nourished a pleasant vein of satire in the so-
ciety of Garrick and his friends ; all which is carefully sup-
pressed in some biographies. r Hannah MoreV Cheap Re-
pository Tracts,2 which were bought by millions of copies,
destroyed the vicious publications with which the hawkers
deluged the country, by the simple process of furnishing
the hawkers with something more saleable.1
Dramatic fiction, in which the characters are drawn by
themselves, was, at the middle of the last century, the mo-
nopoly of writers who required indecorum, such as Fielding
and Smollett. All, or nearly all, which could be permitted
to the young, was dry narrative, written by people who could
not make their personages talk character; they all spoke
1 Hannah More (1745-1833), was, in her younger days, a friend
of Burke, Reynolds, Dr. Johnson, and Garrick. At this time she
wrote a number of poems and aspired to become a dramatist. Her
Percy (1777), with a prologue and epilogue by Garrick, had a long
run at Covent Garden. Somewhat later she came to believe that
the playhouse was a grave public evil, and refused to attend the
revival of her own play with Mrs. Siddons in the leading part.
After 1789 she and her sisters devoted themselves to starting schools
for poor children, teaching them religion and housework, but leaving
them illiterate.
2 These were issued at the rate of three each month, — a story, a
ballad, and a Sunday tract. They were collected and published in
one volume in 1795. It is said that two'million copies were sold the
first year. There were also editions in 1798, 1819, 1827, and 1836-37.
190 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
alike. The author of the Rambler^ is ridiculed, because his
young ladies talk Johnsonese; but the satirists forget that
all the presentable novel-writers were equally incompetent ;
even the author of Zeluco (1789)4 is the strongest possible
case in point.
Dr. Moore,s the father of the hero of Corunna,6 with
good narrative power, some sly humor, and much observa-
tion of character, would have been, in our day, a writer
of the Peacock7 family. Nevertheless, to one who is accus-
tomed to our style of things, it is comic to read the dialogue
of a jealous husband, a suspected wife, a faithless maid-
servant, a tool of a nurse, a wrong-headed pomposity of a
priest, and a sensible physician, all talking Dr. Moore
through their masks. Certainly an Irish soldier does say
"by Jasus," and a cockney footman "this here" and "that
there" ; and this and the like is all the painting of characters
which is effected out of the mouths of the bearers by a nar-
rator of great power. I suspect that some novelists re-
pressed their power under a rule that a narrative should nar-
rate, and that the dramatic should be confined to the drama.
I make no exception in favor of Miss Burney;8 though
she was the forerunner of a new era. Suppose a country
8 That is, Dr. Johnson (1709-1784). The Rambler was published
in 1750- 1752> and was an imitation of Addison's Spectator.
4 Dr. Moore, referred to below.
5 Dr. John Moore (1729-1802), physician and novelist, is now
best known for his Journal during a Residence in France from the
beginning of August to the middle of December, 1792, a work quoted
frequently by Carlyle in his French Revolution.
6 Sir John Moore (1761-1809), Lieutenant General in the Napo-
leonic wars. He was killed in the battle of Corunna. The poem by
Charles Wolfe (1791-1823), The Burial of Sir John Moore (1817),
is well known.
7 Referring to the novels of Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866),
who succeeded James Mill as chief examiner of the East India
Company, and was in turn succeeded by John Stuart Mill.
8 Frances Burney, Madame d'Arblay (1752-1840), married Gen-
eral d'Arblay, a French officer and companion of Lafayette, in 1793-
She was only twenty-five when she acquired fame by her Evelina,
or a Young Lady's Entrance into the World. Her Letters and Diaries
appeared posthumously (1842-45).
A NEW ERA IN FICTION. 191
in which dress is always of one color ; suppose an importer
who brings in cargoes of blue stuff, red stuff, green stuff,
etc., and exhibits dresses of these several colors, that person
is the similitude of Miss Burney. It would be a delightful
change from a universal dull brown, to see one person all
red, another all blue, etc. ; but the real inventor of pleasant
dress would be the one who could mix his colors and keep
down the bright and gaudy. Miss Burney 's introduction
was so charming, by contrast, that she nailed such men as
Johnson, Burke, Garrick, etc., to her books. But when a
person who has read them with keen pleasure in boyhood, as
I did, comes back to them after a long period, during which
he has made acquaintance with the great novelists of our
century, three-quarters of the pleasure is replaced by wonder
that he had not seen he was at a puppet-show, not at a drama.
Take some labeled characters out of our humorists, let them
be put together into one piece, to speak only as labeled : let
there be a Dominie with nothing but "Prodigious !" a Dick
Swiveller with nothing but adapted quotations; a Dr. Fol-
liott with nothing but sneers at Lord Brougham ;9 and the
whole will pack up into one of Miss Burney's novels.
Maria Edgeworth,10 Sydney Owenson (Lady Morgan),11
Jane Austen,12 Walter Scott,1^ etc., are all of our century ; as
9 Henry Peter, Baron Brougham and Vaux (1778-1868), well
known in politics, science, and letters. He was one of the founders
of the Edinburgh Review, became Lord Chancellor in 1830, and took
part with men like William Frend, De Morgan's father-in-law, in
the establishing of London University. He was also one of the
founders of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. He
was always friendly to De Morgan, who entered the faculty of
London University, whose work on geometry was published by the
Society mentioned, and who was offered the degree of doctor of
laws by the University of Edinburgh while Lord Brougham was
Lord Rector. The Edinburgh honor was refused by De Morgan
who said he "did not feel like an LL.D."
10 Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849).
11 Sydney Owenson (c. 1783-1859) married Sir Thomas Morgan,
a well-known surgeon, in 1812. Her Irish stories were very popular
with the patriots but were attacked by the Quarterly Review. The
Wild Irish Girl (1806) went through seven editions in two years.
18 1775-1817. 13 1771-1832.
192 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
are, I believe, all the Minerva Press novels, as they were
called, which show some of the power in question. Perhaps
dramatic talent found its best encouragement in the drama
itself. But I cannot ascertain that any such power was di-
rected at the multitude, whether educated or uneducated,
with natural mixture of character, under the restraints of
decorum, until the use of it by two religious writers of the
school called "evangelical," Hannah More and Rowland
Hill.14 The Village Dialogues, though not equal to the Re-
pository Tracts, are in many parts an approach, and perhaps
a copy; there is frequently humorous satire, in that most
effective form, self-display. They were published in 1800,
and, partly at least, by the Religious Tract Society, the
lineal successsor of the Repository association, though know-
ing nothing about its predecessor. I think it right to add
that Rowland Hill here mentioned is not the regenerator
of the Post Office.1* Some do not distinguish accurately;
I have heard of more than one who took me to have had
a logical controversy with a diplomatist who died some
years before I was born.
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY.
A few years ago, an attempt was made by myself and
others to collect some information about the Cheap Reposi-
tory (see Notes and Queries, 3d Series, vi. 241, 290, 353;
Christian Observer, Dec. 1864, pp. 944-49). It appeared
that after the Religious Tract Society had existed more than
fifty years, a friend presented it with a copy of the original
prospectus of the Repository, a thing the existence of which
was not known. In this prospectus it is announced that
from the plan "will be carefully excluded whatever is en-
thusiastic, absurd, or superstitious." The "evangelical"
"The famous preacher (1732-1808). He was the first chairman
of the Religious Tract Society. He is also known as one of the
earliest advocates of vaccination, in his Cow-pock Inoculation vindi-
cated and recommended from matters of fact, 1806.
15 Sir Rowland Hill (1795-1879), the father of penny postage.
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY. 193
party had, from the foundation of the Religious Tract So-
ciety, regretted that the Repository Tracts "did not contain
a fuller statement of the great evangelical principles" ; while
in the prospectus it is also stated that "no cause of any par-
ticular party is intended to be served by it, but general
Christianity will be promoted upon practical principles."
This explains what has often been noticed, that the tracts
contain a mild form of "evangelical" doctrine, free from
that more fervid dogmatism which appears in the Village
Dialogues', and such as H. More's friend, Bishop Porteus1
— a great promoter of the scheme — might approve. The
Religious Tract Society (in 1863) republished some of H.
More's tracts, with alterations, additions, and omissions ad
libitum. This is an improper way of dealing with the works
of the dead ; especially when the reprints are of popular
works. A small type addition to the preface contains:
"Some alterations and abridgements have been made to
adapt them to the present times and the aim of the Religious
Tract Society." I think every publicity ought to be given
to the existence of such a practice ; and I reprint what I
said on the subject in Notes and Queries.
Alterations in works which the Society fepublishes are
a necessary part of their plan, though such notes as they
should judge to be corrective would be the best way of pro-
ceeding. But the fact of alteration should be very distinctly
announced on the title of the work itself, not left to a little
bit of small type at the end of the preface, in the place
where trade advertisements, or directions to the binder, are
often found. And the places in which alteration has been
made should be pointed out, either by marks of omission,
when omission is the alteration, or by putting the altered
sentences in brackets, when change has been made. May
any one alter the works of the dead at his own discretion?
ilby Porteus (1731-1808), Bishop of Chester (1776) and
Bishop of London (1787). He encouraged the Sunday-school move-
ment and the dissemination of Hannah More's tracts. He was an
active opponent of slavery, but also of Catholic emancipation.
194 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
We all know that readers in general will take each sentence
to be that of the author whose name is on the title ; so that
a correcting republisher makes use of his author s name to
teach his own variation. The tortuous logic of "the trade,"
which is content when "the world" is satisfied, is not easily
answered, any more than an eel is easily caught; but the
Religious Tract Society may be convinced [in the old sense]
in a sentence. On which course would they feel most safe
in giving their account to the God of truth? "In your own
conscience, now?"
1 have tracked out a good many of the variations made
by the Religious Tract Society in the recently published
volume of Repository Tracts. Most of them are doctrinal
insertions or amplifications, to the matter of which Hannah
More would not have objected — all that can be brought
against them is the want of notice. But I have found two
which the respect I have for the Religious Tract Society,
in spite of much difference on various points, must not
prevent my designating as paltry. In the story of Mary
Wood, a kind-hearted clergyman converses with the poor
girl who has ruined herself by lying. In the original, he
"assisted her in the great work of repentance ;" in the re-
print it is to be shown in some detail how he did this. He
is to begin by pointing out that "the heart is deceitful above
all things and desperately wicked." Now the clergyman's
name is Heart-well: so to prevent his name from contra-
dicting his doctrine, he is actually cut down to Harwell.
Hannah Moore meant this good man for one of those de-
scribed in Acts xv. 8, 9, and his name was appropriate.
Again, Mr. Flatterwell, in persuasion of Parley the porter
to let him into the castle, declares that the worst he will do
is to "play an innocent game of cards just to keep you awake,
or sing a cheerful song writh the maids." Oh fie! Miss
Hannah More ! and you a single lady too, and a contempo-
rary of the virtuous Bowdler!2 Though Flatterwell be an
2 Henrietta Maria Bowdler (1754-1830), generally known as Mrs.
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY. 195
allegory of the devil, this is really too indecorous, even for
him. Out with the three last words! and out it is.
The Society cuts a poor figure before a literary tribunal.
Nothing was wanted except an admission that the remarks
made by me were unanswerable, and this was immediately
furnished by the Secretary (N. and Q.} 3d S., vi. 290). In
a reply of which six parts out of seven are a very amplified
statement that the Society did not intend to reprint all Han-
nah More's tracts, the remaining seventh is as follows:
"I am not careful [perhaps this should be careful not} to
notice Professor De Morgan's objections to the changes in
'Mary Wood' or 'Parley the Porter,' but would merely re-
iterate that the tracts were neither designed nor announced
to be 'reprints' of the originals [design is only known to
the designers ; as to announcement, the title is ' 'Tis all for
the best, The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, and other narra-
tives by Hannah More'] ; and much less [this must be care-
ful not\ further removed from answer than not careful}
can I occupy your space by a treatise on the Professor's ques-
tion : 'May any one alter the works of the dead at his own
discretion ?' "
To which I say: Thanks for help!
I predict that Hannah More's Cheap Repository Tracts
will somewhat resemble the Pilgrim's Progress in their fate.
Written for the cottage, and long remaining in their original
position, they will become classical works of their kind.
Most assuredly this will happen if my assertion cannot be
upset, namely, that they contain the first specimens of fiction
addressed to the world at large, and widely circulated, in
which dramatic — as distinguished from puppet — power is
shown, and without indecorum.
Harriet Bowdler. She was the author of many religious tracts and
poems. Her Poems and Essays (1786) were often reprinted. The
story goes that on the appearance of her Sermons on the Doctrines
and Duties of Christianity (published anonymously), Bishop Por-
teus offered the author a living under the impression that it was
written by a man.
196 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
t
According to some statements I have seen, but which
I have riot verified, other publishing bodies, such as the
Christian Knowledge Society, have taken the same liberty
with the names of the dead as the Religious Tract Society.3
If it be so, the impropriety is the work of the smaller spirits
who have not been sufficiently overlooked. There must be
an overwhelming majority in the higher councils to feel
that, whenever altered works are published, the fact of
alteration should be made as prominent as the 'name of the
author. Everything short of this is suppression of truth,
and will ultimately destroy the credit of the Society. Equally
necessary is it that the alterations should be noted. When it
comes to be known that the author before him is altered,
he knows not where nor how nor by whom, the lowest
reader will lose his interest.
A TRIBUTE TO WILLIAM FREND.
The principles of Algebra. By William Frend.1 London, 1796,
8vo. Second Part, 1799.
This Algebra, says Dr. Peacock,2 shows "great distrust
1 William Frend (1757-1841), whose daughter Sophia Elizabeth
became De Morgan's wife (1837), was at one time a clergyman of
the Established Church, but was converted to Unitarianism (1787).
He came under De Morgan's definition of a true paradoxer, carry-
ing on a zealous warfare for what he thought right. As a result
of his Address to the Inhabitants of Cambridge (1787), and his
efforts to have abrogated the requirement that candidates for the
M.A. must subscribe to the thirty-nine articles, he was deprived of
his tutorship in 1788. A little later he was banished (see De Mor-
gan's statement in the text) from Cambridge because of his denun-
ciation of the abuses of the Church and his condemnation of the
liturgy. His eccentricity is seen in his declining to use negative
quantities in the operations of algebra. He finally became an actuary
at London and was prominent in radical associations. He was a
mathematician of ability, having been second wrangler and having
nearly attained the first place, and he was also an excellent scholar
in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.
'George Peacock (1791-1858), Fellow of Trinity College, Cam-
bridge, Lowndean professor of astronomy, and Dean of Ely Cathe-
dral (1839). His tomb may be seen at Ely where he spent the latter
part of his life. He was one of the group that introduced the mod-
ern continental notation of the calculus into England, replacing
A TRIBUTE TO WILLIAM FREND. 197
of the results of algebraical science which were in existence
at the time when it was written/' Truly it does ; for, as
Dr. Peacock had shown by full citation, it makes war of
extermination upon all that distinguishes algebra from arith-
metic. Robert Simson3 and Baron Maseres4 were Mr. Frend's
predecessors in this opinion.
The genuine respect which I entertained for my father-
in-law did not prevent my canvassing with perfect freedom
his anti-algebraical and anti-Newtonian opinions, in a long
obituary memoir read at the Astronomical Society in Feb-
ruary 1842, which was written by me. It was copied into
the Athen&um of March 19. It must be said that if the
manner in which algebra was presented to the learner had
been true algebra, he would have been right : and if he had
confined himself to protesting against the imposition of at-
traction as a fundamental part of the existence of matter,
he would have been in unity with a great many, including
Newton himself. I wish he had preferred amendment to
rejection when he was a college tutor: he wrote and spoke
English with a clearness which is seldom equaled.
His anti-Newtonian discussions are confined to the pre-
liminary chapters of his Evening Amusements,5 a series of
astronomical lessons in nineteen volumes, following the
moon through a period of the golden numbers.
There is a mistake about him which can never be de-
stroyed. It is constantly said that, at his celebrated trial in
1792, for sedition and opposition to the Liturgy, etc., he was
expelled from the University. He was banished. People
cannot see the difference; but it made all the difference to
the cumbersome notation of Newton, passing from "the dofage
of fluxions to the deism of the calculus."
'Robert Simson (1687-1768), professor of mathematics at Glas-
gow. His restoration of Apollonius (1749) and his translation and
restoration of Euclid (1756, and 1776— posthumous) are well known.
4 Francis Maseres (1731-1824), a prominent lawyer. His mathe-
matical works had some merit.
5 These appeared annually from 1804 to 1822.
198 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
Mr. Frend. He held his fellowship and its profits till his
marriage in 1808, and was a member of the University and
of its Senate till his death in 1841, as any Cambridge Calen-
dar up to 1841 will show. That they would have expelled
him if they could, is perfectly true; and there is a funny
story — also perfectly true — about their first proceedings be-
ing under a statute which would have given the power, had
it not been discovered during the proceedings that the statute
did not exist. It had come so near to existence as to be en-
tered into the Vice-Chancellor's book for his signature,
which it wanted, as was not seen till Mr. Frend exposed it:
in fact, the statute had never actually passed.
There is an absurd mistake in Gunning's6 Reminiscences
of Cambridge. In quoting a passage of Mr. Frend's pam-
phlet, which was very obnoxious to the existing Government,
it is printed that the poor market-women complained that
they were to be scotched a quarter of their wages by taxation ;
and attention is called to the word by its being three times
printed in italics. In the pamphlet it is "sconced" ; that
very common old word for fined or mulcted.
Lord Lyndhurst,7 who has [1863] just passed away under
a load of years and honors, was Mr. Frend's private pupil
at Cambridge. At the time of the celebrated trial, he and
two others amused themselves, and vented the feeling which
was very strong among the undergraduates, by chalking the
walls of Cambridge with "Frend for ever!" While thus
engaged in what, using the term legally, we are probably
to call his first publication, he and his friends were surprised
by the proctors. Flight and chase followed of course : Cop-
ley and- one of the others, Serjeant Rough,8 escaped ; the
"Henry Gunning (1768-1854) was senior esquire bedell of Cam-
bridge. The Reminiscences appeared in two volumes in 1854.
7 John Singleton Copley, Baron Lyndhurst (1772-1863), the
son of John Singleton Copley the portrait painter, was born in Bos-
ton. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and became a
lawyer. He was made Lord Chancellor in 1827.
'Sir William Rough (c. 1772-1838), a lawyer and poet, became
Chief Justice of Ceylon in 1836. He was knighted in 1837.
A TRIBUTE TO WILLIAM FREND. 199
third, whose name I forget, but who afterwards, I have been
told was a bishop,9 being lame, was captured and imposi-
tioned. Looking at the Cambridge Calendar to verify the
fact that Copley was an undergraduate at the time, I find
that there are but two other men in the list of honors
of his year whose names are now widely remembered. And
they were both celebrated schoolmasters; Butler10 of Har-
row, and Tate11 of Richmond.
But Mr. Frend had another noted pupil. I once had a
conversation with a very remarkable man, who was gen-
erally called "Place,12 the tailor," but who was politician,
political economist, etc., etc. He sat in the room above his
shop — he was then a thriving master tailor at Charing Cross
— surrounded by books enough for nine, to shame a proverb.
The blue books alone, cut up into strips, would have measured
Great Britain for oh-no-we-never-mention-'ems, the High-
lands included. I cannot find a biography of this worthy
and able man. I happened to mention William Frend, and
he said, "Ah! my old master, as I always call him. Many
and many a time, and year after year, did he come in every
"Herbert Marsh, afterwards Bishop of Peterborough, a relation
of my father. — S. E. De M.
He was born in 1757 and died in 1839. On the trial of Frend
he publicly protested against testifying against a personal confidant,
and was excused. He was one of the first of the English clergy to
study modern higher criticism of the Bible, and amid much opposi-
tion he wrote numerous works on the subject. He was professor of
theology at Cambridge (1707), Bishop of Llandaff (1816), and
Bishop of Peterborough.
10 George Butler (1774-1853), Headmaster of Harrow (1805-
1829), Chancellor of Peterborough (1836), and Dean of Peterbor-
ough (1842).
"James Tate (1771-1843), Headmaster of Richmond School
(1796-1833) and Canon of St. Paul's Cathedral (1833). He left
several works on the classics.
"Francis Place (1771-1854), at first a journeyman breeches
maker, and later a master tailor. He was a hundred years ahead of
his time as a strike leader, but was not so successful as an agitator
as he was as a tailor, since his shop in Charing Cross made him
wealthy. He was a well-known radical, and it was largely due to
his efforts that the law against the combinations of workmen was
repealed in 1824. His chief work was The Principles of Population
(1822).
200 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
now and then to give me instruction, while I was sitting
on the board, working for my living, you know."
Place, who really was a sound economist, is joined with
Cobbett, because they were together at one time, and because
he was, in 1800, etc., a great Radical. But for Cobbett he
had a great contempt. He told me the following story. He
and others were advising with Cobbett about the defense
he was to make on a trial for seditious libel which was com-
ing on. Said Place, "You must put in the letters you have
received from Ministers, members of the Commons from the
Speaker downwards, etc., about your Register, and their
wish to have subjects noted. You must then ask the jury
whether a person so addressed must be considered as a com-
mon sower of sedition, etc. You will be acquitted ; nay, if
your intention should get about, very likely they will man-
age to stop proceedings." Cobbett was too much disturbed
to listen ; he walked about the room ejaculating "D the
prison !" and the like. He had not the sense to follow the
advice, and was convicted.
Cobbett, to go on with the chain, was a political acrobat,
ready for any kind of posture. A friend of mine gave me
several times an account of a mission to him. A Tory mem-
ber— those who know the old Tory world may look for his
initials in initials of two consecutive words of "Pay his
money with interest" — who was, of course, a political oppo-
nent, thought Cobbett had been hardly used, and deter-
mined to subscribe handsomely towards the expenses he was
incurring as a candidate. My friend was commissioned to
hand over the money — a bag of sovereigns, that notes might
not be traced. He went into Cobbett's committee-room,
told the patriot his errand, and put the money on the table.
"And to whom, sir, am I indebted?" said Cobbett. "The
donor," was the answer, "is Mr. Andrew Theophilus Smith,"
or some such unlikely pair of baptismals. "Ah !" said Cob-
bett, "I have known Mr. A. T. S. a long time ! he was always
a true friend of his country !"
A TRIBUTE TO WILLIAM FREND. 201
To return to Place. He is a noted instance of the ad-
vantage of our jury system, which never asks a man's poli-
tics, etc. The late King of Hanover, when Duke of Cumber-
land, being unpopular, was brought under unjust suspicions
by the suicide of his valet: he must have seduced the wife
and murdered the husband. The charges were as absurd
as those brought against the Englishman in the Frenchman's
attempt at satirical verses upon him:
"The Englishman is a very bad man;
He drink the beer and he steal the can :
He kiss the wife and he beat the man ;
And the Englishman is a very G d ."
The charges were revived in a much later day, and the
defense might have given some trouble. But Place, who
had been the foreman at the inquest, came forward, and
settled the question in a few lines. Every one knew that
the old Radical was quite free of all disposition to suppress
truth from wish to curry favor with royalty.
John Speed,13 the author of the English History,14 1632)
which Bishop Nicolson15 calls the best chronicle extant, was
a man, like Place, of no education, but what he gave himself.
The bishop says he would have done better if he had a better
training: but what, he adds, could have been expected from
a tailor! This Speed was, as well as Place. But he was
"Speed (1552-1629) was a tailor until Grevil (Greville) made
him independent of his trade. He was not only an historian of
some merit, but a skilful cartographer. His maps of the counties
were collected in the Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine, 1611.
About this same time he also published Genealogies recorded in
Sacred Scripture, a work that had passed through thirty-two edi-
tions by 1640.
14 The history of Great Britaine under the conquests of ye Ro-
mans, Saxons, Danes, and Normans London, 1611, folio. The
second edition appeared in 1623 ; the third, to which De Morgan here
refers, posthumously in 1632; and the fourth in 1650.
"William Nicolson (1655-1727) became Bishop of Carlisle in
1702, and Bishop of Derry in 1718, His chief work was the Histor-
ical Library (1696-1724), in the form of a collection of documents
and chronicles. It was reprinted in 1736 and in 1776.
202 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
released from manual labor by Sir Fulk Grevil,16 who en-
abled him to study.
A STORY ON SIMSON.
I have elsewhere noticed that those who oppose the mys-
teries of algebra do not ridicule them; this I want the cy-
clometers to do. Of the three who wrote against the great
point, the negative quantity, and the uses of 0 which are
connected with it, only one could fire a squib. That Robert
Simson1 should do such a thing will be judged impossible
by all who admit tradition. I do not vouch for the follow-
ing; I give it as a proof of the impression which prevailed
about him:
He used to sit at his open window on the ground floor,
as deep in geometry as a Robert Simson ought to be. Here
he would be accosted by beggars, to whom he generally
gave a trifle, he roused himself to hear a few words of the
story, made his donation, and instantly dropped down into
his depths. Some wags one day stopped a mendicant who
was on his way to the window with "Now, my man, do as
we tell you, and you will get something from that gentle-
man, and a shilling from us besides. You will go and say
you are in distress, he will ask you who you are, and you
will say you are Robert Simson, son of John Simson of
Kirktonhill." The man did as he was told ; Simson quietly
gave him a coin, and dropped off. The wags watched a
little, and saw him rouse himself again, and exclaim "Robert
Simson, son of John Simson of Kirktonhill ! why, that is my-
self. That man must be an impostor." Lord Brougham
tells the same story, with some difference of details.
"Sir Fulk Grevil, or Fulke Greville (1554-1628), was a favorite
of Queen Elizabeth, Chancellor of the Exchequer under James I, a
patron of literature, and a friend of Sir Philip Sidney.
1 See note 4 on page 197.
BARON MASERES. 203
BARON MASERES.
Baron Maseres1 was, as a writer, dry ; those who knew
his writings will feel that he seldom could have taken in a
joke or issued a pun. Maseres was the fourth wrangler
of 1752, and first Chancellor's medallist (or highest in clas-
sics) ; his second was Porteus2 (afterward Bishop of Lon-
don). Waring3 came five years after him: he could not
get Maseres through the second page of his first book on
algebra ; a negative quantity stood like a lion in the way.
In 1758 he published his Dissertation on the Use of the
Negative Sign* 4to. There are some who care little about
+ and — , who would give it house-room for the sake of
the four words "Printed by Samuel Richardson."
Maseres speaks as follows : "A single quantity can never
be marked with either of those signs, or considered as
either affirmative or negative ; for if any single quantity, as
b, is marked either with the sign -|- or with the sign —
without assigning some other quantity, as a, to which it is
to be added, or from which it is to be subtracted, the mark
will have no meaning or signification: thus if it be said
that the square of — 5, or the product of — 5 into — 5, is
equal to +25, such an assertion must either signify no more
than that 5 times 5 is equal to 25 without any regard to the
signs, or it must be mere nonsense and unintelligible jargon.
I speak according to the foregoing definition, by which the
affirmativeness or negativeness of any quantity implies a
relation to another quantity of the same kind to which it
1 See note 5 on page 197.
2 See note on page 193.
8 Edward Waring (1736-1796) was Lucasian professor of mathe-
matics at Cambridge. He published several works on analysis and
curves. The work referred to was the Miscellanea Analytic? de
aequationibus algebraicis et curvarum proprietatibus, Cambridge,
1762.
* A Dissertation on the use of the Negative Sign in Algebra ;
to which is added, Machin's Quadrature of the Circle, London, 1758.
204 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
is added, or from which it is subtracted ; for it may perhaps
be very clear and intelligible to those who have formed to
themselves some other idea of affirmative and negative quan-
tities different from that above denned."
Nothing can be more correct, or more identically logical :
+5 and — 5, standing alone, are jargon if +5 and — 5 are
to be understood as without reference to another quantity.
But those who have "formed to themselves some other idea"
see meaning enough. The great difficulty of the opponents
of algebra lay in want of power or will to see extension of
terms. Maseres is right when he implies that extension,
accompanied by its refusal, makes jargon. One of my para-
doxers was present at a meeting of the Royal Society (in
1864, I think) and asked permission to make some remarks
upon a paper. He rambled into other things, and, naming
me, said that I had written a book in which two sides of a
triangle are pronounced equal to the third. s So they are,
in the sense in which the word is used in complete algebra ;
in which A+B = C makes A, B, C, three sides of a triangle,
and declares that going over A and B, one after the other,
is equivalent, in change of place, to going over C at once.
My critic, who might, if he pleased, have objected to exten-
sion, insisted upon reading me in unextended meaning.
On the other hand, it must be said that those who wrote
on the other idea wrote very obscurely about it and justified
Des Cartes (De Methodo)6 when he said: "Algebram vero,
ut solet doceri, animadvert! certis regulis et numerandi for-
mulis ita esse contentam, ut videatur potius ars quaedam
confusa, cujus usu ingenium quodam modo turbatur et ob-
scuratur, quam scientia qua excolatur et perspicacius redda-
B The paper was probably one on complex numbers, or possibly
one on quaternions, in which direction as well as absolute value is
involved.
8De Morgan quotes from one of the Latin editions. Descartes
wrote in French, the title of his first edition being: Discours de la
methode pour bien conduire sa raison et chercher la verite dans les
sciences, plus la dioptrique, les meteores et la geometrie qui sont des
essais de cette methode, Leyden, 1637, 4to.
BARON MASERES. 205
tur."7 Maseres wrote this sentence on the title of his own
work, now before me ; he would have made it his motto if
he had found it earlier.
There is, I believe, in Cobbett's Annual Register? an ac-
count of an interview between Maseres and Cobbett when
in prison.
The conversation of Maseres was lively, and full of se-
rious anecdote: but only one attempt at humorous satire is
recorded of him; it is an instructive one. He was born in
1731 (Dec. 15), and his father was a refugee. French was
the language of the house, with the pronunciation of the
time of Louis XIV. He lived until 1824 (May 19), and saw
the race of refugees who were driven out by the first Revo-
lution. Their pronunciation differed greatly from his own ;
and he used to amuse himself by mimicking them. Those
who heard him and them had the two schools of pronuncia-
tion before them at once ; a thing which seldom happens.
It might even yet be worth while to examine the Canadian
pronunciation.
Maseres went as Attorney-General to Quebec; and was
appointed Cursitor Baron of our Exchequer in 1773. There
is a curious story about his mission to Canada, which I have
heard as good tradition, but have never seen in print. The
reader shall have it as cheap as I ; and I confess I rather
believe it. Maseres was inveterately honest ; he could not,
at the bar, bear to see his own client victorious, when he
knew his cause was a bad one. On a certain occasion he
was in a cause which he knew would go against him if a
certain case were quoted. Neither the judge nor the oppo-
site counsel seemed to remember this case, and Maseres
could not help dropping an allusion which brought it out.
T"I have observed that algebra indeed, as it is usually taught,
is so restricted by definite rules and formulas of calculation, that it
seems rather a confused kind of an art, by the practice of which
the mind is in a certain manner disturbed and obscured, than a
science by which it is cultivated and made acute."
"It appeared in 93 volumes, from 1758 to 1851.
206 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
His business as a barrister fell off, of course. Some time
after, Mr. Pitt (Chatham) wanted a lawyer to send to Can-
ada on a private mission, and wanted a very honest man.
Some one mentioned Maseres, and told the above story:
Pitt saw that he had got the man he wanted. The mission
was satisfactorily performed, and Maseres remained as At-
torney-General.
The Doctrine of Life Annuities9 (4to, 726 pages, 1783)
is a strange paradox. Its size, the heavy dissertations on
the national debt, and the depth of algebra supposed known,
put it out of the question as an elementary work, and it is
unfitted for the higher student by its elaborate attempt at
elementary character, shown in its rejection of forms derived
from chances in favor of the average, and its exhibition of
the separate values of the years of an annuity, as arithmetical
illustrations. It is a climax of unsaleability, unreadability,
and inutility. For intrinsic nullity of interest, and dilution
of little matter with much ink, I can compare this book to
nothing but that of Claude de St. Martin, elsewhere men-
tioned, or the lectures On the Nature and Properties of Log-
arithms, by James Little,10 Dublin, 1830, 8vo. (254 heavy
pages of many words and few symbols), a wonderful weight
of weariness.
The stock of this work on annuities, very little dimin-
ished, was given by the author to William Frend, who paid
warehouse room for it until about 1835, when he consulted
me as to its disposal. As no publisher could be found who
would take it as a gift, for any purpose of sale, it was con-
signed, all but a few copies, to a buyer of waste paper.
Baron Maseres's republications are well known: the
Scriptores Logarithmici11 is a set of valuable reprints, mixed
9 The principles of the doctrine of life -annuities; explained in
a familiar manner with a variety of new tables ...., London,
1783.
10 1 suppose the one who wrote Conjectures on the physical causes
of Earthquakes and Volcanoes, Dublin, 1820.
11 Scriptores Logarithmici; or, a Collection of several curious
BARON MASERES. 207
with much which might better have entered into another
collection. It is not so well known that there is a volume
of optical reprints, Script ores Optici, London, 1823, 4to,
edited for the veteran of ninety-two by Mr. Babbage12 at
twenty-nine. This excellent volume contains James Greg-
ory, Des Cartes, Halley, Barrow, and the optical writings
of Huyghens, the Principia of the undulatory theory. It
also contains, by the sort of whim in which such men as
Maseres, myself, and some others are apt to indulge, a reprint
of "The great new Art of weighing Vanity,"1^ by M. Patrick
Mathers, Arch-Bedel to the University of St. Andrews,
Glasgow, 1672. Professor Sinclair, T* of Glasgow, a good man
at clearing mines of the water which they did not want, and
furnishing cities with water which they did want, seems to
have written absurdly about hydrostatics, and to have at-
tacked a certain Sanders,1* M.A. So Sanders, assisted by
James Gregory, published a heavy bit of jocosity about him.
This story of the authorship rested on a note made in his
tracts on the nature and construction of Logarithms.... together
with same tracts on the Binomial Theorem...., 6 vols., London,
1791-1807.
"Charles Babbage (1792-1871), whose work on the calculating
machine is well known. Maseres was, it is true, ninety-two at this
time, but Babbage was thirty-one instead of twenty-nine. He had
already translated Lacroix's Treatise on the differential and integral
calculus (1816), in collaboration with Herschel and Peacock. He
was Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge from 1828 to
1839-
" The great and new Art of weighing Vanity, or a discovery of
the ignorance of the great and new artist in his pseudo-philosophical
writings. The "great and new artist" was Sinclair.
"George Sinclair, probably a native of East Lothian, who died
in 1696. He was professor of philosophy and mathematics at Glas-
gow, and was one of the first to use the barometer in measuring
altitudes. The work to which De Morgan refers is his Hydrostaticks
(1672). He was a firm believer in evil spirits, his work on the
subject going through four editions: Satan's Invisible World Dis-
covered; or, a choice collection of modern relations, proving evi-
dently against the Saducees and Athiests of this present age, that
there are Devils, Spirits, Witches, and Apparitions, Edinburgh, 1685.
16 This was probably William Sanders, Regent of St. Leonard's
College, whose Theses philosophicae appeared in 1674, and whose
Elementa geometriae came out a dozen years later.
208 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
copy by Robert Gray, M.D. ; but it has since been fully con-
firmed by a letter of James Gregory to Collins, in the
Macclesfield Correspondence. "There is one Master Sin-
clair, who did write the Ars Magna et Nova,16 a pitiful ig-
norant fellow, who hath lately written horrid nonsense in
the hydrostatics, and hath abused a master in the University,
one Mr. Sanders, in print. This Mr. Sanders .... is resolved
to cause the Bedel of the University to write against him . . .
We resolve to make excellent sport with him."
On this I make two remarks : First, I have learned from
experience that old notes, made in books by their possessors,
are statements of high authority: they are almost always
confirmed. I do not receive them without hesitation ; but I
believe that of all the statements about books which rest on
one authority, there is a larger percentage of truth in the
written word than in the printed word. Secondly, I mourn
to think that when the New Zealander picks up his old copy
of this book, and reads it by the associations of his own day,
he may, in spite of the many assurances I have received that
my Athen&um Bridget was amusing, feel me to be as heavy
as I feel James Gregory and Sanders. But he will see that
I knew what was coming, which Gregory did not.
MR. TREND'S BURLESQUE.
It was left for Mr. Frend to prove that an impugner of
algebra could attempt ridicule. He was, in 1803, editor of
a periodical The Gentleman's Monthly Miscellany, which
lasted a few months.1 To this, among other things, he con-
tributed the following, in burlesque of the use made of 0,
to which he objected.2 The imitation of Rabelais, a writer
18 Ars nova et magna gravitatis et levitatis^. sive dialogorum phi-
losophicorum libri sex de aeris vera ac reali gravitate, Rotterdam,
1669, 4to.
1 Volume I, Nos. I and 2, appeared in 1803.
3 His daughter, Mrs. De Morgan, says in her Memoir of her
husband: "My father had been second wrangler in a year in which
the two highest were close together, and was, as his son-in-law
afterwards described him, an exceedingly clear thinker. It is pos-
MR. TREND'S BURLESQUE. 209
in whom he delighted, is good: to those who have never
dipped, it may give such a notion as they would not easily
get elsewhere. The point of the satire is not so good. But
in truth it is not easy to make pungent scoffs upon what is
common sense to all mankind. Who can laugh with effect
at six times nothing is nothing, as false or unintelligible?
In an article intended for that undistinguishing know-0 the
"general reader," there would have been no force of satire,
if division by 0 had been separated from multiplication by
the same.
I have followed the above by another squib, by the same
author, on the English language. The satire is covertly
aimed at theological phraseology ; and any one who watches
this subject will see that it is a very just observation that
the Greek words are not boiled enough.
PANTAGRUEI/S DECISION of the QUESTION about NOTHING.
"Pantagruel determined to have a snug afternoon with
Epistemon and Panurge. Dinner was ordered to be set in
a small parlor, and a particular batch of Hermitage with
some choice Burgundy to be drawn from a remote corner
of the cellar upon the occasion. By way of lunch, about
an hour before dinner, Pantagruel was composing his stom-
ach with German sausages, reindeer's tongues, oysters,
brawn, and half a dozen different sorts of English beer
just come into fashion, when a most thundering knocking
was heard at the great gate, and from the noise they ex-
pected it to announce the arrival at least of the First Consul,
or king Gargantua. Panurge was sent to reconnoiter, and
after a quarter of an hour's absence, returned with the
news that the University of Pontemaca was waiting his high-
ness's leisure in the great hall, to propound a question which
sible, as Mr. De Morgan said, that this mental clearness and direct-
ness may have caused his mathematical heresy, the rejection of the
use of negative quantities in algebraical operations; and it is prob-
able that he thus deprived himself of an instrument of work, the use
of which might have led him to greater eminence in the higher
branches." Memoir of Augustus De Morgan, London, 1882, p. 19.
210 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
had turned the brains of thirty-nine students, and had flung
twenty-seven more into a high fever. With all my heart,
says Pantagruel, and swallowed down three quarts of Bur-
ton ale ; but remember, it wants but an hour of dinner time,
and the question must be asked in as few words as possible ;
for I cannot deprive myself of the pleasure I expected to
enjoy in the company of my good friends for a set of mad-
headed masters. I wish brother John was here to settle
these matters with the black gentry.
"Having said or rather growled this, he proceeded to the
hall of ceremony, and mounted his throne; Epistemon and
Panurge standing on each side, but two steps below him.
Then advanced to the throne the three beadles of the Uni-
versity of Pontemaca with their silver staves on their shoul-
ders, and velvet caps on their heads, and they were followed
by three times three doctors, and thrice three times three
masters of art ; for everything was done in Pontemaca by the
number three, and on this account the address was written
on parchment, one foot in breadth, and thrice three times
thrice three feet in length. The beadles struck the ground
with their heads and their staves three times in approaching
the throne ; the doctors struck the ground with their heads
thrice three times, and the masters did the same thrice each
time, beating the ground with their heads thrice three times.
This was the accustomed form of approaching the throne,
time out of mind, and it was said to be emblematic of the
usual prostration of science to the throne of greatness.
"The mathematical professor, after having spit, and
hawked, and cleared his throat, and blown his nose on a
handkerchief lent to him, for he had forgotten to bring his
own, began to read the address. In this he was assisted by
three masters of arts, one of whom, with a silver pen,
pointed out the stops ; the second with a small stick rapped
his knuckles when he was to raise or lower his voice; and
a third pulled his hair behind when he was to look Pan-
tagruel in the face. Pantagruel began to chafe like a lion :
MR. TREND'S BURLESQUE. 211
he turned first on one side, then on the other: he listened
and groaned, and groaned and listened, and was in the ut-
most cogitabundity of cogitation. His countenance began
to brighten, when, at the end of an hour, the reader stam-
mered out these words :
" 'It has therefore been most clearly proved that as all
matter may be divided into parts infinitely smaller than the
infinitely smallest part of the infinitesimal of nothing, so
nothing has all the properties of something, and may be-
come, by just and lawful right, susceptible of addition, sub-
traction, multiplication, division, squaring, and cubing: that
it is to all intents and purposes as good as anything that
has been, is, or can be taught in the nine universities of the
land, and to deprive it of its rights is a most cruel innova-
tion and usurpation, tending to destroy all just subordina-
tion in the world, making all universities superfluous, level-
ing vice-chancellors, doctors, and proctors, masters, bach-
elors, and scholars, to the mean and contemptible state of
butchers and tallow-chandlers, bricklayers and chimney-
sweepers, who, if it were not for these learned mysteries,
might think that they knew as much as their betters. Every
one then, who has the good of science at heart, must pray
for the interference of his highness to put a stop to all the
disputes about nothing, and by his decision to convince all
gainsayers that the science of nothing is taught in the best
manner in the universities, to the great edification and im-
provement of all the youth in the land/
"Here Pantagruel whispered in the ear of Panurge, who
nodded to Epistemon, and they two left the assembly, and
did not return for an hour, till the orator had finished his
task. The three beadles had thrice struck the ground with
their heads and staves, the docters had finished their com-
pliments, and the masters were making their twenty-seven
prostrations. Epistemon and Panurge went up to Panta-
gruel, whom they found fast asleep and snoring ; nor could
he be roused but by as many tugs as there had been bow-
212 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
ings from the corps of learning. At last he opened his
eyes, gave a good stretch, made half a dozen yawns, and
called for a stoup of wine. I thank you, my masters, says
he; so sound a nap I have not had since I came from the
island of Priestfolly. Have you dined, my masters? They
answered the question by as many bows as at entrance ; but
his highness left them to the care of Panurge, and retired
to the little parlor with Epistemon, where they burst into
a fit of laughter, declaring that this learned Baragouin about
nothing was just as intelligible as the lawyer's Galimathias.
Panurge conducted the learned body into a large saloon,
and each in his way hearing a clattering of plates and glasses,
congratulated himself on his approaching good cheer. There
they were left by Panurge, who took his chair by Pantagruel
just as the soup was removed, but he made up for the want
of that part of his dinner by a pint of champagne. The
learning of the university had whetted their appetites ; what
they each ate it is needless to recite ; good wine, good stories,
and hearty laughs went round, and three hours elapsed be-
fore one soul of them recollected the hungry students of
Pontemaca.
"Epistemon reminded them of the business in hand, and
orders were given for a fresh dozen of hermitage to be put
upon table, and the royal attendants to get ready. As soon
as the dozen bottles were emptied, Pantagruel rose from
table, the royal trumpets sounded, and he was accompanied
by the great officers of his court into the large dining hall,
where was a table with forty-two covers. Pantagruel sat
at the head, Epistemon at the bottom, and Panurge in the
middle, opposite an immense silver tureen, which would hold
fifty gallons of soup. The wise men of Pontemaca then
took their seats according to seniority. Every countenance
glistened with delight ; the music struck up ; the dishes were
uncovered. Panurge had enough to do to handle the im-
mense silver ladle: Pantagruel and Epistemon had no time
for eating, they were fully employed in carving. The bill
MR. TREND'S BURLESQUE. 213
of fare announced the names of a hundred different dishes.
From Panurge's ladle came into the soup plate as much as
he took every time out of the tureen ; and as it was the rule
of the court that every one should appear to eat, as long as
he sat at table, there was the clattering of nine and thirty
spoons against the silver soup-plates for a quarter of an
hour. They were then removed, and knives and forks were
in motion for half an hour. Glasses were continually handed
round in the mean time, and then everything was removed,
except the great tureen of soup. The second course was
now served up, in dispatching which half an hour was con-
sumed ; and at the conclusion the wise men of Pontemaca
had just as much in their stomachs as Pantagruel in his
head from their address: for nothing was cooked up for
them in every possible shape that Panurge could devise.
"Wine-glasses, large decanters, fruit dishes, and plates
were now set on. Pantagruel and Epistemon alternately
gave bumper toasts: the University of Pontemaca, the eye
of the world, the mother of taste and good sense and uni-
versal learning, the patroness of utility, and the second only
to Pantagruel in wisdom and virtue (for these were her
titles), was drank standing with thrice three times three,
and huzzas and clattering of glasses ; but to such wine the
wise men of Pontemaca had not been accustomed; and
though Pantagruel did not suffer one to rise from table till
the eighty-first glass had been emptied, not even the weak-
est headed master of arts felt his head in the least indis-
posed. The decanters indeed were often removed, but they
were brought back replenished, filled always with nothing.
"Silence was now proclaimed, and in a trice Panurge
leaped into the large silver tureen. Thence he made his
bows to Pantagruel and the whole company, and commenced
an oration of signs, which lasted an hour and a half, and in
which he went over all the matter contained in the Ponte-
maca address ; and though the wise men looked very serious
during the whole time, Pantagruel himself and his whole
214 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
court could not help indulging in repeated bursts of laugh-
ter. It was universally acknowledged that he excelled him-
self, and that the arguments by which he beat the English
masters of arts at Paris were nothing to the exquisite selec-
tion of attitudes which he this day assumed. The greatest
shouts of applause were excited when he was running thrice
round the tureen on its rim, with his left hand holding his
nose, and the other exercising itself nine and thirty times
on his back. In this attitude he concluded with his back to
the professor of mathematics ; and at the instant he gave his
last flap, by a sudden jump, and turning heels over head in
the air, he presented himself face to face to the professor,
and standing on his left leg, with his left hand holding his
nose, he presented to him, in a white satin bag, Pantagruel's
royal decree. Then advancing his right leg, he fixed it on
the professor's head, and after three turns, in which he
clapped his sides with both hands thrice three times, down
he leaped, and Pantagruel, Epistemon, and himself took
their leaves of the wise men of Pontemaca.
"The wise men now retired, and by royal orders were
accompanied by a guard, and according to the etiquette of
the court, no one having a royal order could stop at any
public house till it was delivered. The procession arrived
at Pontemaca at nine o'clock the next morning, and the
sound of bells from every church and college announced
their arrival. The congregation was assembled ; the royal
decree was saluted in the same manner as if his highness
had been there in person; and after the proper ceremonies
had been performed, the satin bag was opened exactly at
twelve o'clock. A finely emblazoned roll was drawn forth,
and the public orator read to the gaping assembly the fol-
lowing words:
" 'They who can make something out of nothing shall
have nothing to eat at the court of — PANTAGRUEL/ "
MR. FREND'S BURLESQUE. 215
ORIGIN of the ENGLISH LANGUAGE, related by a SWEDE.
"Some months ago in a party in Holland, consisting of
natives of various countries, the merit of their respective
languages became a topic of conversation. A Swede, who
had been a great traveler, and could converse in most of
the modern languages of Europe, laughed very heartily at
an Englishman, who had ventured to speak in praise of the
tongue of his dear country. I never had any trouble, says he,
in learning English. To my very great surprise, the moment
I sat foot on shore at Gravesend, I found out, that I could
understand, with very little trouble, every word that was
said. It was a mere jargon, made up of German, French,
and Italian, with now and then a word from the Spanish,
Latin or Greek. I had only to bring my mouth to their
mode of speaking, which was done with ease in less than a
week, and I was everywhere taken for a true-born English-
man ; a privilege by the way of no small importance in a
country, where each man, God knows why, thinks his foggy
island superior to any other part of the world : and though
his door is never free from some dun or other coming for
a tax, and if he steps out of it he is sure to be knocked down
or to have his pocket picked, yet he has the insolence to
think every foreigner a miserable slave, and his country the
seat of everything wretched. They may talk of liberty as
they please, but Spain or Turkey for my money: barring
the bowstring and the inquisition, they are the most com-
fortable countries under heaven, and you need not be afraid
of either, if you do not talk of religion and politics. I do
not see much difference too in this respect in England, for
when I was there, one of their most eminent men for learn-
ing was put in prison for a couple of years, and got his death
for translating one of ^Esop's fables into English, which
every child in Spain and Turkey is taught, as soon as he
comes out of his leading strings. Here all the company
unanimously cried out against the Swede, that it was im-
216 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
possible : for in England, the land of liberty, the only thing
its worst enemies could say against it, was, that they paid
for their liberty a much greater price than it was worth. —
Every man there had a fair trial according to laws, which
everybody could understand ; and the judges were cool, pa-
tient, discerning men, who never took the part of the crown
against the prisoner, but gave him every assistance possible
for his defense.
"The Swede was borne down, but not convinced; and
he seemed determined to spit out all his venom. Well, says
he, at any rate you will not deny that the English have not
got a language of their own, and that they came by it in a
very odd way. Of this at least I am certain, for the whole
history was related to me by a witch in Lapland, whilst I
was bargaining for a wind. Here the company were all in
unison again for the story.
"In ancient times, said the old hag, the English occupied
a spot in Tartary, where they lived sulkily by themselves,
unknowing and unknown. By a great convulsion that took
place in China, the inhabitants of that and the adjoining
parts of Tartary were driven from their seats, and after
various wanderings took up their abode in Germany. During
this time nobody could understand the English, for they
did not talk, but hissed like so many snakes. The poor
people felt uneasy under this circumstance, and in one of
their parliaments, or rather hissing meetings, it was deter-
mined to seek a remedy: and an embassy was sent to some
of our sisterhood then living on Mount Hecla. They were
put to a nonplus, and summoned the Devil to their relief.
To him the English presented their petitions, and explained
their sad case ; and he, upon certain conditions, promised to
befriend them, and to give them a language. The poor
Devil was little aware of what he had promised ; but he is,
as all the world knows, a man of too much honor to break
his word. Up and down the world then he went in quest
of this new language: visited all the universities, and all
MR. TREND'S BURLESQUE. 217
the schools, and all the courts of law, and all the play-houses,
and all the prisons ; never was poor devil so fagged. It
would have made your heart bleed to see him. Thrice did
he go round the earth in every parallel of latitude ; and at
last, wearied and jaded out, back came he to Hecla in de-
spair, and would have thrown himself into the volcano, if
he had been made of combustible materials. Luckily at
that time our sisters were engaged in settling the balance
of Europe; and whilst they were looking over projects, and
counter-projects, and ultimatums, and post ultimatums, the
poor Devil, unable to assist them was groaning in a corner
and ruminating over his sad condition.
"On a sudden, a hellish joy overspread his countenance ;
up he jumped, and, like Archimedes of old, ran like a mad-
man amongst the throng, turning over tables, and papers,
and witches, roaring out for a full hour together nothing
else but 'tis found, 'tis found! Away were sent the sister-
hood in every direction, some to traverse all the corners of
the earth, and others to prepare a larger caldron than had
ever yet been set upon Hecla. The affairs of Europe were
at a stand : its balance was thrown aside ; prime ministers
and ambassadors were everywhere in the utmost confusion ;
and, by the way, they have never been able to find the
balance since that time, and all the fine speeches upon the
subject, with which your newspapers are every now and then
filled, are all mere hocus-pocus and rhodomontade. How-
ever, the caldron was soon set on, and the air was darkened
by witches riding on broomsticks, bringing a couple of folios
under each arm, and across each shoulder. I remember the
time exactly: it was just as the council of Nice had broken
up, so that they got books and papers there dog cheap ; but
it was a bad thing for the poor English, as these were the
worst materials that entered into the caldron. Besides, as the
Devil wanted some amusement, and had not seen an account
of the transactions of this famous council, he had all the books
brought from it laid before him, and split his sides almost
218 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
with laughing, whilst he was reading the speeches and decrees
of so many of his old friends and acquaintances. All this
while the witches were depositing their loads in the great
caldron. There were books from the Dalai Lama, and from
China : there were books from the Hindoos, and tallies from
the Caffres: there were paintings from Mexico, and rocks
of hieroglyphics from Egypt: the last country supplied be-
sides the swathings of two thousand mummies, and four-
fifths of the famed library of Alexandria. Bubble ! bubble !
toil and trouble ! never was a day of more labor and anxiety ;
and if our good master had but flung in the Greek books at
the proper time, they would have made a complete job of
it. He was a little too impatient : as the caldron frothed up,
he skimmed it off with a great ladle, and filled some thou-
sands of our wind-bags with the froth, which the English
with great joy carried back to their own country. These
bags were sent to every district: the chiefs first took their
fill, and then the common people ; hence they now speak
a language which no foreigner can understand, unless he
has learned half a dozen other languages; and the poor
people, not one in ten, understand a third part of what is
said to them. The hissing, however, they have not entirely
got rid of, and every seven years, when the Devil, according
to agreement, pays them a visit, they entertain him at their
common halls and county meetings with their original lan-
guage.
"The good-natured old hag told me several other circum-
stances, relative to this curious transaction, which, as there
is an Englishman in company, it will be prudent to pass
over in silence: but I cannot help mentioning one thing
which she told me as a very great secret. You know, says
she to me, that the English have more religions among them
than any other nation in Europe, and that there is more
teaching and sermonizing with them than in any other coun-
try. The fact is this ; it matters not who gets up to teach
them, the hard words of the Greek were not sufficiently
ON YOUTHFUL PRODIGIES. 219
boiled, and whenever they get into a sentence, the poor
people's brains are turned, and they know no more what the
preacher is talking about, than if he harangued them in
Arabic. Take my word for it if you please ; but if not, when
you get to England, desire the bettermost sort of people
that you are acquainted with to read to you an act of parlia-
ment, which of course is written in the clearest and plainest
style in which anything can be written, and you will find
that not one in ten will be able to make tolerable sense of it.
The language would have been an excellent language, if
it had not been for the council of Nice, and the words had
been well boiled.
"Here the company burst out into a fit of laughter. The
Englishman got up and shook hands with the Swede : si non
e vero, said he, e ben trovato.* But, however I may laugh at
it here, I would not advise you to tell this story on the other
side of the water. So here's a bumper to Old England for
ever, and God save the king."
ON YOUTHFUL PRODIGIES.
The accounts given of extraordinary children and adoles-
cents frequently defy credence.1 I will give two well-attested
instances.
The celebrated mathematician Alexis Claude Clairault
(now Clairaut)2 was certainly born in May, 1713. His treat-
ise on curves of double curvature (printed in 1731)3 received
8 "If it is not true it is a good invention." A well-known Italian
proverb.
1 See page 86, note 3.
2 He was born at Paris in 1713, and died there in 1765.
8 Recherche s sur les courbes a double courbure, Paris, 1731. Clai-
raut was then only eighteen, and was in the same year made a mem-
ber of the Academic des sciences. His Element de geometric ap-
peared in 1741. Meantime he had taken part in the measurement of
a degree in Lapland (1736-1737). His Trait e de la -figure de la
terre was published in 1741. The Academy of St. Petersburg
awarded him a prize for his Theorie de la lune (1750). His various
works on comets are well known, particularly his Theorie du mouve-
ment des cometes (1760) in which he applied the "problem of three
bodies" to Halley's comet as retarded by Jupiter and Saturn.
220 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
the approbation of the Academy of Sciences, August 23,
1729. Fontenelle, in his certificate of this, calls the author
sixteen years of age, and does not strive to exaggerate the
wonder, as he might have done, by reminding his readers
that this work, of original and sustained mathematical in-
vestigation, must have been coming from the pen at the
ages of fourteen and fifteen. The truth was, as attested by
De Molieres,4 Clairaut had given public proofs of his power
at twelve years old. His age being thus publicly certified,
all doubt is removed: say he had been — though great won-
der would still have been left — twenty-one instead of six-
teen, his appearance, and the remembrances of his friends,
schoolfellows, etc., would have made it utterly hopeless to
knock off five years of that age while he was on view in
Paris as a young lion. De Molieres, who examined the
work officially for the Garde des Sceaux, is transported
beyond the bounds of official gravity, and says that it "ne
merite pas seulement d'etre imprime, mais d'etre admire
comme un prodige d'imagination, de conception, et de ca-
pacite."5
That Blaise Pascal was born in June, 1623, is per-
fectly well established and uncontested.6 That he wrote his
conic sections at the age of sixteen might be difficult to
establish, though tolerably well attested, if it were not for
4 Joseph Privat, Abbe de Molieres (1677-1742), was a priest of
the Congregation of the Oratorium. In 1723 he became a professor
in the College de France. He was well known as an astronomer and
a mathematician, and wrote in defense of Descartes's theory of
vortices (1728, 1729). He also contributed to the methods of find-
ing prime numbers (1705).
B "Deserves not only to be printed, but to be admired as a marvel
of imagination, of understanding, and of ability."
6 Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), the well-known French philosopher
and mathematician. He lived for some time with the Port Royalists,
and defended them against the Jesuits in his Provincial Letters.
Among his works are the following: Essai pour les coniques (1640) ;
Recit de la grande experience de I'equilibre des liqueurs (1648), de-
scribing his experiment in finding altitudes by barometric readings ;
Histoire de la roulette (1658); Traite du triangle arithmetique
(1665) ; Aleae geometria (1654).
ON YOUTHFUL PRODIGIES. 221
one circumstance, for the book was not published. The
celebrated theorem, "Pascal's hexagram,"7 makes all the
rest come very easy. Now Curabelle,8 in a work published
in 1644, sneers at Desargues,9 whom he quotes, for having,
in 1642, deferred a discussion until "cette grande proposition
nommee le Pascale verra le jour."10 That is, by the time
Pascal was nineteen, the hexagram was circulating under
a name derived from the author. The common story about
Pascal, given by his sister,11 is an absurdity which no doubt
has prejudiced many against tales of early proficiency. He
is made, when quite a boy, to invent geometry in the order
of Euclid's propositions: as if that order were natural se-
quence of investigation. The hexagram at ten years old
would be a hundred times less unlikely.
The instances named are painfully astonishing: I give
one which has fallen out of sight, because it will preserve
an imperfect biography. John Wilson12 is Wilson of that
7 This proposition shows that if a hexagon is inscribed in a
conic (in particular a circle) and the opposite sides are produced
to meet, the three points determined by their intersections will be in
the same straight line.
8 Jacques Curabelle, Examen des (Euvres du Sr. Desargues, Paris,
1644. He also published without date a work entitled: Foiblesse
pitoyable du Sr. G. Desargues employee contre I'examen fait de ses
ceuvres.
9 See page 119, note 2.
10 Until "this great proposition called Pascal's should see the
light."
11 The story is that his father, Etienne Pascal, did not wish him
to study geometry until he was thoroughly grounded in Latin and
Greek. Having heard the nature of the subject, however, he began
at the age of twelve to construct figures by himself, drawing them
on the floor with a piece of charcoal. When his father discovered
what he was doing he was attempting to demonstrate that the sum
of the angles of a triangle equals two right angles. The story is
given by his sister, Mme. Perier.
"Sir John Wilson (1741-1793) was knighted in 1786 and became
Commissioner of the Great Seal in 1792. He was a lawyer and jurist
of recognized merit. He stated his theorem without proof, the first
demonstration having been given by Lagrange in the Memoirs of
the Berlin Academy for 1771, — Demonstration d'un theoreme nou-
veau concernant les nombres premiers. Euler also gave a proof in
his Miscellanea Analytica (1773). Fermat's works should be con-
sulted in connection with the early history of this theorem.
222 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
Ilk, that is, of "Wilson's Theorem." It is this: if p be a
prime number, the product of all the numbers up to p — 1, in-
creased by 1, is divisible without remainder by p. All
mathematicians know this as Wilson's theorem, but few
know who Wilson was. He was born August 6, 1741, at
the Howe in Applethwaite, and he was heir to a small
estate at Troutbeck in Westmoreland. He was sent to
Peterhouse, at Cambridge, and while an undergraduate was
considered stronger in algebra than any one in the Uni-
versity, except Professor Waring, one of the most powerful
algebraists of the century.13 He was the senior wrangler of
1761, and was then for some time a private tutor. When
Paley,14 then in his third year, determined to make a push
for the senior wranglership, which he got, Wilson was
recommended to him as a tutor. Both were ardent in their
work, except that sometimes Paley, when he came for his
lesson, would find "Gone a fishing" written on his tutor's
outer door: which was insult added to injury, for Paley
was very fond of fishing. Wilson soon left Cambridge, and
went to the bar. He practised on the northern circuit with
great success ; and, one day, while passing his vacation on
his little property at Troutbeck, he received information, to
his great surprise, that Lord Thurlow,15 with whom he had
"He wrote, in 1760, a tract in defense of Waring, a point of
whose algebra had been assailed by a Dr. Powell. Waring wrote
another tract of the same date.— A. De M.
William Samuel Powell (1717-1775) was at this time a fellow
of St. John's College, Cambridge. In 1765 he became Vice Chan-
cellor of the University. Waring was a Magdalene man, and while
candidate for the Lucasian professorship he circulated privately his
Miscellanea Analytica. Powell attacked this in his Observations on
the First Chapter of a Book called Miscellanea (1760). This attack
was probably in the interest of another candidate, a man of his own
college (St. John's), William Ludlam.
"William Paley (1743-1805) was afterwards a tutor at Christ's
College, Cambridge. He never contributed anything to mathematics,
but his Evidences of Christianity (1794) was long considered some-
what of a classic. He also wrote Principles of Morality and Poli-
tics (1785), and Natural Theology (1802).
15 Edward, first Baron Thurlow (1731-1806) is known to Ameri-
cans because of his strong support of the Royal prerogative during
ON YOUTHFUL PRODIGIES. 223
no acquaintance, had recommended him to be a Judge of
the Court of Common Pleas. He died, Oct. 18, 1793, with
a very high reputation as a lawyer and a Judge. These
facts are partly from Meadley's Life of Paley™ no doubt from
Paley himself, partly from the Gentleman's Magazine, and
fsom an epitaph written by Bishop Watson.17 Wilson did
not publish anything: the theorem by which he has cut
his name in the theory of numbers was communicated to
Waring, by whom it was published. He married, in 1788,
a daughter of Serjeant Adair,18 and left issue. Had a family,
many will say : but a man and his wife are a family, even
without children. An actuary may be allowed to be accurate
in this matter, of which I was reminded by what an actuary
wrote of another actuary. William Morgan,19 in the life of
his uncle Dr. Richard Price,20 says that the Doctor and his
the Revolution. He was a favorite of George III, and became
Lord Chancellor in 1778.
"George Wilson Meadley (1774-1818) published his Memoirs
of .... Paley in 1809. He also published Memoirs of Algernon Sid-
ney in 1813. He was a merchant and banker, and had traveled ex-
tensively in Europe and the East. He was a convert to unitarianism,
to which sect Paley had a strong leaning.
"Watson (1737-1816) was a strange kind of man for a bishop-
ric. He was professor of chemistry at Cambridge (1764) at the age
of twenty-seven. It was his experiments that led to the invention
of the black-bulb thermometer. He is said to have saved the gov-
ernment £100,000 a year by his advice on the manufacture of gun-
powder. Even after he became professor of divinity at Cambridge
(1771) he published four volumes of Chemical Essays (vol. I, 1781).
He became Bishop of Llandaff in 1782.
18 James Adair (died in 1798) was counsel for the defense in
the trial of the publishers of the Letters of Junius (1771). As King's
Serjeant he assisted in prosecuting Hardy and Home Tooke.
19 Morgan (1750-1833) was actuary of the Equitable Assurance
Society of London (1774-1830), and it was to his great abilities that
the success of that company was due at a time when other corpora-
tions of similar kind were meeting with disaster. The Royal So-
ciety awarded him a medal (1783) for a paper on Probability of
Survivorship. He wrote several important works on insurance and
finance.
20 Dr. Price (1723-1791) was a non-conformist minister and a
writer on ethics, economics, politics, and insurance. He was a de-
fender of the American Revolution and a personal friend of Frank-
lin. In 1778 Congress invited him to America to assist in the finan-
224 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
wife were "never blessed with an addition to their family."
I never met with such accuracy elsewhere. Of William
Morgan I add that my surname and pursuits have some-
times, to my credit be it said, made a confusion between
him and me. Dates are nothing to the mistaken ; the last
three years of Morgan's life were the first three years of
my actuary-life (1830-33). The mistake was to my advan-
tage as well as to my credit. I owe to it the acquaintance
of one of the noblest of the human race, I mean Elizabeth
Fry,21 who came to me for advice about a philanthropic de-
sign, which involved life questions, under a general im-
pression that some Morgan had attended to such things.22
cial administration of the new republic, but he declined. His famous
sermon on the French Revolution is said to have inspired Burke's
Reflections on the Revolution in France,
21 Elizabeth Gurney (1780-1845), a Quaker, who married Joseph
Fry (1800), a London merchant. She was the prime mover in the
Association for^ the Improvement of the Female Prisoners in New-
gate, founded in 1817. Her influence in prison reform extended
throughout Europe, and she visited the prisons of many countries
in her efforts to improve the conditions of penal servitude. The
friendship of Mrs. Fry with the De Morgans began in 1837. Her
scheme for a female benefit society proved worthless from the
actuarial standpoint, and would have been disastrous to all con-
cerned if it had been carried out, and it was therefore fortunate
that De Morgan ^was consulted in time. Mrs. De Morgan speaks of
the consultation in these words : "My husband, who was very sensi-
tive on such points, was charmed with Mrs. Fry's voice and manner
as much as by the simple self-forgetfulness with which she entered
into this business ; her own very uncomfortable share of it not being
felt as an element in the question, as long as she could be useful in
promoting good or preventing mischief. I can see her now as she
came into our room, took off her little round Quaker cap, and laying
it down, _went at once into the matter. 'I have followed thy advice,
and I think nothing further can be done in this case; but all harm
is prevented.' In the following year I had an opportunity of seeing
the _ effect of her most musical tones. I visited her at Stratford,
taking my little baby and nurse with me, to consult her on some
articles on prison discipline, which I had written for a periodical.
The baby— three months old— was restless, and the nurse could not
quiet her, neither could I entirely, until Mrs. Fry began to read
something connected with the subject of my visit, when the infant,
fixing her large eyes on the reader, lay listening till she fell asleep."
Memoirs, p. 91.
22 Mrs. Fry certainly believed that the writer was the old actuary
of the Equitable, when she first consulted him upon the benevolent
Assurance project; but we were introduced to her by our old and
NEWTON AGAIN OVERTHROWN. 225
NEWTON AGAIN OVERTHROWN.
A treatise on the sublime science of heliography, satisfactorily
demonstrating our great orb of light, the sun, to be absolutely
no other than a body of ice ! Overturning all the received
systems of the universe hitherto extant ; proving the celebrated
and indefatigable Sir Isaac Newton, in his theory of the solar
system, to be as far distant from the truth, as many of the
heathen authors of Greece and Rome. By Charles Palmer,1
Gent. London, 1798, 8vo.
Mr. Palmer burned some tobacco with a burning glass,
saw that a lens of ice would do as well, and then says:
"If we admit that the sun could be removed, and a ter-
restrial body of ice placed in its stead, it would produce the
same effect. The sun is a crystaline body receiving the
radiance of God, and operates on this earth in a similar
manner as the light of the sun does when applied to a con-
vex mirror or glass."
Nov. 10, 1801. The Rev. Thomas Cormouls,2 minister
of Tettenhall, addressed a letter to Sir Wm. Herschel, from
which I extract the following:
"Here it may be asked, then, how came the doctrines of
Newton to solve all astronomic Phenomina, and all problems
concerning the same, both a parte ante and a parte post.3 It
is answered that he certainly wrought the principles he made
use of into strickt analogy with the real Phenomina of the
heavens, and that the rules and results arizing from them
dear friend Lady Noel Byron, by whom she had been long known
and venerated, and who referred her to Mr. De Morgan for advice.
An unusual degree of confidence in, and appreciation of each other,
arose on their first meeting between the two, who had so much that
was externally different, and so much that was essentially alike, in
their natures.— S. E. De M.
Anne Isabella Milbanke (1792-1860) married Lord Byron in
1815, when both took the additional name of Noel, her mother's
name. They were separated in 1816.
1 An obscure writer not mentioned in the ordinary biographies.
2 Not mentioned in the ordinary biographies, and for obvious
reasons.
3 u
"Before" and "after.'
226 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
agree with them and resolve accurately all questions con-
cerning them. Though they are not fact and true, or nature,
but analogous to it, in the manner of the artificial numbers
of logarithms, sines, &c. A very important question arises
here, Did Newton mean to impose upon the world? By no
means : he received and used the doctrines reddy formed ;
he did a little extend and contract his principles when
wanted, and commit a few oversights of consequences. But
when he was very much advanced in life, he suspected the
fundamental nullity of them: but I have from a certain
anecdote strong ground to believe that he knew it before
his decease and intended to have retracted his error. But,
however, somebody did deceive, if not wilfully, negligently
at least. That was a man to whom the world has great
obligations too. It was no less a philosopher than Galileo."
That Newton wanted to retract before his death, is a
notion not uncommon among paradoxers. Nevertheless,
there is no retraction in the third edition of the Principia,
published when Newton was eighty-four years old! The
moral of the above is, that a gentleman who prefers in-
structing William Herschel to learning how to spell, may
find a proper niche in a proper place, for warning to others.
It seems that gravitation is not truth, but only the loga-
rithm of it.
BISHOPS AS PARADOXERS.
The mathematical and philosophical works of the Right Rev.
John Wilkins1.... In two volumes. London, 1802, 8vo.
This work, or at least part of the edition — all for aught
I know — is printed on wood; that is, on paper made from
wood-pulp. It has a rough surface ; and when held before
a candle is of very unequal transparency. There is in it a
reprint of the works on the earth and moon. The discourse
on the possibility of going to the moon, in this and the
edition of 1640, is incorporated : but from the account in the
*On Bishop Wilkins see note I on page 100.
BISHOPS AS PARADOXERS. 227
life prefixed, and a mention by D'Israeli, I should suppose
that it had originally a separate title-page, and some circu-
lation as a separate tract. Wilkins treats this subject half
seriously, half jocosely; he has evidently not quite made
up his mind. He is clear that "arts are not yet come to
their solstice," and that posterity will bring hidden things
to light. As to the difficulty of carrying food, he thinks,
scoffing Puritan that he is, the Papists may be trained to fast
the voyage, or may find the bread of their Eucharist "serve
well enough for their viaticum."2 He also puts the case
that the story of Domingo Gonsales may be realized, namely,
that wild geese find their way to the moon. It will be re-
membered— to use the usual substitute for, It has been for-
gotten— that the posthumous work of Bishop Francis God-
win3 of Llandaff was published in 1638, the very year of
Wilkins's first edition, in time for him to mention it at the
end. Godwin makes Domingo Gonsales get to the moon in
a chariot drawn by wild geese, and, as old books would say,
discourses fully on that head. It is not a little amusing that
Wilkins should* have been seriously accused of plagiarizing
Godwin, Wilkins writing in earnest, or nearly so, and God-
win writing fiction. It may serve to show philosophers how
very near pure speculation comes to fable. From the sublime
to the ridiculous is but a step: which is the sublime, and
which the ridiculous, every one must settle for himself.
With me, good fiction is the sublime, and bad speculation
the ridiculous. The number of bishops in my list is small.
I might, had I possessed the book, have opened the list of
quadrators with an Archbishop of Canterbury, or at least
with a divine who was not wholly not archbishop. Thomas
Bradwardine4 (Bragvardinus, Bragadinus) was elected in
2 Pro vision for a journey.
3 See note 3 on page 103.
4 Thomas Bradwardine (1290-1349), known as Doct or Profundus,
proctor and professor of theology at Oxford, and afterwards Chan-
cellor of St. Paul's and confessor to Edward III. The English
ascribed their success at Crecy to his prayers.
228 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
1348 ; the Pope put in another, who died unconsecrated ; and
Bradwardine was again elected in 1349, and lived five weeks
longer, dying, I suppose, unconfirmed and unconsecrated.5
Leland says he held the see a year, unus tantum annulus*
which seems to be a confusion : the whole business, from the
first election, took about a year. He squared the circle, and
his performance was printed at Paris in 1494. I have never
seen it, nor any work of the author, except a tract on pro-
portion.
As Bradwardine's works are very scarce indeed, I give
two titles from one of the Libri catalogues.
"ARITHMETIC. BRAUARDINI (Thomae) Arithmetica speculativa
revisa et correcta a Petro Sanchez Ciruelo Aragonesi, black
letter, elegant woodcut title-page, VERY RARE, folio. Parisiis, per
Thomam Anguelast (prv Olivier Senant), s.a. circa I5io.7
"This book, by Thomas Bradwardine, Archbishop of
Canterbury must be exceedingly scarce as it has escaped
the notice of Professor De Morgan, who, in his Arithmetical
Books, speaks of a treatise of the same author on propor-
tions,8 printed at Vienna in 1515, but does not mention the
present work.
5 He was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury by the Pope at
Avignon, July 13, 1349, and died of the plague at London in the
same year.
6 "One paltry little year."
7 The title is carelessly copied, as is so frequently the case in
catalogues, even of the Libri class. It should read: Arithmetica
thome brauardini.\\Olivier Senant\\Venum exponuntur ab Oliuiario
senant in vico diui Jacobi sub signo beate Barbare sedente. The colo-
phon reads: Explicit arithmetica speculatiua thoe brauardini bn re-
uisa et correcta a Petro sanchez Ciruelo aragoncnsi mathematicas
legete Parisius, ipressa per Thoma anguelart. There were Paris edi-
tions of 1495, 1496, 1498, s. a. (c. 1500), 1502, 1504, 1505, s.a. (c.
JSio), 1512, 1530, a Valencia edition of 1503, two Wittenberg edi-
tions^ of 1534 and 1536, and doubtless several others. The work is
not "very rare," although of course no works of that period are
common. See the editor's Rara Arithmetica, page 61.
8 This is his Tractatus de proportionibus, Paris, 1495; Venice,
1505; Vienna, 1515, with other editions.
THE QUESTION OF PARALLELS. 229
"Bradwardine (Archbp. T.). Brauardini (Thomae) Geometria
speculativa, com Tractatu de Quadratura Circuli bene revisa
a Petro Sanchez Ciruelo, SCARCE, folio. Parisiis, J. Petit, i$n.9
"In this work we find the polygones etoiles,10 see Chasles
(Apergu, pp. 480, 487, 521, 523, &c.) on the merit of the
discoveries of this English mathematician, who was Arch-
bishop of Canterbury in the xivth Century (tempore Edward
III. A. D. 1349) ; and who applied geometry to theology.
M. Chasles says that the present work of Bradwardine con-
tains 'Une theorie nouvelle qui doit faire honneur au xive
Siecle.' mi
The titles do not make it quite sure that Bradwardine
is the quadrator ; it may be Peter Sanchez after all.12
THE QUESTION OF PARALLELS.
Nouvelle theorie des paralleles. Par Adolphe Kircher1 [so"
signed at the end of the appendix], Paris, 1803, 8vo.
An alleged emendation of Legendre.2 The author refers
9 The colophon of the 1495 edition reads: Et sic explicit^ Geo-
metria Thome brauardini cu tractatulo de quadrature, circuit bene
reuisa a Petro sanchez ciruelo : operaqz Guidonis mercatoris dili-
getissime impresse parisi0 in capo gaillardi. Anno dni. 1495. die.
20. maij.
This Petro Ciruelo was born in Arragon, and died in 1560 at
Salamanca. He studied mathematics and philosophy at Paris, and
took the doctor's degree there. He taught at the University of
Alcala and became canon of the Cathedral at Salamanca. Besides
his editions of Bradwardine he wrote several works, among them
the Liber arithmeticae practicae qui dicitur algorithmus (Paris,
1495) and the Cursus quatuor mathematicarum artium liberalium
(Alcala, 1516).
10 Star polygons, a subject of considerable study in the later
Middle Ages. See note I on page 44.
1 "A new theory that adds lustre to the fourteenth century."
"There is nothing in the edition of 1495 that leads to this con-
clusion.
1 The full title is : Nouvelle theorie des paralleles, avec un appen-
dice contenant la maniere de perfectionner la theorie des paralleles
de A. M. Legendre. The author had no standing as a scientist.
2Adrien Marie Legendre (1752-1833) was one of the great
mathematicians of the opening of the nineteenth century. His Ele-
ments de geometric (1794) had great influence on the geometry of
230 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
to attempts by Hoffman,3 1801, by Hauff,4 1799, and to a
work of Karsten,5 or at least a theory of Karsten, contained
in "Tentamen novae parallelarum theoriae notione situs fun-
datae; auctore G. C. Schwal,6 Stuttgardae, 1801, en 8 vo-
lumes." Surely this is a misprint; eight volumes on the
theory of parallels ? If there be such a work, I trust I and
it may never meet, though ever so far produced.
the United States. His Essai sur la theorie des nombres (1798) is
one of the classics upon the subject. The work to which Kircher
refers is the Notcvelle theorie des paralleles (1803), in which the
attempt is made to avoid using Euclid's postulate of parallels, the
result being merely the substitution of another assumption that was
even more unsatisfactory. The best presentations of the general
theory are W. B. Frankland's Theories of Parallelism, Cambridge,
1910, and Engel and Stacker's Die Theorie der Parallellinien von
Euclid bis auf Gauss, Leipsic, 1895. Legendre published a second
work on the theory the year of his death, Reflexions sur .... la
theorie des paralleles (1833). His other works include the Nou-
velles methodes pour la determination des orbites des cometes (1805),
in which he uses the method of least squares ; the Traite des fonc-
tions elliptiques et des integrates (1827-1832), and the Exercises de
calcul integral (1811, 1816, 1817).
'Johann Joseph Ignatz von Hoffmann (1777-1866), professor
of mathematics at Aschaffenburg, published his Theorie der Parallel-
linien in 1801. He supplemented this by his Kritik der Parallelen-
Theorie in 1807, and his Das eilfte Axiom der Elemente des Euclidis
neu bewiesen in 1859. He wrote other works on mathematics, but
none of his contributions was of any importance.
4Johann Karl Friedrich Hauff (1766-1846) was successively
professor of mathematics at Marburg, director of the polytechnic
school at Augsburg, professor at the Gymnasium at Cologne, and
professor of mathematics and physics at Ghent. The work to which
Kircher refers is his memoirs on the Euclidean Theorie der Paral-
lelen in Hindenburg's Archiv, vol. Ill (1799), an article of no merit
in the general theory.
6 Wenceslaus Johann Gustav Karsten (1732-1787) was professor
of logic at Rostock (1758) and Butzow (1760), and later became
professor of mathematics and physics at Halle. His work on paral-
lels is the Versuch einer vollig berichtigten Theorie der Parallel-
linien (1779). He also wrote a work entitled Anfangsgriinde der
mathematischen Wissenschaften (1780), but neither of these works
was more than mediocre.
6 Johann Christoph Schwab (not Schwal) was born in 1743 and
died in 1821. He was professor at the Karlsschule at Stuttgart.
De Morgan's wish was met, for the catalogues give "c. fig. 8," so
that it evidently had eight illustrations instead of eight volumes.
He wrote several other works on the principles of geometry, none
of any importance.
A PATRIOTIC PARADOX. 231
Soluzione .... della quadratura del Circolo. By Gaetano
Rossi.7 London, 1804, 8vo.
The three remarkable points of this book are, that the
household of the Prince of Wales took ten copies, Signora
Grassini8 sixteen, and that the circumference is 3% diam-
eters. That is, the appetite of Grassini for quadrature ex-
ceeded that of the whole household (loggia) of the Prince
of Wales in the ratio in which the semi-circumference ex-
ceeds the diameter. And these are the first two in the list
of subscribers. Did the author see this theorem?
A PATRIOTIC PARADOX.
Britain independent of commerce; or proofs, deduced from an
investigation into the true cause of the wealth of nations,
that our riches, prosperity, and power are derived from sources
inherent in ourselves, and would not be affected, even though
our commerce were annihilated. By Wm. Spence.1 4th edi-
tion, 1808, 8vo.
A patriotic paradox, being in alleviation of the Com-
merce panic which the measures of Napoleon I. — who felt
our Commerce, while Mr. Spence only saw it — had awak-
ened. In this very month (August, 1866), the Pres. Brit.
Assoc. has applied a similar salve to the coal panic ; it is fit
that science, which rubbed the sore, should find a plaster.
We ought to have an iron panic and a timber panic; and
'Gaetano Rossi of Catanzaro. This was the libretto writer
(1772-1855), and hence the imperfections of the work can better be
condoned. De Morgan should have given a little more of the title:
Soluzione esatta e regolare .... del .... problema della quadratura
del circolo. There was a second edition, London, 1805.
8 This identifies Rossi, for Josephine Grassini (1773-1850) was
a well-known contralto, prima donna at Napoleon's court opera.
/William Spence (1783-1860) was an entomologist and econ-
omist of some standing, a fellow of the Royal Society, and one of
the founders of the Entomological Society of London. The work
here mentioned was a popular one, the first edition appearing in
1807, and four editions being justified in a single year. He also
wrote Agriculture the Source of Britain's Wealth (1808) and Ob-
jections against the Corn Bill refuted (1815), besides a work in four
volumes on entomology (1815-1826) in collaboration with William
Kirby.
232 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
a solemn embassy to the Americans, to beg them not to
whittle, would be desirable. There was a gold panic be-
ginning, before the new fields were discovered. For myself,
I am the unknown and unpitied victim of a chronic gutta-
percha panic : I never could get on without it ; to me, gutta
percha and Rowland Hill are the great discoveries of our
day; and not unconnected either, gutta percha being to the
submarine post what Rowland Hill is to the superterrene.
I should be sorry to lose cow-choke — I gave up trying to
spell it many years ago — but if gutta percha go, I go too.
I think, that perhaps when, five hundred years hence, the
people say to the Brit. Assoc. (if it then exist) "Pray gentle-
men, is it not time for the coal to be exhausted?" they will
be answered out of Moliere (who will certainly then exist) :
"Cela etait autrefois ainsi, mais nous avons change tout
cela."z A great many people think that if the coal be used
up, it will be announced some unexpected morning by all
the yards being shut up and written notice outside, "Coal
all gone !" just like the "Please, ma'am, there ain't no more
sugar," with which the maid servant damps her mistress
just at breakfast-time. But these persons should be informed
that there is every reason to think that there will be time,
as the city gentleman said, to venienti the occurrite morbo.3
SOME SCIENTIFIC PARADOXES.
An appeal to the republic of letters in behalf of injured science,
from the opinions and proceedings of some modern authors
of elements of geometry. By George Douglas.1 Edinburgh,
1810, 8vo.
Mr. Douglas was the author of a very good set of mathe-
3 "That used to be so, but we have changed all that."
8 "Meet the coming disease."
1 George Douglas (or Douglass) was a Scotch writer. He got
out an edition of the Elements of Euclid in 1776, with an appendix
on trigonometry and a set of tables. His work on Mathematical
Tables appeared in 1809, and his Art of Drawing in Perspective,
from mathematical principles, in 1810.
SOME SCIENTIFIC PARADOXES. 233
matical tables, and of other works. He criticizes Simson,2
Playfair,3 and others, — sometimes, I think, very justly.
There is a curious phrase which occurs more than once.
When he wants to say that something or other was done
before Simson or another was born, he says "before he
existed, at least as an author." He seems to reserve the
possibility of Simson's pre-existence, but at the same time
to assume that he never wrote anything in his previous
state. Tell me that Simson pre-existed in any other way
than as editor of some pre-existent Euclid? Tell Apella!4
1810. In this year Jean Wood, Professor of Mathemat-
ics in the University of Virginia (Richmond),5 addressed
a printed circular to "Dr. Herschel, Astronomer, Greenwich
Observatory." No mistake was more common than the
natural one of imagining that the Private Astronomer of the
king was the Astronomer Royal The letter was on the
8 See note 3, on page 197.
'John Playfair (1748-1848) was professor of mathematics (1785)
and natural philosophy (1805) at the University of Edinburgh. His
Elements of Geometry went through many editions.
'"Tell Apella" was an expression current in classical Rome to
indicate incredulity and to show the contempt in which the Jew was
held. Horace says: Credat Judaus Apella, "Let Apella the Jew be-
lieve it." Our "Tell it to the marines," is a similar phrase.
5 As De Morgan says two lines later, "No mistake is more com-
mon than the natural one of imagining that the" — University of Vir-
ginia is at Richmond. The fact is that it is not there, and that it
did not exist in 1810. It was not chartered until 1819, and was not
opened until 1825, and then at Charlottesville. The act establishing
the Central College, from which the University of Virginia devel-
oped, was passed in 1816. The Jean Wood to whom De Morgan
refers was one John Wood who was born about 1775 in Scotland
and who emigrated to the United States in 1800. He published a
History of the Administration of J. Adams (New York, 1802) that
was suppressed by Aaron Burr. This act called forth two works,
a Narrative of the Suppression, by Col Burr, of the 'History of the
Administration of John Adams' (1802), in which Wood was sus-
tained; and the Antidote to John Wood's Poison (1802), in which
he was attacked. The work referred to in the "printed circular"
may have been the New theory of the diurnal rotation of the earth
^Richmond, Va., 1809). Wood spent the last years of his life in
Richmond, Va., making county maps. He died there in 1822. A
careful search through works relating to the University of Virginia
fails to show that Wood had any connection with it.
234 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
difference of velocities of the two sides of the earth, arising
from the composition of the rotation and the orbital motion.
The paradox is a fair one, and deserving of investigation;
but, perhaps it would not be easy to deduce from it tides,
trade-winds, aerolithes, &c., as Mr. Wood thought he had
done in a work from which he gives an extract, and which
he describes as published. The composition of rotations,
&c., is not for the world at large: the paradox of the non-
rotation of the moon about her axis is an instance. Ht>w
many persons know that when a wheel rolls on the ground,
the lowest point is moving upwards, the highest point for-
wards, and the intermediate points in all degrees of betwixt
and between? This is too short an explanation, with some
good difficulties.
The Elements of Geometry. In 2 vols. [By the Rev. J. Dob-
son,6 B.D.] Cambridge, 1815. 4to.
Of this unpunctuating paradoxer I shall give an account
in his own way : he would not stop for any one ; why should
I stop for him ? It is worth while to try how unpunctuated
sentences will read.
The reverend J Dobson BD late fellow of saint Johns
college Cambridge was rector of Brandesburton in York-
shire he was seventh wrangler in 1798 and died in 1847 he
was of that sort of eccentricity which permits account of his
private life if we may not rather say that in such cases
private life becomes public there is a tradition that he was
called Death Dobson on account of his head and aspect of
countenance being not very unlike the ordinary pictures of
a human skull his mode of life is reported to have been very
singular whenever he visited Cambridge he was never known
to go twice to the same inn he never would sleep at the
rectory with another person in the house some ancient char-
woman used to attend to the house but never slept in it he
has been known in the time of coach travelling to have de-
6 There seems to be nothing to add to Dobson's biography beyond
what De Morgan has so deliciously set forth.
SOME SCIENTIFIC PARADOXES. 235
ferred his return to Yorkshire on account of his disinclina-
tion to travel with a lady in the coach he continued his
mathematical studies until his death and till his executors
sold the type all his tracts to the number of five were kept in
type at the university press none of these tracts had any
stops except full stops at the end of paragraphs only neither
had they capitals except one at the beginning of a paragraph
so that a full stop was generally followed by some white
as there is not a single proper name in the whole of the
book I have I am not able to say whether he would have used
capitals before proper names I have inserted them as usual
for which I hope his spirit will forgive me if I be wrong he
also published the elements of geometry in two volumes
quarto Cambridge 1815 this book had also no stops except
when a comma was wanted between letters as in the straight
lines AB, BC I should also say that though the title is un-
punctuated in the author's part it seems the publishers would
not stand it in their imprint this imprint is punctuated as
usual and Deighton and Sons to prove the completeness of
their allegiance have managed that comma semicolon and
period shall all appear in it why could they not have con-
trived interrogation and exclamation this is a good precedent
to establish the separate right of the publisher over the
imprint it is said that only twenty of the tracts were printed
and very few indeed of the book on geometry it is doubtful
whether any were sold there is a copy of the geometry in
the university library at Cambridge and I have one myself
the matter of the geometry differs entirely from Euclid and
is so fearfully prolix that I am sure no mortal except the
author ever read it the man went on without stops and with-
out stop save for a period at the end of a paragraph this is
the unpunctuated account of the unpunctuating geometer
suum cuique tribuito7 Mrs Thrale8 would have been amused
7 "Give to each man his due."
8 Hester Lynch Salusbury (1741-1821), the friend of Dr. John-
son, married Henry Thrale (1763), a brewer, who died in 1781.
She then married Gabriel Piozzi (1784), an Italian musician. Her
236 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
at a Dobson who managed to come to a full stop without
either of the three warnings.
I do not find any difficulty in reading Dobson's geom-
etry; and I have read more of it to try reading without
stops than I should have done had it been printed in the
usual way. Those who dip into the middle of my paragraph
may be surprised for a moment to see "on account of his
disinclination to travel with a lady in the coach he continued
his mathematical studies until his death and [further, of
course] until his executors sold the type." But a person
reading straight through would hardly take it so. I should
add that, in order to give a fair trial, I did not compose as
I wrote, but copied the words of the correspondent who gave
me the facts, so far as they went.
A RELIGIOUS PARADOX.
Philosophia Sacra, or the principles of natural Philosophy. Ex-
tracted from Divine Revelation. By the Rev. Samuel Pike.1
Edited by the Rev. Samuel Kittle.2 Edinburgh, 1815, 8vo.
This is a work of modified Hutchinsonianism, which I
have seen cited by several. Though rather dark on the sub-
ject, it seems not to contradict the motion of the earth, or
the doctrine of gravitation. Mr. Kittle gives a list of some
Hutchinsonians, — as Bishop Home ;3 Dr. Stukeley ;4 the Rev.
Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson (1786) and Letters to and
from Samuel Johnson (1788) are well known. She also wrote
numerous essays and poems.
1 Samuel Pike (c. 1717-1773) was an independent minister, with
a chapel in London and a theological school in his house. He later
became a disciple of Robert Sandeman and left the Independents
for the Sandemanian church (1765). The Philosophia Sacra was
first published at London in 1753. De Morgan here cites the second
edition.
* Pike had been dead over forty years when Kittle published this
second edition. Kittle had already published a couple of works :
King Solomon's portraiture of Old Age (Edinburgh, 1813), and
Critical and Practical Lectures on the Apocalyptical Epistles to the
Seven Churches of Asia Minor (London, 1814).
8 See note i, on page 152.
4 William Stukely (1687-1765) was a fellow of the Royal Society
and of the College of Physicians and Surgeons. He afterwards
A RELIGIOUS PARADOX. 237
W. Jones,5 author of Physiological Disquisitions ; Mr. Spear-
man,6 author of Letters on the Septuagint and editor of
Hutchinson ; Mr. Barker,7 author of Reflexions on Learn-
ing ; Dr. Catcott,8 author of a work on the creation, &c. ; Dr.
Robertson,9 author of a Treatise on the Hebrew Language ;
Dr. Holloway,10 author of Originals, Physical and Theolog-
ical ; Dr. Walter Hodges,11 author of a work on Elohim ;
Lord President Forbes (ob. 1747). ia
The Rev. William Jones, above mentioned (1726-1800),
the friend and biographer of Bishop Home and his stout
(1729) entered the Church. He was prominent as an antiquary,
especially in the study of the Roman and Druidic remains of Great
Britain. He was the author of numerous works, chiefly on paleog-
raphy.
5 William Jones (1726-1800), who should not be confused with
his namesake who is mentioned in note 3 on page 135. He was a
lifelong friend of Bishop Horne, and his vicarage at Nayland was
a meeting place of an influential group of High Churchmen. Be-
sides the Physiological Disquisitions (1781) he wrote The Catholic
Doctrine of the Trinity (1756) and The Grand Analogy (1793).
'Robert Spearman (1703-1761) was a pupil of John Hutchin-
son, and not only edited his works but wrote his life. He wrote a
work against the Newtonian physics, entitled An Enquiry after Phi-
losophy and Theology (Edinburgh, 1755), besides the Letters to a
Friend concerning the Septuagint Translation (Edinburgh, 1759) to
which De Morgan refers.
TA writer of no importance, at least in the minds of British
biographers.
"Alexander Catcott (1725-1779), a theologian and geologist,
wrote not only a work on the creation (1756) but a Treatise on the
Deluge (1761, with a second edition in 1768). Sir Charles Lyell
considered the latter work a valuable contribution to geology.
8 James Robertson (1714-1795), professor of Hebrew at the Uni-
versity of Edinburgh. Probably De Morgan refers to his Grarn-
matica Linguae Hebraa (Edinburgh, 1758; with a second edition in
1783). He also wrote Clavis Pentateuchi (1770).
"Benjamin Holloway (c. 1691-1759), a geologist and theologian.
He translated Woodward's Naturalis Historia Telluris, and was in-
troduced by Woodward to Hutchinson. The work referred to by
De Morgan appeared at Oxford in two volumes in 1754.
" His work was The Christian plan exhibited in the interpretation
of Elohim: with observations upon a few other matters relative to
the same subject, Oxford, 1752, with a second edition in 1755.
"Duncan Forbes (1685-1747) studied Oriental languages and
civil law at Leyden. He was Lord President of the Court of Ses-
sions (i737). He wrote a number of theological works.
238 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
defender, is best known as William Jones of Nayland, who
(1757)13 published the Catholic Doctrine of the Trinity; he
was also strong for the Hutchinsonian physical trinity of
fire, light, and spirit. This well-known work was generally
recommended, as the defence of the orthodox system, to
those who could not go into the learning of the subject.
There is now a work more suited to our time : The Rock of
Ages, by the Rev. E. H. Bickersteth,14 now published by
the Religious Tract Society, without date, answered by the
Rev. Dr. Sadler,15 in a work (1859) entitled Gloria Patri,
in which, says Mr. Bickersteth, "the author has not even
attempted to grapple with my main propositions." I have
read largely on the controversy, and I think I know what
this means. Moreover, when I see the note "There are two
other passages to which Unitarians sometimes refer, but the
deduction they draw from them is, in each case, refuted by
the context" — I think I see why the two texts are not named.
Nevertheless, the author is a little more disposed to yield to
criticism than his foregoers ; he does not insist on texts and
readings which the greatest editors have rejected. And he
writes with courtesy, both direct and oblique, towards his
antagonists ; which, on his side of this subject, is like letting
in fresh air. So that I suspect the two books will together
make a tolerably good introduction to the subject for those
who cannot go deep. Mr. Bickersteth's book is well arranged
and indexed, which is a point of superiority to Jones of
Nayland. There is a point which I should gravely recom-
mend to writers on the orthodox side. The Unitarians in
13 Should be 1756.
"Edward Henry Bickersteth (1825-1906), bishop of Exeter
(1885-1900) ; published The Rock of Ages; or scripture testimony to
the one Eternal Godhead of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Ghost at Hampstead in 1859. A second edition appeared at
London in 1860.
"Thomas Sadler (1822-1891) took his Ph.D. at Erlangen in
1844, and became a Unitarian minister at Hampstead, where Bicker-
steth's work was published. Besides writing the Gloria Patri (1859),
he edited Crabb Robinson's Diaries.
A RELIGIOUS PARADOX. 239
England have frequently contended that the method of prov-
ing the divinity of Jesus Christ from the New Testament
would equally prove the divinity of Moses. I have not fallen
in the way of any orthodox answers specially directed at the
repeated tracts written by Unitarians in proof of their asser-
tion. If there be any, they should be more known ; if there
be none, some should be written. Which ever side may
be right, the treatment of this point would be indeed com-
ing to close quarters. The heterodox assertion was first
supported, it is said, by John Bidle or Biddle (1615-1662)
of Magdalen College, Oxford, the earliest of the English
Unitarian writers, previously known by a translation of
part of Virgil and part of Juvenal.16 But I cannot find that
he wrote on it.17 It is the subject of "alptcrew dvao-rao-ts, or
a new way of deciding old controversies. By Basanistes.
Third edition, enlarged," London, 1815, 8vo.18 It is the
appendix to the amusing, "Six more letters to Granville
Sharp, Esq., ... By Gregory Blunt, Esq." London, 8vo.,
1803.19 This much I can confidently say, that the study of
these tracts would prevent orthodox writers from some
curious slips, which are slips obvious to all sides of opinion.
The lower defenders of orthodoxy frequently vex the spirits
of the higher ones.
Since writing the above I have procured Dr. Sadler's
answer. I thought I knew what the challenger meant
when he said the respondent had not grappled with his main
"This was his Virgil's Bucolics and the two first Satyrs of
Juvenal, 1634.
17 Possibly in his Twelve Questions or Arguments drawn out of
Scripture, wherein the commonly received Opinion touching the
Deity of the Holy Spirit is clearly and fully refuted, 1647. This was
his first heretical work, and it was followed by a number of others
that were written during the intervals in which the Puritan parlia-
ment allowed him out of prison. It was burned by the hangman as
blasphemous. Biddle finally died in prison, unrepentant to the last.
"The first edition of the anonynous 'Atpeffewv dvaa-raffts (by
Vicars?) appeared in 1805.
"^Possibly by Thomas Pearne (c. 1753-1827), a fellow of St.
Peter's College, Cambridge, and a Unitarian minister.
240 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
propositions. I should say that he is clung on to from be-
ginning to end. But perhaps Mr. B. has his own meaning
of logical terms, such as "proposition" : he certainly has his
own meaning of "cumulative." He says his evidence is
cumulative; not a catena, the strength of which is in its
weakest part, but distinct and independent lines, each of
which corroborates the other. This is the very opposite of
cumulative: it is distributive. When different arguments
are each necessary to a conclusion, the evidence is cumu-
lative; when any one will do, even though they strengthen
each other, it is distributive. The word "cumulative" is a
synonym of the law word "constructive"; a whole which
will do made out of parts which separately will not. Lord
Strafford20 opens his defence with the use of both words:
"They have invented a kind of accumulated or constructive
evidence ; by which many actions, either totally innocent in
themselves, or criminal in a much inferior degree, shall,
when united, amount to treason." The conclusion is, that
Mr. B. is a Cambridge man; the Oxford men do not con-
fuse the elementary terms of logic. O dear old Cambridge !
when the New Zealander comes let him find among the
relics of your later sons some proof of attention to the
elementary laws of thought. A little-go of logic, please!
Mr. B., though apparently not a Hutchinsonian, has
a nibble at a physical Trinity. "If, as we gaze on the sun
shining in the firmament, we see any faint adumbration of
the doctrine of the Trinity in the fontal orb, the light ever
generated, and the heat proceeding from the sun and its
beams — threefold and yet one, the sun, its light, and its
20 Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, was borne in London
in 1593, and was executed there in 1641. He was privy councilor to
Charles I, and was Lord Deputy of Ireland. On account of his
repressive measures to uphold the absolute power of the king he
was impeached by the Long Parliament and was executed for trea-
son. The essence of his defence is in the sentence quoted by De
Morgan, to which Pym replied that taken as a whole, the acts tended
to show an intention to change the government, and this was in
itself treason.
A RELIGIOUS PARADOX. 241
heat, — that luminous globe, and the radiance ever flowing
from it, are both evident to the eye; but the vital warmth
is felt, not seen, and is only manifested in the life it trans-
fuses through creation. The proof of its real existence is
self-demonstrating."
We shall see how Revilo21 illustrates orthodoxy by mathe-
matics. It was my duty to have found one of the many
illustrations from physics; but perhaps I should have for-
gotten it if this instance had not come in my way. It is
very bad physics. The sun, apart from its light, evident
to the eyel Heat more self-demonstrating than light, be-
cause felt I Heat only manifested by the life it diffuses!
Light implied not necessary to life! But the theology is
worse than Sabellianism.22 To adumbrate — i. e., make a
picture of — the orthodox doctrine, the sun must be heavenly
body, the light heavenly body, the heat heavenly body ; and
yet, not three heavenly bodies, but one heavenly body. The
truth is, that this illustration and many others most strik-
ingly illustrate the Trinity of fundamental doctrine held by
the Unitarians, in all its differences from the Trinity of
persons held by the Orthodox. Be right which may, the
right or wrong of the Unitarians shines out in the compari-
son. Dr. Sadler confirms me — by which I mean that I wrote
the above before I saw what he says — in the following
words : "The sun is one object with two properties, and these
properties have a parallel not in the second and third per-
sons of the Trinity, but in the attributes of Deity."
The letting light alone, as self-evident, and making heat
self-demonstrating, because felt — i. e., perceptible now and
then — has the character of the Irishman's astronomy:
81 The name assumed by a writer who professed to give a mathe-
matical explanation of the Trinity, see farther on.— S. E. De M.
"Sabellius (fl. 230 A. D.) was an early Christian of Libyan
origin. He taught that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were different
names for the same person.
242 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
"Long life to the moon, for a dear noble cratur,
Which serves us for lamplight all night in the dark,
While the sun only shines in the day, which by natur,
Wants no light at all, as ye all may remark."
SIR RICHARD PHILLIPS.
Sir Richard Phillips* (born 1768) was conspicuous in
1793, when he was sentenced to a year's imprisonment2 for
selling Paine's Rights of Man ; and again when, in 1807,3
he was knighted as Sheriff of London. As a bookseller,
he was able to enforce his opinions in more ways than
others. For instance, in James Mitchell's4 Dictionary of the
Mathematical and Physical Sciences, 1823, 12mo, which,
though he was not technically a publisher, was printed for
him — a book I should recommend to the collector of works
of reference — there is a temperate description of his doc-
trines, which one may almost swear was one of his condi-
tions previous to undertaking the work. Phillips himself
was not only an anti-Newtonian, but carried to a fearful
excess the notion that statesmen and Newtonians were in
league to deceive the world. He saw this plot in Mrs.
Airy's5 pension, and in Mrs. Somerville's.6 In 1836, he
1 Sir Richard Phillips was born in London in 1767 (not 1768 as
stated above), and died there in 1840. He was a bookseller and
printer in Leicester, where he also edited a radical newspaper. He
went to London to live in 1795 and started the Monthly Magazine
there in 1796. Besides the works mentioned by De Morgan he wrote
on law and economics.
alt was really eighteen months.
8 While he was made sheriff in 1807 he was not knighted until
the following year.
4 James Mitchell (c. 1786-1844) was a London actuary, or
rather a Scotch actuary living a good part of his life in London.
Besides the work mentioned he compiled a Dictionary of Chemistry,
Mineralogy, and Geology (1823), and wrote On the Plurality of
Worlds (1813) and The Elements of Astronomy (1820).
5Richarda Smith, wife of Sir George Biddell Airy (see note 2,
page 85) the astronomer. In 1835 Sir Robert Peel offered a pension
of ^300 a year to Airy, who requested that it be settled on his wife.
"Mary Fairfax (1780-1872) married as her second husband Dr.
William Somerville. In 1826 she presented to the Royal Society a
SIR RICHARD PHILLIPS. 243
did me the honor to attempt my conversion. In his first
letter he says:
"Sir Richard Phillips has an inveterate abhorrence of
all the pretended wisdom of philosophy derived from the'
monks and doctors of the middle ages, and not less of those
of higher name who merely sought to make the monkish
philosophy more plausible, or so to disguise it as to mystify
the mob of small thinkers."
So little did his writings show any knowledge of an-
tiquity, that I strongly suspect, if required to name one of
the monkish doctors, he would have answered — Aristotle.
These schoolmen, and the "philosophical trinity of gravi-
tating force, projectile force, and void space," were the
bogies of his life.
I think he began to publish speculations in the Monthly
Magazine (of which he was editor) in July 1817: these he
republished separately in 1818. In the Preface, perhaps
judging the feelings of others by his own, he says that he
"fully expects to be vilified, reviled, and anathematized, for
many years to come." Poor man! he was let alone. He
appeals with confidence to the "impartial decision of pos-
terity"; but posterity does not appoint a hearing for one
per cent, of the appeals which are made ; and it is much to
be feared that an article in such a work of reference as this
will furnish nearly all her materials fifty years hence. The
following, addressed to M. Arago,7 in 1835, will give pos-
terity as good a notion as she will probably need:
"Even the present year has afforded EVER-MEMORABLE
examples, paralleled only by that of the Romish Conclave
which persecuted Galileo. Policy has adopted that maxim of
Machiavel which teaches that it is more prudent to reward
paper on The Magnetic Properties of the Violet Rays of the Solar
Spectrum, which attracted much attention. It was for her Mechan-
ism of the Heavens (1831), a popular translation of Laplace's Meca-
nique Celeste, that she was pensioned.
7 Dominique Frangois Jean Arago (1786-1853) the celebrated
French astronomer and physicist.
244 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
partisans than to persecute opponents. Hence, a bigotted
party had influence enough with the late short-lived adminis-
tration [I think he is wrong as to the administration] of
Wellington, Peel, &c., to confer munificent royal pensions on
three writers whose sole distinction was their advocacy of
the Newtonian philosophy. A Cambridge professor last year
published an elaborate volume in illustration of Gravitation,
and on him has been conferred a pension of 300/. per annum.
A lady has written a light popular view of the Newtonian
Dogmas, and she has been complimented by a pension of
2001. per annum. And another writer, who has recently
published a volume to prove that the only true philosophy is
that of Moses, has been endowed with a pension of 200/.
per annum. Neither of them were needy persons, and the
political and ecclesiastical bearing of the whole was indicated
by another pension of 300/. bestowed on a political writer,
the advocate of all abuses and prejudices. Whether the con-
duct of the Romish Conclave was more base for visiting with
legal penalties the promulgation of the doctrines that the
Earth turns on its axis and revolves around the Sun ; or that
of the British Court, for its craft in conferring pensions on
the opponents of the plain corollary, that all the motions of
the Earth are 'part and parcel' of these great motions, and
those again and all like them consecutive displays of still
greater motions in equality of action and reaction, is A QUES-
TION which must be reserved for the casuists of other genera-
tions .... I cannot expect that on a sudden you and your
friends will come to my conclusion, that the present philos-
ophy of the Schools and Universities of Europe, based on
faith in witchcraft, magic, &c., is a system of execrable
nonsense, by which quacks live on the faith of fools ; but I
desire a free and fair examination of my Aphorisms, and if
a few are admitted to be true, merely as courteous con-
cessions to arithmetic, my purpose will be effected, for men
will thus be led to think ; and if they think, then the fabric
SIR RICHARD PHILLIPS. 245
of false assumptions, and degrading superstitions will soon
tumble in ruins."
This for posterity. For the present time I ground the
fame of Sir R. Phillips on his having squared the circle
without knowing it, or intending to do it. In the Protest
presently noted he discovered that "the force taken as 1 is
equal to the sum of all its fractions. . .thus 1 = % + % + %6
+ %s> &c-> carried to infinity." This the mathematician in-
stantly sees is equivalent to the theorem that the circum-
ference of any circle is double of the diagonal of the cube
on its diameter.8
I have examined the following works of Sir R. Phillips,
and heard of many others :
Essays on the proximate mechanical causes of the general phe-
nomena of the Universe, 1818, I2mo.9
Protest against the prevailing principles of natural philosophy,
with the development of a common sense system (no date,
8vo, pp. i6).10
Four dialogues between an Oxford Tutor and a disciple of the
common-sense philosophy, relative to the proximate causes of
material phenomena. 8vo, 1824.
A century of original aphorisms on the proximate causes of the
phenomena of nature, 1835, I2mo.
Sir Richard Phillips had four valuable qualities ; honesty,
zeal, ability, and courage. He applied them all to teaching
8 For there is a well-known series
t- -22+3*4- . . . = -g-.
If, therefore, the given series equals I, we hav«
or 7rs = l2,
whence IT = 2]/37
But c = itd, and twice the diagonal of a cube on the diameter
is 2dV^T
"There was a second edition in 1821.
"London, 1830.
246 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
matters about which he knew nothing; and gained himself
an uncomfortable life and a ridiculous memory.
Astronomy made plain; or only way the true perpendicular dis-
tance of the Sun, Moon, or Stars, from this earth, can be ob-
tained. By Wm. Wood.11 Chatham, 1819, I2mo.
If this theory be true, it will follow, of course, that this
earth is the only one God made, and that it does not whirl
round the sun, but vice versa, the sun round it.
WHATELY'S FAMOUS PARADOX.
Historic doubts relative to Napoleon Buonaparte. London, 1819,
8vo.
This tract has since been acknowledged by Archbishop
Whately1 and reprinted. It is certainly a paradox: but dif-
fers from most of those in my list as being a joke, and a
satire upon the reasoning of those who cannot receive nar-
rative, no matter what the evidence, which is to them utterly
improbable a priori. But had it been serious earnest, it
would not have been so absurd as many of those which I
have brought forward. The next on the list is not a joke.
The idea of the satire is not new. Dr. King,2 in the
dispute on the genuineness of Phalaris, proved with humor
that Bentley did not write his own dissertation. An attempt
has lately been made, for the honor of Moses, to prove,
"He was a resident of Chatham, and seems to have published
no other works.
^Richard Whately (1787-1863) was, as a child, a calculating
prodigy (see note 3, page 86), but lost the power as is usually the
case with well-balanced minds. He was a fellow of Oriel College,
Oxford, and in 1825 became principal of St. Alban Hall. He was
a friend of Newman, Keble, and others who were interested in the
religious questions of the day. He became archbishop of Dublin in
1831. He was for a long time known to students through his Logic
(1826) and Rhetoric (1828).
3 William King, D.C.L. (1663-1712), student at Christ Church,
Oxford, and celebrated as a wit and scholar. His Dialogues of the
Dead (1699) is a satirical attack on Bentley.
WHATELY'S FAMOUS PARADOX. 247
without humor, that Bishop Colenso did not write his own
book. This is intolerable: anybody who tries to use such a
weapon without banter, plenty and good, and of form suited
to the subject, should get the drubbing which the poor man
got in the Oriental tale for striking the dervishes with the
wrong hand.
The excellent and distinguished author of this tract has
ceased to live. I call him the Paley of our day : with more
learning and more purpose than his predecessor; but per-
haps they might have changed places if they had changed
centuries. The clever satire above named is not the only
work which he published without his name. The following
was attributed to him, I believe rightly: "Considerations
on the Law of Libel, as relating to Publications on the
subject of Religion, by John Search." London, 1833, 8vo.
This tract excited little attention: for those who should
have answered, could not. Moreover, it wanted a prosecu-
tion to call attention to it : the fear of calling such attention
may have prevented prosecutions. Those who have read
it will have seen why.
The theological review elsewhere mentioned attributes
the pamphlet of John Search on blasphemous libel to Lord
Brougham. This is quite absurd: the writer states points
of law on credence where the judge must have spoken with
authority. Besides which, a hundred points of style are
decisive between the two. I think any one who knows
Whately's writing will soon arrive at my conclusion. Lord
Brougham himself informs me that he has no knowledge
whatever of the pamphlet.
It is stated in Notes and Queries (3 S. xi. 511) that
Search was answered by the Bishop of Ferns3 as S. N., with
8 Thomas Ebrington (1760-1835) was a fellow of Trinity College,
Dublin, and taught divinity, mathematics, and natural philosophy
there. He became provost of the college in 1811, bishop of Lim-
erick in 1820, and bishop of Leighlin and Ferns in 1822. His edition
of Euclid was reprinted a dozen times. The Reply to John Search's
Considerations on the Law of Libel appeared at Dublin in 1834.
248 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
a rejoinder by Blanco White.4 These circumstances increase
the probability that Whately was written against and for.
VOLTAIRE A CHRISTIAN.
Voltaire Chretien; preuves tirees de ses ouvrages. Paris, 1820,
I2mo.
If Voltaire have not succeeded in proving himself a
strong theist and a strong anti-revelationist, who is to suc-
ceed in proving himself one thing or the other in any matter
whatsoever? By occasional confusion between theism and
Christianity ; by taking advantage of the formal phrases of
adhesion to the Roman Church, which very often occur, and
are often the happiest bits of irony in an ironical produc-
tion ; by citations of his morality, which is decidedly Chris-
tian, though often attributed to Brahmins; and so on —
the author makes a fair case for his paradox, in the eyes
of those who know no more than he tells them. If he had
said that Voltaire was a better Christian than himself knew
of, towards all mankind except men of letters, I for one
should have agreed with him.
Christian! the word has degenerated into a synonym of
man, in what are called Christian countries. So we have
the parrot who "swore for all the world like a Christian,"
and the two dogs who "hated each other just like Chris-
tians." When the Irish duellist of the last century, whose
name may be spared in consideration of its historic fame
* Joseph Blanco White (1775-1841) was the son of an Irishman
living in Spain. He was born at Seville and studied for orders
there, being ordained priest in 1800. He lost his faith in the Roman
Catholic Church, and gave up the ministry, escaping to England at
the time of the French invasion. At London he edited Espanol, a
patriotic journal extensively circulated in Spain, and for this service
he was pensioned after the expulsion of the French. He then studied
at Oriel College, Oxford, and became intimate with men like Whately,
Newman, and Keble. In 1835 he became a Unitarian. Among his
theological writings is his Evidences against Catholicism (1825). The
"rejoinder" to which De Morgan refers consisted of two letters :
The law of anti-religious Libel reconsidered (Dublin, 1834) and An
Answer to some Friendly Remarks on "The Law of Anti-Religious
Libel Reconsidered" (Dublin, 1834).
WRONSKI ON THE LONGITUDE PROBLEM. 249
and the worthy people who bear it, was (June 12, 1786)
about to take the consequence of his last brutal murder,
the rope broke, and the criminal got up, and exclaimed,
"By - - Mr. Sheriff, you ought to be ashamed of your-
self ! this rope is not strong enough to hang a dog, far less
a Christian!" But such things as this are far from the
worst depravations. As to a word so defiled by usage, it
is well to know that there is a way of escape from it, with-
out renouncing the New Testament. I suppose any one
may assume for himself what I have sometimes heard con-
tended for, that no New Testament word is to be used in
religion in any sense except that of the New Testament.
This granted, the question is settled. The word Christian,
which occurs three times, is never recognized as anything
but a term of contempt from those without the pale to
those within. Thus, Herod Agrippa, who was deep in
Jewish literature, and a correspondent of Josephus, says to
Paul (Acts xxvi. 28), "Almost thou persuadest me to be
(what I and other followers of the state religion despise
under the name) a Christian." Again (Acts xi. 26), "The
disciples (as they called themselves) were called (by the
surrounding heathens) Christians first in Antioch." Thirdly
(1 Peter iv. 16), "Let none of you suffer as a murderer. . . .
But if as a Christian (as the heathen call it by whom the
suffering conies), let him not be ashamed." That is to
say, no disciple ever called himself a Christian, or applied
the name, as from himself, to another disciple, from one
end of the New Testament to the other; and no disciple
need apply that name to himself in our day, if he dislike
the associations with which the conduct of Christians has
clothed it.
WRONSKI ON THE LONGITUDE PROBLEM.
Address of M. Hoene Wronski to the British Board of Longi-
tude, upon the actual state of the mathematics, their reform,
250 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
and upon the new celestial mechanics, giving the definitive solu-
tion of the problem of longitude.1 London, 1820, 8vo.
M. Wronski2 was the author of seven quartos on mathe-
matics, showing very great power of generalization. He
was also deep in the transcendental philosophy,3 and had
the Absolute at his fingers' ends. All this knowledge was
rendered useless by a persuasion that he had greatly ad-
vanced beyond the whole world, with many hints that the
Absolute would not be forthcoming, unless prepaid. He
was a man of the widest extremes. At one time he desired
people to see all possible mathematics in
Rr = A0O0 + A^ + A2O2 + A3O3 + &c.
which he did not explain, though there is meaning to it in
the quartos. At another time he was proposing the general
solution of the4 fifth degree by help of 625 independent
equations of one form and 125 of another. The first sep-
arate memoir from any Transactions that I ever possessed
was given to me when at Cambridge ; the refutation (1819)
of this asserted solution, presented to the Academy of Lis-
bon by Evangelista Torriano. I cannot say I read it. The
tract above is an attack on modern mathematicians in gen-
eral, and on the Board of Longitude, and Dr. Young.5
aThe work was translated from the French.
3J. Hoe'ne Wronski (1778-1853) served, while yet a mere boy,
as an artillery officer in Kosciusko's army (1791-1794). He was
imprisoned after the battle of Maciejowice. He afterwards lived in
Germany, and (after 1810) in Paris. For the bibliography of his
works see S. Dickstein's article in the Bibliotheca Mathematics, vol.
VI (2), page 48.
3 Perhaps referring to his Introduction a la philosophic des
mathematiques (1811).
4 Read "equation of the."
5 Thomas Young (1773-1829), physician and physicist, some-
times called the founder of physiological optics. He seems to have
initiated the theory of color blindness that was later developed by
Helmholtz. The attack referred to was because of his connection
with the Board of Longitude, he having been made (1818) super-
intendent of the Nautical Almanac and secretary of the Board. He
opposed introducing into the Nautical Almanac anything not imme-
diately useful to navigation, and this antagonized many scientists.
DR. MILNER'S PARADOXES. 251
DR. MILNER'S PARADOXES.
1820. In this year died Dr. Isaac Milner,1 President of
Queens' College, Cambridge, one of the class of rational
paradoxers. Under this name I include all who, in private
life, and in matters which concern themselves, take their
own course, and suit their own notions, no matter what
other people may think of them. These men will put things
to uses they were never intended for, to the great distress
and disgust of their gregarious friends. I am one of the
class, and I could write a little book of cases in which I
have incurred absolute reproach for not "doing as other
people do." I will name two of my atrocities : I took one
of those butter-dishes which have for a top a dome with
holes in it, which is turned inward, out of reach of accident,
when not in use. Turning the dome inwards, I filled the
dish with water, and put a sponge in the dome: the holes
let it fill with water, and I had a penwiper, always moist,
and worth its price five times over. "Why! what do you
mean ? It was made to hold butter. You ' are always at
some queer thing or other!" I bought a leaden comb, in-
tended to dye the hair, it being supposed that the applica-
tion of lead will have this effect. I did not try: but I
divided the comb into two, separated the part of closed
prongs from the other ; and thus I had two ruling machines.
The lead marks paper, and by drawing the end of one of the
machines along a ruler, I could rule twenty lines at a time,
quite fit to write on. I thought I should have killed a friend
to whom I explained it: he could not for the life of him
understand how leaden lines on paper would dye the hair.
But Dr. Milner went beyond me. He wanted a seat
suited to his shape, and he defied opinion to a fearful point.
1 Isaac Milner (1750-1820) was professor of natural philosophy
at Cambridge (1783) and later became, as De Morgan states, presi-
dent of Queens' College (1788). In 1791 he became dean of Carlisle,
and in 1798 Lucasian professor of mathematics. His chief interest
was in chemistry and physics, but he contributed nothing of impor-
tance to these sciences or to mathematics.
252 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
He spread a thick block of putty over a wooden chair and
sat in it until it had taken a ceroplast copy of the proper
seat. This he gave to a carpenter to be imitated in wood.
One of the few now living who knew him — my friend,
General Perronet Thompson2 — answers for the wood, which
was shown him by Milner himself ; but he does not vouch
for the material being putty, which was in the story told
me at Cambridge ; William Frend8 also remembered it. Per-
haps the Doctor took off his great seal in green wax, like
the Crown; but some soft material he certainly adopted;
and very comfortable he found the wooden copy.
The same gentleman vouches for Milner's lamp: but
this had visible science in it; the vulgar
see no science in the construction of the
chair. A hollow semi-cylinder, but not
with a circular curve, revolved on pivots.
The curve was calculated on the law
that, whatever quantity of oil might be
in the lamp, the position of equilibrium
just brought the oil up to the edge of
the cylinder, at which a bit of wick was
placed. As the wick exhausted the oil,
the cylinder slowly revolved about the
pivots so as to keep the oil always touching the wick.
Great discoveries are always laughed at; but it is very
often not the laugh of incredulity; it is a mode of dis-
torting the sense of inferiority into a sense of superiority,
or a mimicry of superiority interposed between the laugher
and his feeling of inferiority. Two persons in conversation
"Thomas Perronet Thompson (1783-1869), fellow of Queens'
College, Cambridge, saw service in Spain and India, but after 1822
lived in England. He became major general in 1854, and general in
1868. Besides some works on economics and politics he wrote a
Geometry without Axioms (1830) that De Morgan includes later on
in his Budget. In it Thompson endeavored to prove the parallel
postulate.
8 De Morgan's father-in-law. See note i, page 196.
DR. MILNER'S PARADOXES. 253
agreed that it was often a nuisance not to be able to lay
hands on a bit of paper to mark the place in a book, every
bit of paper on the table was sure to contain something not
to be spared. I very quietly said that I always had a stock
of bookmarkers ready cut, with a proper place for them:
my readers owe many of my anecdotes to this absurd prac-
tice. My two colloquials burst into a fit of laughter ; about
what ? Incredulity was out of the question ; and there could
be nothing foolish in my taking measures to avoid what they
knew was an inconvenience. I was in this matter obviously
their superior, and so they laughed at me. Much more
candid was the Royal Duke of the last century, who was
noted for slow ideas. "The rain comes into my mouth,"
said he, while riding. "Had not your Royal Highness better
shut your mouth?" said the equerry. The Prince did so,
and ought, by rule, to have laughed heartily at his adviser ;
instead of this, he said quietly, "It doesn't come in now."
HERBART'S MATHEMATICAL PSYCHOLOGY.
De Attentionis mensura causisque primariis. By J. F. Herbart.1
Koenigsberg, 1822, 4to.
1Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776-1841), successor of Kant as
professor of philosophy at Konigsberg (1809-1833), where he estab-
lished a school of pedagogy. From 1833 until ms death he was pro-
fessor of philosophy at Gottingen. The title of the pamphlet is : De
Attentionis mensura causisque primariis. Psychologiae principia sta-
tica et mechanica exemplo illustraturus . . . .Regiomonti,. . . .1822. The
formulas in question are given on pages 15 and 17, and De Morgan
has omitted the preliminary steps, which are, for the first one :
unde
Pro /=0 etiam ^ = 0; hinc /3/ = log. — -.
Tt-<* '
These are, however, quite elementary as compared with other
portions of the theory.
254 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
This celebrated philosopher maintained that mathematics
ought to be applied to psychology, in a separate tract, pub-
lished also in 1822: the one above seems, therefore, to be
his challenge on the subject. It is on attention, and I think
it will hardly support Herbart's thesis. As a specimen of
his formula, let t be the time elapsed since the consideration
began, /? the whole perceptive intensity of the individual,
<£ the whole of his mental force, and z the force given to a
notion by attention during the time t. Then,
Now for a test. There is a jactura, v, the meaning of which
I do not comprehend. If there be anything in it, my mathe-
matical readers ought to interpret it from the formula
and to this task I leave them, wishing them better luck than
mine. The time may come when other manifestations of
mind, besides belief, shall be submitted to calculation: at
that time, should it arrive, a final decision may be passed
upon Herbart.
ON THE WHIZGIG.
The theory of the Whizgig considered ; in as much as it mechan-
ically exemplifies the three working properties of nature;
which are now set forth under the guise of this toy, for
children of all ages. London, 1822, I2mo (pp. 24, B. McMil-
lan, Bow Street, Covent Garden).
The toy called the whizgig will be remembered by many.
The writer is a follower of Jacob Behmen,1 William Law,2
1 See note 3, page 168.
'William Law (1686-1761) was a clergyman, a fellow of Emanuel
College, Cambridge, and in later life a convert to Behmen's philos-
ophy. He was so free in his charities that the village in which he
lived became so infested by beggars that he was urged by the citi-
zens to leave. He wrote A serious call to a devout and holy life
(1728).
ON THE WHIZGIG. 255
Richard Clarke,3 and Eugenius Philalethes.4 Jacob Behmen
first announced the three working properties of nature,
which Newton stole, as described in the Gentleman's Maga-
zine, July, 1782, p. 329. These laws are illustrated in the
whizgig. There is the harsh astringent, attractive com-
pression ; the bitter compunction, repulsive expansion ; and
the stinging anguish, duplex motion. The author hints that
he has written other works, to which he gives no clue. I
have heard that Behmen was pillaged by Newton, and Swe-
denborg5 by Laplace,6 and Pythagoras by Copernicus,7 and
Epicurus by Dalton,8 &c. I do not think this mention will
revive Behmen ; but it may the whizgig, a very pretty toy,
and philosophical withal, for few of those who used it could
explain it.
8 He was a curate at Cheshunt, and wrote the Spiritual voice
to the Christian Church and to the Jews (London, 1760), A second
warning to the world by the Spirit of Prophecy (London, 1760), and
Signs of the Times; or a Voice to Babylon (London, 1773)*
4 His real name was Thomas Vaughan (1622-1666). He was a
fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, taking orders, but was deprived
of his living on account of drunkenness. He became a mystic phi-
losopher and gave attention to alchemy. His works had a large
circulation, particularly on the continent. He wrote Magia Adamica
(London, 1650), Euphrates; or the Waters of the East (London,
1655), and The Chy mist's key to shut, and to open; or the True Doc-
trine of Corruption and Generation (London, 1657).
5Emanuel Swedenborg, or Svedberg (1688-1772) the mystic.
It is not commonly known to mathematicians that he was one of
their guild, but he wrote on both mathematics and chemistry. Among
his works are the Regelkonst eller algebra (Upsala, 1718) and the
Methodus nova inveniendi longitudines locorum, terra marique, ope
lunae (Amsterdam, 1721, 1727, and 1766). After 1747 he devoted
his attention to mystic philosophy.
6 Pierre Simon Laplace (1749-1827), whose Exposition du sys-
teme du monde (1796) and Traite de mecanique celeste (1799) are
well known.
7 See note 3, page 76.
8 John Dalton (1766-1844), who taught mathematics and physics
at New College, Manchester (1793-1799) and was the first to state
the law of the expansion of gases known by his name and that of
Gay-Lussac. His New system of Chemical Philosophy (Vol. I, pt. i,
1808; pt. ii, 1810; vol. II, 1827) sets forth his atomic theory.
256 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
SOME MYTHOLOGICAL PARADOXES.
A Grammar of infinite forms; or the mathematical elements of
ancient philosophy and mythology. By Wm. Howison.1 Edin-
burgh, 1823, 8vo.
A curius combination of geometry and mythology. Per-
seus, for instance, is treated under the head, "the evolution
of diminishing hyperbolic branches."
The Mythological Astronomy of the Ancients; part the second:
or the key of Urania, the words of which will unlock all the
mysteries of antiquity. Norwich, 1823, I2mo.
A Companion to the Mythological Astronomy, &c., containing
remarks on recent publications Norwich, 1824, I2mo.
A new Theory of the Earth and of planetary motion ; in which it
is demonstrated that the Sun is vicegerent of his own system.
Norwich, 1825, I2mo.
The analyzation of the writings of the Jews, so far as they are
found to have any connection with the sublime science of
astronomy. [This is pp. 97-180 of some other work, being all
I have seen.]
These works are all by Sampson Arnold Mackey,2 for
whom see Notes and Queries, 1st S. viii. 468, 565, ix. 89,
179. Had it not been for actual quotations given by one
correspondent only (1st S. viii. 565), that journal would
have handed him down as a man of some real learning. An
extraordinary man he certainly was: it is not one illiterate
shoemaker in a thousand who could work upon such a sin-
gular mass of Sanskrit and Greek words, without showing
1 Howison was a poet and philosopher. He lived in Edinburgh
and was a friend of Sir Walter Scott. This work appeared in 1822.
3 He was a shoemaker, born about 1765 at Haddiscoe, and his
"astro-historical" lectures at Norwich attracted a good deal of atten-
tion at one time. He traced all geologic changes to differences in
the inclination of the earth's axis to the plane of its orbit. Of the
works mentioned by De Morgan the first appeared at Norwich in
1822-1823, and there was a second edition in 1824. The second
appeared in 1824-1825. The fourth was Urania's Key to the Reve-
lation; or the analyzation of the writings of the Jews , and was
first published at Norwich in 1823, there being a second edition at
London in 1833. His books were evidently not a financial success,
for Mackey died in an almshouse at Norwich.
SOME MYTHOLOGICAL PARADOXES. 257
evidence of being able to read a line in any language but
his own, or to spell that correctly. He was an uneducated
Godfrey Higgins.3 A few extracts will put this in a strong
light: one for history of science, one for astronomy, and
one for philology:
"Sir Isaac Newton was of opinion that 'the atmosphere
of the earth was the sensory of God ; by which he was en-
abled to see quite round the earth:' which proves that Sir
Isaac had no idea that God could see through the earth.
"Sir Richard [Phillips] has given the most rational ex-
planation of the cause of the earth's elliptical orbit that I
have ever seen in print. It is because the earth presents its
watery hemisphere to the sun at one time and that of solid
land the other ; but why has he made his Oxonian astonished
at the coincidence? It is what I taught in my attic twelve
years before.
"Again, admitting that the Eloim were powerful and in-
telligent beings that managed these things, we would accuse
them of being the authors of all the sufferings of Chrisna.
And as they and the constellation of Leo were below the
horizon, and consequently cut off from the end of the
zodiac, there were but eleven constellations of the zodiac
to be seen ; the three at the end were wanted, but those three
would be accused of bringing Chrisna into the troubles which
at last ended in his death. All this would be expressed in
the Eastern language by saying that Chrisna was persecuted
by those Judoth Ishcarioth ! ! ! ! ! [the five notes of exclama-
tion are the author's]. But the astronomy of those distant
ages, when the sun was at the south pole in winter, would
leave five of those Decans cut off from our view, in the
latitude of twenty-eight degrees; hence Chrisna died of
8 Godfrey Higgins (1773-1833), the archeologist, was interested
in the history of religious beliefs and in practical sociology. He
wrote Horae Sabbaticae (1826), The Celtic Druids (1827 and 1829),
and Anacalypsis^ an attempt to draw aside the veil of the Saitic
Isis; or an Inquiry into the Origin of Languages, Nations, and Re-
ligions (posthumously published, 1836), and other works. See also
page 274, infra.
258 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
wounds from five Decans, but the whole five may be in-
cluded in Judoth Ishcarioth ! for the phrase means 'the men
that are wanted at the extreme parts/ Ishcarioth is a com-
pound of ish, a man, and carat wanted or taken away, and
oth the plural termination, more ancient than im . . . . "
I might show at length how. Michael is the sun, and the
D'-ev-'l in French Di-ob-al, also 'L-evi-ath-an — the evi
being the radical part both of devil and Imathan — is the
Nile, which the sun dried up for Moses to pass: a battle
celebrated by Jude. Also how Moses, the same name as
Muses, is from mesha, drawn out of the water, "and hence
we called our land which is saved from the water by the
name of marsh!' But it will be of more use to collect the
character of S. A. M. from such correspondents of Notes
and Queries as have written after superficial examination.
Great astronomical and philological attainments, much abil-
ity and learning; had evidently read and studied deeply;
remarkable for the originality of his views upon the very
abstruse subject of mythological astronomy, in which he
exhibited great sagacity. Certainly his views were original ;
but their sagacity, if it be allowable to copy his own mode
of etymologizing, is of an ori-gin-ale cast, resembling that of
a person who puts to his mouth liquors both distilled and
fermented.
A KANTESIAN JEWELER.
Principles of the Kantesian, or transcendental philosophy. By
Thomas Wirgman.1 London, 1824, 8vo.
Mr. Wirgman's mind was somewhat attuned to psychol-
ogy; but he was cracky and vagarious. He had been a
fashionable jeweler in St. James's Street, no doubt the son
or grandson of Wirgman at "the well-known toy-shop in
JThe work also appeared in French. Wirgman wrote, or at
least began, two other works: Divarication of the New Testament
into Doctrine and History; part I, The Four Gospels (London, 1830),
and Mental Philosophy; part I, Grammar of the five senses; being
the first step to infant education (London, 1838).
A KANTESIAN JEWELER. 259
St. James's Street/* where Sam Johnson smartened himself
with silver buckles. (Boswell, at. 69). He would not have
the ridiculous large ones in fashion; and he would give no
more than a guinea a pair; such, says Boswell, in Italics,
were the principles of the business: and I think this may
be the first place in which the philosophical word was brought
down from heaven to mix with men. However this may
be, my Wirgman sold snuff-boxes, among other things, and
fifty years ago a fashionable snuff-boxer would be under
inducement, if not positively obliged, to have a stock with
very objectionable pictures. So it happened that Wirgman
—by reason of a trifle too much candor — came under the
notice of the Suppression Society, and ran considerable risk.
Mr. Brougham was his counsel ; and managed to get him
acquitted. Years and years after this, when Mr. Brougham
was deep in the formation of the London University (now
University College), Mr. Wirgman called on him. "What
now?" said Mr. B. with his most sarcastic look — a very
perfect thing of its kind — "you're in a scrape again, I sup-
pose!" "No! indeed!" said W., "my present object is to
ask your interest for the chair of Moral Philosophy in the
new University!" He had taken up Kant!
Mr. Wirgman, an itinerant paradoxer, called on me in
1831 : he came to convert me. "I assure you," said he,
"I am nothing but an old brute of a jeweler;" and his eye
and manner were of the extreme of jocosity, as good in their
way, as the satire of his former counsel. I mention him as
one of that class who go away quite satisfied that they have
wrought conviction. "Now," said he, "I'll make it clear to
you! Suppose a number of gold-fishes in a glass bowl,
—you understand? Well! I come with my cigar and go
puff, puff, puff, over the bowl, until there is a little cloud
of smoke: now, tell me, what will the gold-fishes say to
that?" "I should imagine," said I, "That they would not
know what to make of it." "By Jove! you're a Kantian;"
said he, and with this and the like, he left me, vowing that
260 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
it was delightful to talk to so intelligent a person. The
greatest compliment Wirgman ever received was from James
Mill, who used to say he did not understand Kant. That
such a man as Mill should think this worth saying is a
feather in the cap of the jocose jeweler.
Some of my readers will stare at my supposing that
Boswell may have been the first down-bringer of the word
principles into common life ; the best answer will be a prior
instance of the word as true vernacular ; it has never hap-
pened to me to notice one. Many words have very com-
mon uses which are not old. Take the following from
Nichols (Anecd. ix. 263) : "Lord Thurlow presents his best
respects to Mr. and Mrs. Thicknesse, and assures them that
he knows of no cause to complain of any part of Mr. Thick-
nesse's carriage; least of all the circumstance of sending
the head to Ormond Street." Surely Mr. T. had lent Lord
T. a satisfactory carriage with a movable head, and the
above is a polite answer to inquiries. Not a bit of it! car-
riage is here conduct, and the head is a bust. The vehicles
of the rich, at the time, were coaches, chariots, chaises, etc.,
never carriages, which were rather carts. Gibbon has the
word for baggage-wagons. In Jane Austen's novels the
word carriage is established.
WALSH'S DELUSIONS.
John Walsh,1 of Cork (1786-1847). This discoverer
has had the honor of a biography from Professor Boole,
who, at my request, collected information about him on the
scene of his labors. It is in the Philosophical Magazine for
November, 1851, and will, I hope, be transferred to some
biographical collection where it may find a larger class of
readers. It is the best biography of a single hero of the
kind that I know. Mr. Walsh introduced himself to me,
aHe was born at Shandrum, County Limerick, and supported
himself by teaching writing and arithmetic. He died in an almshouse
at Cork.
WALSH'S DELUSIONS. 261
as he did to many others, in the anterowlandian days of the
Post-office ; his unpaid letters were double, treble, &c. They
contained his pamphlets, and cost their weight in silver: all
have the name of the author, and all are in octavo or in
quarto letter- form: most are in four pages, and all dated
from Cork. I have the following by me:
The Geometric .Base, 1825.— The theory of plane angles. 1827.
—Three Letters to Dr. Francis Sadleir. 1838.— The invention
of polar geometry. By Irelandus. 1839. — The theory of par-
tial functions. Letter to Lord Brougham. 1839.— On the in-
vention of polar geometry. 1839. — Letter to the Editor of the
Edinburgh Review. 1840. — Irish Manufacture. A new method
of tangents. 1841. — The normal diameter in curves. 1843. —
Letter to Sir R. Peel. 1845. — [Hints that Government should
compel the introduction of Walsh's Geometry into Universi-
ties.]— Solution of Equations of the higher orders. 1845.
Besides these, there is a Metalogia, and I know not how
many others.
Mr. Boole,2 who has taken the moral and social fea-
tures of Walsh's delusions from the commiserating point
of view, which makes ridicule out of place, has been obliged
to treat Walsh as Scott's Alan Fairford treated his client
Peter Peebles; namely, keep the scarecrow out of court
while the case was argued. My plan requires me to bring
him in : and when he comes in at the door, pity and sym-
pathy fly out at the window. Let the reader remember
that he was not an ignoramus in mathematics: he might
have won his spurs if he could have first served as an es-
quire. Though so illiterate that even in Ireland he never
picked up anything more Latin than Irelandus, he was a
very pretty mathematician spoiled in the making by intense
self-opinion.
This is part of a private letter to me at the back of a
page of print: I had never addressed a word to him:
8 George Boole (1815-1864), professor of mathematics at Queens'
College, Cork. His Laws of Thought (1854) was the first work on
the algebra of logic.
262 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
"There are no limits in mathematics, and those that
assert there are, are infinite ruffians, ignorant, lying black-
guards. There is no differential calculus, no Taylor's the-
orem, no calculus of variations, &c. in mathematics. There
is no quackery whatever in mathematics ; no % equal to
anything. What sheer ignorant blackguardism that!
"In mechanics the parallelogram of forces is quackery,
and is dangerous ; for nothing is at rest, or in uniform, or
in rectilinear motion, in the universe. Variable motion is
an essential property of matter. Laplace's demonstration
of the parallelogram of forces is a begging of the question ;
and the attempts of them all to show that the difference
of twenty minutes between the sidereal and actual revolu-
tion of the earth round the sun arises from the tugging of
the Sun and Moon at the pot-belly of the earth, without
being sure even that the earth has a pot-belly at all, is
perfect quackery. The said difference arising from and
demonstrating the revolution of the Sun itself round some
distant center."
In the letter to Lord Brougham we read as follows:
"I ask the Royal Society of London, I ask the Saxon
crew of that crazy hulk, where is the dogma of their phil-
osophic god now? When the Royal Society of London,
and the Academy of Sciences of Paris, shall have read this
memorandum, how will they appear? Like two cur dogs
in the paws of the noblest beast of the forest Just as
this note was going to press, a volume lately published by
you was put into my hands, wherein you attempt to defend
the fluxions and Principia of Newton. Man ! what are you
about? You come forward now with your special pleading,
and fraught with national prejudice, to defend, like the
philosopher Grassi,3 the persecutor of Galileo, principles
'Oratio Grassi (1582-1654), the Jesuit who became famous for
his controversy with Galileo over the theory of comets. Galileo
ridiculed him in // Saggiatore, although according to the modern
view Grassi was the more nearly right It is said that the latter's
resentment led to the persecution of Galileo.
WALSH'S DELUSIONS. 263
and reasoning which, unless you are actually insane, or an
ignorant quack in mathematics, you know are mathemat-
ically false. What a moral lesson this for the students of
the University of London from its head ! Man ! demonstrate
corollary 3, in this note, by the lying dogma of Newton, or
turn your thoughts to something you understand.
"WALSH IRELANDUS."
Mr. Walsh — honor to his memory — once had the con-
sideration to save me postage by addressing a pamphlet
under cover to a Member of Parliament, with an explana-
tory letter. In that letter he gives a candid opinion of
himself :
(1838.) "Mr. Walsh takes leave to send the enclosed
corrected copy to Mr. Hutton as one of the Council of the
University of London, and to save postage for the Pro-
fessor of Mathematics there. He will find in it geometry
more deep and subtle, and at the same time more simple and
elegant, than it was ever contemplated human genius could
invent."
He then proceeds to set forth that a certain "tomfoolery
lemma," with its "tomfoolery" superstructure, "never had
existence outside the shallow brains of its inventor," Euclid.
He then proceeds thus:
"The same spirit that animated those philosopher^ who
sent Galileo to the Inquisition animates all the philosophers
of the present day without exception. If anything can free
them from the yoke of error, it is the [Walsh] problem of
double tangence. But free them it will, how deeply soever
they may be sunk into mental slavery — and God knows that
is deeply enough ; and they bear it with an admirable grace ;
for none bear slavery with a better grace than tyrants. The
lads must adopt my theory .... It will be a sad reverse for
all our great professors to be compelled to become school-
boys in their gray years. But the sore scratch is to be com-
pelled, as they had before been compelled one thousand
years ago, to have recourse to Ireland for instruction."
264 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
The following "Impromptu" is no doubt by Walsh him-
self : he was more of a poet than of an astronomer :
"Through ages unfriended,
With sophistry blended,
Deep science in Chaos had slept;
Its limits were fettered,
Its voters unlettered,
Its students in movements but crept.
Till, despite of great foes,
Great WALSH first arose,
And with logical might did unravel
Those mazes of knowledge,
Ne'er known in a college,
Though sought for with unceasing travail.
With cheers we now hail him,
May success never fail him,
In Polar Geometrical mining;
Till his foes be as tamed
As his works are far-famed
For true philosophic refining."
Walsh's system is, that all mathematics and physics are
wrong: there is hardly one proposition in Euclid which is
demonstrated. His example ought to warn all who rely on
their own evidence to their own success. He was not,
properly speaking, insane; he only spoke his mind more
freely -than many others of his class. The poor fellow died
in the Cork union, during the famine. He had lived a happy
life, contemplating his own perfections, like Brahma on the
lotus-leaf.4
*De Morgan might have found much else for his satire in the
letters of Walsh. He sought, in his Theory of Partial Functions, to
substitute "partial equations" for the differential calculus. In his
diary there is an entry: "Discovered the general solution of numer-
ical equations of the fifth degree at 114 Evergreen Street, at the
Cross of Evergreen, Cork, at nine o'clock in the forenoon of July 7th,
1844 ; exactly twenty-two years after the invention of the Geometry
of Partial Equations, and the expulsion of the differential calculus
from Mathematical Science."
GROWTH OF FREEDOM OF OPINION. 265
GROWTH OF FREEDOM OF OPINION.
The year 1825 brings me to about the middle of my
Athenaeum list: that is, so far as mere number of names
mentioned is concerned. Freedom of opinion, beyond a doubt,
is gaining ground, for good or for evil, according to what
the speaker happens to think: admission of authority is no
longer made in the old way. If we take soul-cure and body-
cure, divinity and medicine, it is manifest that a change
has come over us. Time was when it was enough that dose
or dogma should be certified by "II a ete ordonne, Mon-
sieur, il a ete ordonne,"1 as the apothecary said when he
wanted to operate upon poor de Porceaugnac. Very much
changed: but whether for good or for evil does not now
matter; the question is, whether contempt of demonstration
such as our paradoxers show has augmented with the re-
jection of dogmatic authority. It ought to be just the
other way : for the worship of reason is the system on which,
if we trust them, the deniers of guidance ground their plan
of life. The following attempt at an experiment on this
point is the best which I can make ; and, so far as I know,
the first that ever was made.
Say that my list of paradoxers divides in 1825: this of
itself proves nothing, because so many of the earlier books
are lost, or not likely to be come at. It would be a fearful
rate of increase which would make the number of paradoxes
since 1825 equal to the whole number before that date. Let
us turn now to another collection of mine, arithmetical books,
of which I have published a list. The two collections are
similarly circumstanced as to new and old books ; the para-
doxes had no care given to the collection of either; the
arithmetical books equal care to both. The list of arith-
metical books, published in 1847, divides at 1735 ; the para-
doxes, up to 1863, divide at 1825. If we take the process
which is most against the distinction, and allow every year
1 "It has been ordered, sir, it has been ordered."
266 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
from 1847 to 1863 to add a year to 1735, we should say that
the arithmetical writers divide at 1751. This rough process
may serve, with sufficient certainty, to show that the propor-
tion of paradoxes to books of sober demonstration is on the
increase; and probably, quite as much as the proportion of
heterodoxes to books of orthodox adherence. So that di-
vinity and medicine may say to geometry, Don't you sneer :
if rationalism, homoeopathy, and their congeners are on the
rise among us, your enemies are increasing quite as fast. But
geometry replies — Dear friends, content yourselves with the
rational inference that the rise of heterodoxy within your
pales is not conclusive against you, taken alone ; for it rises
at the same time within mine. Store within your garners
the precious argument that you are not proved wrong
by increase of dissent; because there is increase of dissent
against exact science. But do not therefore even yourselves
to me: remember that you, Dame Divinity, have inflicted
every kind of penalty, from the stake to the stocks, in aid
of your reasoning; remember that you, Mother Medicine,
have not many years ago applied to Parliament for increase
of forcible hindrance of antipharmacopceal drenches, pills,
and powders. Who ever heard of my asking the legislature
to fine blundering circle-squarers ? Remember that the D
in dogma is the D in decay ; but the D in demonstration is
the D in durability.
THE STATUS OF MEDICINE.
I have known a medical man — a young one — who was
seriously of the opinion that the country ought to be divided
into medical parishes, with a practitioner appointed to each,
and a penalty for calling in any but the incumbent curer.
How should people know how to choose ? The hair-dressers
once petitioned Parliament for an act to compel people to
wear wigs. My own opinion is of the opposite extreme, as
in the following letter (Examiner, April 5, 1856) ; which,
to my surprise, I saw reprinted in a medical journal, as a
THE STATUS OF MEDICINE. 267
plan not absolutely to be rejected. I am perfectly satis-
fied that it would greatly promote true medical orthodoxy,
the predominance of well educated thinkers, and the de-
velopment of their desirable differences.
"SiR. The Medical Bill and the medical question gen-
erally is one on which experience would teach, if people
would be taught.
"The great soul question took three hundred years to
settle: the little body question might be settled in thirty
years, if the decisions in the former question were studied.
"Time was when the State believed, as honestly as ever
it believed anything, that it might, could, and should find
out the true doctrine for the poor ignorant community; to
which, like a worthy honest state, it added would. Accord-
ingly, by the assistance of the Church, which undertook the
physic, the surgery, and the pharmacy of sound doctrine all
by itself, it sent forth its legally qualified teachers into every
parish, and woe to the man who called in any other. They
burnt that man, they whipped him, they imprisoned him,
they did everything but what was Christian to him, all for
his soul's health and the amendment of his excesses.
"But men would not submit. To the argument that the
State was a father to the ignorant, they replied that it was
at best the ignorant father of an ignorant son, and that a
blind man could find his way into a ditch without another
blind man to help him, And when the State said — But
here we have the Church, which knows all about it, the
ignorant community declared that it had a right to judge
that question, and that it would judge it. It also said that
the Church was never one thing long, and that it progressed,
on the whole, rather more slowly than the ignorant com-
munity.
"The end of it was, in this country, that every one who
chose taught all who chose to let him teach, on condition
only of an open and true registration. The State was
268 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
allowed to patronize one particular Church, so that no one
need trouble himself to choose a pastor from the mere ne-
cessity of choosing. But every church is allowed its col-
leges, its studies, its diplomas; and every man is allowed
his choice. There is no proof that our souls are worse off
than in the sixteenth century; and, judging by fruits, there
is much reason to hope they are better off.
"Now the little body question is a perfect parallel to the
great soul question in all its circumstances. The only things
in which the parallel fails are the following : Every one who
believes in a future state sees that the soul question is in-
comparably more important than the body question, and
every one can try the body question by experiment to a
larger extent than the soul question. The proverb, which
always has a spark of truth at the bottom, says that every
man of forty is either a fool or a physician; but did even
the proverb maker ever dare to say that every man is at any
age either a fool or a fit teacher of religion?
"Common sense points out the following settlement of
the medical question: and to this it will come sooner or
later.
"Let every man who chooses — subject to one common
law of manslaughter for all the crass cases — doctor the
bodies of all who choose to trust him, and recover payment
according to agreement in the courts of law. Provided
always that every person practising should be registered
at a moderate fee in a register to be republished every six
months.
"Let the register give the name, address, and asserted
qualification of each candidate — as licentiate, or doctor, or
what not, of this or that college, hall, university, &c., home
or foreign. Let it be competent to any man to describe
himself as qualified by study in public schools without a
diploma, or by private study, or even by intuition or divine
inspiration, if he please. But whatever he holds his quali-
fication to be, that let him declare. Let all qualification
THE STATUS OF MEDICINE. 269
which of its own nature admits of proof be proved, as by
the diploma or certificate, &c., leaving things which cannot
be proved, as asserted private study, intuition, inspiration,
&c., to work their own way.
"Let it be highly penal to assert to the patient any quali-
fication which is not in the register, and let the register be
sold very cheap. Let the registrar give each registered prac-
titioner a copy of the register in his own case ; let any patient
have the power to demand a sight of this copy ; and let no
money for attendance be recoverable in any case in which
there has been false representation.
"Let any party in any suit have a right to produce what
medical testimony he pleases. Let the medical witness pro-
duce his register, and let his evidence be for the jury, as is
that of an engineer or a practitioner of any art which is not
attested by diplomas.
"Let any man who practises without venturing to put
his name on the register be liable to fine and imprisonment.
"The consequence would be that, as now, anybody who
pleases might practise ; for the medical world is well aware
that there is no power of preventing what they call quacks
from practising. But very different from what is now,
every man who practises would be obliged to tell the whole
world what his claim is, and would run a great risk if he
dared to tell his patient in private anything different from
what he had told the whole world.
"The consequence would be that a real education in
anatomy, physiology, chemistry, surgery, and what is known
of the thing called medicine, would acquire more impor-
tance than it now has.
"It is curious to see how completely the medical man
of the nineteenth century squares with the priest of the
sixteenth century. The clergy of all sects are now better
divines and better men than they ever were. They have lost
Bacon's reproach that they took a smaller measure of things
than any other educated men ; and the physicians are now
270 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
in this particular the rearguard of the learned world ; though
it may be true that the rear in our day is further on in the
march than the van of Bacon's day. Nor will they ever
recover the lost position until medicine is as free as religion.
"To this it must come. To this the public, which will
decide for itself, has determined it shall come. To this the
public has, in fact, brought it, but on a plan which it is not
desirable to make permanent. We will be as free to take
care of our bodies as of our souls and of our goods. This
is the profession of all who sign as I do, and the practice
of most of those who would not like the name
"HETEROPATH."
The motion of the Sun in the Ecliptic, proved to be uniform in
a circular orbit. . . .with preliminary observations on the fallacy
of the Solar System. By Bartholomew Prescott,1 1825, 8vo.
The author had published, in 1803, a Defence of the
Divine System, which I never saw; also, On the inverted
scheme of Copernicus. The above work is clever in its
satire.
THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCE SOCIETY.
Manifesto of the Christian Evidence Society, established Nov.
12, 1824. Twenty-four plain questions to honest men.
These are two broadsides of August and November,
1826, signed by Robert Taylor,1 A. B., Orator of the Chris-
tian Evidence Society. This gentleman was a clergyman,
1 Bartholomew Prescot was a Liverpool accountant. De Morgan
gives this correct spelling 9n page 278. He died after 1849. His
Inverted Scheme of Copernicus appeared in Liverpool in 1822.
1 Robert Taylor (1784-1844) had many more ups and downs than
De Morgan mentions. He was a priest of the Church of England,
but resigned his parish in 1818 after preaching against Christianity.
He soon recanted and took another parish, but was dismissed by the
Bishop almost immediately on the ground of heresy. As stated in
the text, he was convicted of blasphemy in 1827 and was sentenced
to a year's imprisonment, and again for two years on the same
charge in 1831. He then married a woman who was rich in money
and in years, and was thereupon sued for breach of promise by
another woman. To escape paying the judgment that was rendered
against him he fled to Tours where he took up surgery.
THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCE SOCIETY. 271
and was convicted of blasphemy in 1827, for which he suf-
fered imprisonment, and got the name of the Devil's Chap-
lain. The following are quotations :
"For the book of Revelation, there was no original Greek
at all, but Erasmus wrote it himself in Switzerland, in the
year 1516. Bishop Marsh,2 vol. i. p. 320."— "Is not God the
author of your reason ? Can he then be the author of any-
thing which is contrary to your reason? If reason be a
sufficient guide, why should God give you any other? if it
be not a sufficient guide, why has he given you that?"
1 remember a votary of the Society being asked to substi-
tute for reason "the right leg," and for guide "support,"
and to answer the two last questions: he said there must
be a quibble, but he did not see what. It is pleasant to
reflect that the argumentum a carcere3 is obsolete. One
great defect of it was that it did not go far enough: there
should have been laws against subscriptions for blasphemers,
against dealing at their shops, and against rich widows
marrying thefn.
Had I taken in theology, I must have entered books
against Christianity. I mention the above, and Paine's
Age of Reason, simply because they are the only English
modern works that ever came in my way without my ask-
ing for them. The three parts of the Age of Reason
were published in Paris 1793, Paris 1795, and New York
1807. CarlileV edition is of London, 1818, 8vo. It must
be republished when the time comes, to show what stuff
governments and clergy were afraid of at the beginning
of this century. I should never have seen the book, if it
2 Herbert Marsh, Bishop of Peterborough. See note 9 on page
199.
3 "Argument from the prison."
4 Richard Carlile (1790-1843), one of the leading radicals of his
time. He published Hone's parodies (see note 9, page 124) after
they had been suppressed, and an edition of Thomas Paine (1818).
He was repeatedly imprisoned, serving nine years in all. His con-
tinued conflict with the authorities proved a good advertisement
for his bookshop.
272 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
had not been prohibited : a bookseller put it under my nose
with a fearful look round him; and I could do no less, in
common curiosity, than buy a work which had been so com-
plimented by church and state. And when I had read it,
I said in my mind to church and state, — Confound you!
you have taken me in worse than any reviewer I ever met
with. I forget what I gave for the book, but I ought to
have been able to claim compensation somewhere.
THE CABBALA.
Cabbala Algebraica. Auctore Gul. Lud. Christmann.1 Stutt-
gard, 1827, 4to.
Eighty closely printed pages of an attempt to solve equa-
tions of every degree, which has a process called by the
author cabbala. An anonymous correspondent spells cab-
bala as follows, xa/?/?aAA, and makes 666 out of its letters.
This gentleman has sent me since my Budget commenced,
a little heap of satirical communications, each having a 666
or two ; for instance, alluding to my remarks on the spelling
of chemistry, he finds the fated number in xw*l(J~ With these
are challenges to explain them, and hints about the end of the
world. All these letters have different fantastic seals ; one
of them with the legend "keep your temper," — another
bearing "bank token five pence." The only signature is a
triangle with a little circle in it, which I interpret to mean
that the writer confesses himself to be the round man stuck
in the three-cornered hole, to be explained as in Sydney
Smith's joke.
1Wilhelm Ludwig Christmann (1780-1835) was a protestant
clergyman and teacher of mathematics. For a while he taught under
Pestalozzi. Disappointed in his ambition to be professor of mathe-
matics at Tubingen, he became a confirmed misanthrope and is said
never to have left his house during the last ten years of his life. He
wrote several works : Ein Wort tiber Pestalozzi und Pestalozzismus
(1812); Ars cossae promota (1814); Philosophic, cossica (1815);
Aetas argentea cossae (1819); Ueber Tradition und Schrift, Logos
und Kabbala (1829), besides the one mentioned above. The word
coss in the above titles was a German name for algebra, from the
Italian cosa (thing), the name for the unknown quantity. It appears
in English in the early name for algebra, "the cossic art."
THE CABBALA. 273
There is a kind of Cabbala Alphabetica which the in-
vestigators of the numerals in words would do well to take
up: it is the formation of sentences which contain all the
letters of the alphabet, and each only once. No one has done
it with v and / treated as consonants ; but you and I can
do it. Dr. Whewell2 and I amused ourselves, some years
ago, with attempts. He could not make sense, though he
joined words : he gave me
Phiz, styx, wrong, buck, flame, quid.
I gave him the following, which he agreed was "admirable
sense" : I certainly think the words would never have come
together except in this way:
I, quartz pyx, who fling muck beds.
I long thought that no human being could say this under
any circumstances. At last I happened to be reading a
religious writer — as he thought himself — who threw asper-
sions on his opponents thick and threefold. Heyday! came
into my head, this fellow flings muck beds; he must be a
quartz pyx. And then I remembered that a pyx is a sacred
vessel, and quartz is a hard stone, as hard as the heart of a
religious foe-curser. So that the line is the motto of the
ferocious sectarian, who turns his religious vessels into mud-
holders, for the benefit of those who will not see what he
sees.
1 can find no circumstances for the following, which I
received from another:
Fritz! quick! land! hew gypsum box.
From other quarters I have the following:
Dumpy quiz! whirl back fogs next.
This might be said in time of haze to the queer little figure
in the Dutch weather-toy, which comes out or goes in with
the change in the atmosphere. Again,
2 See note 4, page 101.
274 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
Export my fund! Quiz black whigs.
This Squire Western might have said, who was always
afraid of the whigs sending the sinking-fund over to Han-
over. But the following is the best: it is good advice to
a young man, very well expressed under the circumstances :
Get nymph; quiz sad brow; fix luck.
Which in more sober English would be, Marry ; be cheer-
ful; watch your business. There is more edification, more
religion in this than in all the 666-interpretations put to-
gether.
Such things would make excellent writing copies, for
they secure attention to every letter ; v and / might be placed
at the end.
ON GODFREY HIGGINS.
The Celtic Druids. By Godfrey Higgins,1 Esq. of Skellow
Grange, near Doncaster. London, 1827, 4to.
Anacalypsis, or an attempt to draw aside the veil of the Saitic
Isis : or an inquiry into the origin of languages, nations, and
religions. By Godfrey Higgins, &c , London, 1836, 2
vols. 4to.
The first work had an additional preface and a new index
in 1829. Possibly, in future time, will be found bound up with
copies of the second work two sheets which Mr. Higgins
circulated among his friends in 1831 : the first a "Recapitu-
lation," the second "Book vi. ch. 1."
The system of these works is that —
"The Buddhists of Upper India (of whom the Phenician
Canaanite, Melchizedek, was a priest), who built the Pyra-
mids, Stonehenge, Carnac, &c. will be shown to have founded
all the ancient mythologies of the world, which, however
varied and corrupted in recent times, were originally one,
and that one founded on principles sublime, beautiful, and
true."
1 See note 3, page 257.
ON GODFREY HIGGINS. 275
These works contain an immense quantity of learning,
very honestly put together. I presume the enormous num-
ber of facts, and the goodness of the index, to be the rea-
sons why the Anacalypsis found a permanent place in the
old reading-room of the British Museum, even before the
change which greatly increased the number of books left
free to the reader in that room.
Mr. Higgins, whom I knew well in the last six years
of his life, and respected as a good, learned, and (in his
own way) pious man, was thoroughly and completely the
man of a system. He had that sort of mental connection
with his theory that made his statements of his authorities
trustworthy: for, besides perfect integrity, he had no bias
towards alteration of facts: he saw his system in the way
the fact was presented to him by his authority, be that
what it might.
He was very sure of a fact which he got from any of
his authorities: nothing could shake him. Imagine a con-
versation between him and an Indian officer who had paid
long attention to Hindoo antiquities and their remains: a
third person was present, ego qui scribo. G. H. "You know
that in the temples of I-forget-who the Ceres is always
sculptured precisely as in Greece." Col. , "I really do
not remember it, and I have seen most of these temples."
G. H. "It is so, I assure you, especially at I-forget-where."
Col. , "Well, I am sure! I was encamped for six
weeks at the gate of that very temple, and, except a little
shooting, had nothing to do but to examine its details,
which I did, day after day, and I found nothing of the
kind." It was of no use at all.
Godfrey Higgins began life by exposing and conquer-
ing, at the expense of two years of his studies, some shock-
ing abuses which existed in the York Lunatic Asylum.
This was a proceeding which called much attention to the
treatment of the insane, and produced much good effect.
He was very resolute and energetic. The magistracy of his
276 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
time had scruples about using the severity of law to people
of such station as well-to-do farmers, &c. : they would allow
a great deal of resistance, and endeavor to mollify the
rebels into obedience. A young farmer flatly refused to
pay under an order of affiliation made upon him by Godfrey
Higgins. He was duly warned; and persisted: he shortly
found himself in gaol. He went there sure to conquer the
Justice, and the first thing he did was to demand to see his
lawyer. He was told, to his horror, that as soon as he had
been cropped and prison-dressed, he might see as many
lawyers as he pleased, to be looked at, laughed at, and
advised that there was but one way out of the scrape.
Higgins was, in his speculations, a regular counterpart of
Bailly; but the celebrated Mayor of Paris had not his
nerve. It is impossible to say, if their characters had been
changed, whether the unfortunate crisis in which Bailly
was not equal to the occasion would have led to very differ-
ent results if Higgins had been in his place: but assuredly
constitutional liberty would have had one chance more.
There are two works of his by which he was known, apart
from his paradoxes. First, An apology for the life and
character of the celebrated prophet of Arabia, called Mo-
hamed, or the Illustrious. London, 8vo. 1829. The reader
will look at this writing of our English Buddhist with sus-
picious eye, but he will not be able to avoid confessing that
the Arabian prophet has some reparation to demand at the
hands of Christians. Next, Hora Sabaticcs; or an attempt
to correct certain superstitions and vulgar errors respecting
the Sabbath. Second edition, with a large appendix. Lon-
don, 12mo. 1833. This book was very heterodox at the
time, but it has furnished material for some of the clergy
of our day.
I never could quite make out whether Godfrey Higgins
took that system which he traced to the Buddhists to have
a Divine origin, or to be the result of good men's medita-
tions. Himself a strong theist, and believer in a future
ON POPE'S DIPPING NEEDLE. 277
state, one would suppose that he w,ould refer a universal
religion, spread in different forms over the whole earth
from one source, directly to the universal Parent. And this
I suspect he did, whether he knew it or not. The external
evidence is balanced. In his preface he says:
"I cannot help smiling when I consider that the priests
have objected to admit my former book, The Celtic Druids,
into libraries, because it was antichristian ; and it has been
attacked by Deists, because it was superfluously religious.
The learned Deist, the Rev. R. Taylor [already mentioned],
has designated me as the religious Mr. Higgins."
The time will come when some profound historian of
literature will make himself much clearer on the point than
I am.
ON POPE'S DIPPING NEEDLE.
The triumphal Chariot of Friction: or a familiar elucidation of
the origin of magnetic attraction, &c. &c. By William Pope.1
London, 1829, 4to.
Part of this work is on a dipping-needle of the au-
thor's construction. It must have been under the impression
that a book of naval magnetism was proposed, that a
great many officers, the Royal Naval Club, etc. lent their
names to the subscription list. How must they have been
surprised to find, right opposite to the list of subscribers,
the plate presenting "the three emphatic letters, J. A. O."
And how much more when they saw it set forth that if a
square be inscribed in a circle, a circle within that, then a
square again, &c., it is impossible to have more than fourteen
circles, let the first circle be as large as you please. From
this the seven attributes of God are unfolded ; and further,
that all matter was moral, until Lucifer churned it into
physical "as far as the third circle in Deity": this Lucifer,
called Leviathan in Job, being thus the moving cause of
1 He seems to have written nothing else.
278 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
chaos. I shall say no more, except that the friction of the
air is the cause of magnetism.
Remarks on the Architecture, Sculpture, and Zodiac of Pal-
myra; with a Key to the Inscriptions. By B. Prescot.2 Lon-
don, 1830, 8vo.
Mr. Prescot gives the signs of the zodiac a Hebrew
origin.
THE JACOTOT METHOD.
Epitome de mathematiques. Par F. Jacotot,1 Avocat. 3ieme
edition, Paris, 1830, 8vo. (pp. 18).
Methode Jacotot. Choix de propositions mathematiques. Par
P. Y. Sepres.2 2nde edition. Paris, 1830, 8vo. (pp. 82).
Of Jacotot's method, which had some vogue in Paris,
the principle was Tout est dans tout,3 and the process Ap-
prendre quelque chose, et a y rapporter tout le rested The
first tract has a proposition in conic sections and its prelim-
inaries: the second has twenty exercises, of which the first
is finding the greatest common measure of two numbers,
and the last is the motion of a point on a surface, acted on
by given forces. This is topped up with the problem of
sound in a tube, and a slice of Laplace's theory of the
tides. All to be studied until known by heart, and all the
rest will come, or at least join on easily when it comes.
There is much truth in the assertion that new knowledge
* See note I on page 270. The name is here spelled correctly.
1 Joseph Jacotot (1770-1840), the father of this Fortune Jacotot,
was an infant prodigy. At nineteen he was made professor of the
humanities at Dijon. He served in the army, and then became pro-
fessor of mathematics at Dijon. He continued in his chair until
the restoration of the Bourbons, and then fled to Louvain. It was
here that he developed the method with which his name is usually
connected. He wrote a Mathematiques in 1827, which went through
four editions. The Epitome is by his son, Fortune.
* He wrote on educational topics and a Sacred History that went
through several editions.
' "All is in all."
4 "Know one thing and refer everything else to it," as it is often
translated.
A DISCOURSE ON PROBABILITY. 279
hooks on easily to a little of the old, thoroughly mastered.
The day is coming when it will be found out that crammed
erudition, got up for examinations, does not cast out any
hooks for more.
Lettre a MM. les Membres de 1' Academic Royale des Sciences,
contenant un developpement de la refutation du systeme de la
gravitation universelle, qui leur a ete presentee le 30 aout, 1830.
Par Felix Passot5 Paris, 1830, 8vo.
Works of this sort are less common in France than in
England. In France there is only the Academy of Sciences
to go to: in England there is a reading public out of the
Royal Society, &c.
A DISCOURSE ON PROBABILITY.
About 1830 was published, in the Library of Useful
Knowledge, the tract on Probability, the joint work of the
late Sir John Lubbock1 and Mr. Drinkwater (Bethune).2
It is one of the best elementary openings of the subject.
A binder put my name on the outside (the work was anon-
ymous) and the consequence was that nothing could drive
out of people's heads that it was written by me. I do
not know how many denials I have made, from a passage
in one of my own works to a letter in the Times : and I am
not sure that I have succeeded in establishing the truth,
even now. I accordingly note the fact once more. But
as a book has no right here unless it contain a paradox —
or thing counter to general opinion or practice — I will pro-
duce two small ones. Sir John Lubbock, with whom lay
the executive arrangement, had a strong objection to the
last word in "Theory of Probabilities," he maintained that
the singular probability, should be used; and I hold him
quite right.
5 A writer of no reputation.
*Sir John Lubbock (1803-1865), banker, scientist, publicist, as-
tronomer, one of the versatile men of his time.
2 See note 8, page 99.
280 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
The second case was this: My friend Sir J. L., with a
large cluster of intellectual qualities, and another of social
qualities, had one point of character which I will not call
bad and cannot call good ; he never used a slang expression.
To such a length did he carry his dislike, that he could not
bear head and tail, even in a work on games of chance: so
he used obverse and reverse. I stared when I first saw
this: but, to my delight, I found that the force of circum-
stances beat him at last. He was obliged to take an example
from the race-course, and the name of one of the horses
was Bessy Bedlam I And he did not put her down as
Elisabeth Bethlehem, but forced himself to follow the
jockeys.
[Almanach Remain sur la Loterie Royale de France, ou les
Etrennes necessaires aux Actionnaires et Receveurs de la
dite Loterie. Par M. Menut de St.-Mesmin. Paris, 1830.
I2mo.
This book contains all the drawings of the French lot-
tery (two or three, each month) from 1758 to 1830. It is
intended for those who thought they could predict the
future drawings from the past: and various sets of sympa-
thetic numbers are given to help them. The principle is,
that anything which has not happened for a long time must
be soon to come. At rouge et noir, for example, when the red
has won five times running, sagacious gamblers stake on the
black, for they think the turn which must come at last is
nearer than it was. So it is: but observation would have
shown that if a large number of those cases had been
registered which show a run of five for the red, the next
game would just as often have made the run into six as
have turned in favor of the black. But the gambling rea-
soner is incorrigible: if he would but take to squaring the
circle, what a load of misery would be saved. A writer of
1823, who appeared to be thoroughly acquainted with the
gambling of Paris and London, says that the gamesters by
A DISCOURSE ON PROBABILITY. 281
profession are haunted by a secret foreboding of their future
destruction, and seem as if they said to the banker at the
table, as the gladiators said to the emperor, Morituri te
salutant.8
In the French lottery, five numbers out of ninety were
drawn at a time. Any person, in any part of the country,
might stake any sum upon any event he pleased, as that
27 should be drawn ; that 42 and 81 should be drawn ; that
42 and 81 should be drawn, and 42 first; and so on up to
a quine determine, if he chose, which is betting on five
given numbers in a given order. Thus, in July, 1821, one
of the drawings was
8 46 16 64 13.
A gambler had actually predicted the five numbers (but not
their order), and won 131,350 francs on a trifling stake. M.
Menut seems to insinuate that the hint what numbers to
choose was given at his own office. Another won 20,852
francs on the quaterne, 8, 16, 46, 64, in this very drawing.
These gains, of course, were widely advertised : of the mul-
titudes who lost nothing was said. The enormous number
of those who played is proved to all who have studied
chances arithmetically by the numbers of simple quaternes
which were gained: in 1822, fourteen; in 1823, six; in
1824, sixteen; in 1825, nine, &c.
The paradoxes of what is called chance, or hazard, might
themselves make a small volume. All the world under-
stands that there is a long run, a general average ; but great
part of the world is surprised that this general average
should be computed and predicted. There are many re-
markable cases of verification; and one of them relates to
the quadrature of the circle. I give some account of this and
another. Throw a penny time after time until head arrives,
which it will do before long: let this be called a set. Ac-
cordingly, H is the smallest set, TH the next smallest, then
TTH, &c. For abbreviation, let a set in which seven tails
'"Those about to die salute you."
282 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
occur before head turns up be T7H. In an immense num-
ber of trials of sets, about half will be H ; about a quarter
TH ; about an eighth, T2H. Buffon4 tried 2,048 sets ; and
several have followed him. It will tend to illustrate the
principle if I give all the results ; namely, that many trials
will with moral certainty show an approach— and the greater
the greater the number of trials — to that average which
sober reasoning predicts. In the first column is the most
likely number of the theory : the next column gives Buffon's
result; the three next are results obtained from trial by
H . 1,024 . 1,061 . 1,048 . 1,017 . 1,039
TH . 512 . 494 . 507 . 547 . 480
T*H . 256 . 232 . 248 . 235 . 267
T3H . 128 . 137 . 99 , 118 . 126
T4H . 64 . 56 . 71 . 72 . 67
TsH . 32 . 29 . 38 . 32 . 33
T6H . 16 . 25 . 17 . 10 . 19
T7H . 8 . 8 . 9 . 9 . 10
T8H . 4 . 6 . 5 . 3 . 3
T9H 2 . 3.2.4
T'°H 1 . 1.1
T"H 0 . 1
T"H 0 . 0
T'3H 1 . 1.0
T'4H 0 0
T'sH 1 . 1
&c. 0.0
2,048 . 2,048 . 2,048 . 2,048 . 2,048
4 Georges Louis Leclerc Buffon (1707-1788), the well-known
biologist. He also experimented with burning mirrors, his results
appearing in his Invention des miroirs ardens pour bruler a une
grande distance (1747). The reference here may be to his Resolu-
tion des problemes qui re gar dent le jeu du franc carreau (1733).
The prominence of his Histoire naturelle (36 volumes, 1749-1788)
has^ overshadowed the credit due to him for his translation of New-
ton's work on Fluxions.
A DISCOURSE ON PROBABILITY. 283
correspondents of mine. In each case the number of trials
is 2,048.
In very many trials, then, we may depend upon something
like the predicted average. Conversely, from many trials
we may form a guess at what the average will be. Thus,
in Buffon's experiment the 2,048 first throws of the sets
gave head in 1,061 cases: we have a right to infer that in
the long run something like 1,061 out of 2,048 is the pro-
portion of heads, even before we know the reasons for the
equality of chance, which tell us that 1,024 out of 2,048 is
the real truth. I now come to the way in which such con-
siderations have led to a mode in which mere pitch-and-toss
has given a more accurate approach to the quadrature of the
circle than has been reached by some of my paradoxers.
What would my friend5 in No. 14 have said to this? The
method is as follows: Suppose a planked "floor of the usual
kind, with thin visible seams between the planks. Let there
be a thin straight rod, or wire, not so long as the breadth of
the plank. This rod, being tossed up at hazard, will either
fall quite clear of the seams, or will lay across one seam.
Now Buffon, and after him Laplace, proved the following:
That in the long run the fraction of the whole number of
trials in which a seam is intersected will be the fraction
which twice the length of the rod is of the circumference
of the circle having the breadth of a plank for its diameter.
In 1855 Mr. Ambrose Smith, of Aberdeen, made 3,204
trials with a rod three-fifths of the distance between the
planks: there were 1,213 clear intersections, and 11 contacts
on which it was difficult to decide. Divide these contacts
equally, and we have 1,218J to 3,204 for the ratio of 6 to
5?r, presuming that the greatness of the number of trials
gives something near to the final average, or result in the
long run: this gives 7r = 3.1553. If all the 11 contacts had
been treated as intersections, the result would have been
5 See page 285. This article was a supplement to No. 14 in the
Athenaum Budget.— A. De M.
284 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
7r = 3.1412, exceedingly near. A pupil of mine made 600
trials with a rod of the length between the seams, and got
7r = 3.137.
This method will hardly be believed until it has been
repeated so often that "there never could have been any
doubt about it."
The first experiment strongly illustrates a truth of the
theory, well confirmed by practice: whatever can happen
will happen if we make trials enough. Who would under-
take to throw tail eight times running? Nevertheless, in
the 8,192 sets tail 8 times running occurred 17 times; 9
times running, 9 times; 10 times running, twice; 11 times
and 13 times, each once; and 15 times twice.]
ON CURIOSITIES OF ».
1830. The celebrated interminable fraction 3. 14159.
which the mathematician calls TT, is the ratio of the circum-
ference to the diameter. But it is thousands of things
besides. It is constantly turning up in mathematics : and if
arithmetic and algebra had been studied without geometry,
TT must have come in somehow, though at what stage or
under what name must have depended upon the casualties
of algebraical invention. This will readily be seen when
it is stated that TT is nothing but four times the series
l-1/3 + 1/5-1/7 + 1/9-1/ll+....
ad infinitum.1 It would be wonderful if so simple a series
are many similar series and products. Among the more
interesting are the following:
7r_2-2-4-4-6-6-8...
2 1-3-3-5-5-7-7... '
I rz ~ ~ ~""~ *
t 2-3-4 4-5-6 6-7-8
"6 ~~ \ 3" \ 8*3 y • S S^7- S* -t"" / '
«=t(i L+_I L+. . . WJL.
4 \ 5 3*5^ 5 "5** 7'57 / \23Q
ON CURIOSITIES OF TT. 285
had but one kind of occurrence. As it is, our trigonometry
being founded on the circle, IT first appears as the ratio
stated. If, for instance, a deep study of probable fluctua-
tion from average had preceded, TT might have emerged as
a number perfectly indispensable in such problems as : What
is the chance of the number of aces lying between a million
+ x and a million - x, when six million of throws are made
with a die? I have not gone into any detail of all those
cases in which the paradoxer finds out, by his unassisted
acumen, that results of mathematical investigation cannot
be : in fact, this discovery is only an accompaniment, though
a necessary one, of his paradoxical statement of that which
must be. Logicians are beginning to see that the notion
of horse is inseparably connected with that of non-horse:
that the first without the second would be no notion at all.
And it is clear that the positive affirmation of that which
contradicts mathematical demonstration cannot but be ac-
companied by a declaration, mostly overtly made, that dem-
onstration is false. If the mathematician were interested
in punishing this indiscretion, he could make his denier
ridiculous by inventing asserted results which would com-
pletely take him in.
More than thirty years ago I had a friend, now long
gone, who was a mathematician, but not of the higher
branches: he was, inter alia, thoroughly up in all that
relates to mortality, life assurance, &c. One day, explain-
ing to him how it should be ascertained what the chance
is of the survivors of a large number of persons now alive
lying between given limits of number at the end of a certain
time, I came, of course upon the introduction of IT, which
I could only describe as the ratio of the circumference of
a circle to its diameter. "Oh, my dear friend ! that must be
a delusion ; what can the circle have to do with the numbers
alive at the end of a given time?" — "I cannot demonstrate
it to you ; but it is demonstrated." — "Oh ! stuff ! I think you
can prove anything with your differential calculus : figment,
286 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
depend upon it." I said no more; but, a few days after-
wards, I went to him and very gravely told him that I had
discovered the law of human mortality in the Carlisle Table,
of which he thought very highly. I told him that the law
was involved in this circumstance. Take the table of ex-
pectation of life, choose any age, take its expectation and
make the nearest integer a new age, do the same with that,
and so on; begin at what age you like, you are sure to
end at the place where the age past is equal, or most nearly
equal, to the expectation to come. "You don't mean that
this always happens?" — "Try it." He did try, again and
again; and found it as I said. "This is, indeed, a curious
thing; this is a discovery." I might have sent him about
trumpeting the law of life : but I contented myself with in- ,
forming him that the, same thing would happen with any
table whatsoever in which the first column goes up and
the second goes down ; and that if a proficient in the higher
mathematics chose to palm a figment upon him, he could
do without the circle : a corsair e} corsair e et demi? the French
proverb says. "Oh!" it was remarked, "I see, this was
Milne !"3 It was not Milne : I remember well showing the
formula to him some time afterwards. He raised no diffi-
culty about ?r; he knew the forms of Laplace's results, and
he was much interested. Besides, Milne never said stuff!
and figment! And he would not have been taken in: he
would have quietly tried it with the Northampton and all
the other tables, and would have got at the truth.
8 "To a privateer, a privateer and a half."
3 Joshua Milne (1776-1851) was actuary of the Sun Life Assur-
ance Society. He wrote A Treatise on the Valuation of Annuities
and Assurances on Lives and Survivorships; on the Construction
of tables of mortality; and on the Probabilities and Expectations of
Life, London, 1815. Upon the basis of the Carlisle bills of mortality
of Dr. Heysham he reconstructed the mortality tables then in use
and which were based upon the Northampton table of Dr. Price. His
work revolutionized the actuarial science of the time. In later years
he devoted his attention to natural history.
EUCLID WITHOUT AXIOMS. 287
EUCLID WITHOUT AXIOMS.
The first book of Euclid's Elements. With alterations and
familiar notes. Being an attempt to get rid of axioms alto-
gether; and to establish the theory of parallel lines, without
the introduction of any principle not common to other parts of
the elements. By a member of the University of Cambridge.
Third edition. In usum serenissimae filiolse. London, 1830.
The author was Lieut. Col. (now General) Perronet
Thompson,1 the author of the "Catechism on the Corn
Laws." I reviewed the fourth edition — which had the name
of "Geometry without Axioms," 1833 — in the quarterly
Journal of Education for January, 1834. Col. Thompson,
who then was a contributor to — if not editor of — the West-
minster Review, replied in an article the authorship of which
could not be mistaken.
Some more attempts upon the problem, by the same
author, will be found in the sequel. They are all of acute
and legitimate speculation; but they do not conquer the
difficulty in the manner demanded by the conditions of the
problem. The paradox of parallels does not contribute
much to my pages: its cases are to be found for the most
part in geometrical systems, or in notes to them. Most of
them consist in the proposal of additional postulates ; some
are attempts to do without any new postulate. Gen. Perronet
Thompson, whose paradoxes are always constructed on
much study of previous writers, has collected in the work
above named, a budget of attempts, the heads of which
are in the Penny and English Cyclopedias, at "Parallels."
He has given thirty instances, selected from what he had
found.2
1 See note 2, page 252. He also wrote the Theory of Parallels.
The proof of Euclid's axiom looked for in the properties of the
equiangular spiral (London, 1840), which went through four edi-
tions, and the Theory of Parallels. The proof that the three angles
of a triangle are equal to two right angles looked for in the inflation
of the sphere (London, 1853), of which there were three editions.
2 For the latest summary, see W. B. Frankland, Theories of
Parallelism, an historical critique, Cambridge, 1910.
288 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
Lagrange,3 in one of the later years of his life, imag-
ined that he had overcome the difficulty. He went so far
as to write a paper, which he took with him to the Insti-
tute, and began to read it. But in the first paragraph some-
thing struck him which he had not observed: he muttered
// faut que j'y songe encore* and put the paper in his
pocket.
THE LUNAR CAUSTIC JOKE.
The following paragraph appeared in the Morning Post,
May 4, 1831 :
"We understand that although, owing to circumstances
with which the public are not concerned, Mr. Goulburn1
declined becoming a candidate for University honors, that
his scientific attainments are far from inconsiderable. He
is well known to be the author of an essay in the Philosoph-
ical Transactions on the accurate rectification of a circular
arc, and of an investigation of the equation of a lunar
caustic — a problem likely to become of great use in nautical
astronomy."
'Joseph Louis Lagrange (1736-1813), author of the Mecanique
analytique (1788), Theorie des fonctions analytiques (1797), Traite
de la resolution des equations numeriques de tous degres (1798),
Leqons sur le calcul des fonctions (1806), and many memoirs. Al-
though born in Turin and spending twenty of his best years in Ger-
many, he is commonly looked upon as the great leader of French
mathematicians. The last twenty-seven years of his life were spent in
Paris, and his remarkable productivity continued to the time of his
death. His genius in the theory of numbers was probably never ex-
celled except by Fermat He received very high honors at the hands
of Napoleon and was on the first staff of the Ecole polytechnique
(1797).
4 "I shall have to think it over again."
1 Henry Goulburn (1784-1856^ held various government posts.
He was under-secretary for war and the colonies (1813), commis-
sioner to negotiate peace with America (1814), chief secretary to
the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1821), and several times Chancellor
of the Exchequer. On the occasion mentioned by De Morgan he
was standing for parliament, and was successful.
THE LUNAR CAUSTIC JOKE. 289
This hoax — which would probably have succeeded with
any journal — was palmed upon the Morning Post, which
supported Mr. Goulburn, by some Cambridge wags who sup-
ported Mr. Lubbock, the other candidate for the University
of Cambridge. Putting on the usual concealment, I may
say that I always suspected Dr-nkw-t-r B-th-n-2 of having
a share in the matter. The skill of the hoax lies in avoiding
the words "quadrature of the circle," which all know, and
speaking of "the accurate rectification of a circular arc,"
which all do not know for its synonyme. The Morning
Post next day gave a reproof to hoaxers in general, without
referring to any particular case. It must be added, that
although there are caustics in mathematics, there is no
lunar caustic.
So far as Mr. Goulburn was concerned, the above was
poetic justice. He was the minister who, in old time, told
a deputation from the Astronomical Society that the Gov-
ernment "did not care twopence for all the science in the
country." There may be some still alive who remember
this: I heard it from more than one of those who were
present, and are now gone. Matters are much changed.
I was thirty years in office at the Astronomical Society ;
and, to my certain knowledge, every Government of that
period, Whig and Tory, showed itself ready to help with
influence when wanted, and with money whenever there
was an answer for the House of Commons. The following
correction subsequently appeared. Referring to the hoax
about Mr. Goulburn, Messrs. C. H. and Thompson Cooper8
have corrected an error, by stating that the election which
gave rise to the hoax was that in which Messrs. Goulburn
2 On Drinkwater Bethtme see note 8, page 99.
"Charles Henry Cooper (1808-1866) was a biographer and an-
tiquary. He was town clerk of Cambridge (1849-1866) and wrote
the Annals of Cambridge (1842-1853). His Memorials of Cam-
bridge (1874) appeared after his death. Thompson Cooper was his
son, and the two collaborated in the Athenae Cantabrigiewis (1858).
290 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
and Yates Peel4 defeated Lord Palmerston5 and Mr. Caven-
dish.6 They add that Mr. Gunning, the well-known Es-
quire Bedell of the University, attributed the hoax to the
late Rev. R. Sheepshanks, to whom, they state, are also
attributed certain clever fictitious biographies — of public
men, as I understand it — which were palmed upon the edi-
tor of the Cambridge Chronicle, who never suspected their
genuineness to the day of his death. Being in most confi-
dential intercourse with Mr. Sheepshanks,7 both at the time
and all the rest of his life (twenty-five years), and never
heard him allude to any such things — which were not in
his line, though he had satirical power of quite another
* William Yates Peel (1789-1858) was a brother of Sir Robert
Peel, he whose name degenerated into the familiar title of the
London "Bobby" or "Peeler." Yates Peel was a member of parliament
almost continuously from 1817 to 1852. He represented Cambridge
at Westminster from 1831 to 1835.
5 Henry John Temple, third Viscount of Palmerston (1784-1865),
was member for Cambridge in 1811, 1818, 1820, 1826 (defeating
Goulburn), and 1830. He failed of reelection in 1831 because of his
advocacy of reform. This must have been the time when Goulburn
defeated him. He was Foreign Secretary (1827) and Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs (1830-1841, and 1846-1851). It is said of
him that he "created Belgium, saved Portugal and Spain from ab-
solutism, rescued Turkey from Russia and the highway to India from
France." He was Prime Minister almost continuously from 1855 to
1865, a period covering the Indian Mutiny and the American Civil
War.
'William Cavendish, seventh Duke of Devonshire (1808-1891).
He was member for Cambridge from 1829 to 1831, but was defeated
in 1831 because he had favored parliamentary reform. He became
Earl of Burlington in 1834, and Duke of Devonshire in 1858. He was
much interested in the promotion of railroads and in the iron and
steel industries
'Richard Sheepshanks (1794-1855) was a brother of John Sheep-
shanks the benefactor of art. (See note 3, p. 147.) He was a fellow of
Trinity College, Cambridge, a fellow of the Royal Society and secretary
of the Astronomical Society. Babbage (See note 12, p. 207) suspected
him of advising against the government support of his calculating
machine and attacked him severely in his Exposition of 1851, in the
chapter on The Intrigues of Science. Babbage also showed that
Sheepshanks got an astronomical instrument of French make through
the custom house by having Troughton's (See note 2, page 152) name
engraved on it. Sheepshanks admitted this second charge, but wrote
a Letter in Reply to the Calumnies of Mr. Babbage, which was pub-
lished in 1854. He had a. highly controversial nature.
ON M. DEMONVILLE. 291
kind — I feel satisfied he had nothing to do with them. I
may add that others, his nearest friends, and also members
of his family, never heard him allude to these hoaxes as
their author, and disbelieve his authorship as much as I
do myself. I say this not as imputing any blame to the
true author, such hoaxes being fair election jokes in all
time, but merely to put the saddle off the wrong horse, and
to give one more instance of the insecurity of imputed
authorship. Had Mr. Sheepshanks ever told me that he
had perpetrated the hoax, I should have had no hesitation
in giving it to him. I consider all clever election squibs,
free from bitterness and personal imputation, as giving the
multitude good channels for the vent of feelings which
but for them would certainly find bad ones.
[But I now suspect that Mr. Babbage8 had some hand
in the hoax. He gives it in his "Passages, &c." and is evi-
dently writing from memory, for he gives the wrong year.
But he has given the paragraph, though not accurately,
yet with such a recollection of the points as brings sus-
picion of the authorship upon him, perhaps in conjunction
with D. B.9 Both were on Cavendish's committee. Mr.
Babbage adds, that "late one evening a cab drove up in hot
haste to the office of the Morning Post, delivered .the copy
as coming from Mr. Goulburn's committee, and at the same
time ordered fifty extra copies of the Post to be sent next
morning to their committee-room. I think the man — the
only one I ever heard of — who knew all about the cab and
the extra copies must have known more.]
ON M. DEMONVILLE.
Demonville. — A Frenchman's Christian name is his
own secret, unless there be two of the surname. M. Demon-
ville is a very good instance of the difference between a
8 See note 12, page 207. The work referred to is Passages from
the Life of a Philosopher, London, 1864.
9 Drinkwater Bethune. See note 8, page 99.
292 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
French and English discoverer. In England there is a
public to listen to discoveries in mathematical subjects made
without mathematics : a public which will hear, and wonder,
and think it possible that the pretensions of the discoverer
have some foundation. The unnoticed man may possibly
be right: and the old country-town reputation which I once
heard of, attaching to a man who "had written a book
about the signs of the zodiac which all the philosophers in
London could not answer," is fame as far as it goes. Ac-
cordingly, we have plenty of discoverers who, even in as-
tronomy, pronounce the learned in error because of mathe-
matics. In France, beyond the sphere of influence of the
Academy of Sciences, there is no one to cast a thought
upon the matter : all who take the least interest repose entire
faith in the Institute. Hence the French discoverer turns
all his thoughts to the Institute, and looks for his only
hearing in that quarter. He therefore throws no slur upon
the means of knowledge, but would say, with M. Demon-
ville: "A 1'egard de M. Poisson,1 j'envie loyalement la
millieme partie de ses connaissances mathematiques, pour
prouver mon systeme d'astronomie aux plus incredules."2
This system is that the only bodies of our system are the
earth, the sun, and the moon ; all the others being illusions,
caused by reflection of the sun and moon from the ice of
the polar regions. In mathematics, addition and subtraction
are for men; multiplication and division, which are in
truth creation and destruction, are prerogatives of deity.
But nothing multiplied by nothing is one. M. Demonville
obtained an introduction to William the Fourth, who de-
sired the opinion of the Royal Society upon his system : the
1 Simeon-Denis Poisson (1781-1840) was professor of calculus
and mechanics at the Ecole polytechnique. He was made a baron by
Napoleon, and was raised to the peerage in 1837. His chief works
are the Traite de mecanique (1811) and the Traite mathematique de
la chaleur (1835).
*"As to M. Poisson, I really wish I had a thousandth part of
his mathematical knowledge that I might prove my system to the
incredulous."
PARSE Y^S PARADOX. 293
answer was very brief. The King was quite right ; so was
the Society: the fault lay with those who advised His
Majesty on a matter they knew nothing about. The writ-
ings of M. Demonville in my possession are as follows.3
The dates — which were only on covers torn off in binding
—were about 1831-34:
Petit cours d 'astronomic* followed by Sur I'unite mathe-
matique. — Principes de la physique de la creation implicite-
ment admis dans la notice sur le tonnerre par M. Arago. —
Question de longitude sur mer.* — Vrai systeme du mondeQ
(pp. 92). Same title, four pages, small type. Same title,
four pages, addressed to the British Association. Same title,
four pages, addressed to M. Mathieu. Same title, four
pages, on M. Bouvard's report. — Resume de la physique
de la creation; troisieme par tie du vrai systeme du monde.1
PARSEY'S PARADOX.
The quadrature of the circle discovered, by Arthur Parsey,1
author of the 'art of miniature painting/ Submitted to the
consideration of the Royal Society, on whose protection the
author humbly throws himself. London, 1832, 8vo.
Mr. Parsey was an artist, who also made himself con-
spicuous by a new view of perspective. Seeing that the
sides of a tower, for instance, would appear to meet in a
point if the tower were high enough, he thought that these
sides ought to slope to one another in the picture. On this
This list includes most of the works of Antoine-Louis-Guenard
Demonville. There was also the Nouveau systeme du monde. ... et
hypotheses conformes aux experiences sur les vents, sur la lumiere
et sur le Huide electro-magnetique, Paris, 1830.
'Paris, 1835.
"Paris, 1833.
c The second part appeared in 1837. There were also editions in
1850 and 1852, and one edition appeared without date.
1 Paris, 1842.
1 Parsey also wrote The Art of Miniature Painting on Ivory
(1831), Perspective Rectified (1836), and The Science of Vision
(1840), the third being a revision of the second.
294 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
theory he published a small work, of which I have not the
title, with a Grecian temple in the frontispiece, stated, if
I remember rightly, to be the first picture which had ever
been drawn in true perspective. Of course the building
looked very Egyptian, with its sloping sides. The answer
to his notion is easy enough. What is called the picture
is not the picture from which the mind takes its perception ;
that picture is on the retina. The intermediate picture, as it
may be called — the human artist's work — is itself seen per-
spectively. If the tower were so high that the sides, though
parallel, appeared to meet in a point, the picture must also
be so high that the picture-sides, though parallel, would ap-
pear to meet in a point. I never saw this answer given,
though I have seen and heard the remarks of artists on Mr.
Parsey's work. I am inclined to think it is commonly sup-
posed that the artist's picture is the representation which
comes before the mind : this is not true ; we might as well
say the same of the object itself. In July 1831, reading an
article on squaring the circle, and finding that there was a
difficulty, he set to work, got a light denied to all mathe-
maticians in — some would say through — a crack, and ad-
vertised in the Times that he had done the trick. He then
prepared this work, in which, those who read it will see
how, he showed that 3.14159 should be 3.0625. He
might have found out his error by stepping a draughtsman's
circle with the compasses.
Perspective has not had many paradoxes. The only
other one I remember is that of a writer on perspective,
whose name I forget, and whose four pages I do not possess.
He circulated remarks on my notes on the subject, pub-
lished in the Athen&um, in which he denies that the stereo-
graphic projection is a case of perspective, the reason
being that the whole hemisphere makes too large a picture
for the eye conveniently to grasp at once. That is to say,
it is no perspective because there is too much perspective.
ON A COUPLE OF GEOMETRIES. 295
ON A COUPLE OF GEOMETRIES.
Principles of Geometry familiarly illustrated. By the Rev. W.
Ritchie,1 LL.D. London, 1833, I2mo.
A new Exposition of the system of Euclid's Elements, being an
attempt to establish his work on a different basis. By Alfred
Day,2 LL.D. London, 1839, I2mo.
These works belong to a small class which have the
peculiarity of insisting that in the general propositions of
geometry a proposition gives its converse: that "Every B
is A" follows from "Every A is B." Dr. Ritchie says, "If it
be proved that the equality of two of the angles of a triangle
depends essentially upon the equality of the opposite sides,
it follows that the equality of opposite sides depends essen-
tially on the equality of the angles." Dr. Day puts it as
follows :
"That the converses of Euclid, so called, where no par-
ticular limitation is specified or implied in the leading prop-
osition, more than in the converse, must be necessarily true ;
for as by the nature of the reasoning the leading proposition
must be universally true, should the converse be not so, it
cannot be so universally, but has at least all the exceptions
conveyed in the leading proposition, and the case is there-
fore unadapted to geometric reasoning; or, what is the
same thing, by the very nature of geometric reasoning, the
particular exceptions to the extended converse must be
identical with some one or other of the cases under the
universal affirmative proposition with which we set forth,
which is absurd."
1 William Ritchie (1790-1837) was a physicist who had studied
at Paris under Biot and Gay-Lussac. He contributed several papers
on electricity, heat, and elasticity, and was looked upon as a good
experimenter. Besides the geometry he wrote the Principles of the
Differential and Integral Calculus (1836).
2 Alfred Day (1810-1849) was a man who was about fifty years
ahead of his time in his attempt to get at the logical foundations of
geometry. It is true that he laid himself open to criticism, but his
work was by no means bad. He also wrote A Treatise on Harmony
(1849, second edition 1885), The Rotation of the Pendulum (1851),
and several works on Greek and Latin Grammar.
296 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
On this I cannot help transferring to my reader the
words of the Pacha when he orders the bastinado, — May
it do you good ! A rational study of logic is much wanted
to show many mathematicians, of all degrees of proficiency,
that there is nothing in the reasoning of mathematics which
differs from other reasoning. Dr. Day repeated his argu-
ment in A Treatise on Proportion, London, 1840, 8vo. Dr.
Ritchie was a very clear-headed man. He published, in
1818, a work on arithmetic, with rational explanations. ,
This was too early for such an improvement, and nearly
the whole of his excellent work was sold as waste paper.
His elementary introduction to the Differential Calculus
was drawn up while he was learning the subject late in
life. Books of this sort are often very effective on points
of difficulty.
NEWTON AGAIN OBLITERATED.
Letter to the Royal Astronomical Society in refutation of Mis-
taken Notions held in common, by the Society, and by all
the Newtonian philosophers. By Capt. Forman,1 R.N. Shep-
ton-Mallet, 1833, 8vo.
Capt. Forman wrote against the whole system of gravi-
tation, and got no notice. He then wrote to Lord Brougham,
Sir J. Herschel, and others I suppose, desiring them to
procure notice of his books in the reviews: this not being
acceded to, he wrote (in print) to Lord John Russell2 to
complain of their "dishonest" conduct. He then sent a
manuscript letter to the Astronomical Society, inviting con-
troversy: he was answered by a recommendation to study
1 Walter Forman wrote a number of controversial tracts. His
first seems to have been A plan for improving the Revenue without
adding to the burdens of the people, a letter to Canning in 1813. He
also wrote A New Theory of the Tides (1822). His Letter to Lord
John Russell, on Lord Brougham's most extraordinary conduct; and
another to Sir J. Herschel, on the application of Kepler's third law
appeared in 1832.
8 Lord John Russell (1792-1878)' first Earl Russell, was one of
the strongest supporters of the reform measures of the early Vic-
torian period. He became prime minister in 1847, and again in 1865.
NEWTON AGAIN OBLITERATED. 297
dynamics. The above pamphlet was the consequence, in
which, calling the Council of the Society "craven dunghill
cocks," he set them right about their doctrines. From all
I can learn, the life of a worthy man and a creditable officer
was completely embittered by his want of power to see that
no person is bound in reason to enter into controversy
with every one who chooses to invite him to the field. This
mistake is not peculiar to philosophers, whether of ortho-
doxy or paradoxy; a majority of educated persons imply,
by their modes of proceeding, that no one has a right to
any opinion which he is not prepared to defend against all
comers.
David and Goliath, or an attempt to prove that the Newtonian
system of Astronomy is directly opposed to the Scriptures.
By Wm. Lauder,1 Sen., Mere, Wilts. Mere, 1833, I2mo.
Newton is Goliath; Mr. Lauder is David. David took
five pebbles ; Mr. Lauder takes five arguments. He expects
opposition ; for Paul and Jesus both met with it.
Mr. Lauder, in his comparison, seems to put himself in
the divinely inspired class. This would not be a fair in-
ference in every case ; but we know not what to think when
we remember that a tolerable number of cyclometers have
attributed their knowledge to direct revelation. The works
of this class are very scarce ; I can only mention one or two
from Montucla.2 Alphonso Cano de Molina,3 in the last
century, upset all Euclid, and squared the circle upon the
ruins ; he found a follower, Janson, who translated him from
Spanish into Latin. He declared that he believed in Euclid,
until God, who humbles the proud, taught him better. One
Paul Yvon, called from his estate de la Leu, a merchant at
Rochelle, supported by his book-keeper, M. Pujos, and a
1 Lauder seems never to have written anything else.
2 See note i, page 40.
3 The names of Alphonso Cano de Molina, Yvon, and Robert
Sara have no standing in the history of the subject beyond what
would be inferred from De Morgan's remark.
298 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
Scotchman, John Dunbar, solved the problem by divine
grace, in a manner which was to convert all Jews, Infidels,
etc. There seem to have been editions of his work in 1619
and 1628, and a controversial "Examen" in 1630, by Robert
Sara. There was a noted discussion, in which Mydorge,4
Hardy,5 and others took part against de la Leu. I cannot
find this name either in Lipenius6 or Murhard,7 and I
should not have known the dates if it had not been for
one of the keenest bibliographers of any time, my friend
Prince Balthasar Boncompagni,8 who is trying to find copies
of the works, and has managed to find copies of the titles.
In 1750, Henry Sullamar, an Englishman, squared the circle
by the number of the Beast: he published a pamphlet every
two or three years ; but I cannot find any mention of him in
English works.9 In France, in 1753, M. de Causans,10 of
the Guards, cut a circular piece of turf, squared it, and
4 Claude Mydorge (1585-1647), an intimate friend of Descartes,
was a dilletante in mathematics who read much but accomplished
little. His Recreations mathematiques is his chief work. Boncom-
pagni published the "Problemes de Mydorge" in his Bulletino.
6 Claude Hardy was born towards the end of the i6th century
and died at Paris in 1678. In 1625 he edited the Data Euclidis,
publishing the Greek text with a Latin translation. He was a friend
of Mydorge and Descartes, but an opponent of Fermat.
6 That is, in the Bibliotheca Realis of Martin Lipen, or Lipenius
(1630-1692), which appeared in six folio volumes, at Frankfort,
1675-1685.
7 See note 4, page 43.
8 Baldassare Boncompagni (1821-1894) was the greatest general
collector of mathematical works that ever lived, possibly excepting
Libri. His magnificent library was dispersed at his death. His
Bulletino (1868-1887) is one of the greatest source books on the
history of mathematics that we have. He also edited the works of
Leonardo of Pisa.
9 He seems to have attracted no attention since De Morgan's
search, for he is not mentioned in recent bibliographies.
10 Joseph-Louis Vincens de Mouleon de Causans was born about
the beginning of the i8th century. He was a Knight of Malta,
colonel in the infantry, prince of Conti, and governor of the princi-
pality of Orange. His works on geometry are the Prospectus apolo-
getique pour la quadrature du cercle (1753), and La vraie geometrie
transcendante (1754).
SIR JOHN HERSCHEL. 299
deduced original sin and the Trinity. He found out that
the circle was equal to the square in which it is inscribed;
and he offered a reward for detection of any error, and
actually deposited 10,000 francs as earnest of 300,000. But
the courts would not allow any one to recover.
SIR JOHN HERSCHEL.
1834. In this year Sir John Herschel1 set up his tel-
escope at Feldhausen, Cape of Good Hope. He did much
for astronomy, but not much for the Budget of Paradoxes.
He gives me, however, the following story. He showed a
resident a remarkable blood-red star, and some little time
after he heard of a sermon preached in those parts in which
it was asserted that the statements of the Bible must be
true, for that Sir J. H. had seen in his telescope "the very
place where wicked people go."
But red is not always the color. Sir J. Herschel has in
his possession a letter written to his father, Sir W. H.,2
dated April 3, 1787, and signed "Eliza Cumyns," begging
to know if any of the stars be indigo in color, "because, if
there be, I think it may be deemed a strong conjectural illus-
tration of the expression, so often used by our Saviour in
the Holy Gospels, that 'the disobedient shall be cast into
outer darkness' ; for as the Almighty Being can doubtless
confine any of his creatures, whether corporeal or spiritual,
to what part of his creation He pleases, if therefore any of
the stars (which are beyond all doubt so many suns to
other systems) be of so dark a color as that above men-
tioned, they may be calculated to give the most insufferable
heat to those dolorous systems dependent upon them (and
to reprobate spirits placed there) , without one ray of cheer-
ful light ; and may therefore be the scenes of future punish-
ments." This letter is addressed to Dr. Heirschel at Slow.
Some have placed the infernal regions inside the earth, but
1 See note 5, page 80.
2 See note 6, page 81.
300 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
others have filled this internal cavity — for cavity they will
have — with refulgent light, and made it the abode of the
blessed. It is difficult to build without knowing the num-
ber to be provided for. A friend of mine heard the follow-
ing (part) dialogue between two strong Scotch Calvinists:
"Noo! hoo manny d'ye thank there are of the alact on the
arth at this moment? — Eh! mabbee a doozen — Hoot! mon!
nae so mony as thot !"
THE NAUTICAL ALMANAC.
1834. From 1769 to 1834 the Nautical Almanac was
published on a plan which gradually fell behind what was
wanted. In 1834 the new series began, under a new super-
intendent (Lieut. W. S. Stratford).1 There had been a long
scientific controversy, which would not be generally in-
telligible. To set some of the points before the reader, I
reprint a cutting which I have by me. It is from the
Nautical Magazine, but I did hear that some had an idea
that it was in the Nautical Almanac itself. It certainly was
not, and I feel satisfied the Lords of the Admiralty would
not have permitted the insertion ; they are never in advance
of their age. The Almanac for 1834 was published in July
1833.
THE NEW NAUTICAL ALMANAC— Extract from the Trimum
Mobile/ and 'Milky Way Gazette/ Communicated by AERO-
LITH.
A meeting of the different bodies composing the Solar
System was this day held at the Dragon's Tail, for the
purpose of taking into consideration the alterations and
amendments introduced into the New Nautical Almanac.
The honorable luminaries had been individually summoned
1 Lieut. William Samuel Stratford (1791-1853), was in active
service during the Napoleonic wars but retired from the army in
1815. He was first secretary of the Astronomical Society (1820)
and became superintendent of the Nautical Almanac in 1831. With
Francis Baily he compiled a star catalogue, and wrote on Halley's
(1835-1836) and Encke's (1838) comets.
THE NAUTICAL ALMANACK. 301
by fast-sailing comets, and there was a remarkably full at-
tendance. Among the visitors we observed several nebulae,
and almost all the stars whose proper motions would admit
of their being present.
The SUN was unanimously called to the focus. The
small planets took the oaths, and their places, after a short
discussion, in which it was decided that the places should
be those of the Almanac itself, with leave reserved to move
for corrections.
Petitions were presented from a and 8 Ursae Minoris,
complaining of being put on daily duty, and praying for
an increase of salary. — Laid on the plane of the ecliptic.
The trustees of the eccentricity2 and inclination funds
reported a balance of .00001 in the former, and a deficit
of 0".009 in the latter. This announcement caused con-
siderable surprise, and a committee was moved for, to as-
certain which of the bodies had more or less than his share.
After some discussion, in which the small planets offered
to consent to a reduction, if necessary, the motion was
carried.
The FOCAL BODY then rose to address the meeting. He
remarked that the subject on which they were assembled
was one of great importance to the routes and revolutions
of the heavenly bodies. For himself, though a private
arrangement between two of his honourable neighbours
(here he looked hard at the Earth and Venus) had pre-
vented his hitherto paying that close attention to the pre-
dictions of the Nautical Almanac which he declared he al-
ways had wished to do; yet he felt consoled by knowing
that the conductors of that work had every disposition to
take his peculiar circumstances into consideration. He de-
clared that he had never passed the wires of a transit with-
out deeply feeling his inability to adapt himself to the
present state of his theory; a feeling which he was afraid
had sometimes caused a slight tremor in his limb. Before
* See Sir J. Herschel's Astronomy, p. 369. — A. De M.
302 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
he sat down, he expressed a hope that honourable lumi-
naries would refrain as much as possible from eclipsing
each other, or causing mutual peturbations. Indeed, he
should be very sorry to see any interruption of the harmony
of the spheres. (Applause.)
The several articles of the New Nautical Almanac were
then read over without any comment ; only we observed
that Saturn shook his ring at every novelty, and Jupiter
gave his belt a hitch, and winked at the satellites at page
21 of each month.
The MOON rose to propose a resolution. No one, he
said, would be surprised at his bringing this matter forward
in the way he did, when it was considered in how complete
and satisfactory a manner his motions were now repre-
sented. He must own he had trembled when the Lords of
the Admiralty dissolved the Board of Longitude, but his
tranquillity was more than reestablished by the adoption
of the new system. He did not know but that any little
assistance he could give in Nautical Astronomy was be-
coming of less and less value every day, owing to the
improvement of chronometers. But there was one thing,
of which nothing could deprive him — he meant the regu-
lation of the tides. And, perhaps, when his attention was
not occupied by more than the latter, he should be able to
introduce a little more regularity into the phenomena. ( Here
the honourable luminary gave a sort of modest libration,
which convulsed the meeting with laughter.) They might
laugh at his natural infirmity if they pleased, but he could
assure them it arose only from the necessity he was under,
when young, of watching the motions of his worthy primary.
He then moved a resolution highly laudatory of the altera-
tions which appeared in the New Nautical Almanac.
The EARTH rose, to second the motion. His honour-
able satellite had fully expressed his opinions on the sub-
ject. He joined his honourable friend in the focus in wish-
ing to pay every attention to the Nautical Almanac, but,
THE NAUTICAL ALMANACK. 303
really, when so important an alteration had taken place in
his magnetic pole3 (hear) and there might, for aught he
knew, be a successful attempt to reach his pole of rotation,
he thought he could not answer for the preservation of the
precession in its present state. (Here the hon. luminary,
scratching his side, exclaimed, as he sat down, "More steam-
boats— confound 'em!")
An honourable satellite (whose name we could not learn)
proposed that the resolution should be immediately des-
patched, corrected for refraction, when he was called to
order by the Focal Body, who reminded him that it was
contrary to the moving orders of the system to take cog-
nizance of what passed inside the atmosphere of any planet.
SATURN and PALLAS rose together. (Cries of "New
member!" and the former gave way.) The latter, in a
long and eloquent speech, praised the liberality with which
he and his colleagues had at length been relieved from
astronomical disqualifications. He thought that it was
contrary to the spirit of the laws of gravitation to exclude
any planet from office on account of the eccentricity or in-
clination of his orbit. Honourable luminaries need not talk
of the want of convergency of his series. What had they
to do with any private arrangements between him and the
general equations of the system? (Murmurs from the
opposition.) So long as he obeyed the laws of motion, to
which he had that day taken a solemn oath, he would ask,
were old planets, which were now so well known that
nobody trusted them, to. ...
The FOCAL BODY said he was sorry to break the continu-
ity of the proceedings, but he thought that remarks upon
character, with a negative sign, would introduce differ-
3 Captain Ross had just stuck a bit of brass there.— A. De M.
Sir James Clark Ross (1800-1862) was a rear admiral in the
British navy and an arctic and antarctic explorer of prominence.
De Morgan's reference is to Ross's discovery of the magnetic pole
on June i, 1831. In 1838 he was employed by the Admiralty on a
magnetic survey of the United Kingdom. He was awarded the
gold medal of the geographical societies of London and Paris in 1842.
304 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
ences of too high an order. The honourable luminary must
eliminate the expression which he had brought out, in
finite terms, and use smaller inequalities in future. (Hear,
hear.)
PALLAS explained, that he was far from meaning to
reflect upon the orbital character of any planet present.
He only meant to protest against being judged by any laws
but those of gravitation, and the differential calculus: he
thought it most unjust that astronomers should prevent the
small planets from being observed, and then reproach them
with the imperfections of the tables, which were the result
of their own narrow-minded policy. (Cheers.)
SATURN thought that, as an old planet, he had not been
treated with due respect. (Hear, from his satellites.) He
had long foretold the wreck of the system from the friends
of innovation. Why, he might ask, were his satellites to
be excluded, when small planets, trumpery comets, which
could not keep their mean distances (cries of oh! oh!),
double stars, with graphical approximations, and such ob-
scure riff-raff of the heavens (great uproar) found room
enough. So help him Arithmetic, nothing could come of
it, but a stoppage of all revolution. His hon. friend in the
focus might smile, for he would be a gainer by such an
event; but as for him (Saturn), he had something to lose,
and hon. luminaries well knew that, whatever they might
think under an atmosphere, above it continual revolution
was the only way of preventing perpetual anarchy. As to
the hon. luminary who had risen before him, he was not
surprised at his remarks, for he had invariably observed that
he and his colleagues allowed themselves too much latitude.
The stability of the system required that they should be
brought down, and he, for one, would exert all his powers
of attraction to accomplish that end. If other bodies would
cordially unite with him, particularly his noble friend next
him, than whom no luminary possessed greater weight —
JUPITER rose to order* He conceived his noble friend
THE NAUTICAL ALMANACK. 305
had no right to allude to him in that manner, and was much
surprised at his proposal, considering the matters which
remained in dispute between them. In the present state
of affairs, he would take care never to be in conjunction
with his hon. neighbour one moment longer than he could
help. (Cries of "Order, order, no long inequalities," during
which he sat down.)
SATURN proceeded to say, that he did not know till then
that a planet with a ring could affront one who had only a
belt, by proposing mutual co-operation. He would now
come to the subject under discussion. He should think
meanly of his hon. colleagues if they consented to bestow
their approbation upon a mere astronomical production.
Had they forgotten that they once were considered the
arbiters of fate, and the prognosticators of man's destiny?
What had lost them that proud position? Was it not the
infernal march of intellect, which, after having turned the
earth topsy-turvy, was now disturbing the very universe?
For himself (others might do as they pleased), but he
stuck to the venerable Partridge,4 and the Stationers' Com-
pany, and trusted that they would outlive infidels and an-
archists, whether of Astronomical or Diffusion of Knowl-
edge Societies. (Cries of oh! oh!)
MARS said he had been told, for he must confess he had
not seen the work, that the places of the planets were given
for Sundays. This, he must be allowed to say, was an in-
decorum he had not expected ; and he was convinced the
Lords of the Admiralty had given no orders to that effect.
He hoped this point would be considered in the measure
which had been introduced in another place, and that some
4 John Partridge (1644-1715), the well-known astrologer and
almanac maker. Although bound to a shoemaker in his early boy-
hood, he had acquired enough Latin at the age of eighteen to read
the works of the astrologers. He then mastered Greek and Hebrew
and studied medicine. In 1680 he began the publication of his al-
manac, the Merlinus Liberatus, a book that acquired literary celeb-
rity largely through the witty comments upon it by such writers as
Swift and Steele.
306 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
one would move that the prohibition against travelling on
Sundays extend to the heavenly as well as earthly bodies.
Several of the stars here declared, that they had been
much annoyed by being observed on Sunday evenings,
during the hours of divine service.
The room was then cleared for a division, but we are
unable to state what took place. Several comets-at-arms
were sent for, and we heard rumors of a personal collision
having taken place between two luminaries in opposition.
We were afterwards told that the resolution was carried
by a majority, and the luminaries elongated at 2 h. 15 m.
33,41 s. sidereal time.
* * * It is reported, but we hope without foundation, that
Saturn, and several other discontented planets, have ac-
cepted an invitation from Sirius to join his system, on the
most liberal appointments. We believe the report to have
originated in nothing more than the discovery of the annual
parallax of Sirius from the orbit of Saturn; but we may
safely assure our readers that no steps have as yet been
taken to open any communication.
We are also happy to state, that there is no truth in the
rumor of the laws of gravitation being about to be re-
pealed. We have traced this report, and find it originated
with a gentleman living near Bath (Captain Forman, R.N),5
whose name we forbear to mention.
A great excitement has been observed among the neb-
ulae, visible to the earth's southern hemisphere, particularly
among those which have not yet been discovered from
thence. We are at a loss to conjecture the cause, but we
shall not fail to report to our readers the news of any move-
ment which may take place. (Sir J. Herschel's visit. He
could just see this before he went out.)
6 See note i on page 296.
WOODLEY'S DIVINE SYSTEM. 307
WOODLEY'S DIVINE SYSTEM.
A Treatise on the Divine System of the Universe, by Captain
Woodley, R.N.,1 and as demonstrated by his Universal Time-
piece, and universal method of determining a ship's longitude
by the apparent true place of the moon; with an introduction
refuting the solar system of Copernicus, the Newtonian phi-
losophy, and mathematics. 1834.2 8vo.
Description of the Universal Time-piece. (4pp. I2mo.)
I think this divine system was published several years
before, and was republished with an introduction in 1834.3
Capt. Woodley was very sure that the earth does not move :
he pointed out to me, in a conversation I had with him,
something — I forget what — in the motion of the Great
Bear, visible to any eye, which could not possibly be if the
earth moved. He was exceedingly ignorant, as the follow-
ing quotation from his account of the usual opinion will
show:
"The north pole of the Earth's axis deserts, they say,
the north star or pole of the Heavens, at the rate of 1° in
71% years. . .The fact is, nothing can be more certain than
that the Stars have not changed their latitudes or declina-
tions one degree in the last 71% years."
This is a strong specimen of a class of men by whom
all accessible persons who have made any name in science
are hunted. It is a pity that they cannot be admitted into
scientific societies, and allowed fairly to state their cases,
and stand quiet cross-examination, being kept in their an-
swers very close to the questions, and the answers written
down. I am perfectly satisfied that if one meeting in the
year were devoted to the hearing of those who chose to
come forward on such conditions, much good would be
done. But I strongly suspect few would come forward
1 William Woodley also published several almanacs (1838, 1839,
1840) after his rejection by the Astronomical Society in 1834.
2 It appeared at London.
8 The first edition appeared in 1830, also at London.
308 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
at first, and none in a little while: and I have had some
experience of the method I recommend, privately tried.
Capt. Woodley was proposed, a little after 1834, as a Fellow
of the Astronomical Society; and, not caring whether he
moved the sun or the earth, or both — I could not have
stood neither — I signed the proposal. I always had a sneak-
ing kindness for paradoxers, such a one, perhaps, as Petit
Andre had for his lambs, as he called them. There was so
little feeling against his opinions, that he only failed by a
fraction of a ball. Had I myself voted, he would have
been elected ; but being engaged in conversation, and not
having heard the slightest objection to him, I did not think
it worth while to cross the room for the purpose. I re-
gretted this at the time, but had I known how ignorant he
was I should not have supported him. Probably those who
voted against him knew more of his book than I did.
I remember no other instance of exclusion from a scien-
tific society on the ground of opinion, even if this be one ;
of which it may be that ignorance had more to do with it
than paradoxy. Mr. Frend,4 a strong anti-Newtonian, was
a Fellow of the Astronomical Society, and for some years
in the Council. Lieut. Kerigan5 was elected to the Royal
Society at a time when his proposers must have known that
his immediate object was to put F.R.S. on the title-page of
a work against the tides. To give all I know, I may add
that the editor of some very ignorant bombast about the
"forehead of the solar sky," who did not know the differ-
ence between Bailly* and Baity,7 received hints which in-
duced him to withdraw his proposal for election into the
Astronomical Society. But this was an act of kindness ;
4 See note i, page 196.
6 Thomas Kerigan wrote The Young Navigator's Guide to the
siderial and planetary parts of Nautical Astronomy (London, 1821,
second edition 1828), a work on eclipses (London, 1844), and the
work on tides (London, 1847) to which De Morgan refers.
8 Jean Sylvain Bailly, who was guillotined. See note i, page 166.
T See note 2, page 309.
ON JOHN FLAMSTEED. 309
for if he had seen Mr. Baily in the chair, with his head on,
he might have been political historian enough to faint away.
De la formation des Corps. Par Paul Laurent.8 Nancy, 1834,
8vo.
Atoms, and ether, and ovules or eggs, which are planets,
and their eggs, which are satellites. These speculators can
create worlds, in which they cannot be refuted ; but none of
them dare attack the problem of a grain of wheat, and its
passage from a seed to a plant, bearing scores of seeds like
what it was itself.
ON JOHN FLAMSTEED.
An account of the Rev. John Flamsteed,1 the First Astronomer-
Royal. ... By Francis Baily,2 Esq. London, 1835, 4to- Supple-
ment, London, 1837, 4to.
My friend Francis Baily was a paradoxer: he brought
forward things counter to universal opinion. That Newton
was impeccable in every point was the national creed; and
failings of temper and conduct would have been utterly
disbelieved, if the paradox had not come supported by very
unusual evidence. Anybody who impeached Newton on
existing evidence might as well have been squaring the
circle, for any attention he would have got. About this
book I will tell a story. It was published by the Admiralty
for distribution ; and the distribution was entrusted to Mr.
Baily. On the eve of its appearance, rumors of its extra-
ordinary revelations got about, and persons of influence
applied to the Admiralty for copies. The Lords were in a
difficulty : but on looking at the list they saw names, as they
8 Laurent seems to have had faint glimpses of the modern theory
of matter. He is, however, unknown.
1 See note 4, page 87.
2 Francis Baily (1774-1844) was a London stockbroker. His
interest in science in general and in astronomy in particular led to
his membership in the Royal Society and to his presidency of the
Astronomical Society. He wrote on interest and annuities (1808),
but his chief works were on astronomy.
310 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
thought, which were so obscure that they had a right to
assume Mr. Baily had included persons who had no claim
to such a compliment as presentation from the Admiralty.
The Secretary requested Mr. Baily to call upon him. "Mr.
Baily, my Lords are inclined to think that some of the per-
sons in this list are perhaps not of that note which would
justify their Lordships in presenting this work." — "To whom
does your observation apply, Mr. Secretary ?" — "Well, now,
let us examine the list; let me see; now, — now, — now, —
come! — here's Gauss3 — who's Gauss'?" — "Gauss, Mr. Sec-
retary, is the oldest mathematician now living, and is gen-
erally thought to be the greatest."— "O-o-oh ! Well, Mr.
Baily, we will see about it, and I will write you a letter."
The letter expressed their Lordships' perfect satisfaction
with the list.
There was a controversy about the revelations made in
this work ; but as the eccentric anomalies took no part in it,
there is nothing for my purpose. The following valentine
from Mrs. Flamsteed.4 which I found among Baily's papers,
illustrates some of the points:
"3 Astronomers' Row, Paradise : February 14, 1836.
"Dear Sir, — I suppose you hardly expected to receive a
letter from me, dated from this place; but the truth is, a
gentleman from our street was appointed guardian angel to
the American Treaty, in which there is some astronomical
question about boundaries. He has got leave to go back to
fetch some instruments which he left behind, and I take this
opportunity of making your acquaintance. That America
has become a wonderful place since I was down among
you; you have no idea how grand the fire at New York
'If the story is correctly told Baily must have enjoyed his
statement that Gauss was "the oldest mathematician now living."
As a matter of fact he was then only 58, three years the junior of
Baily himself. Gauss was born in 1777 and died in 1855, and Baily
was quite right in saying that he was "generally thought to be the
greatest" mathematician then living.
'Margaret Cooke, who married Flamsteed in 1692.
ON JOHN FLAMSTEED. 311
looked up here. Poor dear Mr. Flamsteed does not know
I am writing a letter to a gentleman on Valentine's day ; he
is walked out with Sir Isaac Newton (they are pretty good
friends now, though they do squabble a little sometimes)
and Sir William Herschel, to see a new nebula. Sir Isaac
says he can't make out at all how it is managed ; and I am
sure I cannot help him. I never bothered my head about
those things down below, and I don't intend to begin here.
"I have just received the news of your having written
a book about my poor dear man. It's a chance that I heard
it at all ; for the truth is, the scientific gentlemen are some-
how or other become so wicked, and go so little to church,
that very few of them are considered fit company for this
place. If it had not been for Dr. Brinkley,5 who came here
of course, I should not have heard about it. He seems a
nice man, but is not yet used to our ways. As to Mr. Hal-
ley,6 he is of course not here; which is lucky for him, for
Mr. Flamsteed swore the moment he caught him in a place
where there are no magistrates, he would make a sacrifice
of him to heavenly truth. It was very generous in Mr. F.
not appearing against Sir Isaac when he came up, for I am
told that if he had, Sir Isaac would not have been allowed
to come in at all. I should have been sorry for that, for he
is a companionable man enough, only holds his head rather
higher than he should do. I met him the other day walking
with Mr. Whiston,7 and disputing about the deluge. 'Well,
Mrs. Flamsteed/ says he, 'does old Poke-the-Stars under-
stand gravitation yet?' Now you must know that is rather
a sore point with poor dear Mr. Flamsteed. He says that
Sir Isaac is as crochetty about the moon as ever ; and as to
E John Brinkley (1763-1835), senior wrangler, first Smith's prize-
man (1788), Andrews professor of astronomy at Dublin, first As-
tronomer Royal for Ireland (1792), F.R.S. (1803), Copley medallist,
president of the Royal Society and Bishop of Cloyne. His Elements
of Astronomy appeared in 1808.
" See note 7, page 124.
7 See note 3, page 133.
312 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
what some people say about what has been done since his
time, he says he should like to see somebody who knows
something about it of himself. For it is very singular that
none of the people who have carried on Sir Isaac's notions
have been allowed to come here.
"I hope you have not forgotten to tell how badly Sir
Isaac used Mr. Flamsteed about that book. I have never
quite forgiven him; as for Mr. Flamsteed, he says that as
long as he does not come for observations, he does not care
about it, and that he will never trust him with any papers
again as long as he lives. I shall never forget what a rage
he came home in when Sir Isaac had called him a puppy.
He struck the stairs all the way up with his crutch, and said
puppy at every step, and all the evening, as soon as ever
a star appeared in the telescope, he called it puppy. I could
not think what was the matter, and when I asked, he only
called me puppy.
"I shall be very glad to see you if you come our way.
Pray keep up some appearances, and go to church a little.
St. Peter is always uncommonly civil to astronomers, and in-
deed to all scientific persons, and never bothers them with
many questions. If they can make anything out of the case,
he is sure to let them in. Indeed, he says, it is perfectly
out of the question expecting a mathematician to be as re-
ligious as an apostle, but that it is as much as his place is
worth to let in the greater number of those who come. So
try if you cannot manage it, for I am very curious to know
whether you found all the letters. I remain, dear sir, your
faithful servant,
"MARGARET FLAMSTEED.
Francis Baily, Esq.
"P.S. Mr. Flamsteed has come in, and says he left Sir
Isaac riding cockhorse upon the nebula, and poring over it
as if it were a book. He has brought in his old acquaint-
ance Ozanam,8 who says that it was always his maxim on
8 See note 7, page 161.
ON STEVIN. 313
earth, that 'il appartient aux docteurs de Sorbonne de dis-
puter, au Pape de prononcer, et au mathematicien d'aller en
Paradis en ligne perpendiculaire.' "9
ON STEVIN.
The Secretary of the Admiralty was completely extin-
guished. I can recall but two instances of demolition as
complete, though no doubt there are many others. The first
is in
Simon Stevin1 and M. Dumortier. Nieuport, 1845, I2mo.
M. Dumortier was a member of the Academy of Brus-
sels : there was a discussion, I believe, about a national
Pantheon for Belgium. The name of Stevinus suggested
itself as naturally as that of Newton to an Englishman;
probably no Belgian is better known to foreigners as illus-
trious in science. Stevinus is great in the Mecanique Ana-
lytique of Lagrange f Stevinus is great in the Tristram
Shandy of Sterne. M. Dumortier, who believed that not
one Belgian in a thousand knew Stevinus, and who confesses
with ironical shame that he was not the odd man, protested
against placing the statue of an obscure man in the Pan-
theon, to give foreigners the notion that Belgium could
show nothing greater. The work above named is a slash-
ing retort: any one who knows the history of science ever
so little may imagine what a dressing was given, by mere
extract from foreign writers. The tract is a letter signed
J. du Fan, but this is a pseudonym of Mr. Van de Weyer.3
The Academician says Stevinus was a man who was not
"Tt becomes the doctors of the Sorbonne to dispute, the Pope
to decree, and the mathematician to go to Paradise on a perpen-
dicular line."
1 See note 10, page 83.
8 See note 3, page 288.
s Sylvain van de Weyer, who was born at Louvain in 1802. He
was a jurist and statesman, holding the portfolio for foreign affairs
(1831-1833), and being at one time ambassador to England.
314 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
without merit for the time at which he lived: Sir! is the
answer, he was as much before his own time as you are
behind yours. How came a man who had never heard of
Stevinus to be a member of the Brussels Academy ?
The second story was told me by Mr. Crabb Robinson,4
who was long connected with the Times, and intimately ac-
quainted with Mr. W***.5 When W*** was an under-
graduate at Cambridge, taking a walk, he came to a stile,
on which sat a bumpkin who did not make way for him:
the gown in that day looked down on the town. "Why do
you not make way for a gentleman?" — "Eh?" — "Yes, why
do you not move? You deserve a good hiding, and you
shall get it if you don't take care!" The bumpkin raised
his muscular figure on its feet, patted his menacer on the
head, and said, very quietly, — "Young man! I'm Cribb."6
W*** seized the great pugilist's hand, and shook it warmly,
got him to his own rooms in college, collected some friends,
and had a symposium which lasted until the large end of
the small hours.
FINLEYSON AS A PARADOXER.
God's Creation of the Universe as it is, in support of the Scrip-
tures. By Mr. Finleyson.1 Sixth Edition, 1835, 8vo.
4 Henry Crabb Robinson (1775-1867), correspondent of the
Times at Altona and in the Peninsula, and later foreign editor.
He was one of the founders of the Athenaeum Club and of University
College, London. He seems to have known pretty much every one
of his day, and his posthumous Diary attracted attention when it
appeared.
5 Was this Whewell, who was at Trinity from 1812 to 1816 and
became a fellow in 1817?
8 Tom Cribb (1781-1848) the champion pugilist. He had worked
as a coal porter and hence received his nickname, the Black Dia-
mond.
1John Finleyson, or Finlayson, was born in Scotland in 1770
and died in London in 1854. He published a number of pamphlets
that made a pretense to being scientific. Among his striking phrases
and sentences are the statements that the stars were made "to amuse
us in observing them"; that the earth is "not shaped like a garden
turnip as the Newtonians make it," and that the stars are "oval-
shaped immense masses of frozen water." The first edition of the
work here mentioned appeared at London in 1830.
FINLEYSON AS A PARADOXER. 315
This writer, by his own account, succeeded in delivering
the famous Lieut. Richard Brothers2 from the lunatic
asylum, and tending him, not as a keeper but as a disciple,
till he died. Brothers was, by his own account, the nephew
of the Almighty, and Finleyson ought to have been the
nephew of Brothers. For Napoleon came to him in a
vision, with a broken sword and an arrow in his side, be-
seeching help: Finleyson pulled out the arrow, but refused
to give a new sword; whereby poor Napoleon, though he
got off with life, lost the battle of Waterloo. This story
was written to the Duke of Wellington, ending with "I
pulled out the arrow, but left the broken sword. Your
Grace can supply the rest, and what followed is amply re-
corded in history." The book contains a long account of
applications to Government to do three things: to pay
2,000/. for care taken of Brothers, to pay 10,000/. for dis-
covery of the longitude, and to prohibit the teaching of
the Newtonian system, which makes God a liar. The suc-
cessive administrations were threatened that they would
have to turn out if they refused, which, it is remarked,
came to pass in every case. I have heard of a joke of Lord
Macaulay, that the House of Commons must be the Beast
of the Revelations, since 658 members, with the officers
necessary for the action of the House, make 666. Macaulay
read most things, and the greater part of the rest: so that
he might be suspected of having appropriated as a joke
one of Finleyson's serious points — "I wrote Earl Grey3
upon the 13th of July, 1831, informing him that his Reform
2 Richard Brothers (1757-1824) was a native of Newfoundland.
He went to London when he was about 30, and a little later set forth
his claim to being a descendant of David, prince of the Hebrews,
and ruler of the world. He was confined as a criminal lunatic in
1795 but was released in 1806.
3 Charles Grey (1764-1845), second Earl Grey, Viscount Howick,
was then Prime Minister. The Reform Bill was introduced and de-
feated in 1831. The following year, with the Royal guarantees to
allow him to create peers, he finally carried the bill in spite of "the
number of the beast."
316 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
Bill could not be carried, as it reduced the members below
the present amount of 658, which, with the eight principal
clerks or officers of the House, make the number 666."
But a witness has informed me that Macaulay's joke was
made in his hearing a great many years before the Reform
Bill was proposed ; in fact, when both were students at
Cambridge. Earl Grey was, according to Finleyson, a des-
cendant of Uriah the Hittite. For a specimen of Lieut.
Brothers, this book would be worth picking up. Perhaps
a specimen of the Lieutenant's poetry may be acceptable:
Brothers loquitur, remember:
"Jerusalem ! Jerusalem ! shall be built again !
More rich, more grand then ever;
And through it shall Jordan flow!(!)
My people's favourite river.
There I'll erect a splendid throne,
And build on the wasted place;
To fulfil my ancient covenant
To King David and his race.
********
"Euphrates' stream shall flow with ships,
And also my wedded Nile;
And on my coast shall cities rise,
Each one distant but a mile.
*******
"My friends the Russians on the north
With Persees and Arabs round,
Do show the limits of my land,
Here! Here! then I mark the ground."
ON THEOLOGICAL PARADOXERS.
Among the paradoxers are some of the theologians who
in their own organs of the press venture to criticise science.
These may hold their ground when they confine themselves
to the geology of long past periods and to general cosmog-
ony : for it is the tug of Greek against Greek ; and both sides
deal much in what is grand when called hypothesis, petty
when called supposition. And very often they are not con-
spicuous when they venture upon things within knowledge ;
ON THEOLOGICAL PARADOXERS.
317
wrong, but not quite wrong enough for a Budget of Para-
doxes. One case, however, is destined to live, as an in-
stance of a school which finds writers, editors, and readers.
The double stars have been seen from the seventeenth cen-
tury, and diligently observed by many from the time of Wm.
Herschel, who first devoted continuous attention to them.
The year 1836 was that of a remarkable triumph of astro-
nomical prediction. The theory of gravitation had been
applied to the motion of binary stars about each other, in
elliptic orbits, and in that year the two stars of y Virginis,
as had been predicted should happen within a few years of
that time — for years are small quantities in such long revo-
lutions— the two stars came to their nearest: in fact, they
appeared to be one as much with the telescope as without it.
This remarkable turning-point of the history of a long and
widely-known branch of astronomy was followed by an
article in the Church of England Quarterly Review for
April 1837, written against the Useful Knowledge Society.
The notion that there are any such things as double stars
is (p. 460) implied to be imposture or delusion, as in the
following extract. I suspect that I myself am the Sidrophel,
and that my companion to the maps of the stars, written for
the Society and published in 1836, is the work to which the
writer refers:
"We have forgotten the name of that Sidrophel who
lately discovered that the fixed stars were not single stars,
but appear in the heavens like soles at Billingsgate, in pairs ;
while a second astronomer, under the influence of that com-
petition in trade which the political economists tell us is
so advantageous to the public, professes to show us, through
his superior telescope, that the apparently single stars are
really three. Before such wondrous mandarins of science,
how continually must homunculi like ourselves keep in the
background, lest we come between the wind and their
nobility."
If the homunculus who wrote this be still above ground,
318 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
how devoutly must he hope he may be able to keep in the
background ! But the chief blame falls on the editor. The
title of the article is:
''The new school of superficial pantology; a speech in-
tended to be delivered before a defunct Mechanics' Insti-
tute. By Swallow Swift, late M.P. for the Borough of
Cockney-Cloud, Witsbury : reprinted Balloon Island, Bubble
year, month Ventose. Long live Charlatan!"
As a rule, orthodox theologians should avoid humor, a
weapon which all history shows to be very difficult to employ
in favor of establishment, and which, nine times out of ten,
leaves its wielder fighting on the side of heterodoxy. Theo-
logical argument, when not enlivened by bigotry, is seldom
worse than narcotic: but theological fun, when not covert
heresy, is almost always sialagogue. The article in question
is a craze, which no editor should have admitted, except after
severe inspection by qualified persons. The author of this
wit committed a mistake which occurs now and then in old
satire, the confusion between himself and the party aimed
at. He ought to be reviewing this fictitious book, but every
now and then the article becomes the book itself; not by
quotation, but by the writer forgetting that he is not Mr.
Swallow Swift, but his reviewer. In fact he and Mr. S.
Swift had each had a dose of the Devil's Elixir. A novel
so called, published about forty years ago, proceeds upon
a legend of this kind. If two parties both drink of the
elixir, their identities get curiously intermingled ; each turns
up in the character of the other throughout the three vol-
umes, without having his ideas clear as to whether he be
himself or the other. There is a similar confusion in the
answer made to the famous E pistole? Obscurorum Viro-
it is headed Lamentationes Obscurorum Virorum.2
1The letters of obscure men, the Epistola obscurorum virorum
ad venerabilem virum Magistrum Ortuinum Gratium Dauentriensem,
by Joannes Crotus, Ulrich von Hutten, and others appeared at
Venice about 1516.
2 The lamentations of obscure men, the Lamentationes obscuro-
ON THEOLOGICAL PARADOXERS. 319
This is not a retort of the writer, throwing back the impu-
tation: the obscure men who had been satirized are them-
selves made, by name, to wince under the disapprobation
which the Pope had expressed at the satire upon themselves.
Of course the book here reviewed is a transparent for-
gery. But I do not know how often it may have happened
that the book, in the journals which always put a title at the
head, may have been written after the review. About the
year 1830 a friend showed me the proof of an article of his
on the malt tax, for the next number of the Edinburgh
Review. Nothing was wanting except the title of the book
reviewed; I asked what it was. He sat down, and wrote
as follows at the head, "The Maltster's Guide (pp. 124),"
and said that would do as well as anything.
But I myself, it will be remarked, have employed such
humor as I can command "in favor of establishment."
What it is worth I am not to judge ; as usual in such cases,
those who are of my cabal pronounce it good, but cyclom-
eters and other paradoxers either call it very poor, or com-
mend it as sheer buffoonery. Be it one or the other, I ob-
serve that all the effective ridicule is, in this subject, on
the side of establishment. This is partly due to the diffi-
culty of quizzing plain and sober demonstration ; but so
much, if not more, to the ignorance of the paradoxers.
For that which cannot be ridiculed, can be turned into ridi-
cule by those who know how. But by the time a person
is deep enough in negative quantities, and impossible quan-
tities, to be able to satirize them, he is caught, and being
inclined to become a user, shrinks from being an abuser.
Imagine a person with a gift of ridicule, and knowledge
enough, trying his hand on the junction of the assertions
which he will find in various books of algebra. First, that
a negative quantity has no logarithm ; secondly, that a neg-
rum virorum, non prohibcte per sedem Apostolicam. Epistola D.
Erasmi Roterodami -.quid de obscuris sentiat, by G. Ortwinus, ap-
peared at Cologne in. 1518:
320 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
ative quantity has no square root ; thirdly, that the first
non-existent is to the second as the circumference of a
circle to its diameter. One great reason of the allowance
of such unsound modes of expression is the confidence felt
by the writers that V ~~ 1 anc^ ^°S (~~ 1) w^ niake their way,
however inaccurately described. I heartily wish that the
cyclometers had knowledge enough to attack the weak
points of algebraical diction : they would soon work a bene-
ficial change.3
AN EARLY METEOROLOGIST.
Recueil de ma vie, mes ouvrages et mes pensees. Par Thomas
Ignace Marie Forster.1 Brussels, 1836, I2mo.
Mr. Forster, an Englishman settled at Bruges, was an
observer in many subjects, but especially in meteorology.
He communicated to the Astronomical Society, in 1848, the
information that, in the registers kept by his grandfather,
his father, and himself, beginning in 1767, new moon on
Saturday was followed, nineteen times out of twenty, by
twenty days of rain and wind. This statement being pub-
lished in the Athen&um, a cluster of correspondents averred
that the belief is common among seamen, in all parts of the
world, and among landsmen too. Some one quoted a dis-
tich:
"Saturday's moon and Sunday's full
Never were fine and never wull."
8 The criticism was timely when De Morgan wrote it. At present
it would have but little force with respect to the better class of
algebras.
1 Thomas Ignatius Maria Forster (1789-1860) was more of a
man than one would infer from this satire upon his theory. He
was a naturalist, astronomer, and physiologist. In 1812 he published
his Researches about Atmospheric Phenomena, and seven years later
(July 3, 1819) he discovered a comet. With Sir Richard Phillips
he founded a Meteorological Society, but it was short lived. He
declined a fellowship in the Royal Society because he disapproved
of certain of its rules, so that he had a recognized standing in his
day. The work mentioned by De Morgan is the second edition,
the first having appeared at Frankfort on the Main in 1835 under
the title, Recueil des ouvrages et des pensees d'un physicien et
metaphysicien.
AN EARLY METEOROLOGIST. 321
Another brought forward:
"If a Saturday's moon
Comes once in seven years it comes too soon."
Mr. Forster did not say he was aware of the proverbial
character of the phenomenon. He was a very eccentric
man. He treated his dogs as friends, and buried them with
ceremony. He quarrelled with the cure of his parish, who
remarked that he could not take his dogs to heaven with
him. I will go nowhere, said he, where I cannot take my
dog. He was a sincere Catholic : but there is a point beyond
which even churches have no influence.
The following is some account of the announcement of
1849. The Athenaum (Feb. 17), giving an account of the
meeting of the Astronomical Society in December, 1858,
says:
"Dr. Forster of Bruges, who is well known as a meteor-
ologist, made a communication at which our readers will
stare : he declares that by journals of the weather kept by his
grandfather, father, and himself, ever since 1767, to the
present time, whenever the new moon has fallen on a Satur-
day, the following twenty days have been wet and windy, in
nineteen cases out of twenty. In spite of our friend Zadkiel2
and the others who declare that we would smother every
truth that does not happen to agree with us, we are glad
to see that the Society had the sense to publish this com-
munication, coming, as it does, from a veteran observer,
and one whose love of truth is undoubted. It must be
that the fact is so set down in the journals, because Dr.
Forster says it: and whether it be only a fact of the jour-
nals, or one of the heavens, can soon be tried. The new
moon of March next, falls on Saturday the 24th, at 2 in the
afternoon. We shall certainly look out."
2 Zadkiel, whose real name was Richard James Morrison (1795-
1874), was in his early years an officer in the navy. In 1831 he
began the publication of the Herald of Astrology, which was con-
tinued as Zadkiel9 s Almanac. His name became familiar through-
out Great Britain as a result.
322 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
The following appeared in the number of March 31 :
"The first Saturday Moon since Dr. Forster's announce-
ment came off a week ago. We had previously received
a number of letters from different correspondents — all to
the effect that the notion of new moon on Saturday bringing
wet weather is one of widely extended currency. One cor-
respondent (who gives his name) states that he has con-
stantly heard it at sea, and among the farmers and peas-
antry in Scotland, Ireland, and the North of England. He
proceeds thus: 'Since 1826, nineteen years of the time I
have spent in a seafaring life. I have constantly observed,
though unable to account for, the phenomenon. I have also
heard the stormy qualities of a Saturday's moon remarked
by American, French, and Spanish seamen; and, still more
distant, a Chinese pilot, who was once doing duty on board
my vessel seemed to be perfectly cognizant of the fact.'
So that it seems we have, in giving currency to what we
only knew as a very curious communication from an earnest
meteorologist, been repeating what is common enough
among sailors and farmers. Another correspondent affirms
that the thing is most devoutly believed in by seamen ; who
would as soon sail on a Friday as be in the Channel after
a Saturday moon. — After a tolerable course of dry weather,
there was some snow, accompanied by wind on Saturday
last, here in London ; there were also heavy louring clouds.
Sunday was cloudy and cold, with a little rain ; Monday
was louring, Tuesday unsettled ; Wednesday quite over-
clouded, with rain in the morning. The present occasion
shows only a general change of weather with a tendency
towards rain. If Dr. Forster's theory be true, it is decidedly
one of the minor instances, as far as London weather is con-
cerned.— It will take a good deal of evidence to make us
believe in the omen of a Saturday Moon. But, as we have
said of the Poughkeepsie Seer, the thing is very curious
whether true or false. Whence comes this universal proverb
— and a hundred others — while the meteorological observer
AN EARLY METEOROLOGIST. 323
cannot, when he puts down a long series of results, detect
any weather cycles at all ? One of our correspondents wrote
us something of a lecture for encouraging, he said, the
notion that names could influence the weather. He mis-
takes the question. If there be any weather cycles depend-
ing on the moon, it is possible that one of them may be so
related to the week cycle of seven days, as to show recur-
rences which are of the kind stated, or any other. For ex-
ample, we know that if the new moon of March fall on a
Saturday in this year, it will most probably fall on a Satur-
day nineteen years hence. This is not connected with the
spelling of Saturday — but with the connection between the
motions of the sun and moon. Nothing but the Moon can
settle the question — and we are willing to wait on her for
further information. If the adage be true, then the phi-
losopher has missed what lies before his eyes ; if false, then
the world can be led by the nose in spite of the eyes. Both
these things happen sometimes ; and we are willing to take
whichever of the two solutions is borne out by future facts.
In the mean time, we announce the next Saturday Moon
for the 18th of August."
How many coincidences are required to establish a law
of connection? It depends on the way in which the mind
views the matter in question. Many of the paradoxers are
quite set up by a very few instances. I will now tell a story
about myself, and then ask them a question.
So far as instances can prove a law, the following is
proved : no failure has occurred. Let a clergyman be known
to me, whether by personal acquaintance or correspondence,
or by being frequently brought before me by those with
whom I am connected in private life: that clergyman does
not, except in few cases, become a bishop ; but if he become
a bishop, he is sure, first or last, to become an arch-bishop.
This has happened in every case. As follows:
1. My last schoolmaster, a former Fellow of Oriel, was
324 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
a very intimate college friend of Richard Whately,3 a
younger man. Struck by his friend's talents, he used to
talk of him perpetually, and predict his future eminence.
Before I was sixteen, and before Whately had even given his
Bampton Lectures, I was very familiar with his name, and
some of his sayings. I need not say that he became Arch-
bishop of Dublin.
2. When I was a child, a first cousin of John Bird Sum-
ner* married a sister of my mother. I cannot remember the
time when I first heard his name, but it was made very
familiar to me. In time he became Bishop of Chester, and
then, Archbishop of Canterbury. My reader may say that
Dr. C. R. Sumner,5 Bishop of Winchester, has just as good a
claim: but it is not so: those connected with me had more
knowledge of Dr. J. B. Sumner ;• and said nothing, or next
to nothing, of the other. Rumor says that the Bishop of
Winchester has declined an Archbishopric : if so, my rule is
a rule of gradations.
3. Thomas Musgrave,7 Fellow of Trinity College, Cam-
bridge, was Dean of the college when I was an under-
graduate: this brought me into connection with him, he
giving impositions for not going to chapel, I writing them
out according. We had also friendly intercourse in after
life ; I forgiving, he probably forgetting. Honest Tom Mus-
8 See note 1, page 246.
* Sumner (1780-1862) was an Eton boy. He went to King's
College, Cambridge, and was elected fellow in 1801. He took many
honors, and in 1807 became M.A. He was successively Canon of
Durham (1820), Bishop of Chester (1828), and Archbishop of
Canterbury (1848). Although he voted for the Catholic Relief Bill
(1829) and the Reform Bill (1832), he opposed the removal of
Jewish disabilities.
"Charles Richard Sumner (1790-1874) was not only Bishop of
Winchester (1827), but also Bishop of Llandaff and Dean of St.
Paul's, London (1826). He lost the king's favor by voting for the
Catholic Relief Bill.
6 John Bird Sumner, brother of Charles Richard.
'Thomas Musgrave (1788-1860) became Fellow of Trinity in
1812, and senior proctor in 1831. He was also Dean of Bristol.
AN EARLY METEOROLOGIST. 325
grave, as he used to be called, became Bishop of Hereford,
and Archbishop of York.
4. About the time when I went to Cambridge, I heard
a great deal about Mr. C. T. Longley,8 of* Christchurch,
from a cousin of my own of the same college, long since
deceased, who spoke of him much, and most affectionately.
Dr. Longley passed from Durham to York, and thence to
Canterbury. I cannot quite make out the two Archbishop-
rics ; I do not remember any other private channel through
which the name came to me: perhaps Dr. Longley, having
two strings to his bow, would have been one archbishop if
I had never heard of him.
5. When Dr. Wm. Thomson9 was appointed to the see
of Gloucester in 1861, he and I had been correspondents
on the subject of logic — on which we had both written — for
about fourteen years. On his elevation I wrote to him,
giving the preceding instances, and informing him that he
would certainly be an Archbishop. The case was a strong
one, and the law acted rapidly ; for Dr. Thomson's elevation
to the see of York took place in 1862.
Here are five cases; and there is no opposing instance.
I have searched the almanacs since 1828, and can find no
instance of a Bishop not finally Archbishop of whom I had
known through private sources, direct or indirect. Now
what do my paradoxers say? Is this a pre-established har-
mony, or a chain of coincidences? And how many in-
stances will it require to establish a law?10
"Charles Thomas Longley (1794-1868) was educated at West-
minster School and at Christ Church, Oxford. He became M.A. in
1818 and D.D. in 1829. Besides the bishoprics mentioned he was
Bishop of Ripon (1836-1856), and before that was headmaster of
Harrow (1829-1836).
"Thomson (1819-1890) was scholar and fellow of Queen's Col-
lege, Oxford. He became chaplain to the Queen in 1859.
10 This is worthy of the statistical psychologists of the present
day.
326 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
THE HERSCHEL HOAX.
Some account of the great astronomical discoveries lately made
by Sir John Herschel at the Cape of Good Hope. Second
Edition. London, I2mo. 1836.
This is a curious hoax, evidently written by a person
versed in astronomy and clever at introducing probable
circumstances and undesigned coincidences.1 It first ap-
peared in a newspaper. It makes Sir J. Herschel discover
men, animals, etc. in the moon, of which much detail is
given. There seems to have been a French edition, the
original, and English editions in America, whence the
work came into Britain: but whether the French was pub-
lished in America or at Paris I do not know. There is no
doubt that it was produced in the United States, by M.
Nicollet,2 an astronomer, once of Paris, and a fugitive of
some kind. About him I have heard two stories. First
that he fled to America with funds not his own, and that this
book was a mere device to raise the wind. Secondly, that
he was a protege of Laplace, and of the Polignac party,
and also an outspoken man. That after the revolution he
was so obnoxious to the republican party that he judged it
prudent to quit France; which he did in debt, leaving
money for his creditors, but not enough, with M. Bouvard.
In America he connected himself with an assurance office.
1 The famous Moon Hoax was written by Richard Adams Locke,
who was born in New York in 1800 and died in Staten Island in
1871. He was at one time editor of the Sun, and the Hoax appeared
in that journal in 1835. It was reprinted in London (1836) and
Germany, and was accepted seriously by most readers. It was pub-
lished in book form in New York in 1852 under the. title The Moon
Hoax. Locke also wrote another hoax, the Lost Manuscript of
Mungo Park, but it attracted relatively little attention.
*It is true that Jean-Nicolas Nicollet (1756-1843) was at that
time in the United States, but there does not seem to be any very
tangible evidence to connect him with the story. He was secretary
and librarian of the Paris observatory (1817), member of the
Bureau of Longitudes (1822), and teacher of mathematics in the
Lycee Louis-le-Grand. Having lost his money through speculations
he left France for the United States in 1831 and became connected
with the government survey of the Mississippi Valley.
SOME MORE METEOROLOGY. 327
The moon-story was written, and sent to France, chiefly
with the intention of entrapping M. Arago, Nicollet's es-
pecial foe, into the belief of it. And those who narrate
this version of the story wind up by saying that M. Arago
was entrapped, and circulated the wonders through Paris,
until a letter from Nicollet to M. Bouvard3 explained the
hoax. I have no personal knowledge of either story: but
as the poor man had to endure the first, it is but right that
the second should be told with it.
SOME MORE METEOROLOGY.
The Weather Almanac for the Year 1838. By P. Murphy,1 Esq.,
M.N.S.
By M. N. S. is meant member of no society. This al-
manac bears on the title-page two recommendations. The
Morning Post calls it one of the most important-if-true
publications of our generation. The Times says: "If the
basis of his theory prove sound, and its principles be sanc-
tioned by a more extended experience, it is not too much to
say that the importance of the discovery is equal to that
of the longitude." Cautious journalist! Three times that
of the longitude would have been too little to say. That the
landsman might predict the weather of all the year, at its
beginning, Jack would cheerfully give up astronomical
longitude — the problem — altogether, and fall back on chro-
nometers with the older Ls, lead, latitude, and look-out,
applied to dead-reckoning. Mr. Murphy attempted to give
the weather day by day : thus the first seven days of March
= This was Alexis Bouvard (1767-1843), who made most of the
computations for Laplace's Mecanique celeste (1793). He discovered
eight new comets and calculated their orbits. In his tables of
Uranus (1821) he attributed certain perturbations to the presence
of an undiscovered planet, but unlike Leverrier and Adams he did
not follow up this clue and thus discover Neptune.
1 Patrick Murphy (1782-1847) awoke to find himself famous
because of his natural guess that there would be very cold weather
on January 20, although that is generally the season of lowest tem-
perature. It turned out that his forecasts were partly right on 168
days and very wrong on 197 days.
328 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
bore Changeable ; Rain ; Rain ; Rain - win d ; Changeable ;
Fair; Changeable. To aim at such precision as to put a
fair day between two changeable ones by weather theory
was going very near the wind and weather too. Murphy
opened the year with cold and frost ; and the weather did the
same. But Murphy, opposite to Saturday, January 20, put
down "Fair, Probable lowest degree of winter temperature."
When this Saturday came, it was not merely the probably
coldest of 1838, but certainly the coldest of many consecu-
tive years. Without knowing anything of Murphy, I felt
it prudent to cover my nose with my glove as I walked the
street at eight in the morning. The fortune of the Almanac
was made. Nobody waited to see whether the future would
dement the prophecy : the shop was beset in a manner which
brought the police to keep order ; and it was said that the
Almanac for 1838 was a gain of 5,000/. to the owners. It
very soon appeared that this was only a lucky hit: the
weather-prophet had a modified reputation for a few years ;
and is now no more heard of. A work of his will presently
appear in the list.
THE GREAT PYRAMIDS.
Letter from Alexandria on the evidence of the practical appli-
cation of the quadrature of the circle in the great pyramids of
Gizeh. By H. C. Agnew,1 Esq. London, 1838, 4to.
1 He seems to have written nothing else. If one wishes to enter
into the subject of the mathematics of the Great Pyramid there is
an extensive literature awaiting him. Richard William Howard Vyse
(1784-1853) published in 1840 his Operations carried on at the Pyra-
mids of Gieeh in 1837, and in this he made a beginning of a scien-
tific metrical study of the subject. Charles Piazzi Smyth (1819-
1900), astronomer Royal for Scotland (1845-1888) was much carried
away with the number mysticism of the Great Pyramid, so much so that
he published in 1864 a work entitled Our Inheritance in the Great
Pyramid, in which his vagaries were set forth. Although he was
then a Fellow of the Royal Society (1857), his work was so ill re-
ceived that when he offered a paper on the subject it was rejected
(1874) and he resigned in consequence of this action. The latest
and perhaps the most scholarly of all investigators of the subject
is William Matthew Flinders Petrie (born in 1853), Edwards pro-
fessor of Egyptology at University College, London, whose Pyra-
mids and Temples of Gizeh (1883) and subsequent works are justly
esteemed as authorities.
THE MATHEMATICS OF A CREED. 329
Mr. Agnew detects proportions which he thinks were
suggested by those of the circumference and diameter of a
circle.
THE MATHEMATICS OF A CREED.
The creed of St. Athanasius proved by a mathematical parallel.
Before you censure, condemn, or approve; read, examine, and
understand. E. B. REViLO.1 London, 1839, 8vo.
This author really believed himself, and was in earnest.
He is not the only person who has written nonsense by con-
founding the mathematical infinite (of quantity) with what
speculators now more correctly express by the unlimited,
the unconditioned, or the absolute. This tract is worth
preserving, as the extreme case of a particular kind. The
following is a specimen. Infinity being represented by 00,
as usual, and /, s, g, being finite integers, the three Persons
are denoted by oo^ (woo)*, oo^ the finite fraction m repre-
senting human nature, as opposed to oo. The clauses of the
Creed are then given with their mathematical parallels. I
extract a couple :
"But the Godhead of the "It has been shown that
Father, of the Son, and of oo/, cos, and (wOO)*, to-
the Holy Ghost, is all one: gether, are but 00, and that
the glory equal, the Majesty each is oo, and any magni-
co-eternal. tude in existence represented
kby 00 always was and al-
ways will be: for it cannot
be made, or destroyed, and
yet exists.
*As De Morgan subsequently found, this name reversed be-
comes Oliver B...e, for Oliver Byrne, one of the odd characters
among the minor mathematical writers of the middle of the last
century. One of his most curious works is The first six Books of
the Elements of Euclid; in which coloured diagrams and symbols
are used instead of letters (1847). There is some merit in speak-
ing of the red triangle instead of the triangle ABC, but not enough
to give the method any standing. His Dual Arithmetic (1863-1867)
was also a curious work.
330 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
"Equal to the Father, as "(wOO)* is equal to oof as
touching his Godhead: and touching 00, but inferior to
inferior to the Father, as cof as touching m: because
touching his Manhood." m is not infinite."
I might have passed this over, as beneath even my
present subject, but for the way in which I became ac-
quainted with it. A bookseller, not the publisher, handed
it to me over his counter: one who had published mathe-
matical works. He said, with an air of important communi-
cation, Have you seen this, Sir! In reply, I recommended
him to show it to my friend Mr. , for whom he had
published mathematics. Educated men, used to books and to
the converse of learned men, look with mysterious wonder
on such productions as this : for which reason I have made
a quotation which many will judge had better have been
omitted. But it would have been an imposition on the pub-
lic if I were, omitting this and some other uses of the
Bible and Common Prayer, to pretend that I had given a
true picture of my school.
[Since the publication of the above, it has been stated
that the author is Mr. Oliver Byrne, the author of the Dual
Arithmetic mentioned further on: E. B. Revilo seems to be
obviously a reversal.]
LOGIC HAS NO PARADOXERS.
Old and new logic contrasted : being an attempt to elucidate, for
ordinary comprehension, how Lord Bacon delivered the human
mind from its 2,000 years' enslavement under Aristotle. By
Justin Brenan.1 London, 1839, I2mo.
Logic, though the other exact science, has not had the
sort of assailants who have clustered about mathematics.
There is a sect which disputes the utility of logic, but there
are no special points, like the quadrature of the circle, which
1 Brenan also wrote on English composition (1829), a work that
went through fourteen editions by 1865 ; a work entitled The For-
eigner's English Conjugator (1831), and a work on the national
debt.
LOGIC HAS NO PARADOXERS. 331
excite dispute among those who admit other things. The
old story about Aristotle having one logic to trammel us,
and Bacon another to set us free, — always laughed at by
those who really knew either Aristotle or Bacon, — now
begins to be understood by a large section of the educated
world. The author of this tract connects the old logic with
the indecencies of the classical writers, and the new with
moral purity: he appeals to women, who, "when they see
plainly the demoralizing tendency of syllogistic logic, they
will no doubt exert their powerful influence against it, and
support the Baconian method." This is the only work
against logic which I can introduce, but it is a rare one, I
mean in contents. I quote the author's idea of a syllogism :
"The basis of this system is the syllogism. This is a
form of couching the substance of your argument or in-
vestigation into one short line or sentence — then corrobo-
rating or supporting it in another, and drawing your con-
clusion or proof in a third."
On this definition he gives an example, as follows : "Every
sin deserves death," the substance of the "argument or in-
vestigation." Then comes, "Every unlawful wish is a sin,"
which "corroborates or supports" the preceding: and, lastly,
"therefore every unlawful wish deserves death," which is
the "conclusion or proof." We learn, also, that "sometimes
the first is called the premises (sic), and sometimes the
first premiss"; as also that "the first is sometimes called
the proposition, or subject, or affirmative, and the next the
predicate, and sometimes the middle term." To which is
added, with a mark of exclamation at the end, "but in ana-
lyzing the syllogism, there is a middle term, and a predicate
too, in each of the lines!" It is clear that Aristotle never
enslaved this mind.
I have said that logic has no paradoxers, but I was
speaking of old time. This science has slept until our own
day: Hamilton2 says there has been "no progress made in
a See note 7, page 1 12.
332 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
the general development of the syllogism since the time of
Aristotle ; and in regard to the few partial improvements,
the professed historians seem altogether ignorant." But in
our time, the paradoxer, the opponent of common opinion,
has appeared in this field. I do not refer to Prof. Boole,3
who is not a paradoxer, but a discoverer: his system could
neither oppose nor support common opinion, for its grounds
were not in the conception of any one. I speak especially
of two others, who fought like cat and dog: one was dog-
matical, the other categorical. The first was Hamilton him-
self— Sir William Hamilton of Edinburgh, the metaphysi-
cian,( not Sir William Rowan Hamilton* of Dublin, the
mathematician J a combination of peculiar genius with un-
precedented learning, erudite in all he could want except
mathematics, for which he had no turn, and in which he
had not even a schoolboy's knowledge, thanks to the Oxford
of his younger day. The other was the author of this
work, so fully described in Hamilton's writings that there
is no occasion to describe him here. I shall try to say a few
words in common language about the paradoxers.
Hamilton's great paradox was the quantification of the
predicate; a fearful phrase, easily explained. We all know
that when we say "Men are animals/' a form wholly un-
quantified in phrase, we speak of all men, but not of all
animals: it is some or all, some may be all for aught the
proposition says. This some-may-be-all-for-aught-we-say,
or not-none, is the logician's some. One would suppose
8 See note 2, page 261.
*Sir William Rowan Hamilton (1805-1865), the discoverer of
quaternions (1852), was an infant prodigy, competing with Zerah
Colburn as a child. He was a linguist of remarkable powers, being
able, at thirteen years of age, to boast that he knew as many languages
as he had lived years. When only sixteen he found an error in
Laplace's Mecanique celeste. When only twenty-two he was ap-
pointed Andrews professor of astronomy, and he soon after became
Astronomer Royal of Ireland. He was knighted in 1835. His earlier
work was on optics, his Theory of Systems of Rays appearing in
1823. In 1827 he published a paper on the principle of Varying Ac*
tion. He also wrote on dynamics.
LOGIC HAS NO PARADOXERS. 333
that "all men are some animals," would have been the log-
ical phrase in all time: but the predicate never was quanti-
fied. The few who alluded to the possibility of such a thing
found reasons for not adopting it over and above the great
reason, that Aristotle did not adopt it. For Aristotle never
ruled in physics or metaphysics in the old time with near so
much of absolute sway as he has ruled in logic down to our
own time. The logicians knew that in the proposition "all
men are animals" the "animal" is not universal, but particu-
lar yet no one dared to say that all men are some animals,
and to invent the phrase, "some animals are all men" until
Hamilton leaped the ditch, and not only completed a system
of enunciation, but applied it to syllogism.
My own case is as peculiar as his: I have proposed to
introduce mathematical thought into logic to an extent which
makes the old stagers cry:
"St. Aristotle ! what wild notions !
Serve a ne exeat regno6 on him !"
Hard upon twenty years ago, a friend and opponent
who stands high in these matters, and who is not nearly
such a sectary of Aristotle and establishment as most, wrote
to me as follows : "It is said that next to the man who forms
the taste of the nation, the greatest genius is the man who
corrupts it. I mean therefore no disrespect, but very much
the reverse, when I say that I have hitherto always consid-
ered you as a great logical heresiarch." Coleridge says he
thinks that it was Sir Joshua Reynolds who made the re-
mark: which, to copy a bull I once heard, I cannot deny,
because I was not there when he said it. My friend did not
call me to repentance and reconciliation with the church:
I think he had a guess that I was a reprobate sinner. My
offences at that time were but small: I went on spinning
syllogism systems, all alien from the common logic, until I
had six, the initial letters of which, put together, from the
8 "Let him not leave the kingdom," — a legal phrase.
334 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
names I gave before I saw what they would make, bar all
repentance by the words
RUE NOT!
leaving to the followers of the old school the comfortable
option of placing the letters thus:
TRUE? NO!
It should however be stated that the question is not
about absolute truth or falsehood. No one denies that any-
thing I call an inference is an inference: they say that my
alterations are extra-logical-, that they are material, not
formal', and that logic is a formal science.
The distinction between material and formal is easily
made, where the usual perversions are not required. A form
is an empty machine, such as "Every X is Y"; it may be
supplied with matter, as in "Every man is animal" The
logicians will not see that their formal proposition, "Every
X is Y," is material in three points, the degree of assertion,
the quantity of the proposition, and the copula. The purely
formal proposition is "There is the probability a that X
stands in the relation L to Y." The time will come when it
will be regretted that logic went without paradoxers for
two thousand years: and when much that has been said on
the distinction of form and matter will breed jokes.
I give one instance of one mood of each of the systems,
in the order of the letters first written above.
Relative. — In this system the formal relation is taken,
that is, the copula may be any whatever. As a material in-
stance, in which the relations are those of consanguinity (of
men understood), take the following: X is the brother of
Y ; X is not the uncle of Z ; therefore, Z is not the child of
Y. The discussion of relation, and of the objections to the
extension, is in the Cambridge Transactions, Vol. X, Part 2 ;
a crabbed conglomerate.
Undecided. — In this system one premise, and want of
power over another, infer want of power over a conclusion.
LOGIC HAS NO PARADOXERS. 335
As "Some men are not capable of tracing consequences ; we
cannot be sure that there are beings responsible for conse-
quences who are incapable of tracing consequences; there-
fore, we cannot be sure that all men are responsible for the
consequences of their actions."
Exemplar. — This, long after it suggested itself to me as
a means of correcting a defect in Hamilton's system, I saw
to be the very system of Aristotle himself, though his fol-
lowers have drifted into another. It makes its subject and
predicate examples, thus: Any one man is an animal; any
one animal is a mortal ; therefore, any one man is a mortal.
Numerical. — Suppose 100 Ys to exist: then if 70 Xs
be Ys, and 40 Zs be Ys, it follows that 10 Xs (at least) are
Zs. Hamilton, whose mind could not generalize on sym-
bols, saw that the word most would come under this system,
and admitted, as valid, such a syllogism as "most Ys are
Xs; most Ys are Zs; therefore, some Xs are Zs."
Onymatic. — This is the ordinary system much enlarged
in prepositional forms. It is fully discussed in my Syllabus
of Logic.
Transposed. — In this syllogism the quantity in one prem-
ise is transposed into the other. As, some Xs are not Ys;
for every X there is a Y which is Z ; therefore, some Zs are
not Xs.
Sir William Hamilton of Edinburgh was one of the best
friends and allies I ever had. When I first began to publish
speculation on this subject, he introduced me to the logical
world as having plagiarized from him. This drew their
attention: a mathematician might have written about logic
under forms which had something of mathematical look
long enough before the Aristotelians would have troubled
themselves with him: as was done by John Bernoulli,6
0 Probably De Morgan is referring to Johann Bernoulli III (1744-
1807), who edited Lambert's Logische und philosophische Abhand-
lungen, Berlin, 1782. He was astronomer of the Academy of Sci-
ences at Berlin.
336 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
James Bernoulli,7 Lambert,8 and Gergonne ;° who, when our
discussion began, were not known even to omnilegent Ham-
ilton. He retracted his accusation of wilful theft in a manly
way when he found it untenable; but on this point he
wavered a little, and was convinced to the last that I had
taken his principle unconsciously. He thought I had done
the same with Ploucquet10 and Lambert. It was his pet
notion that I did not understand the commonest principles of
logic, that I did not always know the difference between the
middle term of a syllogism and its conclusion. It went
against his grain to imagine that a mathematician could be
a logician. So long as he took me to be riding my own
hobby, he laughed consumedly: but when he thought he
could make out that I was mounted behind Ploucquet or
Lambert, the current ran thus : "It would indeed have been
little short of a miracle had he, ignorant even of the common
principles of logic, been able of himself to rise to generali-
zation so lofty and so accurate as are supposed in the pecu-
liar doctrines of both the rival logicians, Lambert and
Ploucquet — how useless soever these may in practice prove
to be." All this has been sufficiently discussed elsewhere:
"but, masters, remember that I am an ass."
I know that I never saw Lambert's work until after all
Hamilton supposed me to have taken was written: he him-
self, who read almost everything, knew nothing about it
until after I did. I cannot prove what I say about my
knowledge of Lambert : but the means of doing it may turn
up. For, by the casual turning up of an old letter, I have
T Jacob Bernoulli (1654-1705) was one of the two brothers who
founded the famous Bernoulli family of mathematicians, the other
being Johann I. His Ars conjectandi (1713), published posthu-
mously, was the first distinct treatise on probabilities.
'Johann Heinrich Lambert (1728-1777) was one of the most
learned men of his time. Although interested chiefly in mathematics,
he wrote also on science, logic, and philosophy.
'Joseph Diez Gergonne (1771-1859), a soldier under Napoleon,
and founder of the Annalcs de mathematiques (1810).
"Gottfried Ploucquet (1716-1790) was at first a clergyman, but
afterwards became professor of logic at Tubingen.
LOGIC HAS NO PARADOXERS. 337
found the means of clearing myself as to Ploucquet. Ham-
ilton assumed that (unconsciously) I took from Ploucquet
the notion of a logical notation in which the symbol of the
conclusion is seen in the joint symbols of the premises. For
example, in my own fashion I write down ( . ) ( . ), two
symbols of premises. By these symbols I see that there is
a valid conclusion, and that it may be written in symbol by
striking out the two middle parentheses, which gives ( . . )
and reading the two negative dots as an affirmative. And
so I see in ( . ) ( . ) that ( ) is the conclusion. This,
in full, is the perception that "all are either Xs or Ys" and
"all are either Ys or Zs" necessitates "some Xs are Zs."
Now in Ploucquet's book of 1763, is found, "Deleatur in
praemissis medius ; id quod restat indicat conclusionem."11
In the paper in which I explain my symbols — which are
altogether different from Ploucquet's — there is found "Erase
the symbols of the middle term; the remaining symbols
show the inference." There is very great likeness: and I
would have excused Hamilton for his notion if he had fairly
given reference to the part of the book in which his quota-
tion was found. For I had shown in my Formal Logic what
part of Ploucquet's book I had used: and a fair disputant
would either have strengthened his point by showing that
I had been at his part of the book, or allowed me the ad-
vantage of it being apparent that I had not given evidence
of having seen that part of the book. My good friend,
though an honest man, was sometimes unwilling to allow
due advantage to controversial opponents.
But to my point. The only work of Ploucquet I ever
saw was lent me by my friend Dr. Logan,12 with whom I
have often corresponded on logic, etc. I chanced (in 1865)
1 "In the premises let the middle term be omitted ; what remains
indicates the conclusion."
"Probably Sir William Edmond Logan (1789-1875), who be-
came so interested in geology as to be placed at the head of the geo-
logical survey of Canada (1842). The University of Montreal con-
ferred the title LL.D. upon him, and Napoleon III gave him the
cross of the Legion of Honor.
338 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
to turn up the letter which he sent me (Sept. 12, 1847) with
the book. Part of it runs thus: "I congratulate you on
your success in your logical researches [that is, in asking
for the book, I had described some results]. Since the
reading of your first paper I have been satisfied as to the
possibility of inventing a logical notation in which the
rationale of the inference is contained in the symbol, though
I never attempted to verify it [what I communicated, then,
satisfied the writer that I had done and communicated what
he, from my previous paper, suspected to be practicable].
I send you Ploucquet's dissertation '
It now being manifest that I cannot be souring grapes
which have been taken from me, I will say what I never
said in print before. There is not the slightest merit in
making the symbols of the premises yield that of the con-
clusion by erasure : the thing must do itself in every system
which symbolizes quantities. For in every syllogism (ex-
cept the inverted Bramantip of the Aristotelians) the con-
clusion is manifest in this way without symbols. This
Bramantip destroys system in the Aristotelian lot: and cir-
cumstances which I have pointed out destroy it in Hamil-
ton's own collection. But in that enlargement of the re-
puted Aristotelian system which I have called onymatic,
and in that correction of Hamilton's system which I have
called exemplar, the rule of erasure is universal, and may
be seen without symbols.
Our first controversy was in 1846. In 1847, in my
Formal Logic, I gave him back a little satire for satire,
just to show, as I stated, that I could employ ridicule if I
pleased. He was so offended with the appendix in which
this was contained, that he would not accept the copy of the
book I sent him, but returned it. Copies of controversial
works, sent from opponent to opponent, are not presents, in
the usual sense : it was a marked success to make him angry
enough to forget this. It had some effect however: during
the rest of his life I wished to avoid provocation; for I
LOGIC HAS NO PARADOXERS. 339
could not feel sure that excitement might not produce con-
sequences. I allowed his slashing account of me in the
Discussions to pass unanswered : and before that, when he
proposed to open a controversy in the Athenceum upon my
second Cambridge paper, I merely deferred the dispute until
the next edition of my Formal Logic. I cannot expect the
account in the Discussions to amuse an unconcerned reader
as much as it amused myself: but for a cut-and-thrust,
might-and-main, tooth-and-nail, hammer-and-tongs assault,
I can particularly recommend it. I never knew, until I read
it, how much I should enjoy a thundering onslought on
myself, done with racy insolence by a master hand, to whom
my good genius had whispered Ita feri ut se sentiat emori.™
Since that time I have, as the Irishman said, become "dry
moulded for want of a bating." Some of my paradoxers
have done their best: but theirs is mere twopenny — "small
swipes," as Peter Peebles said. Brandy for heroes ! I hope a
reviewer or two will have mercy on me, and will give me as
good discipline as Strafford would have given Hampden
and his set: "much beholden," said he, "should they be to
any one that should thoroughly take pains with them in
that kind" — meaning objective flagellation. And I shall
be the same to any one who will serve me so — but in a
literary and periodical sense: my corporeal cuticle is as
thin as my neighbors'.
Sir W. H. was suffering under local paralysis before
our controversy commenced: and though his mind was
quite unaffected, a retort of as downright a character as the
attack might have produced serious effect upon a person
who had shown himself sensible of ridicule. Had a second
attack of his disorder followed an answer from me, I should
have been held to have caused it : though, looking at Hamil-
ton's genial love of combat, I strongly suspected that a
retort in kind
u "So strike that he may think himself to die."
340 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
"Would cheer his heart, and warm his blood,
And make him fight, and do him good."
But I could not venture to risk it. So all I did, in reply to
the article in the Discussions, was to write to him the follow-
ing note: which, as illustrating an etiquette of controversy,
I insert.
"I beg to acknowledge and thank you for. . . It is neces-
sary that I should say a word on my retention of this work,
with reference to your return of the copy of my Formal
Logic, which I presented to you on its publication : a return
made on the ground of your disapproval of the account of
our controversy which that work contained. According to
my view of the subject, any one whose dealing with the
author of a book is specially attacked in it, has a right to
expect from the author that part of the book in which the
attack is made, together with so much of the remaining part
as is fairly context. And I hold that the acceptance by the
party assailed of such work or part of a work does not imply
any amount of approval of the contents, or of want of dis-
approval. On this principle (though I am not prepared
to add the word alone) I forwarded to you the whole of my
work on Formal Logic and my second Cambridge Memoir.
And on this principle I should have held you wanting in due
regard to my literary rights if you had not forwarded to
me your asterisked pages, with all else that was necessary
to a full understanding of their scope and meaning, so far
as the contents of the book would furnish it. For the re-
maining portion, which it would be a hundred pities to sepa-
rate from the pages in which I am directly concerned, I am
your debtor on another principle; and shall be glad to re-
main so if you will allow me to make a feint of balancing
the account by the offer of two small works on subjects as
little connected with our discussion as the Epistolce Ob-
scurorum Virorum, or the Lutheran dispute. I trust that
by accepting my Opuscula you will enable me to avoid the
SOME DOGGEREL AND COUNTER DOGGEREL. 341
use of the knife, and leave me to cut you up with the pen as
occasion shall serve, I remain, etc. (April 21, 1852)."
I received polite thanks, but not a word about the body
of the letter: my argument, I suppose, was admitted.
SOME DOGGEREL AND COUNTER DOGGEREL.
I find among my miscellaneous papers the following
jeu d' esprit, or jeu de betise* whichever the reader pleases
—I care not — intended, before I saw ground for abstaining,
to have, as the phrase is, come in somehow. I think I could
manage to bring anything into anything: certainly into a
Budget of Paradoxes. Sir W. H. rather piqued himself upon
some caniculars, or doggerel verses, which he had put to-
gether in memoriam [technicam] of the way in which
A E I O are used in logic : he added U, Y, for the addition
of meet, etc., to the system. I took the liberty of concocting
some counter-doggerel, just to show that a mathematician
may have architectonic power as well as a metaphysician.
DOGGEREL.
BY SIR W. HAMILTON.
A it affirms of this, these, all,
Whilst E denies of any;
I it affirms (whilst O denies)
Of some (or few, or many).
Thus A affirms, as E denies,
And definitely either;
Thus I affirms, as O denies,
And definitely neither.
A half, left semidefinite,
Is worthy of its score ;
U, then, affirms, as Y denies,
This, neither less nor more.
Indefinito-definites,
I, UI, YO, last we come;
1 "Witticism or piece of stupidity."
342 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
And this affirms, as that denies
Of more, most (half, plus, some).
COUNTER DOGGEREL.
BY PROF. DE MORGAN.
(1847.)
GREAT A affirms of all;
Sir William does so too:
When the subject is "my suspicion,"
And the predicate "must be true."
Great E denies of all ;
Sir William of all but one:
When he speaks about this present time,
And of those who in logic have done.
Great I takes up but some-,
Sir William! my dear soul!
Why then in all your writings,
Does "Great I" fill2 the whole!
Great O says some are not;
Sir William's readers catch,
That some (modern) Athens is not without
An Aristotle to match.
"A half, left semi-definite,
Is worthy of its score:"
This looked very much like balderdash,
And neither less nor more.
It puzzled me like anything;
In fact, it puzzled me worse:
Isn't schoolman's logic hard enough,
Without being in Sibyl's verse?
SA very truculently unjust assertion: for Sir W. was as great
a setter up of some as he was a puller down of others. His writings
are a congeries of praises and blames, both cruel smart, as they say
in the States. But the combined instigation of prose, rhyme, and
retort would send Aristides himself to Tartarus, if it were not pretty
certain that Minos would grant a stet processus under the circum-
stances. The first two verses are exaggerations standing on a basis
of truth. ^ The fourth verse is quite true : Sir W. H. was an Edin-
burgh Aristotle, with the difference of ancient and modern Athens
well marked, especially the perfervidum ingenium Scotorum. —
A. De M.
SOME DOGGEREL AND COUNTER DOGGEREL. 343
At last, thinks I, 'tis German;
And I'll try it with some beer !
The landlord asked what bothered me so,
And at once he made it clear.
It's half-and-half, the gentleman means ;
Don't you see he talks of score?
That's the bit of memorandum
That we chalk behind the door.
Semi-definite 's outlandish ;
But I see, in half a squint,
That he speaks of the lubbers who call for a quart,
When they can't manage more than a pint.
Now I'll read it into English,
And then you'll answer me this :
If it isn't good logic all the world round,
I should like to know what is?
When you call for a pot of half-and-half,
If you're lost to sense of shame,
You may leave it semi-definite,
But you pay for it all just the same.
* * * *
I am unspeakably comforted when I look over the above
in remembering that the question is not whether it be Pin-
daric or Horatian, but whether the copy be as good as the
original. And I say it is : and will take no denial.
Long live — long will live — the glad memory of William
Hamilton, Good, Learned, Acute, and Disputatious! He
fought upon principle: the motto of his book is:
"Truth, like a torch, the more it's shook it shines."
There is something in this; but metaphors, like puddings,
quarrels, rivers, and arguments, always have two sides to
them. For instance,
"Truth, like a torch, the more it's shook it shines ;
But those who want to use it, hold it steady.
They shake the flame who like a glare to gaze at,
They keep it still who want a light to see by."
344 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
ANOTHER THEORY OF PARALLELS.
Theory of Parallels. The proof of Euclid's axiom looked for in
the properties of the Equiangular Spiral. By Lieut-Col. G.
Perronet Thompson.1 The same, second edition, revised and
corrected. The same, third edition, shortened, and freed from
dependence on the theory of limits. The same, fourth edition,
ditto, ditto. All London, 1840, Svo.
To explain these editions it should be noted that General
Thompson rapidly modified his notions, and republished his
tracts accordingly.
SOME PRIMITIVE DARWINISM.
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation.1 London, 1840,
I2mo.
This is the first edition of this celebrated work. Its
form is a case of the theory : the book is an undeniable duo-
decimo, but the size of its paper gives it the look of not the
smallest of octavos. Does not this illustrate the law of
development, the gradation of families, the transference of
species, and so on? If so, I claim the discovery of this
esoteric testimony of the book to its own contents ; I defy
any one to point out the reviewer who has mentioned it.
The work itself is decribed by its author as "the first at-
tempt to connect the natural sciences into a history of
creation." The attempt was commenced, and has been
carried on, both with marked talent, and will be continued.
Great advantage will result: at the worst we are but in the
alchemy of some new chemistry, or the astrology of some
new astronomy. Perhaps it would be as well not to be
too sure on the matter, until we have an antidote to possible
consequences as exhibited under another theory, on which
1 See note 2, p. 252. There was also a Theory of Parallels that dif-
fered from these, London, 1853, second edition 1856, third edition 1856.
/The work was written by Robert Chambers (1802-1871), the
Edinburgh publisher, a friend of Scott and of many of his contem-
poraries in the literary field. He published the Vestiges of the Nat-
ural History of Creation in 1844, not 1840.
ON RELIGIOUS INSURANCE. 345
it is as reasonable to speculate as on that of the Vestiges.
I met long ago with a splendid player on the guitar, who
assured me, and was confirmed by his friends, that he
never practised, except in thought, and did not possess an
instrument: he kept his fingers acting in his mind, until
they got their habits ; and thus he learnt the most difficult
novelties of execution. Now what if this should be a
minor segment of a higher law? What if, by constantly
thinking of ourselves as descended from primeval monkeys,
we should — if it be true — actually get our tails again ? What
if the first man who was detected with such an appendage
should be obliged to confess himself the author of the
Vestiges — a person yet unknown — who would naturally
get the start of his species by having had the earliest habit
of thinking on the matter? I confess I never hear a man
of note talk fluently about it without a curious glance at
his proportions, to see whether there may be ground to
conjecture that he may have more of "mortal coil" than
others, in anaxyridical concealment. I do not feel sure that
even a paternal love for his theory would induce him, in the
case I am supposing, to exhibit himself at the British Asso-
ciation,
With a hole behind which his tail peeped through.
The first sentence of this book (1840) is a cast of the log,
which shows our rate of progress. "It is familiar knowl-
edge that the earth which we inhabit is a globe of some-
what less than 8,000 miles in diameter, being one of a
series of eleven which revolve at different distances around
the sun." The eleven\ Not to mention the Iscariot which
Le Verrier and Adams calculated into existence, there is
more than a septuagint of new planetoids.
ON RELIGIOUS INSURANCE.
The Constitution and Rules of the Ancient and Universal 'Bene-
fit Society' established by Jesus Christ, exhibited, and its
advantages and claims maintained, against all Modern and
346 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
merely Human Institutions of the kind : A Letter very respect-
fully addressed to the Rev. James Everett,1 and occasioned
by certain remarks made by him, in a speech to the Members
of the 'Wesleyan Centenary Institute' Benefit Society. Dated
York, Dec. 7, 1840. By Thomas Smith.2 I2mo, (pp. 8.)
The Wesleyan minister addressed had advocated provision
against old age, etc. : the writer declares all private provision
tin-Christian. After decent maintenance and relief of fam-
ily claims of indigence, he holds that all the rest is to go
to the "Benefit Society," of which he draws up the rules,
in technical form, with chapters of "Officers," "Contribu-
tors" etc., from the Acts of the Apostles, etc., and some of
the early Fathers. He holds that a Christian may not "make
a private provision against the contingencies of the future" :
and that the great "Benefit Society" is the divinely-ordained
recipient of all the surplus of his income; capital, beyond
what is necessary for business, he is to have none. A real
good speculator shuts his eyes by instinct, when opening
them would not serve the purpose: he has the vizor of the
Irish fairy tale, which fell of itself over the eyes of the
wearer the moment he turned them upon the enchanted light
which would have destroyed him if he had caught sight
of it. "Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and
after it was sold, was it (the purchase-money) not in thine
own power?" would have been awkward to quote, and ac-
cordingly nothing is stated except the well-known result,
which is rule 3, cap. 5, "Prevention of Abuses." By putting
his principles together, the author can be made, logically,
to mean that the successors of the apostles should put to
death all contributors who are detected in not paying their
full premiums.
Everett (1784-1872) was at that time a good Wesleyan, but was
expelled from the ministry in 1849 for having written Wesleyan
Takings and as under suspicion for having started the Fly Sheets
in 1845. In 1857 he established the United Methodist Free Church.
2 Smith was a Primitive Methodist preacher. He also wrote
an Earnest Address to the Methodists (1841) and The Wealth
Question (1840?).
THE TWO OLD PARADOXES AGAIN. 347
I have known one or two cases in which policy-holders
have surrendered their policies through having arrived at
a conviction that direct provision is unlawful. So far as
I could make it out, these parties did not think it unlawful
to lay by out of income, except when this was done in a
manner which involved calculation of death-chances. It is
singular they did not see that the entrance of chance of
death was the entrance of the very principle of the benefit
society described in the Acts of the Apostles. The family
of the one who died young received more in proportion to
premiums paid than the family of one who died old. Every
one who understands life assurance sees that — bonus apart
— the difference between an assurance office and a savings
bank consists in the adoption, pro tanto, of the principle
of community of goods. In the original constitution of
the oldest assurance office, the Amicable Society, the plan
with which they started was nothing but this: persons of
all ages under forty-five paid one common premium, and the
proceeds were divided among the representatives of those
who died within the year.
THE TWO OLD PARADOXES AGAIN.
[I omitted from its proper place a manuscript quadra-
ture (3.1416 exactly) addressed to an eminent mathemati-
cian, dated in 1842 from the debtor's ward of a country
gaol. The unfortunate speculator says, "I have labored
many years to find the precise ratio." I have heard of sev-
eral cases in which squaring the circle has produced an in-
ability to square accounts. I remind those who feel a kind
of inspiration to employ native genius upon difficulties,
without gradual progression from elements, that the call
is one which becomes stronger and stronger, and may lead,
as it has led, to abandonment of the duties of life, and all
the consequences.]
348 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
1842. Provisional Prospectus of the Double Acting Rotary
Engine Company. Also Mechanic's Magazine, March 26,
1842.
Perpetual motion by a drum with one vertical half in
mercury, the other in a vacuum : the drum, I suppose, work-
ing round forever to find an easy position. Steam to be
superseded : steam and electricity convulsions of nature
never intended by Providence for the use of man. The
price of the present engines, as old iron, will buy new en-
gines that will work without fuel and at no expense. Guaran-
teed by the Count de Predaval,1 the discoverer. I was to
have been a Director, but my name got no further than
ink, and not so far as official notification of the honor,
partly owing to my having communicated to the Mechan-
ic's Magazine information privately given to me, which
gave premature publicity, and knocked up the plan.
An Exposition of the Nature, Force, Action, and other prop-
erties of Gravitation on the Planets. London, 1842, I2mo.
An Investigation of the principles of the Rules for determining
the Measures of the Areas and Circumferences of Circular
Plane Surfaces . . . London, 1844, 8vo.
These are anonymous ; but the author (whom I believe
to be Mr. Denison,2 presently noted) is described as author
of a new system of mathematics, and also of mechanics. He
had need have both, for he shows that the line which has
a square equal to a given circle, has a cube equal to the
sphere on the same diameter : that is, in old mathematics, the
diameter is to the circumference as 9 to 16 ! Again, admitting
that the velocities of planets in circular orbits are inversely as
the square roots of their distances, that is, admitting Kepler's
law, he manages to prove that gravitation is inversely as
the square root of the distance: and suspects magnetism
of doing the difference between this and Newton's law.
JHe wrote the Nouveau traite de Balistique, Paris, 1837.
8 Joseph Denison, known to fame only through De Morgan.
See also page 353.
THE DUPLICATION PROBLEM. 349
Magnetism and electricity are, in physics, the member of
parliament and the cabman — at every man's bidding, as
Henry Warburton3 said.
The above is an outrageous quadrature. In the pre-
ceding year, 1841, was published what I suppose at first to
be a Maori quadrature, by Maccook. But I get it from a
cutting out of some French periodical, and I incline to
think that it must be by a Mr. M'Cook. He makes TT to be
THE DUPLICATION PROBLEM.
Refutation of a Pamphlet written by the Rev. John Mackey,
R.C.P.,1 entitled "A method of making a cube double of a
cube, founded on the principles of elementary geometry,"
wherein his principles are proved erroneous, and the required
solution not yet obtained. By Robert Murphy.2 Mallow, 1824,
I2mo.
This refutation was the production of an Irish boy of
eighteen years old, self-educated in mathematics, the son
of a shoemaker at Mallow. He died in 1843, leaving a
name which is well known among mathematicians. His
works on the theory of equations and on electricity, and his
papers in the Cambridge Transactions, are all of high
genius. The only account of him which I know of is that
which I wrote for the Supplement of the Penny Cyclopcedia.
He was thrown by his talents into a good income at Cam-
bridge, with no social training except penury, and very little
intellectual training except mathematics. He fell into dissi-
pation, and his scientific career was almost arrested: but
he had great good in him, to my knowledge. A sentence in
'The radical (1784?- 1858), advocate of the founding of London
university (1826), of medical reform (1827-1834), and of the repeal
of the duties on newspapers and corn, and an ardent champion of
penny postage.
1 I. e., Roman Catholic Priest.
2 Murphy (1806-1843) showed extraordinary powers in mathe-
matics even before the age of thirteen. He became a fellow of Caius
College, Cambridge, in 1829, dean in 1831, and examiner in mathe-
matics in London University in 1838.
350 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
a letter from the late Dean Peacock3 to me — giving some
advice about the means of serving Murphy — sets out the
old case: "Murphy is a man whose special education is in
advance of his general; and such men are almost always
difficult subjects to manage." This article having been
omitted in its proper place, I put it at 1843, the date of
Murphy's death.
A NEW VALUE OF «-.
The Invisible Universe disclosed; or, the real Plan and Govern-
ment of the Universe. By Henry Coleman Johnson, Esq.
London, 1843, 8vo.
The book opens abruptly with:
"First demonstration. Concerning the centre: showing
that, because the centre is an innermost point at an equal
distance between two extreme points of a right line, and
from every two relative and opposite intermediate points,
it is composed of the two extreme internal points of each
half of the line; each extreme internal point attracting
towards itself all parts of that half to which it belongs. . ."
Of course the circle is squared : and the circumference is
diameters.
SOME MODERN ASTROLOGY.
Combination of the Zodiacal and Cometical Systems. Printed
for the London Society, Exeter Hall. Price Sixpence, (n. d.
1843-)
What this London Society was, or the "combination,"
did not appear. There was a remarkable comet in 1843,
the tail of which was at first confounded with what is called
the zodiacal light. This nicely-printed little tract, evidently
got up with less care for expense than is usual in such
works, brings together all the announcements of the as-
tronomers, and adds a short head and tail piece, which I
shall quote entire. As the announcements are very ordinary
8 See note 2, page 196.
SOME MODERN ASTROLOGY. 351
astronomy, the reader will be able to detect, if detection be
possible, what is the meaning and force of the "Combina-
tion of the Zodiacal and Cometical Systems":
"Premonition. It has pleased the AUTHOR of CREATION
to cause (to His human and reasoning Creatures of this
generation, by a 'combined' appearance in His Zodiacal and
Cometical system) a 'warning Crisis' of universal concern-
ment to this our GLOBE. It is this 'Crisis' that has so gen-
erally 'ROUSED' at this moment the 'nations throughout the
Earth' that no equal interest has ever before been excited
by MAN ; unless it be in that caused by the ' PAGAN-TEMPLE
IN ROME/ which is recorded by the elder Pliny, 'Nat. Hist/
i. 23. iii. 3. HARDOUIN."
After the accounts given by the unperceiving astronomers,
comes what follows:
"Such has been (hitherto) the only object discerned by
the Wise of this World,' in this twofold union of the 'Zo-
diacal' and 'Cometical' systems : yet it is nevertheless a most
'Thrilling Warning' to all the inhabitants of this precarious
and transitory EARTH. We have no authorized intimation
or reasonable prospective contemplation, of 'current time'
beyond a year 1860, of the present century ; or rather, ex-
cept 'the interval which may now remain from the present
year 1843, to a year I860' (^ue'pas 'EEHKONTA— 'threescore
or sixty days' — 7 have appointed each "DAY" for a "YEAR," '
Ezek. iv. 6) : and we know, from our 'common experience'
how speedily such a measure of time will pass away.
"No words can be 'more explicit than these of OUR
BLESSED LORD: viz. THIS GOSPEL of the Kingdom shall be
preached in ALL the EARTH, for a Witness to ALL NATIONS;
AND THEN, shall the END COME/ The 'next 18 years' must
therefore supply the interval of the 'special Episcopal fore-
runners.'
(Matt. xxiv. 14.)
"See the 'JEWISH INTELLIGENCER' of the present month
(April), p. 153, for the 'Debates in Parliament,' respecting
352 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
the BISHOP OF JERUSALEM, viz. Dr. Bowring,1 Mr. Hume,2
Sir R. Inglis,3 Sir R. Peel,4 Viscount Palmerston.5"
I have quoted this at length, to show the awful threats
which were published at a time of some little excitement
about the phenomenon, under the name of the London
Society. The assumption of a corporate appearance is a
very unfair trick: and there are junctures at which harm
might be done by it.
THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST.
Wealth the name and number of the Beast, 666, in the Book of
Revelation, [by John Taylor.1] London, 1844, 8vo.
Whether Junius or the Beast be the more difficult to
identify, must be referred to Mr. Taylor, the only person
who has attempted both. His cogent argument on the
political secret is not unworthily matched in his treatment
of the theological riddle. He sees the solution in cforopia,
which occurs in the Acts of the Apostles as the word for
wealth in one of its most disgusting forms, and makes 666
in the most straightforward way. This explanation has as
good a chance as any other. The work contains a general
*Sir John Bowring (1792-1872), the linguist, writer, and trav-
eler, member of many learned societies and a writer of high repu-
tation in his time. His works were not, however, of genuine merit.
3 Joseph Hume (1777-1855) served as a surgeon with the British
army in India early in the nineteenth century. He returned to Eng-
land in 1808 and entered parliament as a radical in 1812. He was
much interested in all reform movements.
'Sir Robert Harry Inglis (1786-1855), a strong Tory, known
for his numerous addresses in the House of Commons rather than
for any real ability.
4 Sir Robert Peel (1788-1850) began his parliamentary career
in 1809 and was twice prime minister. He was prominent in most of
the great reforms of his time.
B See note 5, page 290.
1 John Taylor (1781-1864) was a publisher, and published several
pamphlets opposed to Peel's currency measures. De Morgan refers
to his work on the Junius question. This was done early in his
career, and resulted in A Discovery of the author of the Letters of
Junius (1813), and The Identity of Junius with a distinguished liv-
ing character established (1816), this being Sir Philip Francis.
EASTER DAY PARADOXERS. 353
attempt at explanation of the Apocalypse, and some history
of opinion on the subject. It has not the prolixity which
is so common a fault of apocalyptic commentators.
A practical Treatise on Eclipses. .. .with remarks on the anom-
alies of the present Theory of the Tides. By T. Kerigan,2
F.R.S. 1844, 8vo.
Containing also a refutation of the theory of the tides,
and afterwards increased by a supplement, "Additional
facts and arguments against the theory of the tides," in
answer to a short notice in the Athenceum journal. Mr.
Kerigan was a lieutenant in the Navy: he obtained ad-
mission to the Royal Society just before the publication of
his book.
A new theory of Gravitation. By Joseph Denison,3 Esq. Lon-
don, 1844, I2mo.
Commentaries on the Principia. By the author of 'A new theory
of Gravitation.' London, 1846, 8vo.
Honor to the speculator who can be put in his proper
place by one sentence, be that place where it may.
"But we have shown that the velocities are inversely as
the square roots of the mean distances from the sun ; where-
fore, by equality of ratios, the forces of the sun's gravita-
tion upon them are also inversely as the square roots of their
distances from the sun."
EASTER DAY PARADOXERS.
In the years 1818 and 1845 the full moon fell on Easter
Day, having been particularly directed to fall before it in
the act for the change of style and in the English missals
and prayer-books of all time: perhaps it would be more
correct to say that Easter Day was directed to fall after
the full moon ; "but the principle is the same." No explana-
tion was given in 1818, but Easter was kept by the tables,
2 See note 5, page 308.
3 See page 348.
354 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
in defiance of the rule, and of several protests. A chrono-
logical panic was beginning in December 1844, which was
stopped by the Times newspaper printing extracts from an
article of mine in the Companion to the Almanac for 1845,
which had then just appeared. No one had guessed the
true reason, which is that the thing called the moon in the
Gregorian Calendar is not the moon of the heavens, but
a fictitious imitation put wrong on purpose, as will pres-
ently appear, partly to keep Easter out of the way of the
Jews' Passover, partly for convenience of calculation. The
apparent error happens but rarely; and all the work will
perhaps have to be gone over next time. I now give two
bits of paradox.
Some theologians were angry at this explanation. A
review called the Christian Observer (of which Christian-
ity I do not know) got up a crushing article against me.
I did not look at it, feeling sure that an article on such a
subject which appeared on January 1, 1845, against a
publication made in December 1844, must be a second-hand
job. But some years afterwards (Sept. 10, 1850), the re-
views, etc. having been just placed at the disposal of readers
in the old reading-room of the Museum, I made a tour of
inspection, came upon my critic on his perch, and took a
look at him. I was very glad to remember this, for, though
expecting only second-hand, yet even of this there is good
and bad; and I expected to find some hints in the good
second-hand of a respectable clerical publication. I read
on, therefore, attentively, but not long: I soon came to the
information that some additions to Delambre's1 statement
of the rule for finding Easter, belonging to distant years,
had been made by Sir Harris Nicolas!2 Now as I myself
furnished my friend Sir H. N. with Delambre's digest of
1 See note 3, page 160.
_2Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas (1799-1848) was a reformer in
various lines, — the Record Commission, the Society of Antiquaries,
and the British Museum, — and his work was not without good results.
EASTER DAY PARADOXERS. 355'
Clavius's3 rule, which I translated out of algebra into com-
mon language for the purpose, I was pretty sure this was
the ignorant reading of a person to whom Sir H. N. was
the highest arithmetical authority on the subject. A person
pretending to chronology, without being able to distinguish
the historical points — so clearly as they stand out — in which
Sir H. N. speaks with authority, from the arithmetical
points of pure reckoning on which he does not pretend to
do more than directly repeat others, must be as fit to talk
about the construction of Easter Tables as the Spanish are
to talk French. I need hardly say that the additions for
distant years are as much from Clavius as the rest: my
reviewer was not deep enough in his subject to know that
Clavius made and published, from his rules, the full table
up to A. D. 5000, for all the movable feasts of every year !
I gave only a glance at the rest : I found I was either knave
or fool, with a leaning to the second opinion; and I came
away satisfied that my critic was either ignoramus or novice,
with a leaning to the first. I afterwards found an ambiguity
of expression in Sir H. N.'s account — whether his or mine
I could not tell — which might mislead a novice or content
an ignoramus, but would have been properly read or further
inquired into by a competent person.
The second case is this. Shortly after the publication
of my article, a gentleman called at my house, and, finding
I was not at home, sent up his card — with a stylish west-end
club on it — to my wife, begging for a few words on pressing
business. With many well-expressed apologies, he stated
that he had been alarmed by hearing that Prof. De M. had
an intention of altering Easter next year. Mrs. De M. kept
her countenance, and assured him that I had no such inten-
tion, and further, that she greatly doubted my having the
power to do it. Was she quite sure ? his authority was very
good: fresh assurances given. He was greatly relieved,
for he had some horses training for after Easter, which
3 See note 5, page 69.
356 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
would not be ready to run if it were altered the wrong way.
A doubt comes over him : would Mrs. De M.. in the event
of her being mistaken, give him the very earliest informa-
tion ? Promise given ; profusion of thanks ; more apologies ;
and departure.
Now, candid reader! — or uncandid either! — which most
deserves to be laughed at ? A public instructor, who under-
takes to settle for the world whether a reader of Clavius,
the constructor of the Gregorian Calendar, is fool or knave,
upon information derived from a compiler — in this matter —
of his own day ; or a gentleman of horse and dog associa-
tions, who, misapprehending something which he heard
about a current topic, infers that the reader of Clavius had
the ear of the Government on a proposed alteration. I suppose
the querist had heard some one say, perhaps, that the day
ought to be set right, and some one else remark that I might
be consulted, as the only person who had discussed the
matter from the original source of the Calendar.
To give a better chance of the explanation being at once
produced, next time the real full moon and Easter Day shall
fall together, I insert here a summary which was printed
in the Irish Prayer-book of the Ecclesiastical Society. If
the amusement given by paradoxers should prevent a use-
less discussion some years hence, I and the paradoxers shall
have done a little good between us — at any rate, I have
done my best to keep the heavy weight afloat by tying
bladders to it. I think the next occurrence will be in 1875.
EASTER DAY.
In the years 1818 and 1845, Easter Day, as given by the
rules in 24 Geo. II cap. 23. (known as the act for the
change of style) contradicted the precept given in the pre-
liminary explanations. The precept is as follows:
"Easter Day, on which the rest" of the moveable feasts
"depend, is always the First Sunday after the Full Moon,
which happens upon or next after the Twenty-first Day of
EASTER DAY PARADOXERS. 357
March] and if the Full Moon happens upon a Sunday,
Easter Day is the Sunday after."
But in 1818 and 1845, the full moon fell on a Sunday,
and yet the rules gave that same Sunday for Easter Day.
Much discussion was produced by this circumstance in 1818 :
but a repetition of it in 1845 was nearly altogether prevented
by a timely4 reference to the intention of those who con-
ducted the Gregorian reformation of the Calendar. Never-
theless, seeing that the apparent error of the Calendar is
due to the precept in the Act of Parliament, which is both
erroneous and insufficient, and that the difficulty will recur
so often as Easter Day falls on the day of full moon, it may
be advisable to select from the two articles cited in the note
such of their conclusions and rules, without proof or con-
troversy, as will enable the reader to understand the main
points of the Easter question, and, should he desire it, to
calculate for himself the Easter of the old or new style, for
any given year.
1. In the very earliest age of Christianity, a controversy
arose as to the mode of keeping Easter, some desiring to
perpetuate the Passover, others to keep the festival of the
Resurrection. The first afterwards obtained the name of
Quartadecimans, from their Easter being always kept on
the fourteenth day of the moon (Exod. xii. 18, Levit. xxiii.
5.). But though it is unquestionable that a Judaizing party
existed, it is also likely that many dissented on chrono-
logical grounds. It is clear that no perfect anniversary can
take place, except when the fourteenth of the moon, and
with it the passover, falls on a Friday. Suppose, for in-
stance, it falls on a Tuesday: one of three things must be
*In the Companion to the Almanac for 1845 is a paper by Prof.
De Morgan, "On the Ecclesiastical Calendar," the statements of
which, so far as concerns the Gregorian Calendar, are taken direct
from the work of Clavius, the principal agent in the arrangement of
the reformed reckoning. This was followed, in the Companion to the
Almanac for 1846, by a second paper, by the same author, headed
"On the Earliest Printed Almanacs," much of which is written in
direct supplement to the former article. — S. E. De Morgan.
358 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
done. Either (which seems never to have been proposed)
the crucifixion and resurrection must be celebrated on Tues-
day and Sunday, with a wrong interval ; or the former on
Tuesday, the latter on Thursday, abandoning the first day
of the week; or the former on Friday, and the latter on
Sunday, abandoning the paschal commemoration of the cru-
cifixion.
The last mode has been, as every one knows, finally
adopted. The disputes of the first three centuries did not
turn on any calendar questions. The Easter question was
merely the symbol of the struggle between what we may
call the Jewish and Gentile sects of Christians : and it nearly
divided the Christian world, the Easterns, for the most part,
being Quartadecimans. It is very important to note that
there is no recorded dispute about a method of predicting
the new moon, that is, no general dispute leading to forma-
tion of sects: there may have been difficulties, and discus-
sions about them. The Metonic cycle, presently mentioned,
must have been used by many, perhaps most, churches.
2. The question came before the Nicene Council (A. D.
325) not as an astronomical, but as a doctrinal, question:
it was, in fact, this, Shall the passover* be treated as a part
of Christianity? The Council resolved this question in the
negative, and the only information on its premises and con-
clusion, or either, which comes from itself, is contained in
the following sentence of the synodical epistle, which epistle
is preserved by Socrates6 and Theodoret.7 "We also send
5 It may be necessary to remind some English readers that in
Latin and its derived European languages, what we call Easter is
called the passover (pascha). The Quartadecimans had the name
on their side : a possession which often is, in this world, nine points
of the law.— A. De M.
fl Socrates Scholasticus was born at Constantinople c. 379, and
died after 439. His Historia Ecclesiastic a (in Greek) covers the
period from Constantine the Great to about 439, and includes the
Council of Nicaea. The work was printed in Paris 1544.
7Theodoretus or Theodoritus was born at Antioch and died
about 457. He was one of the greatest divines of the fifth century,
a man of learning, piety, and judicial mind, and a champion of free-
dom of opinion in all religious matters.
EASTER DAY PARADOXERS. 359
you the good news concerning the unanimous consent of all
in reference to the celebration of the most solemn feast of
Easter, for this difference also has been made up by the
assistance of your prayers: so that all the brethren in the
East, who formerly celebrated this festival at the same
time as the Jews, will in future conform to the Romans and
to us, and to all who have of old observed our manner of
celebrating Easter." This is all that can be found on the
subject: none of the stories about the Council ordaining
the astronomical mode of finding Easter, and introducing
the Metonic cycle into ecclesiastical reckoning, have any
contemporary evidence: the canons which purport to be
those of the Nicene Council do not contain a word about
Easter; and this is evidence, whether we suppose those
canons to be genuine or spurious.
3. The astronomical dispute about a lunar cycle for the
prediction of Easter either commenced, or became prom-
inent, by the extinction of greater ones, soon after the time
of the Nicene Council. Pope Innocent I8 met with difficulty
in 414. S. Leo,9 in 454, ordained that Easter of 455 should
be April 24; which is right. It is useless to record details
of these disputes in a summary: the result was, that in the
year 463, Pope Hilarius10 employed Victorinus11 of Aqui-
taine to correct the Calendar, and Victorinus formed a rule
which lasted until the sixteenth century. He combined the
Metonic cycle and the solar cycle presently described. But
8 He died in 417. He was a man of great energy and of high
attainments.
9 He died in 461, having reigned as pope for twenty-one years.
It was he who induced Attila to spare Rome in 452.
10 He succeeded Leo as pope in 461, and reigned for seven years.
"Victorinus or Victorius Marianus seems to have been born at
Limoges. He was a mathematician and astronomer, and the cycle
mentioned by De Morgan is one of 532 years, a combination of the
Metonic cycle of 19 years with the solar cycle of 28 years. His
canon was published at Antwerp in 1633 or 1634, De doctrina tem-
porum sive commentarius in Victorii Aquitani et aliorum canones
pas c hales.
360 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
this cycle bears the name of Dionysius Exiguus,12 a Scythian
settled at Rome, about A. D. 530, who adapted it to his new
yearly reckoning, when he abandoned the era of Diocletian
as a commencement, and constructed that which is now in
common use.
4. With Dionysius, if not before, terminated all differ-
ence as to the mode of keeping Easter which is of historical
note: the increasing defects of the Easter Cycle produced
in time the remonstrance of persons versed in astronomy,
among whom may be mentioned Roger Bacon,13 Sacro-
bosco,14 Cardinal Cusa,15 Regiomontanus,18 etc. From the
middle of the sixth to that of the sixteenth century, one
rule was observed.
5. The mode of applying astronomy to chronology has
always involved these two principles. First, the actual po-
sition of the heavenly body is not the object of considera-
tion, but what astronomers call its mean place, which may
be described thus. Let a fictitious sun or moon move in
the heavens, in such manner as to revolve among the fixed
stars at an average rate, avoiding the alternate accelerations
and retardations which take place in every planetary mo-
tion. Thus the fictitious (say mean) sun and moon are
always very near to the real sun and moon. The ordinary
clocks show time by the mean, not the real, sun : and it was
always laid down that Easter depends on the opposition
(or full moon) of the mean sun and moon, not of the real
ones. Thus we see that, were the Calendar ever so correct
" He went to Rome about 497, and died there in 540. He wrote
his Liber de paschate in 525, and it was in this work that the Chris-
tian era was first used for calendar purposes.
11 See note 6, page 126.
"Johannes de Sacrobosco (Holy wood), or John of Holywood.
The name was often written, without regard to its etymology,
Sacrobusto. He was educated at Oxford and taught in Paris until
his death (1256). He did much to make the Hindu-Arabic numer-
als known to European scholars.
11 See note 2, page 44.
" See note 2, page 48.
EASTER DAY PARADOXERS. 361
as to the mean moon, it would be occasionally false as to the
true one: if, for instance, the opposition of the mean sun
and moon took place at one second before midnight, and that
of the real bodies only two seconds afterwards, the calendar
day of full moon would be one day before that of the com-
mon almanacs. Here is a way in which the discussions of
1818 and 1845 might have arisen: the British legislature has
defined the moon as the regulator of the paschal calendar.
But this was only a part of the mistake.
6. Secondly, in the absence of perfectly accurate knowl-
edge of the solar and lunar motion (and for convenience,
even if such knowledge existed), cycles are, and always have
been taken, which serve to represent those motions nearly.
The famous Metonic cycle, which is introduced into eccle-
siastical chronology under the name of the cycle of the
golden numbers, is a period of 19 Julian17 years. This
period, in the old Calendar, was taken to contain exactly
235 lunations, or intervals between new moons, of the mean
moon. Now the state of the case is :
19 average Julian years make 6939 days 18 hours.
235 average lunations make 6939 days 16 hours 31
minutes.
So that successive cycles of golden numbers, supposing
the first to start right, amount to making the new moons
fall too late, gradually, so that the mean moon of this cycle
gains 1 hour 29 minutes in 19 years upon the mean moon
of the heavens, or about a day in 300 years. When the
Calendar was reformed, the calendar new moons were four
days in advance of the mean moon of the heavens : so that,
for instance, calendar full moon on the 18th usually meant
real full moon on the 14th.
7. If the difference above had not existed, the moon of
the heavens (the mean moon at least), would have returned
"The Julian year is a year of the Julian Calendar, in which
there is leap year every fourth year. Its average length is therefore
365 days and a quarter.— A. De M.
362 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
permanently to the same days of the month in 19 years ;
with an occasional slip arising from the unequal distribu-
tion of the leap years, of which a period contains sometimes
five and sometimes four. As a general rule, the days of
new and full moon in any one year would have been also
the days of new and full moon of a year having 19 more
units in its date. Again, if there had been no leap years,
the days of the month would have returned to the same
days of the week every seven years. The introduction of
occasional 29ths of February disturbs this, and makes the
permanent return of month days to week days occur only
after 28 years. If all had been true, the lapse of 28 times 19,
or 532 years, would have restored the year in every point:
that is, A. D. 1, for instance, and A. D. 533, would have had
the same almanac in every matter relating to week days,
month days, sun, and moon (mean sun and moon at least).
And on the supposition of its truth, the old system of Diony-
sius was framed. Its errors, are, first, that the moments
of mean new moon advance too much by 1 h. 29 m. in 19
average Julian years; secondly, that the average Julian
year of 365 J days is too long by llm. 10s.
8. The Council of Trent, moved by the representations
made on the state of the Calendar, referred the considera-
tion of it to the Pope. In 1577, Gregory XIII18 submitted
to the Roman Catholic Princes and Universities a plan pre-
sented to him by the representatives of Aloysius Lilius,19
then deceased. This plan being approved of, the Pope nomi-
nated a commission to consider its details, the working mem-
ber of which was the Jesuit Clavius. A short work was
prepared by Clavius, descriptive of the new Calendar: this
18Ugo Buoncompagno (1502-1585) was elected pope in 1572.
19 He was a Calabrian, and as early as 1552 was professor of
medicine at Perugia. In 1576 his manuscript on the reform of the
calendar was presented to the Roman Curia by his brother, An-
tonius. The manuscript was not printed and it has not been pre-
served.
EASTER DAY PARADOXERS. 363
was published20 in 1582, with the Pope's bull (dated Febru-
ary 24, 1581) prefixed. A larger work was prepared by
Clavius, containing fuller explanation, and entitled Romani
Calendarii a Gregorio XIII. Pontifice Maximo restituti Ex-
plicatio. This was published at Rome in 1603, and again
in the collection of the works of Clavius in 1612.
9. The following extracts from Clavius settle the question
of the meaning of the term moon, as used in the Calendar :
"Who, except a few who think they are very sharp-
sighted in this matter, is so blind as not to see that the 14th
of the moon and the full moon are not the same things in
the Church of God? Although the Church, in finding the
new moon, and from it the 14th day, uses neither the true
nor the mean motion of the moon, but measures only ac-
cording to the order of a cycle, it is nevertheless undeniable
that the mean full moons found from astronomical tables are
of the greatest use in determining the cycle which is to be
preferred the new moons of which cycle, in order to
the due celebration of Easter, should be so arranged that
the 14th days of those moons, reckoning from the day of
new moon inclusive, should not fall two or more days before
the mean full moon, but only one day, or else on the very
day itself, or not long after. And even thus far the Church
need not take very great pains .... for it is sufficient that all
should reckon by the 14th day of the moon in the cycle, even
though sometimes it should be more than one day before or
after the mean full moon .... We have taken pains that in
our cycle the new moons should follow the real new moons,
so that the 14th of the moon should fall either the day be-
fore the mean full moon, or on that day, or not long after ;
and this was done on purpose, for if the new moon of the
cycle fell on the same day as the mean new moon of the
20 The title of this work, which is the authority on all points of
the new Calendar, is Kalendarium Gregorianum Perpetuum. Cum
Privilegio Summi Pontificis Et Aliorum Principum. Roma, Ex
Officina Dominici Bascz. MDLXXXII. Cum Licentia Superiorum
(quarto, pp. 60).— A. De M.
364 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
astronomers, it might chance that we should celebrate Easter
on the same day as the Jews or the Quartadeciman heretics,
which would be absurd, or else before them, which would
be still more absurd."
From this it appears that Clavius continued the Calen-
dar of his predecessors in the choice of the fourteenth day
of the moon. Our legislature lays down the day of the full
moon: and this mistake appears to be rather English than
Protestant; for it occurs in missals published in the reign
of Queen Mary. The calendar lunation being 29| days,
the middle day is the fifteenth day, and this is and was
reckoned as the day of the full moon. There is every
right to presume that the original passover was a feast of
the real full moon : but it is most probable that the moons
were then reckoned, not from the astronomical conjunction
with the sun, which nobody sees except at an eclipse, but
from the day of -first visibility of the new moon. In fine
climates this would be the day or two days after conjunction ;
and the fourteenth day from that of first visibility inclusive,
would very often be the day of full moon. The following
is then the proper correction of the precept in the Act of
Parliament :
Easter Day, on which the rest depend, is always the
First Sunday after the fourteenth day of the calendar moon
which happens upon or next after the Twenty-first day of
March, according to the rules laid down for the construction
of the Calendar-, and if the fourteenth day happens upon a
Sunday, Easter Day is the Sunday after.
10. Further, it appears that Clavius valued the celebra-
tion of the festival after the Jews, etc., more than astronom-
ical correctness. He gives comparison tables which would
startle a believer in the astronomical intention of his Calen-
dar: they are to show that a calendar in which the moon is
always made a day older than by him, represents the heavens
better than he has done, or meant to do. But it must be
observed that this diminution of the real moon's age has
EASTER DAY PARADOXERS. 365
a tendency to make the English explanation often practically
accordant with the Calendar. For the fourteenth day of
Clavius is generally the fifteenth day of the mean moon of
the heavens, and therefore most often that of the real
moon. But for this, 1818 and 1845 would not have been
the only instances of our day in which the English precept
would have contradicted the Calendar.
11. In the construction of the Calendar, Clavius adopted
the ancient cycle of 532 years, but, we may say, without
ever allowing it to run out. At certain periods, a shift is
made from one part of the cycle into another. This is done
whenever what should be Julian leap year is made a com-
mon year, as in 1700, 1800, 1900, 2100, etc. It is also done
at certain times to correct the error of 1 h. 19 m., before
referred to, in each cycle of golden numbers : Clavius, to
meet his view of the amount of that error, put forward
the moon's age a day 8 times in 2,500 years. As we cannot
enter at full length into the explanation, we must content
ourselves with giving a set of rules, independent of tables,
by which the reader may find Easter for himself in any
year, either by the old Calendar or the new. Any one who
has much occasion to find Easters and movable feasts should
procure Francceur's21 tables.
12. Rule for determining Easter Day of the Gregorian
Calendar in any year of the new style. To the several parts
*a Manueh-Roret. Theorie du Calendrier et collection de tous
les Calendriers des Annees passees et futures Par L. B. Fran-
cceur,. . .Paris, a la librairie encyclopedique de Roret, rue Haute-
feuille, 10 bis. 1842. (i2mo.) In this valuable manual, the 35
possible almanacs are given at length, with such preliminary tables
as will enable any one to find, by mere inspection, which almanac
he is to choose for any year, whether of old or new style. [1866.
I may now refer to my own Book of Almanacs, for the same pur-
pose].—A. De M.
Louis Benjamin Francceur (1773-1849), after holding positions
in the Ecole polytechnique (1804) and the Lycee Charlemagne
(1805), became professor of higher algebra in the University of
Paris (1809). His Cours complet des mathematiques pures was well
received, and he also wrote on mechanics, astronomy, and geodesy.
366 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
of the rule are annexed, by way of example, the results for
the year 1849.
I. Add i to the given year. ( 1850) .
II. Take the quotient of the given year divided by 4, neglecting
the remainder. (462).
III. Take 16 from the centurial figures of the given year, if it can
be done, and take the remainder. (2).
IV. Take the quotient of III. divided by 4, neglecting the re-
mainder, (o).
V. From the sum of L, II., and IV., subtract III. (2310).
VI. Find the remainder of V. divided by 7. (o).
VII. Subtract VI. from 7; this is the number of the dominical
letter A B C D I F G (7 ; dominical letter G> •
VIII. Divide I. by 19, the remainder (or 19, if no remainder) is the
golden number. (7).
IX. From the centurial figures of the year subtract 17, divide by
25, and keep the quotient, (o).
X. Subtract IX. and 15 from the centurial figures, divide by 3,
and keep the quotient, (i).
XL To VIII. add ten times the next less number, divide by 30, and
keep the remainder. (7).
XII. To XL add X. and IV., and take away III., throwing out
thirties, if any. If this give 24, change it into 25. If 25,
change it into 26, whenever the golden number is greater
than ii. If o, change it into 30. Thus we have the epact, or
age of the Calendar moon at the beginning of the year. (6).
When the Epact is 23, or less. When the Epact is greater than 23.
XIII. Subtract XII., the epact,
from 45. (39).
XIV. Subtract the epact from
27, divide by 7, and
keep the remainder, or
7, if there be no re-
mainder. (7).
XIII. Subtract XII., the epact,
from 75.
XIV. Subtract the epact from
57, divide by 7, and
keep the remainder, or
7, if there be no re-
mainder.
XV. To XIII. add VII., the dominical number, (and 7 besides, if
XIV. be greater than VII.,) and subtract XIV., the result
is the day of March, or if more than 31, subtract 31, and
EASTER DAY PARADOXERS.
367
the result is the day of April, on which Easter Sunday
falls. (39; Easter Day is April 8).
In the following examples, the several results leading
to the final conclusion are tabulated.
GIVEN YEAR
1592
1637
1723
1853
2018
4686
I.
1593
1638
1724
1854
2019
4687
II.
398
409
430
463
504
1171
III.
0
1
2
4
30
IV.
0
0
0
1
7
V.
1991
2047
2153
2315
2520
5835
VI.
3
3
4
5
0
4
VII.
4
4
3
2
7
3
VIII.
16
4
14
11
5
13
IX.
0
0
0
1
X.
0
0
0
1
1
10
XL
16
4
24
21
15
13
XII.
16
4
23
20
13
0 say 30
XIII.
29
41
22
25
32
45
XIV.
4
2
4
7
7
6
XV.
29
43
28
27
32
49
Easter Day'
Mar. 29
Apr. 12
Mar. 28
Mar. 27
Apr. 1
Apr. 18
13. Rule for determining Easter Day of the Antegrego-
rian Calendar in any year of the old style. To the several
parts of the rule are annexed, by way of example, the results
for the year 1287. The steps are numbered to correspond
with the steps of the Gregorian rule, so that it can be seen
what augmentations the latter requires.
I. Set down the given year. (1287).
II. Take the quotient of the given year divided by 4, neglecting
the remainder (321).
V. Take 4 more than the sum of I. and II. (1612).
VI. Find the remainder of V. divided by 7. (2).
VII. Subtract VI. from 7; this is the number of the dominical
letter
ABCDEFG
(5; dominical letter E).
1234567.
VIII. Divide one more than the given year by 19, the remainder
(or 19 if no remainder) is the golden number. (15).
XII. Divide 3 less than n times VIII. by 30; the remainder (or 30
if there be no remainder) is the epact (12).
368 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
When the Epact is 23, or less. When the Epact is greater than 23.
XIII. Subtract XII., the epact,
from 45. (33).
XIV. Subtract the epact from
27, divide by 7, and
keep the remainder, or
7, if there be no re-
mainder, (i).
XIII. Subtract XII., the epact,
from 75.
XIV. Subtract the epact from
57, divide by 7, and
keep the remainder, or
7, if there be no re-
mainder.
XV. To XIII. add VII., the dominical number, (and 7 besides if
XIV. be greater than VII.,) and subtract XIV., the result
is the day of March, or if more than 31, subtract 31, and the
result is the day of April, on which Easter Sunday (old
style) falls. (37; Easter Day is April 6).
These rules completely represent the old and new Cal-
endars, so far as Easter is concerned. For further explana-
tion we must refer to the articles cited at the commence-
ment.
The annexed is the table of new and full moons of the
Gregorian Calendar, cleared of the errors made for the
purpose of preventing Easter from coinciding with the
Jewish Passover.
The second table (page 370) contains e pacts, or ages of
the moon at the beginning of the year: thus in 1913, the
epact is 22, in 1868 it is 6. This table goes from 1850 to
1999: should the New Zealander not have arrived by that
time, and should the churches of England and Rome then
survive, the epact table may be continued from their liturgy-
books. The way of using the table is as follows : Take the
epact of the required year, and find it in the first or last
column of the first table, in line with it are seen the calendar
days of new and full moon. Thus, when the epact is 17,
the new and full moons of March fall on the 13th and 28th.
The result is, for the most part, correct: but in a minority
of cases there is an error of a day. When this happens, the
error is almost always a fraction of a day much less than
twelve hours. Thus, when the table gives full moon on the
27th, and the real truth is the 28th, we may be sure it is early
Jan.
Feb.
Mar
Apr.
May
June
July
Aug
Sep.
Oct.
Nov
Dec.
1 \
ag
14
27
13
29
M
27
13
27
12
25
ii
25
IO
23
9
22
7
21
7
20
5
19
5
i 1
2 {
28
13
26
12
28
U
26
13
26
ii
24
IO
24
9
32
8
31
6
20
6
19
4
18
4
f 2
3
37
12
25
II
27
12
25
ii
25
10
23
9
3
21
7
20
5
19
5
18
3
17
3
1 3
4
26
ii
24
IO
26
II
24
IO
24
9
22
8
22
7
20
6
19
4
18
4
17
a
16
2,31
El
5 ;
25
10
23
9
25
IO
23
9
'i
21
7
21
6
19
5
18
3
17
3
16
i
15
1,30
1 ^
6 {
24
9
22
8
24
9
22
8
22
7
20
6
20
5
18
4
17
a
16
2,31
15
30
14
29
1 ^
7 {
23
21
7
1
21
7
21
6
19
5
19
4
17
3
16
15
i,3°
14
29
Ii
f 7
8 |
22
7
20
6
22
7
20
6
20
5
18
4
18
3
16
2,31
15
3°
14
29
3
12
27
8
9
21
6
19
5
21
6
19
5
19
4
17
3
17
a
15
1,30
14
29
X
12
27
II
26
9
10 j
20
5
18
4
20
5
18
4
18
3
16
2
16
i.3i
14
29
U
12
27j
II
26
10
25
10
11]
i9
4
17
3
19
4
17
3
17
2
IS
1,30
15
30
Ji
12
27
II
26
IO
25
9
24
1 H
12 {
18
3
16
2
18
3
16
2
16
i,3i
14
29
14
29
12
27
II
26
10
25
9
24
8
23
i 12
13 |
17
2
15
17
2
IS
1,30
IS
30
11
11
ii
26
IO
25
9
24
8
23
7
22
f 13
14 j
16
1.3*
14
16
i»3i
14
29
14
29
12
27
12
27
IO
25
9
24
8
23
7
22
6
21
i i4
15 {
I I5
1 3°
3
15
30
Ii
Ii
II
26
II
26
9
24
8
23
7
22
6
21
5
20
1 I5
16 |
14
29
12
27
14
29
12
27
12
27
IO
25
IO
25
8
23
7
22
6
21
5
20
4
19
i 16
17 |
ij
II
26
ii
II
26
II
26
9
24
9
24
7
22
6
21
5
20
4
19
,1
{ 17
18 j
12
27
IO
25
12
27
IO
25
IO
25
8
23
8
23
6
21
5
20
4
19
,1
2
17
18
191
II
26
9
24
II
26
9
24
9
24
7
22
7
22
5
20
4
19
18
2
17
'A'
19
20 {
IO
25
8
23
10
25
8
23
6
21
6
21
4
19
,i
2
17
'A1
30
is
20
21
9
24
7
22
9
24
7
22
7
22
5
20
5
20
j
2
17
'ft1
29
15
29
14
21
22
8
23
6
21
8
23
6
21
6
21
4
19
4
19
2
17
1,30
16
30
u
28
14
28
13
f 22
23
7
22
5
20
7
22
5
20
5
20
ii
18
1,31
16
29
15
29
•-14.-
27
13
27
12
23
24 j
6
21
19
21
19
19
17
17
1,30
'5
29
'4
28
*3
27
12
26
II
} 24
25
S
20
4
19
5
20
4
19
j
2
17
'$
29
15
28
13
27
13
26
II
25
II
25
26 i
4
19
,|
4
19
j
2
17
1,30
16
30
15
28
14
27
12
26
12
25
IO
24
IO
} 26
27 |
,1
2
17
,1
2
17
H1
16
29
15
29
14
27
13
26
II
25
II
24
9
23
9
27
28 j
2
*7
I
16
2
17
i,3p
16
30
15
28
14
28
13
26
12
25
IO
24
IO
2i
22
8
28
29 j
1,3,1
16
15
1,31
16
29
15
29
14
27
13
27
12
25
II
24
9
23
9
22
7
21
7
29
30 j
30
15
28
14
30
u
28
14
28
13
26
12
26
II
24
10
2i
22
8
21
6
20
6
30
Jan.
Feb.
Mar.
Apr.
May
'une
Tuly
Aug.
Sep.
Oct.
Nov.
Dec.
370
A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
g
185
17
28
19
20
2
12
23
4
15
26
186
7
18
30
11
22
3
14
25
6
17
187
28
9
20
1
12
23
4
15
26
7
188
18
30
11
22
3
14
25
6
17
28
189
9
21
1
12
23
4
15
26
7
18
190
29
10
21
2
13
24
5
16
27
8
191
19
30
11
22
3
14
26
6
17
29
192
10
21
2
13
24
5
16
27
8
19
193
30
11
22
3
14
26
6
17
29
10
194
21
2
13
24
5
16
27
8
19
30
195
11
22
3
14
26
6
17
29
10
21
196
2
13
24
5
16
27
8
19
30
11
197
22
3
14
26
6
17
29
10
21
2
198
13
24
5
16
27
8
19
30
11
22
199
3
14
26
6
17
29
10
21
2
13
on the 28th. For example, the year 1867. The epact is 25,
and we find in the table:
J. F. M. AP. M. JU. JL. AU. S. O. N. D.
New .... 5+ 4 5+4 3+2 1,31 29 28- 27 26 25
Full .... 20 19- 20 19- 18 17 16 15 13- 13 11+ 11
When the truth is the day after + is written after the
date; when the day before, — . Thus, the new moon of
March is on the 6th ; the full moon of April is on the 18th.
EASTER DAY PARADOXERS. 371
I now introduce a small paradox of my own; and as I
am not able to prove it, I am compelled to declare that
any one who shall dissent must be either very foolish or
very dishonest, and will make me quite uncomfortable about
the state of his soul. This being settled once for all, I pro-
ceed to say that the necessity of arriving at the truth about
the assertions that the Nicene Council laid down astronom-
ical tests led me to look at Fathers, Church histories, etc.
to an extent which I never dreamed of before. One con-
clusion which I arrived at was, that the Nicene Fathers had
a knack of sticking to the question which many later councils
could not acquire. In our own day, it is not permitted
to Convocation seriously to discuss any one of the points
which are bearing so hard upon their resources of defence
— the cursing clauses of the Athanasian Creed, for example.
And it may be collected that the prohibition arises partly
from fear that there is no saying where a beginning, if
allowed, would end. There seems to be a suspicion that
debate, once let loose, would play up old Trent with the
liturgy, and bring the whole book to book. But if any one
will examine the real Nicene Creed, without the augmen-
tation, he will admire the way in which the framers stuck
to the point, and settled what they had to decide, according to
their view of it. With such a presumption of good sense
in their favor, it becomes easier to believe in any claim which
may be made on their behalf to tact or sagacity in settling
any other matter. And I strongly suspect such a claim may
be made for them on the Easter question.
I collect from many little indications, both before and
after the Council, that the division of the Christian world
into Judaical and Gentile, though not giving rise to a sec-
tarian distinction expressed by names, was of far greater
force and meaning than historians prominently admit. I
took note of many indications of this, but not notes, as it was
not to my purpose. If it were so, we must admire the dis-
cretion of the Council. The Easter question was the fight-
372 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
ing ground of the struggle: the Eastern or Judaical Chris-
tians, with some varieties of usage and meaning, would
have the Passover itself to be the great feast, but taken in
a Christian sense; the Western or Gentile Christians, would
have the commemoration of the Resurrection, connected
with the Passover only by chronology. To shift the Passover
in time, under its name, Pascha, without allusion to any of
the force of the change, was gently cutting away the ground
from under the feet of the Conservatives. And it was done
in a very quiet way: no allusion to the precise character of
the change ; no hint that the question was about two different
festivals: "all the brethren in the East, who formerly cele-
brated this festival at the same time as the Jews, will in fu-
ture conform to the Romans and to us." The Judaizers
meant to be keeping the Passover as a Christian feast : they
are gently assumed to be keeping, not the Passover, but a
Christian feast; and a doctrinal decision is quietly, but effi-
ciently, announced under the form of a chronological ordi-
nance. Had the Council issued theses of doctrine, and ex-
communicated all dissentients, the rupture of the East and
West would have taken place earlier by centuries than it did.
The only place in which I ever saw any part of my paradox
advanced, was in an article in the Examiner newspaper,
towards the end of 1866, after the above was written.
A story about Christopher Clavius, the workman of the
new Calendar. I chanced to pick up "Albertus Pighius
Campensis de sequinoctiorum solsticiorumque inventione . . .
Ejusdem de ratione Paschalis celebrationis, De que Restitu-
tione ecclesiastici Kalendarii," Paris, 1520, folio.22 On the
title-page were decayed words followed by ". .hristophor. .
C. .ii, 1556 (or 8)," the last blank not entirely erased by
time, but showing the lower halves of an / and of an a, and
M Albertus Pighius, or Albert Pigghe, was born at Kempen c.
1490 and died at Utrecht in 1542. He was a mathematician and a
firm defender of the faith, asserting the supremacy of the Pope and
attacking both Luther and Calvin. He spent some time in Rome.
His greatest work was his Hierarchic? ecclesiastics assertio (1538).
A COUPLE OF MINOR PARADOXES. 373
rather too much room for a v. It looked very like E Libris
Christophori Clavii 1556. By the courtesy of some members
of the Jesuit body in London, I procured a tracing of the
signature of Clavius from Rome, and the shapes of the
letters, and the modes of junction and disjunction, put the
matter beyond question. Even the extra space was ex-
plained; he wrote himself Clawius. Now in 1556, Clavius
was nineteen years old : it thus appears probable that the
framer of the Gregorian Calendar was selected, not merely
as a learned astronomer, but as one who had attended to the
calendar, and to works on its reformation, from early youth.
When on the subject I found reason to think that Clavius
had really read this work, and taken from it a phrase or two
and a notion or two. Observe the advantage of writing the
baptismal name at full length.
A COUPLE OF MINOR PARADOXES.
The discovery of a general resolution of all superior finite equa-
tions, of every numerical both algebraick and transcendent
form. By A. P. Vogel,1 mathematician at Leipzick. Leipzick
and London, 1845, 8vo.
This work is written in the English of a German who
has not mastered the idiom: but it is always intelligible. It
professes to solve equations of every degree "in a more ex-
tent sense, and till to every degree of exactness." The gen-
eral solution of equations of all degrees is a vexed question,
which cannot have the mysterious interest of the circle prob-
lem, and is of a comparatively modern date.2 Mr. Vogel
1This was A. F. yogel. The work was his translation from
the German edition which appeared at Leipsic the same year, Ent-
deckung einer numerischen General-Auflosung aller hoheren end-
lichen Gleichungen von jeder beliebigen algebraischen und transcen-
denten Form.
"The latest edition of Burnside and Panton's Theory of Equa-
tions has this brief summary of the present status of the problem:
"Demonstrations have been given by Abel and Wantzel (see Serret's
Cours d'Algebre Superieure, Art 516)^ of the impossibility of re-
solving algebraically equations unrestricted in form, of a degree
higher than the fourth. A transcendental solution, however, of the
374 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
announces a forthcoming treatise in which are resolved the
"last impossibilities of pure mathematics."
Elective Polarity the Universal Agent. By Frances Barbara
Burton, authoress of 'Astronomy familiarized/ 'Physical As-
tronomy/ &c. London, 1845, 8vo.3
The title gives a notion of the theory. The first sentence
states, that 12,500 years ago a Lyrae was the pole-star, and
attributes the immense magnitude of the now fossil animals
to a star of such "polaric intensity as Vega pouring its
magnetic streams through our planet." Miss Burton was
a lady of property, and of very respectable acquirements,
especially in Hebrew; she was eccentric in all things.
1867. — Miss Burton is revived by the writer of a book
on meteorology which makes use of the planets : she is one
of his leading minds.4
SPECULATIVE THOUGHT IN ENGLAND.
In the year 1845 the old Mathematical Society was
merged in the Astronomical Society. The circle-squarers,
etc., thrive more in England than in any other country:
there are most weeds where there is the largest crop. Specu-
lation, though not encouraged by our Government so much
as by those of the Continent, has had, not indeed such
forcing, but much wider diffusion: few tanks, but many
rivulets. On this point I quote from the preface to the
reprint of the work of Ramchundra,1 which I superintended
for the late Court of Directors of the East India Company.
quintic has been given by M. Hermite, in a form involving elliptic
integrals."
* There was a second edition of this work in 1846. The author's
Astronomy Simplified was published in 1838, and the Thoughts on
Physical Astronomy in 1840, with a second edition in 1842.
*This was The Science of the Weather, by several authors
edited by B., Glasgow, 1867.
1This was Y. Ramachandra, son of Sundara Lala. He was a
teacher of science in Delhi College, and the work to which De
Morgan refers is A Treatise on problems of Maxima and Minima
solved by Algebra, which appeared at Calcutta in 1850. De Morgan's
edition was published at London nine years later.
SPECULATIVE THOUGHT IN ENGLAND. 375
"That sound judgment which gives men well to know
what is best for them, as well as that faculty of invention
which leads to development of resources and to the increase
of wealth and comfort, are both materially advanced, per-
haps cannot rapidly be advanced without, a great taste for
pure speculation among the general mass of the people,
down to the lowest of those who can read and write. Eng-
land is a marked example. Many persons will be surprised
at this assertion. They imagine that our country is the
great instance of the refusal of all unpractical knowledge in
favor of what is useful. I affirm, on the contrary, that there
is no country in Europe in which there has been so wide
a diffusion of speculation, theory, or what other unpractical
word the reader pleases. In our country, the scientific so-
ciety is always formed and maintained by the people; in
every other, the scientific academy — most aptly named —
has been the creation of the government, of which it has
never ceased to be the nursling. In all the parts of England
in which manufacturing pursuits have given the artisan
some command of time, the cultivation of mathematics and
other speculative studies has been, as is well known, a very
frequent occupation. In no other country has the weaver
at his loom bent over the Principia of Newton ; in no other
country has the man of weekly wages maintained his own
scientific periodical. With us, since the beginning of the
last century, scores upon scores — perhaps hundreds, for I
am far from knowing all — of annuals have run, some their
ten years, some their half-century, some their century and
a half, containing questions to be answered, from which
many of our examiners in the universities have culled mate-
rials for the academical contests. And these questions have
always been answered, and in cases without number by the
lower order of purchasers, the mechanics, the weavers, and
the printers' workmen. I cannot here digress to point out
the manner in which the concentration of manufactures,
and the general diffusion of education, have affected the
376 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
state of things ; I speak of the time during which the present
system took its rise, and of the circumstances under which
many of its most effective promoters were trained. In all
this there is nothing which stands out, like the state-nour-
ished academy, with its few great names and brilliant single
achievements. This country has differed from all others in
the wide diffusion of the disposition to speculate, which
disposition has found its place among the ordinary habits
of life, moderate in its action, healthy in its amount."
THE OLD MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY.
Among the most remarkable proofs of the diffusion of
speculation was the Mathematical Society, which flourished
from 1717 to 1845. Its habitat was Spitalfields, and I think
most of its existence was passed in Crispin Street. It was
originally a plain society, belonging to the studious artisan.
The members met for discussion once a week ; and I believe
I am correct in saying that each man had his pipe, his pot,
and his problem. One of their old rules was that, "If any
member shall so far forget himself and the respect due to
the Society as in the warmth of debate to threaten or offer
personal violence to any other member, he shall be liable to
immediate expulsion, or to pay such fine as the majority of
the members present shall decide." But their great rule,
printed large on the back of the title page of their last book
of regulations, was "By the constitution of the Society, it
is the duty of every member, if he be asked any mathematical
or philosophical question by another member, to instruct
him in the plainest and easiest manner he is able." We shall
presently see that, in old time, the rule had a more homely
form.
I have been told that De Moivre1 was a member of this
1 Abraham de Moivre (1667-1754), French refugee in London,
poor, studying under difficulties, was a man with tastes in some re-
spects like those of De Morgan. For one thing, he was a lover of
books, and he had a good deal of interest in the theory of probabili-
ties to which De Morgan also gave much thought. His introduction
THE OLD MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY. 377
Society. This I cannot verify: circumstances render it un-
likely ; even though the French refugees clustered in Spital-
fields; many of them were of the Society, which there is
some reason to think was founded by them. But Dolland,2
Thomas Simpson,3 Saunderson,4 Crossley,5 and others of
known name, were certainly members. The Society grad-
ually declined, and in 1845 was reduced to nineteen mem-
bers. An arrangement was made by which sixteen of these
members, who where not already in the Astronomical Society
became Fellows without contribution, all the books and other
property of the old Society being transferred to the new one.
I was one of the committee which made the preliminary
inquiries, and the reason of the decline was soon manifest.
The only question which could arise was whether the mem-
bers of the society of working men — for this repute still
continued — were of that class of educated men who could
associate with the Fellows of the Astronomical Society on
terms agreeable to all parties. We found that the artisan
element had been extinct for many years; there was not a
man but might, as to education, manners, and position, have
become a Fellow in the usual way. The fact was that life
in Spitalfields had become harder: and the weaver could
of imaginary quantities into trigonometry was an event of importance
in the history of mathematics, and the theorem that bears his name,
(cos0 + tsin0)« = cosM0 + ismn<t>, is one of the most important
ones in all analysis.
"John Dolland (1706-1761), the silk weaver who became the
greatest maker of optical instruments in his time.
Thomas Simpson (1710-1761), also a weaver, taking his leisure
from his loom at Spitalfields to teach mathematics. His New Treat-
ise on Fluxions (1737) was written only two years after he began
working in London, and six years later he was appointed professor
of mathematics at Woolwich. He wrote many works on mathe-
matics and Simpson's Formulas for computing trigonometric tables
are still given in the text-books.
4 Nicholas Saunderson (1682-1739), the blind mathematician. He
lost his eyesight through smallpox ^when only a year old. At the age
of 25 he began lecturing at Cambridge on the principles of the New-
tonian philosophy. His Algebra, in two large volumes, was long the
standard treatise on the subject.
5 He was not in the class with the others mentioned.
378 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
only live from hand to mouth, and not up to the brain. The
material of the old Society no longer existed.
In 1798, experimental lectures were given, a small charge
for admission being taken at the door : by this hangs a tale —
and a song. Many years ago, I found among papers of a
deceased friend, who certainly never had anything to do
with the Society, and who passed all his life far from Lon-
don, a song, headed "Song sung by the Mathematical So-
ciety in London, at a dinner given Mr. Fletcher,8 a solicitor,
who had defended the Society gratis/' Mr. Williams,7 the
Assistant Secretary of the Astronomical Society, formerly
Secretary of the Mathematical Society, remembered that the
Society had had a solicitor named Fletcher among the mem-
bers. Some years elapsed before it struck me that my old
friend Benjamin Gompertz,8 who had long been a member,
might have some recollection of the matter. The following
is an extract of a letter from him (July 9, 1861) :
"As to the Mathematical Society, of which I was a mem-
ber when only 18 years of age, [Mr. G. was born in 1779],
having been, contrary to the rules, elected under the age of
21. How I came to be a member of that Society — and con-
tinued so until it joined the Astronomical Society, and was
then the President — was : I happened to pass a bookseller's
small shop, of second-hand books, kept by a poor taylor,
but a good mathematician, John Griffiths. I was very
pleased to meet a mathematician, and I asked him if he would
give me some lessons ; and his reply was that I was more
capable to teach him, but he belonged to a society of mathe-
maticians, and he would introduce me. I accepted the offer,
and I was elected, and had many scholars then to teach, as
a Not known in the literature of mathematics.
7 Probably J. Butler Williams whose Practical Geodesy appeared
in 1842, with a third edition in 1855.
"Benjamin Gompertz (1779-1865) was debarred as a Jew from
a university education. He studied mathematics privately and be-
came president of the Mathematical Society. De Morgan knew him
professionally through the fact that he was prominent in actuarial
work.
THE OLD MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY. 379
one of the rules was, if a member asked for information,
and applied to any one who could give it, he was obliged to
give it, or fine one penny. Though I might say much with
respect to the Society which would be interesting, I will for
the present reply only to your question. I well knew Mr.
Fletcher, who was a very clever and very scientific person.
He did, as solicitor, defend an action brought by an informer
against the Society — I think for 5,000/. — for giving lectures
to the public in philosophical subjects [i. e., for unlicensed
public exhibition with money taken at the doors]. I think
the price for admission was one shilling, and we used to
have, if I rightly recollect, from two to three hundred visi-
tors. Mr. Fletcher was successful in his defence, and we got
out of our trouble. There was a collection made to reward
his services, but he did not accept of any reward: and I
think we gave him a dinner, as you state, and enjoyed
ourselves ; no doubt with astronomical songs and other
songs; but my recollection does not enable me to say if
the astronomical song was a drinking song. I think the
anxiety caused by that action was the cause of some of the
members' death. [They had, no doubt, broken the law in
ignorance ; and by the sum named, the informer must have
been present, and sued for a penalty on every shilling he
could prove to have been taken]/'
I by no means guarantee that the whole song I proceed
to give is what was sung at the dinner: I suspect, by the
completeness of the chain, that augmentations have been
made. My deceased friend was just the man to add some
verses, or the addition may have been made before it came
into his hands, or since his decease, for the scraps contain-
ing the verses passed through several hands before they
came into mine. We may, however, be pretty sure that the
original is substantially contained in what is given, and
that the character is therefore preserved. I have had my-
self to repair damages every now and then, in the way of
conjectural restoration of defects caused by ill-usage.
380 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
THE ASTRONOMER'S DRINKING SONG.
"Whoe'er would search the starry sky,
Its secrets to divine, sir,
Should take his glass — I mean, should try
A glass or two of wine, sir !
True virtue lies in golden mean,
And man must wet his clay, sir;
Join these two maxims, and 'tis seen
He should drink his bottle a day, sir !
"Old Archimedes, reverend sage!
By trump of fame renowned, sir,
Deep problems solved in every page,
And the sphere's curved surface found,1 sir :
Himself he would have far outshone,
And borne a wider sway, sir,
Had he our modern secret known,
And drank a bottle a day, sir !
"When Ptolemy,2 now long ago,
Believed the earth stood still, sir,
He never would have blundered so,
Had he but drunk his fill, sir :
He'd then have felt3 it circulate,
And would have learnt to say, sir,
The true way to investigate
Is to drink your bottle a day, sir !
"Copernicus,4 that learned wight,
The glory of his nation,
With draughts of wine refreshed his sight,
And saw the earth's rotation;
1 Referring to the contributions of Archimedes (287-212 B.C.)
to the mensuration of the sphere.
*The famous Alexandrian astronomer (c. 87 — c. 165 A. D.),
author of the Almagest, a treatise founded on the works of Hip-
parchus.
"Dr. Whewell, when I communicated this song to him, started
the opinion, which I had before him, that this was a very good idea,
of which too little was made.— A. De M.
* See note 3, page 76.
THE ASTRONOMER'S DRINKING SONG. 381
Each planet then its orb described,
The moon got under way, sir;
These truths from nature he imbibed
For he drank his bottle a day, sir !
"The noble5 Tycho placed the stars,
Each in its due location;
He lost his nose6 by spite of Mars,
But that was no privation :
Had he but lost his mouth, I grant
He would have felt dismay, sir,
Bless you ! he knew what he should want
To drink his bottle a day, sir !
"Cold water makes no lucky hits ;
On mysteries the head runs :
Small drink let Kepler7 time his wits
On the regular polyhedrons :
He took to wine, and it changed the chime,
His genius swept away, sir,
Through area varying8 as the time
At the rate of a bottle a day, sir !
"Poor Galileo,8 forced to rat
Before the Inquisition,
E pur si muove10 was the pat
He gave them in addition :
e The common epithet of rank : nobilis Tycho, as he was a noble-
man. The writer had been at history. — A. De M.
See note 3, page 76.
* He lost it in a duel, with Manderupius Pasbergius. A contem-
porary, T. B. Laurus, insinuates that they fought to settle which was
the best mathematician ! This seems odd, but it must be remembered
they fought in the dark, "in tenebris densis" ; and it is a nice problem
to shave off a nose in the dark, without any other harm. — A. De M.
Was this T. B. Laurus Joannes Baptista Laurus or Giovanni
Battista Lauro (1581-1621), the poet and writer?
T See note 3, page 76.
* Referring to Kepler's celebrated law of planetary motion. He
had previously wasted his time on analogies between the planetary
orbits and the polyhedrons. — A. De M.
9 See note 3, page 76.
10 "It does move though."
382 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
He meant, whate'er you think you prove,
The earth must go its way, sirs ;
Spite of your teeth I'll make it move,
For I'll drink my bottle a day, sirs!
"Great Newton, who was never beat
Whatever fools may think, sir;
Though sometimes he forgot to eat,
He never forgot to drink, sir:
Descartes11 took nought but lemonade,
To conquer him was play, sir;
The first advance that Newton made
Was to drink his bottle a day, sirl
"D'Alembert,12 Euler,18 and Clairaut,14
Though they increased our store, sir,
Much further had been seen to go
Had they tippled a little more, sir !
Lagrange15 gets mellow with Laplace,16
And both are wont to say, sir,
The philosophe who's not an ass
Will drink his bottle a day, sir !
"Astronomers ! what can avail
Those who calumniate us ;
Experiment can never fail
With such an apparatus :
Let him who'd have his merits known
Remember what I say, sir;
Fair science shines on him alone
Who drinks his bottle a day, sir !
11 As great a lie as ever was told: but in 1800 a compliment to
Newton without a fling at Descartes would have been held a lopsided
structure. — A. De M.
" Jean-le-Rond D'Alembert (1717-1783), the foundling who was
left on the steps of Jean-le-Rond in Paris, and who became one of
the greatest mathematical physicists and astronomers of his century.
"Leonhard Euler (1707-1783), friend of the Bernoullis, the
greatest of Swiss mathematicians, prominent in the theory of num-
bers, and known for discoveries in all lines of mathematics as then
studied.
14 See notes 2, 3, page 219.
15 See note 3, page 288.
la See note 6, page 255.
LE VERRIER'S PLANET. 383
"How light we reck of those who mock
By this we'll make to appear, sir,
We'll dine by the sidereal17 clock
For one more bottle a year, sir :
But choose which pendulum you will,
You'll never make your way, sir,
Unless you drink — and drink your fill, —
At least a bottle a day, sir !"
Old times are changed, old manners gone!
There is a new Mathematical Society,18 and I am, at this
present writing (1866), its first President. We are very
high in the newest developments, and bid fair to take a place
among the scientific establishments. Benjamin Gompertz,
who was President of the old Society when it expired, was
the link betwreen the old and new body: he was a member
of ours at his death. But not a drop of liquor is seen at our
meetings, except a decanter of water : all our heavy is a fer-
mentation of symbols ; and we do not draw it mild. There
is no penny fine for reticence or occult science ; and as to a
song! not the ghost of a chance.
1826. The time may have come when the original docu-
ments connected with the discovery of Neptune may be
worth revising. The following are extracts from the
Athenaum of October 3 and October 17:
LE VERRIER'S1 PLANET.
We have received, at the last moment before making up
for press, the following letter from Sir John Herschel,2
"The siderial day is about four minutes short of the solar;
there are 366 sidereal days in the year. — A. De M.
18 The founding of the London Mathematical Society is dis-
cussed by Mrs. De Morgan in her Memoir (p. 281). The idea came
from a conversation between her brilliant son, George Campbell De
Morgan, and his friend Arthur Cowper Ranyard in 1864. The meet-
ing of organization was held on Nov. 7, 1864, with Professor De
Morgan in the chair, and the first regular meeting on January 16,
1865.
1 See note 8, page 43.
2 See note 5, page 80.
384 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
in reference to the matter referred to in the communication
from Mr. Hind3 given below:
"Collingwood, Oct. 1.
"In my address to the British Association assembled at
Southampton, on the occasion of my resigning the chair to
Sir R. Murchison,4 I stated, among the remarkable astro-
nomical events of the last twelvemonth, that it had added a
new planet to our list, — adding, 'it has done more, — it has
given us the probable prospect of the discovery of another.
We see it as Columbus saw America from the shores of
Spain. Its movements have been felt, trembling along the
far-reaching line of our analysis, with a certainty hardly
inferior to that of ocular demonstration/ — These expres-
sions are not reported in any of the papers which profess
to give an account of the proceedings, but I appeal to all
present whether they were not used.
"Give me leave to state my reasons for this confidence ;
and, in so doing, to call attention to some facts which de-
serve to be put on record in the history of this noble dis-
covery. On July 12, 1842, the late illustrious astronomer,
Bessel,5 honored me with a visit at my present residence.
On the evening of that day, conversing on the great work
of the planetary reductions undertaken by the Astronomer
Royal6 — then in progress, and since published,7 — M. Bessel
remarked that the motions of Uranus, as he had satisfied
'John Russell Hind (b. 1823), the astronomer. Between 1847
and 1854 he discovered ten planetoids.
4 Sir Roderick Impey Murchison (1792-1871), the great geolo-
gist. He was knighted in 1846 and devoted the latter part of his
life to the work of the Royal Geographical Society and to the geol-
ogy of Scotland.
6Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel (1784-1846), the astronomer and
physicist. He was professor of astronomy at Konigsberg.
6 This was the Reduction of the Observations of Planets made
.... from 1750 to 1830: computed. .. .under the superintendence of
George Biddell Airy (1848). See note 2, page 85.
T The expense of this magnificent work was defrayed by Govern-
ment grants, obtained, at the instance of the British Association, in
1833.— A. De M.
LE VERRIER'S PLANET. 385
himself by careful examination of the recorded observations,
could not be accounted for by the perturbations of the known
planets; and that the deviations far exceeded any possible
limits of error of observation. In reply to the question,
Whether the deviations in question might not be due to the
action of an unknown planet? — he stated that he considered
it highly probable that such was the case, — being systematic,
and such as might be produced by an exterior planet. I
then inquired whether he had attempted, from the indica-
tions afforded by these perturbations, to discover the position
of the unknown body, — in order that 'a hue and cry' might
be raised for it. From his reply, the words of which I do
not call to mind, I collected that he had not then gone into
that inquiry ; but proposed to do so, having now completed
certain works which had occupied too much of his time.
And, accordingly, in a letter which I received from him
after his return to Konigsberg, dated November 14, 1842,
he says, — 'In reference to our conversation at Collingwood,
I announce to you (melde ich Ihnen) that Uranus is not
forgotten/ Doubtless, therefore, among his papers will be
found some researches on the subject.
"The remarkable calculations of M. Le Verrier — which
have pointed out, as now appears, nearly the true situation
of the new planet, by resolving the inverse problem of the
perturbations — if uncorroborated by repetition of the numer-
ical calculations by another hand, or by independent investi-
gation from another quarter, would hardly justify so strong
an assurance as that conveyed by my expressions above
alluded to. But it was known to me, at that time, (I will
take the liberty to cite the Astronomer Royal as my author-
ity) that a similar investigation had been independently en-
tered into, and a conclusion as to the situation of the new
planet very nearly coincident with M. Le Verrier's arrived
at (in entire ignorance of his conclusions), by a young
Cambridge mathematician, Mr. Adams ;8 — who will, I hope,
* See note 7, page 43.
386 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
pardon this mention of his name (the matter being one of
great historical moment), — and who will, doubtless, in his
own good time and manner, place his calculations before the
public.
"J. F. W. HERSCHEL."
Discovery of Le Verrier's Planet.
Mr. Hind announces to the Times that he has received
a letter from Dr. Briinnow, of the Royal Observatory at
Berlin, giving the very important information that Le Ver-
rier's planet was found by M. Galle, on the night of Sep-
tember 23. "In announcing this grand discovery," he says,
"I think it better to copy Dr. Briinnow's9 letter."
"Berlin, Sept. 25.
"My dear Sir. — M. Le Verrier's planet was discovered
here the 23d of September, by M. Galle.10 It is a star of
the 8th magnitude, but with a diameter of two or three
seconds. Here are its places:
h, m. s. R. A. Declination.
Sept. 23, 12 0 14'6 M.T. 328° 19' 16'0" —13° 24' 8'2"
Sept. 24. 8 54 40'9 M.T. 328° 18' 14'3" —13° 24' 29'7'
The planet is now retrograde, its motion amounting daily
to four seconds of time.
"Yours most respectfully, BRUNNOW."
"This discovery," Mr. Hind says, "may be justly con-
sidered one of the greatest triumphs of theoretical astron-
omy;" and he adds, in a postscript, that the planet was ob-
served at Mr. Bishop's11 Observatory, in the Regent's Park,
"Franz Friedrich Ernst Briinnow (1821-1891) was at that time
or shortly before director of the observatory at Diisseldqrf. He then
went to Berlin and thence (1854) to Ann Arbor, Michigan. He
then went to Dublin and finally became Royal Astronomer of Ire-
land.
"Johann Gottfried Galle (1812-1910), at that time connected
with the Berlin observatory, and later professor of astronomy at
Breslau.
"George Bishop (1785-1861), in whose observatory in Regent's
Park important observations were made by Dawes, Hind, and Marth.
THE NEW PLANET. 387
on Wednesday night, notwithstanding the moonlight and
hazy sky. "It appears bright," he says, "and with a power
of 320 I can see the disc. The following position is the
result of instrumental comparisons with 33 Aquarii:
Sept. 30, at 8h. 16m. 21s. Greenwich mean time —
Right ascension of planet 21h. 52m. 47* 15s.
South declination 13° 27' 20"."
THE NEW PLANET.
"Cambridge Observatory, Oct. 15.
"The allusion made by Sir John Herschel, in his letter
contained in the Athenceum of October 3, to the theoretical
researches of Mr. Adams, respecting the newly-discovered
planet, has induced me to request that you would make the
following communication public. It is right that I should
first say that I have Mr. Adams's permission to make the
statements that follow, so far as they relate to his labors.
I do not propose to enter into a detail of the steps by which
Mr. Adams was led, by his spontaneous and independent
researches, to a conclusion that a planet must exist more
distant than Uranus. The matter is of too great historical
moment not to receive a more formal record than it would
be proper to give here. My immediate object is to show,
while the attention of the scientific public is more particu-
larly directed to the subject, that, with respect to this re-
markable discovery, English astronomers may lay claim to
some merit.
"Mr. Adams formed the resolution of trying, by calcula-
tion, to account for the anomalies in the motion of Uranus
on the hypothesis of a more distant planet, when he was an
undergraduate in this university, and when his exertions
for the academical distinction, which he obtained in January
1843, left him no time for pursuing the research. In the
course of that year, he arrived at an approximation to the
position of the supposed planet ; which, however, he did not
consider to be worthy of confidence, on account of his not
388 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
having employed a sufficient number of observations of
Uranus. Accordingly, he requested my intervention to ob-
tain for him the early Greenwich observations, then in course
of reduction ; — which the Astronomer Royal immediately
supplied, in the kindest possible manner. This was in Febru-
ary, 1844. In September, 1845, Mr. Adams communicated
to me values which he had obtained for the heliocentric
longitude, excentricity of orbit, longitude of perihelion, and
mass, of an assumed exterior planet, — deduced entirely from
unaccounted-for perturbations of Uranus. The same re-
sults, somewhat corrected, he communicated, in October, to
the Astronomer Royal. M. Le Verrier, in an investigation
which was published in June of 1846, assigned very nearly
the same heliocentric longitude for the probable position of
the planet as Mr. Adams had arrived at, but gave no results
respecting its mass and the form of its orbit. The coinci-
dence as to position from two entirely independent investi-
gations naturally inspired confidence; and the Astronomer
Royal shortly after suggested the employing of the North-
umberland telescope of this observatory in a systematic
search after the hypothetical planet; recommending, at the
same time, a definite plan of operations. I undertook to
make the search, — and commenced observing on July 29.
The observations were directed, in the first instance, to the
part of the heavens which theory had pointed out as the
most probable place of the planet ; in selecting which I was
guided by a paper drawn up for me by Mr. Adams. Not
having hour xxi. of the Berlin star-maps — of the publica-
tion of which I was not aware — I had to proceed on the
principle of comparison of observations made at intervals.
On July 30, I went over a zone 9' broad, in such a manner
as to include all stars to the eleventh magnitude. On
August 4, I took a broader zone and recorded a place of
the planet. My next observations were on August 12;
when I met with a star of the eighth magnitude in the zone
which I had gone over on July 30, — and which did not then
THE NEW PLANET. 389
contain this star. Of course, this was the planet ; — the place
of which was, thus, recorded a second time in four days
of observing. A comparison of the observations of July 30
and August 12 would, according to the principle of search
which I employed, have shown me the planet. I did not
make the comparison till after the detection of it at Berlin —
partly because I had an impression that a much more ex-
tensive search was required to give any probability of dis-
covery— and partly from the press of other occupation. The
planet, however, was secured, and two positions of it re-
corded six weeks earlier here than in any other observatory,
— and in a systematic search expressly undertaken for that
purpose. I give now the positions of the planet on August
4 and August 12.
Greenwich mean time.
"R.A. 21h. 58m. 14 '70s.
Aug. 4, 13h. 36m. 25s.. . - , Ay p D ^ ^f ^^
j R.A.
Aug.l2)13h.3m.26s....-{NJ)JX
21h. 57m. 26 -13s.
103° 2r 0'2"
"From these places compared with recent observations
Mr. Adams has obtained the following results :
Distance of the planet from the sun 30*05
Inclination of the orbit 1° 45'
Longitude of the descending node 309° 43'
Heliocentric longitude, Aug. 4 326° 39'
"The present distance from the sun is, therefore, thirty
times the earth's mean distance; — which is somewhat less
than the theory had indicated. The other elements of the
orbit cannot be approximated to till the observations shall
have been continued for a longer period.
"The part taken by Mr. Adams in the theoretical search
after this planet will, perhaps, be considered to justify the
suggesting of a name. With his consent, I mention Oceanus
as one which may possibly receive the votes of astronomers.
390 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
— I have authority to state that Mr. Adams's investigations
will in a short time, be published in detail.
"J. CHALLIS."1
ASTRONOMICAL POLICE REPORT.
"An ill-looking kind of a body, who declined to give any
name, was brought before the Academy of Sciences, charged
with having assaulted a gentleman of the name of Uranus
in the public highway. The prosecutor was a youngish
looking person, wrapped up in two or three great coats;
and looked chillier than anything imaginable, except the
prisoner, — whose teeth absolutely shook, all the time.
Policeman Le Verrier1 stated that he saw the prosecutor
walking along the pavement, — and sometimes turning side-
ways, and sometimes running up to the railings and jerking
about in a strange way. Calculated that somebody must be
pulling his coat, or otherwise assaulting him. It was so
dark that he could not see ; but thought, if he watched the
direction in which the next odd move was made, he might
find out something. When the time came, he set Briinnow,
a constable in another division of the same force, to watch
where he told him ; and Briinnow caught the prisoner lurk-
ing about in the very spot, — trying to look as if he was
minding his own business. Had suspected for a long time
that somebody was lurking about in the neighborhood.
Briinnow was then called, and deposed to his catching the
prisoner as described.
M. Arago. — Was the prosecutor sober?
Le Verrier. — Lord, yes, your worship ; no man who had
a drop in him ever looks so cold as he did.
M. Arago. — Did you see the assault?
Le Verrier. — I can't say I did ; but I told Briinnow
exactly how he'd be crouched down, — just as he was.
1 James Challis (1803-1882), director of the Cambridge observa-
tory, and successor of Airy as Plumian professor of astronomy.
1 On Leverrier and Arago see note 8, page 43, and note 7, page 243.
ASTRONOMICAL POLICE REPORT. 391
M. Arago (to Brunnow). — Did you see the assault?
Briinnow. — No, your worship ; but I caught the prisoner.
M. Arago. — How did you know there was any assault
at all?
Le Verrier. — I reckoned it couldn't be otherwise, when
I saw the prosecutor making those odd turns on the pave-
ment.
M . Arago.— You. reckon and you calculate ! Why, you'll
tell me, next, that you policemen may sit at home and find
out all that's going on in the streets by arithmetic. Did you
ever bring a case of this kind before me till now?
Le Verrier. — Why, you see, your worship, the police
are growing cleverer and cleverer every day. We can't
help it : — it grows upon us.
M. Arago. — You're getting too clever for me. What
does the prosecutor know about the matter?
The prosecutor said, all he knew was that he was pulled
behind by somebody several times. On being further ex-
amined, he said that he had seen the prisoner often, but
did not know his name, nor how he got his living ; but had
understood he was called Neptune. He himself had paid
rates and taxes a good many years now. Had a family of
six, — two of whom got their own living.
The prisoner being called on for his defence, said that it
was a quarrel. He had pushed the prosecutor — and the
prosecutor had pushed him. They had known each other
a long time, and were always quarreling ; — he did not know
why. It was their nature, he supposed. He further said,
that the prosecutor had given a false account of himself; —
that he went about under different names. Sometimes he
was called Uranus, sometimes Herschel, and sometimes
Georgium Sidus ; and he had no character for regularity
in the neighborhood. Indeed, he was sometimes not to be
seen for a long time at once.
The prosecutor, on being asked, admitted, after a little
hesitation, that he had pushed and pulled the prisoner too.
392 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
In the altercation which followed, it was found very diffi-
cult to make out which began : — and the worthy magistrate
seemed to think they must have begun together.
M. Arago. — Prisoner, have you any family?
The prisoner declined answering that question at present.
He said he thought the police might as well reckon it out
whether he had or not.
M. Arago said he didn't much differ from that opinion.
— He then addressed both prosecutor and prisoner ; and told
them that if they couldn't settle their differences without
quarreling in the streets, he should certainly commit them
both next time. In the meantime, he called upon both to
enter into their own recognizances ; and directed the police
to have an eye upon both, — observing that the prisoner
would be likely to want it a long time, and the prosecutor
would be not a hair the worse for it."
This quib was written by a person who was among the
astronomers : and it illustrates the fact that Le Verrier had
sole possession of the field until Mr. Challis's letter appeared.
Sir John Herschel's pervious communication should have
paved the way: but the wonder of the discovery drove it
out of many heads. There is an excellent account of the
whole matter in Professor Grant's2 History of Physical
Astronomy. The squib scandalized some grave people, who
wrote severe admonitions to the editor. There are formalists
who spend much time in writing propriety to journals, to
which they serve as foolometers. In a letter to the Athe-
nceum, speaking of the way in which people hawk fine terms
for common things, I said that these people ought to have
a new translation of the Bible, which should contain the
verse "gentleman and lady, created He them." The editor
was handsomely fired and brimstoned !
'Robert Grant's (1814-1892) History of Physical Astronomy
from the ^Earliest Ages to the Middle of the Nineteenth Century
appeared in 1852. He was professor of astronomy and director of
the observatory at Glasgow.
A NEW THEORY OF TIDES. 393
A NEW THEORY OF TIDES.
A new theory of the tides: in which the errors of the usual
theory are demonstrated; and proof shewn that the full moon
is not the cause of a concomitant spring tide, but actually the
cause of the neaps.... By Commr. Debenham,1 R.N. London,
1846, 8vo.
The author replied to a criticism in the Athenaum, and
I remember how, in a very few words, he showed that he
had read nothing on the subject. The reviewer spoke of
the forces of the planets (i. e., the Sun and Moon) on the
ocean, on which the author remarks, "But N.B. the Sun is
no planet, Mr. Critic." Had he read any of the actual in-
vestigations on the usual theory, he would have known that
to this day the sun and moon continue to be called planets —
though the phrase is disappearing — in speaking of the tides ;
the sense, of course, being the old one, wandering bodies.
A large class of the paradoxers, when they meet with
something which taken in their sense is absurd, do not take
the trouble to find out the intended meaning, but walk off
with the words laden with their own first construction. Such
men are hardly fit to walk the streets without an interpreter.
I was startled for a moment, at the time when a recent happy
— and more recently happier — marriage occupied the public
thoughts, by seeing in a haberdasher's window, in staring
large letters, an unpunctuated sentence which read itself to
me as "Princess Alexandra! collar and cuff!" It imme-
diately occurred to me that had I been any one of some
scores of my paradoxers, I should, no doubt, have proceeded
to raise the mob against the unscrupulous person who dared
to hint to a young bride such maleficent — or at least immel-
lificent — conduct towards her new lord. But, as it was, cer-
tain material contexts in the shop window suggested a less
1 John Debenham was more interested in religion than in astron-
omy. He wrote The Strait Gate; or, the true scripture doctrine of
salvation clearly explained, London, 1843, and Tractatus de magis et
Bethlehema stella et Christi in deserto tentatione, privately printed
at London in 1845.
394 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
savage explanation. A paradoxer should not stop at reading
the advertisements of Newton or Laplace : he should learn to
look at the stock of goods.
I think I must have an eye for double readings, when
presented : though I never guess riddles. On the day on
which I first walked into the Panizzi reading room2 — as it
ought to be called — at the Museum, I began my circuit of
the wall-shelves at the ladies' end : and perfectly coincided in
the propriety of the Bibles and theological works being
placed there. But the very first book I looked on the back
of had, in flaming gold letters, the following inscription — •
"Blast the Antinomians !"3 If a line had been drawn below
the first word, Dr. Blast's history of the Antinomians would
not have been so fearfully misinterpreted. It seems that
neither the binder nor the arranger of the room had caught
my reading. The book was removed before the catalogue
of books of reference was printed.
AN ASTRONOMICAL PARADOXER.
Two systems of astronomy : first, the Newtonian system, showing
the rise and progress thereof, with a short historical account ; the
general theory with a variety of remarks thereon : second, the
system in accordance with the Holy Scriptures, showing the
rise and progress from Enoch, the seventh from Adam, the
prophets, Moses, and others, in the first Testament; our Lord
Jesus Christ, and his apostles, in the new or second Testament ;
Reeve and Muggleton, in the third and last Testament; with
a variety of remarks thereon. By Isaac Frost.1 London, 1846,
4to.
"More properly the Sydney Smirke reading room, since it was
built from his designs.
* The Antinomians were followers of Johannes Agricola (1494-
1566). They believed that Christians as such were released from all
obligations to the Old Testament. Some went so far as to assert
that, since all Christians were sanctified, they could not lose this
sanctity even though they disobeyed God. The sect was prominent
in England in the seventeenth century, and was transferred to New
England. Here it suffered a check in the condemnation of Mrs. Ann
Hutchinson (1636) by the Newton Synod.
1 Aside from this work and his publications on Reeve and
Muggleton he wrote nothing. With Joseph Frost he published A list
AN ASTRONOMICAL PARADOXER. 395
A very handsomely printed volume, with beautiful plates.
Many readers who have heard of Muggletonians have never
had any distinct idea of Lodowick Muggleton,2 the inspired
tailor, (1608-1698) who about 1650 received his commission
from heaven, wrote a Testament, founded a sect, and de-
scended to posterity. Of Reeve3 less is usually said ; accord-
ing to Mr. Frost, he and Muggleton are the two "witnesses."
I shall content myself with one specimen of Mr. Frost's
science :
"I was once invited to hear read over 'Guthrie4 on As-
tronomy,' and when the reading was concluded I was asked
my opinion thereon ; when I said, 'Doctor, it appears to me
that Sir I. Newton has only given two proofs in support of
his theory of the earth revolving round the sun : all the rest
is assertion without any proofs.' — 'What are they?' inquired
the Doctor.— 'Well/ I said, 'they are, first, the power of
of Books and general index to J. Reeve and L. Muggleton's works
(1846), Divine Songs of the Muggletonians (1829), and the work
mentioned on page 396. The works of J. Reeve and L. Muggleton
(1832).
'About 1650 he and his cousin John Reeve (1608-1658) began
to have visions. As part of their creed they taught that astronomy
was opposed by the Bible. They asserted that the sun moves about
the earth, and Reeve figured out that heaven was exactly six miles
away. Both Muggleton and Reeve were imprisoned for their uni-
tarian views. Muggleton wrote a Transcendant Spirituall Treatise
(1652). I have before me A true Interpretation of All the Chief
Texts of the whole Book of the Revelation of St. 'John By
Lodozvick Muggleton, one of the two last Commissioned Witnesses
& Prophets of the onely high, immortal, glorious God, Christ Jesus
(1665), in which the interpretation of the "number of the beast"
occupies four pages without arriving anywhere.
*In 1652 he was, in a vision, named as the Lord's "last mes-
senger," with Muggleton as his "mouth," and died six years later,
probably of nervous tension resulting from his divine "illumination."
He was the more spiritual of the two.
4 William Guthrie (1708-1770) was a historian and political
writer. His History of England (1744-1751) was the first attempt
to base history on parliamentary records. He also wrote a General
History of Scotland in 10 volumes (1767). The work to which Frost
refers is the Geographical, Historical, and Commercial Grammar
(1770) which contained an astronomical part by J. Ferguson. By
1827 it had passed through 24 editions.
396 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
attraction to keep the earth to the sun ; the second is the
power of repulsion, by virtue of the centrifugal motion of
the earth: all the rest appears to me assertion without
proof.' The Doctor considered a short time and then said,
'It certainly did appear so.' I said, 'Sir Isaac has certainly
obtained the credit of completing the system, but really he
has only half done his work.' — 'How is that/ inquired my
friend the Doctor. My reply was this: 'You will observe
his system shows the earth traverses round the sun on an
inclined plane; the consequence is, there are four powers
required to make his system complete:
1st. The power of attraction.
2ndly. The power of repulsion.
3rdly. The power of ascending the inclined plane.
4thly. The power of descending the inclined plane
You will thus easily see the four powers required, and
Newton has only accounted for two ; the work is therefore
only half done/ Upon due reflection the Doctor said, 'It
certainly was necessary to have these four points cleared
up before the system could be said to be complete.' "
I have no doubt that Mr. Frost, and many others on
my list, have really encountered doctors who could be
puzzled by such stuff as this, or nearly as bad, among the
votaries of existing systems, and have been encouraged
thereby to print their objections. But justice requires me
to say that from the words "power of repulsion by virtue
of the centrifugal motion of the earth," Mr. Frost may be
suspected of having something more like a notion of the
much-mistaken term "centrifugal force" than many para-
doxers of greater fame. The Muggletonian sect is not alto-
gether friendless: over and above this handsome volume,
the works of Reeve and Muggleton were printed, in 1832,
in three quarto volumes. See Notes and Queries, ist Series,
v, 80 ; 3d Series, iii, 303.
AN ASTRONOMICAL PARADOXER. 397
[The system laid down by Mr. Frost, though intended
to be substantially that of Lodowick Muggleton, is not so
vagarious. It is worthy of note how very different have
been the fates of two contemporary paradoxers, Muggleton
and George Fox.5 They were friends and associates,6 and
commenced their careers about the same time, 1647-1650.
The followers of Fox have made their sect an institution,
and deserve to be called the pioneers of philanthropy. But
though there must still be Muggletonians, since expensive
books are published by men who take the name, no sect of
that name is known to the world. Nevertheless, Fox and
Muggleton are men of one type, developed by the same
circumstances : it is for those who investigate such men to
point out why their teachings have had fates so different.
Macaulay says it was because Fox found followers of more
sense than himself. True enough: but why did Fox find
such followers and not Muggleton? The two were equally
crazy, to all appearance: and the difference required must
be sought in the doctrines themselves.
Fox was not a rational man : but the success of his sect
and doctrines entitles him to a letter of alteration of the
phrase which I am surprised has not become current. When
Conduitt,7 the husband of Newton's half-niece, wrote a
circular to Newton's friends, just after his death, inviting
them to bear their parts in a proper biography, he said, "As
Sir I. Newton was a national man, I think every one ought
to contribute to a work intended to do him justice." Here
is the very phrase which is often wanted to signify that
G George Fox (1624-1691), founder of the Society of Friends; a
mystic and a disciple of Boehme. He was eight times imprisoned for
heresy.
6 If they were friends they were literary antagonists, for Mug-
gleton wrote against Fox The Neck of the Quakers Broken (1663),
and Fox replied in 1667. Muggleton also wrote A Looking Glass for
George Fox.
'John Conduitt (1688-1737), who married (1717) Newton's
half niece, Mrs. Katherine Barton. See note 6, page 136.
398 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
celebrity which puts its mark, good or bad, on the national
history, in a manner which cannot be asserted of many
notorious or famous historical characters. Thus George
Fox and Newton are both national men. Dr. Roget's8
Thesaurus gives more than fifty synonyms — colleagues
would be the better word — of "celebrated" any one of
which might be applied, either in prose or poetry, to New-
ton or to his works, no one of which comes near to the
meaning which Conduitt's adjective immediately suggests.
The truth is, that we are too monarchical to be national.
We have the Queen's army, the Queen's navy, the Queen's
highway, the Queen's English, etc. ; nothing is national ex-
cept the debt. That this remark is not new is an addition
to its force; it has hardly been repeated since it was first
made. It is some excuse that nation is not vernacular Eng-
lish: the country is our word, and country man is appro-
priated.]
Astronomical Aphorisms, or Theory of Nature ; founded on the
immutable basis of Meteoric Action. By P. Murphy,9 Esq.
London, 1847, 12mo.
This is by the framer of the Weather Almanac, who
appeals to that work as corroborative of his theory of plan-
etary temperature, years after all the world knew by ex-
perience that this meteorological theory was just as good
as the others.
"Probably Peter Mark Roget's (1779-1869) Thesaurus of Eng-
lish Words (1852) is not much used at present, but it went through
28 editions in his lifetime. Few who use the valuable work are
aware that Roget was a professor of physiology at the Royal Insti-
tution (London), that he achieved his title of F. R. S. because of his
work in perfecting the slide rule, and that he followed Sir John
Herschel as secretary of the Royal Society.
* See note 1, page 327. This work went into a second edition in
the year of its first publication.
THEISM INDEPENDENT OF REVELATION. 399
The conspiracy of the Bullionists as it affects the present system
of the money laws. By Caleb Quotem. Birmingham, 1847,
8vo. (pp. 16).
This pamphlet is one of a class of which I know very
little, in which the effects of the laws relating to this or
that political bone of contention are imputed to deliberate
conspiracy of one class to rob another of what the one knew
ought to belong to the other. The success of such writers
in believing what they have a bias to believe, would, if they
knew themselves, make them think it equally likely that the
inculpated classes might really believe what it is their in-
terest to believe. The idea of a guilty understanding ex-
isting among fundholders, or landholders, or any holders,
all the country over, and never detected except by bouncing
pamphleteers, is a theory which should have been left for
Cobbett10 to propose, and for Apella to believe.11
[August, 1866. A pamphlet shows how to pay the
National Debt. Advance paper to railways, etc., receivable
in payment of taxes. The railways pay interest and prin-
cipal in money, with which you pay your national debt, and
redeem your notes. Twenty-five years of interest redeems
the notes, and then the principal pays the debt. Notes to
be kept up to value by penalties.]
THEISM INDEPENDENT OF REVELATION.
The Reasoner. No. 45. Edited by G. J. Holyoake.1 Price 2d.
Is there sufficient proof of the existence of God? 8vo. 1847.
This acorn of the holy oak was forwarded to me with
a manuscript note, signed by the editor, on the part of the
10 See note 1, page 177.
11 See note 4, page 233.
1 George Jacob Holyoake (1817-1906) entered into a controver-
sial life at an early age. In 1841 he was imprisoned for six months
for blasphemy. He founded and edited The Reasoner (Vols. 1-26,
1846-1861). In his later life he did much to promote cooperation
among the working class.
400 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
"London Society of Theological Utilitarians," who say,
"they trust you may be induced to give this momentous
subject your consideration." The supposition that a middle-
aged person, known as a student of thought on more subjects
than one, had that particular subject yet to begin, is a speci-
men of what I will call the assumption-trick of controversy,
a habit which pervades all sides of all subjects. The tract is
a proof of the good policy of letting opinions find their
level, without any assistance from the Court of Queen's
Bench. Twenty years earlier the thesis would have been
positive, "There is sufficient proof of the non-existence of
God," and bitter in its tone. As it stands, we have a mod-
erate and respectful treatment — wrong only in making the
opponent argue absurdly, as usually happens when one
side invents the other — of a question in which a great many
Christians have agreed with the atheist: that question be-
ing— Can the existence of God be proved independently of
revelation? Many very religious persons answer this ques-
tion in the negative, as well as Mr. Holyoake. And, this
point being settled, all who agree in the negative separate
into those who can endure scepticism, and those who can-
not: the second class find their way to Christianity. This
very number of The Reasoner announces the secession of
one of its correspondents, and his adoption of the Christian
faith. This would not have happened twenty years before :
nor, had it happened, would it have been respectfully an-
nounced.
There are people who are very unfortunate in the ex-
pression of their meaning. Mr. Holyoake, in the name of
the "London Society" etc., forwarded a pamphlet on the
existence of God, and said that the Society trusted I "may
be induced to give" the subject my "consideration." How
could I know the Society was one person, who supposed
I had arrived at a conclusion and wanted a "guiding word" ?
But so it seems it was: Mr. Holyoake, in the English
THEISM INDEPENDENT OF REVELATION. 401
Leader of October 15, 1864, and in a private letter to me,
writes as follows :
"The gentleman who was the author of the argument,
and who asked me to send it to Mr. De Morgan, never
assumed that that gentleman had 'that particular subject
to begin' — on the contrary, he supposed that one whom we
all knew to be eminent as a thinker had come to a conclusion
upon it, and would perhaps vouchsafe a guiding word to
one who was, as yet, seeking the solution of the Great Prob-
lem of Theology. I told my friend that 'Mr. De Morgan
was doubtless preoccupied, and that he must be content to
wait. On some day of courtesy and leisure he might have
the kindness to write/ Nor was I wrong — the answer ap-
pears in your pages at the lapse of seventeen years."
I suppose Mr. Holyoake's way of putting his request
was the stylus curio? of the Society. A worthy Quaker
who was sued for debt in the King's Bench was horrified
to find himself charged in the declaration with detaining
his creditor's money by force and arms, contrary to the peace
of our Lord the King, etc. It's only the stylus curioe, said
a friend: I don't know curio? , said the Quaker, but he
shouldn't style us peace-breakers.
The notion that the won-existence of God can be proved,
has died out under the light of discussion: had the only
lights shone from the pulpit and the prison, so great a
step would never have been made. The question now is
as above. The dictum that Christianity is "part and parcel
of the law of the land" is also abrogated : at the same time,
and the coincidence is not an accident, it is becoming some-
what nearer the truth that the law of the land is part and
parcel of Christianity. It must also be noticed that Chris-
tianity was part and parcel of the articles of war] and so
was duelling. Any officer speaking against religion was to
be cashiered ; and any officer receiving an affront without,
in the last resort, attempting to kill his opponent, was also
to be cashiered. Though somewhat of a book-hunter, I
402 A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.
have never been able to ascertain, the date of the collected
remonstrances of the prelates in the House of Lords against
this overt inculcation of murder, under the soft name of
satisfaction: it is neither in Watt,2 nor in Lowndes,3 nor in
any edition of Brunet ;* and there is no copy in the British
Museum. Was the collected edition really published?
[The publication of the above in the Athenceum has not
produced reference to a single copy. The collected edition
seems to be doubted. I have even met one or two persons
who doubt the fact of the Bishops having remonstrated at
all: but their doubt was founded on an absurd supposition,
namely, that it was no business of theirs ; that it was not the
business of the prelates of the church in union with the
state to remonstrate against the Crown commanding mur-
der! Some say that the edition was published, but under
an irrelevant title, which prevented people from knowing
what it was about. Such things have happened: for ex-
ample, arranged extracts from Wellington's general orders,
which would have attracted attention, fell dead under the
title of "Principles of War." It is surmised that the book
I am looking for also contains the protests of the Reverend
bench against other things besides the Thou-shalt-do-murder
of the Articles (of war), and is called "First Elements of
Religion" or some similar title. Time clears up all things.]
8 See note 6, page 102.
'William Thomas Lowndes (1798-1843), whose Bibliographer's
Manual of English Literature, 4 vols., London, 1834 (also 1857-1864,
and 1869) is a classic in its line.
4 Jacques Charles Brunet (1780-1867), the author of the great
French bibliography, the Manuel du Libraire (1810).
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6-month loans may be recharged by bringing books to Circulation Desk
Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days prior to due date
DUE ASM STAMPED BELOW
'NOV.- 3 1977
IE&.CIILKW
LIBRARY USE
MOV 30 1987
MAY 9
2 9 1P98
CIRCULATION D =PT
CIRCULATION DE>I
FORM NO. DD 6,
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY
BERKELEY, CA 94720
U.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES