Chapter 4

I am commanded.... Chapter VII. Hear my prayer, O generations! and walk by the way, to drink the waters of the river.... Chapter VIII. Hearken o earth, earth, earth, and the kings of the earth, and their armies....

A very large collection might be made of such apostolic writings. They go on well enough in a misty--meant for mystical--imitation of St. Paul or the prophets, until at last some prodigious want of keeping shows the education of the writer. For example, after half a page which might {54} pass for Irving's[106] preaching--though a person to whom it was presented as such would say that most likely the head and tail would make something more like head and tail of it--we are astounded by a declaration from the _Holy Spirit_, speaking of himself, that he is "not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ." It would be long before we should find in _educated_ rhapsody--of which there are specimens enough--such a thing as a person of the Trinity taking merit for moral courage enough to stand where St. Peter fell. The following declaration comes next--"I will judge between cattle and cattle, that use their tongues."

THE FIGURE OF THE EARTH.

The figure of the earth. By J. L. Murphy,[107] of Birmingham. (London and Birmingham, 4 pages, 12mo.) (1850?)

Mr. Murphy invites attention and objection to some assertions, as that the earth is prolate, not oblate. "If the philosopher's conclusion be right, then the pole is the center of a valley (!) thirteen miles deep." Hence it would be very warm. It is answer enough to ask--Who knows that it is not?

*** A paragraph in the MS. appears to have been inserted in this place by mistake. It will be found in the Appendix at the end of this volume.--S. E. De M.

PERPETUAL MOTION.

1851. The following letter was written by one of a class of persons whom, after much experience of them, I {55} do _not_ pronounce insane. But in this case the second sentence gives a suspicion of actual delusion of the senses; the third looks like that eye for the main chance which passes for sanity on the Stock Exchange and elsewhere:

15th Sept. 1851.

"Gentlemen,--I pray you take steps to make known that yesterday I completed my invention which will give motion to every country on the Earth;--to move Machinery!--the long sought in vain 'Perpetual Motion'!!--I was supported at the time by the Queen and H.R.H. Prince Albert. If, Gentlemen, you can advise me how to proceed to claim the reward, if any is offered by the Government, or how to secure the PATENT for the machine, or in any way assist me by advice in this great work, I shall most graciously acknowledge your consideration.

These are my convictions that my SEVERAL discoveries will be realized: and this great one can be at once acted upon: although at this moment it only exists in my mind, from my knowledge of certain fixed principles in nature:--the Machine I have not made, as I only completed the discovery YESTERDAY, Sunday!

I have, etc. ---- ----"

To the Directors of the London University, Gower Street.

ON SPIRITUALISM.

The Divine Drama of History and Civilisation. By the Rev. James Smith, M.A.[108] London, 1854, 8vo.

I have several books on that great paradox of our day, _Spiritualism_, but I shall exclude all but three. The bibliography of this subject is now very large. The question is one both of evidence and speculation;--Are the facts {56} true? Are they caused by spirits? These I shall not enter upon: I shall merely recommend this work as that of a spiritualist who does not enter on the subject, which he takes for granted, but applies his derived views to the history of mankind with learning and thought. Mr. Smith was a man of a very peculiar turn of thinking. He was, when alive, the editor, or _an_ editor, of the _Family Herald_: I say when alive, to speak according to knowledge; for, if his own views be true, he may have a hand in it still. The answers to correspondents, in his time, were piquant and original above any I ever saw. I think a very readable book might be made out of them, resembling "Guesses at Truth:" the turn given to an inquiry about morals, religion, or socials, is often of the highest degree of _unexpectedness_; the poor querist would find himself right in a most unpalatable way.

Answers to correspondents, in newspapers, are very often the fag ends of literature. I shall never forget the following. A person was invited to name a rule without exception, if he could: he answered "A man _must_ be present when he is shaved." A lady--what right have ladies to decide questions about shaving?--said this was not properly a rule; and the oracle was consulted. The editor agreed with the lady; he said that "a man _must_ be present when he is shaved" is not a _rule_, but a _fact_.

[Among my anonymous communicants is one who states that I have done injustice to the Rev. James Smith in "referring to him as a spiritualist," and placing his "Divine Drama" among paradoxes: "it is no paradox, nor do _spiritualistic_ views mar or weaken the execution of the design." Quite true: for the design is to produce and enforce "spiritualistic views"; and leather does not mar nor weaken a shoemaker's plan. I knew Mr. Smith well, and have often talked to him on the subject: but more testimony from me is unnecessary; his book will speak for itself. {57} His peculiar style will justify a little more quotation than is just necessary to prove the point. Looking at the "battle of opinion" now in progress, we see that Mr. Smith was a prescient:

(P. 588.) "From the general review of parties in England, it is evident that no country in the world is better prepared for the great Battle of Opinion. Where else can the battle be fought but where the armies are arrayed? And here they all are, Greek, Roman, Anglican, Scotch, Lutheran, Calvinist, Established and Territorial, with Baronial Bishops, and Nonestablished of every grade--churches with living prophets and apostles, and churches with dead prophets and apostles, and apostolical churches without apostles, and philosophies without either prophets or apostles, and only wanting one more, 'the Christian Church,' like Aaron's rod, to swallow up and digest them all, and then bud and flourish. As if to prepare our minds for this desirable and inevitable consummation, different parties have been favored with a revival of that very spirit of revelation by which the Church itself was originally founded. There is a complete series of spiritual revelations in England and the United States, besides mesmeric phenomena that bear a resemblance to revelation, and thus gradually open the mind of the philosophical and infidel classes, as well as the professed believers of that old revelation which they never witnessed in living action, to a better understanding of that Law of Nature (for it is a Law of Nature) in which all revelation originates and by which its spiritual communications are regulated."

Mr. Smith proceeds to say that there are _only_ thirty-five incorporated churches in England, all formed from the New Testament except five, to each of which five he concedes a revelation of its own. The five are the Quakers, the Swedenborgians, the Southcottians, the Irvingites, and the Mormonites. Of Joanna Southcott he speaks as follows: {58}

(P. 592.) "Joanna Southcott[109] is not very gallantly treated by the gentlemen of the Press, who, we believe, without knowing anything about her, merely pick up their idea of her character from the rabble. We once entertained the same rabble idea of her; but having read her works--for we really have read them--we now regard her with great respect. However, there is a great abundance of chaff and straw to her grain; but the grain is good, and as we do not eat either the chaff or straw if we can avoid it, nor even the raw grain, but thrash it and winnow it, and grind it and bake it, we find it, after undergoing this process, not only very palatable, but a special dainty of its kind. But the husk is an insurmountable obstacle to those learned and educated gentlemen who judge of books entirely by the style and the grammar, or those who eat grain as it grows, like the cattle. Such men would reject all prological revelation; for there never was and probably never will be a revelation by voice and vision communicated in classical manner. It would be an invasion of the rights and prerogatives of Humanity, and as contrary to the Divine and Established order of mundane government, as a field of quartern loaves or hot French rolls."

Mr. Smith's book is spiritualism from beginning to end; and my anonymous gainsayer, honest of course, is either ignorant of the work he thinks he has read, or has a most remarkable development of the organ of imperception.]

A CONDENSED HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS.

I cut the following from a Sunday paper in 1849:

"X. Y.--The Chaldeans began the mathematics, in which the Egyptians excelled. Then crossing the sea, by means {59} of Thales,[110] the Milesian, they came into Greece, where they were improved very much by Pythagoras,[111] Anaxagoras,[112] and Anopides[113] of Chios. These were followed by Briso,[114] Antipho, [two circle-squarers; where is Euclid?] and Hippocrates,[115] but the excellence of the algebraic art was begun by Geber,[116] an Arabian astronomer, and was carried on by Cardanus,[117] Tartaglia,[118] Clavius,[119], Stevinus,[120] Ghetaldus,[121] Herig_e_nius,[122] Fran. Van Schooten [meaning Francis Van Schooten[123]], Florida de Beau_m_e,[124] etc."

Bryso was a mistaken man. Antipho had the disadvantage of being in advance of his age. He had the notion of which the modern geometry has made so much, that of {60} a circle being the polygon of an infinitely great number of sides. He could make no use of it, but the notion itself made him a sophist in the eyes of Aristotle, Eutocius,[125] etc. Geber, an Arab astronomer, and a reputed conjurer in Europe, seems to have given his name to unintelligible language in the word _gibberish_. At one time _algebra_ was traced to him; but very absurdly, though I have heard it suggested that _algebra_ and _gibberish_ must have had one inventor.

Any person who meddles with the circle may find himself the crane who was netted among the geese: as Antipho for one, and Olivier de Serres[126] for another. This last gentleman ascertained, by weighing, that the area of the circle is very nearly that of the square on the side of the inscribed equilateral triangle: which it is, as near as 3.162 ... to 3.141.... He did not pretend to more than approximation; but Montucla and others misunderstood him, and, still worse, misunderstood their own misunderstanding, and made him say the circle was exactly double of the equilateral triangle. He was let out of limbo by Lacroix, in a note to his edition of Montucla's _History of Quadrature_.

ST. VITUS, PATRON OF CYCLOMETERS.

Quadratura del cerchio, trisezione dell' angulo, et duplicazione del cubo, problemi geometricamente risolute e dimostrate dal Reverendo Arciprete di San Vito D. Domenico Anghera,[127] Malta, 1854, 8vo.

{61}

Equazioni geometriche, estratte dalla lettera del Rev. Arciprete ... al Professore Pullicino[128] sulla quadratura del cerchio. Milan, 1855 or 1856, 8vo.

Il Mediterraneo gazetta di Malta, 26 Decembre 1855, No. 909: also 911, 912, 913, 914, 936, 939.

The Malta Times, Tuesday, 9th June 1857.

Misura esatta del cerchio, dal Rev. D. Anghera. Malta, 1857, 12mo.

Quadrature of the circle ... by the Rev. D. Anghera, Archpriest of St. Vito. Malta, 1858, 12mo.

I have looked for St. Vitus in catalogues of saints, but never found his legend, though he figures as a day-mark in the oldest almanacs. He must be properly accredited, since he was an archpriest. And I pronounce and ordain, by right accruing from the trouble I have taken in this subject, that he, St. Vitus, who leads his votaries a never-ending and unmeaning dance, shall henceforth be held and taken to be the patron saint of the circle-squarer. His day is the 15th of June, which is also that of St. Modestus,[129] with whom the said circle-squarer often has nothing to do. And he must not put himself under the first saint with a slantendicular reference to the other, as is much to be feared was done by the Cardinal who came to govern England with a title containing St. Pudentiana,[130] who shares a day with _St. Dunstan_. The Archpriest of St. Vitus will have it that the square inscribed in a semicircle is half of the semicircle, or the circumference 3-1/5 diameters. He is active and able, with {62} nothing wrong about him except his paradoxes. In the second tract named he has given the testimonials of crowned heads and ministers, etc. as follows. Louis-Napoleon gives thanks. The minister at Turin refers it to the Academy of Sciences, and hopes so much labor will be judged _degna di pregio_.[131] The Vice-Chancellor of Oxford--a blunt Englishman--begs to say that the University has never proposed the problem, as some affirm. The Prince Regent of Baden has received the work with lively interest. The Academy of Vienna is not in a position to enter into the question. The Academy of Turin offers the most _distinct_ thanks. The Academy della Crusca attends only to literature, but gives thanks. The Queen of Spain has received the work with the highest appreciation. The University of Salamanca gives infinite thanks, and feels true satisfaction in having the book. Lord Palmerston gives thanks, by the hand of "William San." The Viceroy of Egypt, not being yet up in Italian, will spend his first moments of leisure in studying the book, when it shall have been translated into French: in the mean time he congratulates the author upon his victory over a problem so long held insoluble. All this is seriously published as a rate in aid of demonstration. If these royal compliments cannot make the circumference of a circle about 2 per cent. larger than geometry will have it --which is all that is wanted--no wonder that thrones are shaky.

I am informed that the legend of St. Vitus is given by Ribadeneira[132] in his lives of Saints, and that Baronius,[133] in {63} his _Martyrologium Romanum_, refers to several authors who have written concerning him. There is an account in Mrs. Jameson's[134] _History of Sacred and Legendary Art_ (ed. of 1863, p. 544). But it seems that St. Vitus is the patron saint of _all_ dances; so that I was not so far wrong in making him the protector of the cyclometers. Why he is represented with a cock is a disputed point, which is now made clear: next after _gallus gallinaceus_[135] himself, there is no crower like the circle-squarer.

CELEBRATED APPROXIMATIONS OF [pi].

The following is an extract from the _English Cyclopaedia_, Art. TABLES:

"1853. William Shanks,[136] _Contributions to Mathematics, comprising chiefly the Rectification of the Circle to 607 Places of Tables_, London, 1853. (QUADRATURE OF THE CIRCLE.) Here is a _table_, because it tabulates the results of the subordinate steps of this enormous calculation as far as 527 decimals: the remainder being added as results only during the printing. For instance, one step is the calculation of the reciprocal of 601.5^{601}; and the result is given. The number of pages required to describe these results is 87. Mr. Shanks has also thrown off, as chips or splinters, the values of the base of Napier's logarithms, and of its logarithms of 2, 3, 5, 10, to 137 decimals; and the value of the modulus .4342 ... to 136 decimals: with the 13th, 25th, 37th ... up to the 721st powers of 2. These tremendous stretches of calculation--at least we so call them in our day--are useful in several respects; they prove more than {64} the capacity of this or that computer for labor and accuracy; they show that there is in the community an increase of skill and courage. We say in the community: we fully believe that the unequalled turnip which every now and then appears in the newspapers is a sufficient presumption that the average turnip is growing bigger, and the whole crop heavier. All who know the history of the quadrature are aware that the several increases of numbers of decimals to which [pi] has been carried have been indications of a general increase in the power to calculate, and in courage to face the labor. Here is a comparison of two different times. In the day of Cocker,[137] the pupil was directed to perform a common subtraction with a voice-accompaniment of this kind: '7 from 4 I cannot, but add 10, 7 from 14 remains 7, set down 7 and carry 1; 8 and 1 which I carry is 9, 9 from 2 I cannot, etc.' We have before us the announcement of the following _table_, undated, as open to inspection at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham, in two diagrams of 7 ft. 2 in, by 6 ft. 6 in.: 'The figure 9 involved into the 912th power, and antecedent powers or involutions, containing upwards of 73,000 figures. Also, the proofs of the above, containing upwards of 146,000 figures. By Samuel Fancourt, of Mincing Lane, London, and completed by him in the year 1837, at the age of sixteen. N.B. The whole operation performed by simple arithmetic.' The young operator calculated by successive squaring the 2d, 4th, 8th, etc., powers up to the 512th, with proof by division. But 511 multiplications by 9, in the short (or 10-1) way, would have been much easier. The 2d, 32d, 64th, 128th, 256th, and 512th powers are given at the back of the announcement. The powers of 2 have been calculated for many purposes. In Vol. II of his _Magia Universalis Naturae et Artis_, Herbipoli, 1658, 4to, the Jesuit Gaspar Schott[138] having discovered, on some grounds of theological {65} magic, that the degrees of grace of the Virgin Mary were in number the 256th power of 2, calculated that number. Whether or no his number correctly represented the result he announced, he certainly calculated it rightly, as we find by comparison with Mr. Shanks."

There is a point about Mr. Shanks's 608 figures of the value of [pi] which attracts attention, perhaps without deserving it. It might be expected that, in so many figures, the nine digits and the cipher would occur each about the same number of times; that is, each about 61 times. But the fact stands thus: 3 occurs 68 times; 9 and 2 occur 67 times each; 4 occurs 64 times; 1 and 6 occur 62 times each; 0 occurs 60 times; 8 occurs 58 times; 5 occurs 56 times; and 7 occurs only 44 times. Now, if all the digits were equally likely, and 608 drawings were made, it is 45 to 1 against the number of sevens being as distant from the probable average (say 61) as 44 on one side or 78 on the other. There must be some reason why the number 7 is thus deprived of its fair share in the structure. Here is a field of speculation in which two branches of inquirers might unite. There is but one number which is treated with an unfairness which is incredible as an accident; and that number is the mystic number _seven_! If the cyclometers and the apocalyptics would lay their heads together until they come to a unanimous verdict on this phenomenon, and would publish nothing until they are of one mind, they would earn the gratitude of their race.--I was wrong: it is the Pyramid-speculator who should have been appealed to. A correspondent of my friend Prof. Piazzi Smyth[139] notices that 3 is the number of most frequency, and that 3-1/7 is the nearest approximation to it in simple digits. Professor Smyth himself, whose word on Egypt is paradox of a very high order, backed by a great quantity of useful labor, the results which will be made available by those who do not receive {66} the paradoxes, is inclined to see confirmation for some of his theory in these phenomena.

CURIOUS CALCULATIONS.

These paradoxes of calculation sometimes appear as illustrations of the value of a new method. In 1863, Mr. G. Suffield,[140] M.A., and Mr. J. R. Lunn,[141] M.A., of Clare College and of St. John's College, Cambridge, published the whole quotient of 10000 ... divided by 7699, throughout the whole of one of the recurring periods, having 7698 digits. This was done in illustration of Mr. Suffield's method of _Synthetic division_.

Another instance of computation carried to paradoxical length, in order to illustrate a method, is the solution of x^3 - 2x = 5, the example given of Newton's method, on which all improvements have been tested. In 1831, Fourier's[142] posthumous work on equations showed 33 figures of solution, got with enormous labor. Thinking this a good opportunity to illustrate the superiority of the method of W. G. Horner,[143] not yet known in France, and not much known in {67} England, I proposed to one of my classes, in 1841, to beat Fourier on this point, as a Christmas exercise. I received several answers, agreeing with each other, to 50 places of decimals. In 1848, I repeated the proposal, requesting that 50 places might be exceeded: I obtained answers of 75, 65, 63, 58, 57, and 52 places. But one answer, by Mr. W. Harris Johnston,[144] of Dundalk, and of the Excise Office, went to 101 decimal places. To test the accuracy of this, I requested Mr. Johnston to undertake another equation, connected with the former one in a way which I did not explain. His solution verified the former one, but he was unable to see the connection, even when his result was obtained. My reader may be as much at a loss: the two solutions are:

2.0945514815423265... 9.0544851845767340...

The results are published in the _Mathematician_, Vol. III, p. 290. In 1851, another pupil of mine, Mr. J. Power Hicks,[145] carried the result to 152 decimal places, without knowing what Mr. Johnston had done. The result is in the _English Cyclopaedia_, article INVOLUTION AND EVOLUTION.

I remark that when I write the initial of a Christian name, the most usual name of that initial is understood. I never saw the name of W. G. Horner written at length, until I applied to a relative of his, who told me that he was, as I supposed, Wm. _George_, but that he was named after a relative of that _surname_.

The square root of 2, to 110 decimal places, was given {68} me in 1852 by my pupil, Mr. William Henry Colvill, now (1867) Civil Surgeon at Baghdad. It was

1.4142135623730950488016887242096980785696 7187537694807317667973799073247846210703 885038753432764157273501384623

Mr. James Steel[146] of Birkenhead verified this by actual multiplication, and produced

2 - 2580413 / 10^{117}

as the square.

Calcolo decidozzinale del Barone Silvio Ferrari. Turin, 1854, 4to.

This is a serious proposal to alter our numeral system and to count by twelves. Thus 10 would be twelve, 11 thirteen, etc., two new symbols being invented for ten and eleven. The names of numbers must of course be changed. There are persons who think such changes practicable. I thought this proposal absurd when I first saw it, and I think so still:[147] but the one I shall presently describe beats it so completely in that point, that I have not a smile left for this one.

ON COMETS.

The successful and therefore probably true theory of Comets. London, 1854. (4pp. duodecimo.)

The author is the late Mr. Peter Legh,[148] of Norbury Booths Hall, Knutsford, who published for eight or ten {69} years the _Ombrological Almanac_, a work of asserted discovery in meteorology. The theory of comets is that the joint attraction of the new moon and several planets in the direction of the sun, draws off the gases from the earth, and forms these cometic meteors. But how these meteors come to describe orbits round the sun, and to become capable of having their returns predicted, is not explained.

A NEW PHASE OF MORMONISM.

The Mormon, New York, Saturday, Oct. 27, 1855.

A newspaper headed by a grand picture of starred and striped banners, beehive, and eagle surmounting it. A scroll on each side: on the left, "Mormon creed. Mind your own business. Brigham Young;"[149] on the right, "Given by inspiration of God. Joseph Smith."[150] A leading article on the discoveries of Prof. Orson Pratt[151] says, "Mormonism has long taken the lead in religion: it will soon be in the van both in science and politics." At the beginning of the paper is Professor Pratt's "Law of Planetary Rotation." The cube roots of the densities of the planets are as the square roots of their periods of rotation. The squares of the cube roots of the masses divided by the squares of the diameters are as the periods of rotation. Arithmetical verification attempted, and the whole very modestly stated {70} and commented on. Dated G. S. L. City, Utah Ter., Aug. 1, 1855. If the creed, as above, be correctly given, no wonder the Mormonites are in such bad odor.

MATHEMATICAL ILLUSTRATIONS OF DOCTRINE.

The two estates; or both worlds mathematically considered. London, 1855, small (pp. 16).

The author has published mathematical works with his name. The present tract is intended to illustrate mathematically a point which may be guessed from the title. But the symbols do very little in the way of illustration: thus, x being the _present value_ of the future estate (eternal happiness), and a of all that this world can give, the author impresses it on the mathematician that, x being infinitely greater than a, x + a = x, so that a need not be considered. This will not act much more powerfully on a mathematician by virtue of the symbols than if those same symbols had been dispensed with: even though, as the author adds, "It was this method of neglecting infinitely small quantities that Sir Isaac Newton was indebted to for his greatest discoveries."

There has been a moderate quantity of well-meant attempt to enforce, sometimes motive, sometimes doctrine, by arguments drawn from mathematics, the proponents being persons unskilled in that science for the most part. The ground is very dangerous: for the illustration often turns the other way with greater power, in a manner which requires only a little more knowledge to see. I have, in my life, heard from the pulpit or read, at least a dozen times, that all sin is infinitely great, proved as follows. The greater the being, the greater the sin of any offence against him: therefore the offence committed against an infinite being is infinitely great. Now the mathematician, of which the proposers of this argument are not aware, is perfectly familiar with quantities which increase together, and never cease increasing, but so that one of them remains finite when {71} the other becomes infinite. In fact, the argument is a perfect _non sequitur_.[152] Those who propose it have in their minds, though in a cloudy and indefinite form, the idea of the increase of guilt being _proportionate_ to the increase of greatness in the being offended. But this it would never do to state: for by such statement not only would the argument lose all that it has of the picturesque, but the asserted premise would have no strong air of exact truth. How could any one undertake to appeal to conscience to declare that an offence against a being 4-7/10 times as great as another is exactly, no more and no less, 4-7/10 times as great an offence against the other?

The infinite character of the offence against an infinite being is laid down in Dryden's _Religio Laici_,[153] and is, no doubt, an old argument:

"For, granting we have sinned, and that th' offence Of man is made against Omnipotence, Some price that bears proportion must be paid, And infinite with infinite be weighed. See then the Deist lost; remorse for vice Not paid; or, paid, inadequate in price."

Dryden, in the words "bears proportion" is in verse more accurate than most of the recent repeaters in prose. And this is not the only case of the kind in his argumentative poetry.

My old friend, the late Dr. Olinthus Gregory,[154] who was a sound and learned mathematician, adopted this dangerous kind of illustration in his _Letters on the Christian Religion_. {72} He argued, by parallel, from what he supposed to be the necessarily mysterious nature of the _impossible_ quantity of algebra to the necessarily mysterious nature of certain doctrines of his system of Christianity. But all the difficulty and mystery of the impossible quantity is now cleared away by the advance of algebraical thought: and yet Dr. Gregory's book continues to be sold, and no doubt the illustration is still accepted as appropriate.

The mode of argument used by the author of the tract above named has a striking defect. He talks of reducing this world and the next to "present value," as an actuary does with successive lives or next presentations. Does value make interest? and if not, why? And if it do, then the present value of an eternity is _not_ infinitely great. Who is ignorant that a perpetual annuity at five per cent is worth only twenty years' purchase? This point ought to be discussed by a person who treats heaven as a deferred perpetual annuity. I do not ask him to do so, and would rather he did not; but if he _will_ do it, he must either deal with the question of discount, or be asked the reason why.

When a very young man, I was frequently exhorted to one or another view of religion by pastors and others who thought that a mathematical argument would be irresistible. And I heard the following more than once, and have since seen it in print, I forget where. Since eternal happiness belonged to the particular views in question, a benefit infinitely great, then, even if the probability of their arguments were small, or even infinitely small, yet the product of the chance and benefit, according to the usual rule, might give a result which no one ought in prudence to pass over. They did not see that this applied to all systems as well as their own. I take this argument to be the most perverse of all the perversions I have heard or read on the subject: there is some high authority for it, whom I forget.

The moral of all this is, that such things as the preceding should be kept out of the way of those who are not {73} mathematicians, because they do not understand the argument; and of those who are, because they do.

[The high authority referred to above is Pascal, an early cultivator of mathematical probability, and obviously too much enamoured of his new pursuit. But he conceives himself bound to wager on one side or the other. To the argument (_Pensees_, ch. 7)[155] that "le juste est de ne point parier," he answers, "Oui: mais il faut parier: vous etes embarque; et ne parier point que Dieu est, c'est parier qu'il n'est pas."[156] Leaving Pascal's argument to make its way with a person who, _being a sceptic_, is yet positive that the issue is salvation or perdition, if a God there be,--for the case as put by Pascal requires this,--I shall merely observe that a person who elects to believe in God, as the best chance of gain, is not one who, according to Pascal's creed, or any other worth naming, will really secure that gain. I wonder whether Pascal's curious imagination ever presented to him in sleep his convert, in the future state, shaken out of a red-hot dice-box upon a red-hot hazard-table, as perhaps he might have been, if Dante had been the later of the two. The original idea is due to the elder Arnobius,[157] who, as cited by Bayle,[158] speaks thus:

"Sed et ipse [Christus] quae pollicetur, non probat. Ita est. Nulla enim, ut dixi, futurorum potest existere comprobatio. Cum ergo haec sit conditio futurorum, ut teneri et comprehendi nullius possint anticipationis attactu; nonne {74} purior ratio est, ex duobus incertis, et in ambigua expectatione pendentibus, id potius credere, quod aliquas spes ferat, quam omnino quod nullas? In illo enim periculi nihil est, si quod dicitur imminere, cassum fiat et vacuum: in hoc damnum est maximum, id est salutis amissio, si cum tempus advenerit aperiatur non fuisse mendacium."[159]

Really Arnobius seems to have got as much out of the notion, in the third century, as if he had been fourteen centuries later, with the arithmetic of chances to help him.]

NOVUM ORGANUM MORALIUM.

The Sentinel, vol. ix. no. 27. London, Saturday, May 26, 1855.

This is the first London number of an Irish paper, Protestant in politics. It opens with "Suggestions on the subject of a _Novum Organum Moralium_," which is the application of algebra and the differential calculus to morals, socials, and politics. There is also a leading article on the subject, and some applications in notes to other articles. A separate publication was afterwards made, with the addition of a long Preface; the author being a clergyman who I presume must have been the editor of the _Sentinel_.

Suggestions as to the employment of a _Novum Organum Moralium_. Or, thoughts on the nature of the Differential Calculus, and on the application of its principles to metaphysics, with a view to the attainment of demonstration and certainty in moral, {75} political and ecclesiastical affairs. By Tresham Dames Gregg,[160] Chaplain of St. Mary's, within the church of St. Nicholas intra muros, Dublin. London, 1859, 8vo. (pp. xl + 32).

I have a personal interest in this system, as will appear from the following extract from the newspaper:

"We were subsequently referred to De Morgan's _Formal Logic_ and Boole's _Laws of Thought_[161] both very elaborate works, and greatly in the direction taken by ourselves. That the writers amazingly surpass us in learning we most willingly admit, but we venture to pronounce of both their learned treatises, that they deal with the subject in a mode that is scholastic to an excess.... That their works have been for a considerable space of time before the world and effected nothing, would argue that they have overlooked the vital nature of the theme.... On the whole, the writings of De Morgan and Boole go to the full justification of our principle without in any wise so trenching upon our ground as to render us open to reproach in claiming our Calculus as a great discovery.... But we renounce any paltry jealousy as to a matter so vast. If De Morgan and Boole have had a priority in the case, to them we cheerfully shall resign the glory and honor. If such be the truth, they have neither done justice to the discovery, nor to themselves [quite true]. They have, under the circumstances, acted like 'the foolish man, who roasteth not that which he taketh {76} in hunting.... It will be sufficient for us, however, to be the Columbus of these great Americi, and popularize what they found, _if_ they found it. We, as from the mountain top, will then become _their_ trumpeters, and cry glory to De Morgan and glory to Boole, under Him who is the source of all glory, the only good and wise, to Whom be glory for ever! _If_ they be our predecessors in this matter, they have, under Him, taken moral questions out of the category of probabilities, and rendered them perfectly certain. In that case, let their books be read by those who may doubt the principles this day laid before the world as a great discovery, by our newspaper. Our cry shall be [Greek: eurekasi]![162] Let us hope that they will join us, and henceforth keep their light [_sic_] from under their bushel."

For myself, and for my old friend Mr. Boole, who I am sure would join me, I disclaim both priority, simultaneity, and posteriority, and request that nothing may be trumpeted from the mountain top except our abjuration of all community of thought or operation with this _Novum Organum_.

To such community we can make no more claim than Americus could make to being the forerunner of Columbus who popularized his discoveries. We do not wish for any [Greek: eurekasi] and not even for [Greek: heurekasi]. For self and Boole, I point out what would have convinced either of us that this house is divided against itself.

[Alpha] being an apostolic element, [delta] the doctrinal element, and [Chi] the body of the faithful, the church is [Alpha] [delta] [Chi], we are told. Also, that if [Alpha] become negative, or the Apostolicity become Diabolicity [my words]; or if [delta] become negative, and doctrine become heresy; or if [Chi] become negative, that is, if the faithful become unfaithful; the church becomes negative, "the very opposite to what it ought to be." For self and Boole, I admit this. But--which is not noticed--if [Alpha] and [delta] should _both_ become negative, diabolical origin {77} and heretical doctrine, then the church, [Alpha] [delta] [Chi], is still positive, what it ought to be, unless [Chi] be also negative, or the people unfaithful to it, in which case it is a bad church. Now, self and Boole--though I admit I have not asked my partner--are of opinion that a diabolical church with false doctrine does harm when the people are faithful, and can do good only when the people are unfaithful. We may be wrong, but this is what we _do_ think. Accordingly, we have caught nothing, and can therefore roast nothing of our own: I content myself with roasting a joint of Mr. Gregg's larder.

These mathematical vagaries have uses which will justify a large amount of quotation: and in a score of years this may perhaps be the only attainable record. I therefore proceed.

After observing that by this calculus juries (heaven help them! say I) can calculate damages "almost to a nicety," and further that it is made abundantly evident that c e x is "the general expression for an individual," it is noted that the number of the Beast is not given in the Revelation in words at length, but as [Greek: chxw'].[163] On this the following remark is made:

"Can it be possible that we have in this case a specimen given to us of the arithmetic of heaven, and an expression revealed, which indicates by its function of addibility, the name of the church in question, and of each member of it; and by its function of multiplicability the doctrine, the mission, and the members of the great Synagogue of Apostacy? We merely propound these questions;--we do not pretend to solve them."

After a translation in blank verse--a very pretty one--of the 18th Psalm, the author proceeds as follows, to render it into differential calculus:

{78}

"And the whole tells us just this, that David did what he could. He augmented those elements of his constitution which were (_exceptis excipiendis_)[164] subject to himself, and the Almighty then augmented his personal qualities, and his vocational _status_. Otherwise, to throw the matter into the expression of our notation, the variable e was augmented, and c x rose proportionally. The law of the variation, according to our theory, would be thus expressed. The resultant was David the king c e x [c = r?] (who had been David the shepherd boy), and from the conditions of the theorem we have

du/de = ce(dx/de) + ex(dc/de)x + cx

which, in the terms of ordinary language, just means, the increase of David's educational excellence or qualities--his piety, his prayerfulness, his humility, obedience, etc.--was so great, that when multiplied by his original talent and position, it produced a product so great as to be equal in its amount to royalty, honor, wealth, and power, etc.: in short, to all the attributes of majesty."[165]

The "solution of the family problem" is of high interest. It is to determine the effect on the family in general from a change [of conduct] in one of them. The person chosen is one of the maid-servants.

"Let c e x be the father; c_1e_1x_1 the mother, etc. The family then consists of the maid's master, her mistress, her young master, her young mistress, and fellow servant. Now the master's calling (or c) is to exercise his share of control over this servant, and mind the rest of his business: call this remainder a, and let his calling generally, or all his affairs, be to his maid-servant as m : y, i.e., y = (mz/c); ... {79} and this expression will represent his relation to the servant. Consequently,

c e x = (a + mz/c)e x; otherwise (a + mz/c)e x

is the expression for the father when viewed as the girl's master."

I have no objection to repeat so far; but I will not give the formula for the maid's relation to her young master; for I am not quite sure that all young masters are to be trusted with it. Suffice it that the son will be affected directly as his influence over her, and inversely as his vocational power: if then he should have some influence and no vocational power, the effect on him would be infinite. This is dismal to think of. Further, the formula brings out that if one servant improve, the other must deteriorate, and _vice versa_. This is not the experience of most families: and the author remarks as follows:

"That is, we should venture to say, a very beautiful result, and we may say it yielded us no little astonishment. What our calculation might lead to we never dreamt of; that it should educe a conclusion so recondite that our unassisted power never could have attained to, and which, if we could have conjectured it, would have been at best the most distant probability, that conclusion being itself, as it would appear, the quintessence of truth, afforded us a measure of satisfaction that was not slight."

That the writings of Mr. Boole and myself "go to the full justification of" this "principle," is only true in the sense in which the Scotch use, or did use, the word _justification_.

A TRIBUTE TO BOOLE.

[The last number of this Budget had stood in type for months, waiting until there should be a little cessation of correspondence more connected with the things of the day. {80} I had quite forgotten what it was to contain; and little thought, when I read the proof, that my allusions to my friend Mr. Boole, then in life and health, would not be printed till many weeks after his death. Had I remembered what my last number contained, I should have added my expression of regret and admiration to the numerous obituary testimonials, which this great loss to science has called forth.

The system of logic alluded to in the last number of this series is but one of many proofs of genius and patience combined. I might legitimately have entered it among my _paradoxes_, or things counter to general opinion: but it is a paradox which, like that of Copernicus, excited admiration from its first appearance. That the symbolic processes of algebra, invented as tools of numerical calculation, should be competent to express every act of thought, and to furnish the grammar and dictionary of an all-containing system of logic, would not have been believed until it was proved. When Hobbes,[166] in the time of the Commonwealth, published his _Computation or Logique_, he had a remote glimpse of some of the points which are placed in the light of day by Mr. Boole. The unity of the forms of thought in all the applications of reason, however remotely separated, will one day be matter of notoriety and common wonder: and Boole's name will be remembered in connection with one of the most important steps towards the attainment of this knowledge.]

DECIMALS RUN RIOT.

The Decimal System as a whole. By Dover Statter.[167] London and Liverpool, 1856, 8vo.

{81}

The proposition is to make everything decimal. The day, now 24 hours, is to be made 10 hours. The year is to have ten months, Unusber, Duober, etc. Fortunately there are ten commandments, so there will be neither addition to, nor deduction from, the moral law. But the twelve apostles! Even rejecting Judas, there is a whole apostle of difficulty. These points the author does not touch.

ON PHONETIC SPELLING.

The first book of Phonetic Reading. London, Fred. Pitman,[168] Phonetic Depot, 20, Paternoster Row, 1856, 12mo.

The Phonetic Journal. Devoted to the propagation of phonetic reading, phonetic longhand, phonetic shorthand, and phonetic printing. No. 46. Saturday, 15 November 1856. Vol. 15.

I write the titles of a couple out of several tracts which I have by me. But the number of publications issued by the promoters of this spirited attempt is very large indeed.[169] The attempt itself has had no success with the mass of the public. This I do not regret. Had the world found that the change was useful, I should have gone contentedly with the stream; but not without regretting our old language. I admit the difficulties which our unpronounceable spelling puts in the way of learning to read: and I have no doubt that, as affirmed, it is easier to teach children phonetically, and afterwards to introduce them to our common system, than to proceed in the usual way. But by the usual way I mean proceeding by letters from the very beginning. If, which I am sure is a better plan, children be taught at the commencement very much by _complete words_, as if they were learning Chinese, and be gradually accustomed to {82} resolve the known words into letters, a fraction, perhaps a considerable one, of the advantage of the phonetic system is destroyed. It must be remembered that a phonetic system can only be an approximation. The differences of pronunciation existing among educated persons are so great, that, on the phonetic system, different persons ought to spell differently.

But the phonetic party have produced something which will immortalize their plan: I mean their _shorthand_, which has had a fraction of the success it deserves. All who know anything of shorthand must see that nothing but a phonetic system can be worthy of the name: and the system promulgated is skilfully done. Were I a young man I should apply myself to it systematically. I believe this is the only system in which books were ever published. I wish some one would contribute to a public journal a brief account of the dates and circumstances of the phonetic movement, not forgetting a list of the books published in shorthand.

A child beginning to read by himself may owe terrible dreams and waking images of horror to our spelling, as I did when six years old. In one of the common poetry-books there is an admonition against confining little birds in cages, and the child is asked what if a great giant, amazingly strong, were to take you away, shut you up,

And feed you with vic-tu-als you ne-ver could bear.

The book was hyphened for the beginner's use; and I had not the least idea that _vic-tu-als_ were _vittles_: by the sound of the word I judged they must be of iron; and it entered into my soul.

The worst of the phonetic shorthand book is that they nowhere, so far as I have seen, give _all_ the symbols, in every stage of advancement, together, in one or following pages. It is symbols and talk, more symbols and more talk, etc. A universal view of the signs ought to begin the works. {83}

A HANDFUL OF LITTLE PARADOXERS.

Ombrological Almanac. Seventeenth year. An essay on Anemology and Ombrology. By Peter Legh,[170] Esq. London, 1856, 12mo.

Mr. Legh, already mentioned, was an intelligent country gentleman, and a legitimate speculator. But the clue was not reserved for him.

The proof that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles looked for in the inflation of the circle. By Gen. Perronet Thompson. London, 1856, 8vo. (pp. 4.)

Another attempt, the third, at this old difficulty, which cannot be put into few words of explanation.[171]

Comets considered as volcanoes, and the cause of their velocity and other phenomena thereby explained. London (_circa_ 1856), 8vo.

The title explains the book better than the book explains the title.

1856. A stranger applied to me to know what the ideas of a friend of his were worth upon the magnitude of the earth. The matter being one involving points of antiquity, I mentioned various persons whose speculations he seemed to have ignored; among others, Thales. The reply was, "I am instructed by the author to inform you that he is perfectly acquainted with the works of Thales, Euclid, Archimedes, ..." I had some thought of asking whether he had used the Elzevir edition of Thales,[172] which is known to be very incomplete, or that of Professor Niemand with the lections, Nirgend, 1824, 2 vols. folio; just to see whether the {84} last would not have been the very edition he had read. But I refrained, in mercy.

The moon is the image of the Earth, and is not a solid body. By T^{he} Longitude.[173] (Private Circulation.) In five parts. London, 1856, 1857, 1857; Calcutta, 1858, 1858, 8vo.

The earth is "brought to a focus"; it describes a "looped orbit round the sun." The eclipse of the sun is thus explained: "At the time of eclipses, the image is more or less so directly before or behind the earth that, in the case of new moon, bright rays of the sun fall and bear upon the spot where the figure of the earth is brought to a focus, that is, bear upon the image of the earth, when a darkness beyond is produced reaching to the earth, and the sun becomes more or less eclipsed." How the earth is "brought to a focus" we do not find stated. Writers of this kind always have the argument that some things which have been ridiculed at first have been finally established. Those who put into the lottery had the same kind of argument; but were always answered by being reminded how many blanks there were to one prize. I am loath to pronounce against anything: but it does force itself upon me that the author of these tracts has drawn a blank.

LUNAR MOTION AGAIN.

_Times_, April 6 or 7, 1856. The moon has no rotary motion.

A letter from Mr. Jellinger Symons,[174] inspector of schools, which commenced a controversy of many letters and pamphlets. This dispute comes on at intervals, and will continue to do so. It sometimes arises from inability to understand the character of simple rotation, geometrically; sometimes from not understanding the mechanical doctrine of rotation.

{85}

Lunar Motion. The whole argument stated, and illustrated by diagrams; with letters from the Astronomer Royal. By Jellinger C. Symons. London, 1856, 8vo.

The Astronomer Royal endeavored to disentangle Mr. J. C. Symons, but failed. Mr. Airy[175] can correct the error of a ship's compasses, because he can put her head which way he pleases: but this he cannot do with a speculator.

Mr. Symons, in this tract, insinuated that the rotation of the moon is one of the silver shrines of the craftsmen. To see a thing so clearly as to be satisfied that all who say they do not see it are telling wilful falsehood, is the nature of man. Many of all sects find much comfort in it, when they think of the others; many unbelievers solace themselves with it against believers; priests of old time founded the right of persecution upon it, and of our time, in some cases, the right of slander: many of the paradoxers make it an argument against students of science. But I must say for men of science, for the whole body, that they are fully persuaded of the honesty of the paradoxers. The simple truth is, that all those I have mentioned, believers, unbelievers, priests, paradoxers, are not so sure they are right in their points of difference that they can safely allow themselves to be persuaded of the honesty of opponents. Those who know demonstration are differently situated. I suspect a train might be laid for the formation of a better habit in this way. We know that Suvaroff[176] taught his Russians at Ismail not to fear the Turks by accustoming them to charge bundles of faggots dressed in turbans, etc.

At which your wise men sneered in phrases witty, He made no answer--but he took the city!

Would it not be a good thing to exercise boys, in pairs, in the following dialogue:--Sir, you are quite wrong!--Sir, {86} I am sure you honestly think so! This was suggested by what used to take place at Cambridge in my day. By statute, every B.A. was obliged to perform a certain number of disputations, and the _father_ of the college had to affirm that it had been done. Some were performed in earnest: the rest were huddled over as follows. Two candidates occupied the places of the respondent and the opponent: _Recte statuit Newtonus_, said the respondent: _Recte non statuit Newtonus_,[177] said the opponent. This was repeated the requisite number of times, and counted for as many _acts_ and _opponencies_. The parties then changed places, and each unsaid what he had said on the other side of the house: I remember thinking that it was capital drill for the House of Commons, if any of us should ever get there. The process was repeated with every pair of candidates.

The real disputations were very severe exercises. I was badgered for two hours with arguments given and answered in Latin,--or what we called Latin--against Newton's first section, Lagrange's[178] derived functions, and Locke[179] on innate principles. And though I _took off_ everything, and was pronounced by the moderator to have disputed _magno honore_,[180] I never had such a strain of thought in my life. For the inferior opponents were made as sharp as their betters by their tutors, who kept lists of queer objections, drawn from all quarters. The opponents used to meet the day before to compare their arguments, that the same might not come twice over. But, after I left Cambridge, it became the fashion to invite the respondent to be present, who therefore learnt all that was to be brought against him. This made the whole thing a farce: and the disputations were abolished.

{87}

The Doctrine of the Moon's Rotation, considered in a letter to the Astronomical Censor of the _Athenaeum_. By Jones L. MacElshender.[181] Edinburgh, 1856, 8vo.

This is an appeal to those cultivated persons who will read it "to overrule the _dicta_ of judges who would sacrifice truth and justice to professional rule, or personal pique, pride, or prejudice"; meaning, the great mass of those who have studied the subject. But how? Suppose the "cultivated persons" were to side with the author, would those who have conclusions to draw and applications to make consent to be wrong because the "general body of intelligent men," who make no special study of the subject, are against them? They would do no such thing: they would request the general body of intelligent men to find their own astronomy, and welcome. But the truth is, that this intelligent body knows better: and no persons know better that they know better than the speculators themselves.

But suppose the general body were to combine, in opposition to those who have studied. Of course all my list must be admitted to their trial; and then arises the question whether both sides are to be heard. If so, the general body of the intelligent must hear all the established side have to say: that is, they must become just as much of students as the inculpated orthodox themselves. And will they not then get into _professional rule_, pique, pride, and prejudice, as the others did? But if, which I suspect, they are intended to judge as they are, they will be in a rare difficulty. All the paradoxers are of like pretensions: they cannot, as a class, be right, for each one contradicts a great many of the rest. There will be the puzzle which silenced the crew of the cutter in Marryat's novel of the Dog Fiend.[182] "A tog is a tog," said Jansen.--"Yes," replied another, "we all know a dog is a dog; but the question is--Is _this_ dog {88} a dog?" And this question would arise upon every dog of them all.

ZETETIC ASTRONOMY.

Zetetic Astronomy: Earth not a globe. 1857 (Broadsheet).

Though only a traveling lecturer's advertisement, there are so many arguments and quotations that it is a little pamphlet. The lecturer gained great praise from provincial newspapers for his ingenuity in proving that the earth is a flat, surrounded by ice. Some of the journals rather incline to the view: but the _Leicester Advertiser_ thinks that the statements "would seem very seriously to invalidate some of the most important conclusions of modern astronomy," while the _Norfolk Herald_ is clear that "there must be a great error on one side or the other." This broadsheet is printed at Aylesbury in 1857, and the lecturer calls himself _Parallax_: but at Trowbridge, in 1849, he was S. Goulden.[183] In this last advertisement is the following announcement: "A paper on the above subjects was read before the Council and Members of the Royal Astronomical Society, Somerset House, Strand, London (Sir John F. W. Herschel,[184] President), Friday, Dec. 8, 1848." No account of such a paper appears in the _Notice_ for that month: I suspect that the above is Mr. S. Goulden's way of representing the following occurrence: Dec. 8, 1848, the Secretary of the Astronomical Society (De Morgan by name) said, at the close of the proceedings,--"Now, gentlemen, if you will promise not to tell the Council, I will read something for your amusement": and he then read a few of the arguments which had been transmitted by the lecturer. The fact is worth noting that from 1849 to 1857, arguments on the roundness or flatness of the earth did itinerate. I have {89} no doubt they did much good: for very few persons have any distinct idea of the evidence for the rotundity of the earth. The _Blackburn Standard_ and _Preston Guardian_ (Dec. 12 and 16, 1849) unite in stating that the lecturer ran away from his second lecture at Burnley, having been rather too hard pressed at the end of his first lecture to explain why the large hull of a ship disappeared before the sails. The persons present and waiting for the second lecture assuaged their disappointment by concluding that the lecturer had slipped off the icy edge of his flat disk, and that he would not be seen again till he peeped up on the opposite side.

But, strange as it may appear, the opposer of the earth's roundness has more of a case--or less of a want of case--than the arithmetical squarer of the circle. The evidence that the earth is round is but cumulative and circumstantial: scores of phenomena ask, separately and independently, what other explanation can be imagined except the sphericity of the earth. The evidence for the earth's figure is tremendously powerful of its kind; but the proof that the circumference is 3.14159265... times the diameter is of a higher kind, being absolute mathematical demonstration.

The Zetetic system still lives in lectures and books; as it ought to do, for there is no way of teaching a truth comparable to opposition. The last I heard of it was in lectures at Plymouth, in October, 1864. Since this time a prospectus has been issued of a work entitled "The Earth not a Globe"; but whether it has been published I do not know. The contents are as follows:

"The Earth a Plane--How circumnavigated.--How time is lost or gained.--Why a ship's hull disappears (when outward bound) before the mast head.--Why the Polar Star sets when we proceed Southward, etc.--Why a pendulum vibrates with less velocity at the Equator than {90} at the Pole.--The allowance for rotundity _supposed_ to be made by surveyors, not made in practice.--Measurement of Arcs of the Meridian unsatisfactory.--Degrees of Longitude North and South of the Equator considered.--Eclipses and Earth's form considered.--The Earth no motion on axis or in orbit.--How the Sun moves above the Earth's surface concentric with the North Pole.--Cause of Day and Night, Winter and Summer; the long alternation of light and darkness at the Pole.--Cause of the Sun rising and setting.--Distance of the Sun from London, 4,028 miles--How measured.--_Challenge to Mathematicians._--Cause of Tides.--Moon self-luminous, NOT a reflector.--Cause of Solar and Lunar eclipses.--Stars _not worlds_; their distance.--Earth, the _only material_ world; its true position in the universe; its condition and ultimate destruction by fire (2 Peter iii.), etc."

I wish there were geoplatylogical lectures in every town; in England (_platylogical_, in composition, need not mean _babbling_). The late Mr. Henry Archer[185] would, if alive, be very much obliged to me for recording his vehement denial of the roundness of the earth: he was excited if he heard any one call it a globe. I cannot produce his proof from the Pyramids, and from some caves in Arabia. He had other curious notions, of course: I should no more believe that a flat earth was a man's only paradox, than I should that Dutens,[186] the editor of Leibnitz, was eccentric only in supplying a tooth which he had lost by one which he found in an Italian tomb, and fully believed that it had once belonged to Scipio Africanus, whose family vault was discovered, it is supposed, in 1780. Mr. Archer is of note as {91} the suggester of the perforated border of the postage-stamps, and, I think, of the way of doing it; for this he got 4000l. reward. He was a civil engineer.

(_August 28, 1865._) The _Zetetic Astronomy_ has come into my hands. When, in 1851, I went to see the Great Exhibition, I heard an organ played by a performer who seemed very desirous to exhibit one particular stop. "What do you think of that stop?" I was asked.--"That depends on the name of it," said I.--"Oh! what can the name have to do with the sound? 'that which we call a rose,' etc."--"The name has everything to do with it: if it be a flute-stop, I think it very harsh; but if it be a railway-whistle-stop, I think it very sweet." So as to this book: if it be childish, it is clever; if it be mannish, it is unusually foolish. The flat earth, floating tremulously on the sea; the sun moving always over the flat, giving day when near enough, and night when too far off; the self-luminous moon, with a semi-transparent invisible moon, created to give her an eclipse now and then; the new law of perspective, by which the vanishing of the hull before the masts, usually thought to prove the earth globular, really proves it flat;--all these and other things are well fitted to form exercises for a person who is learning the elements of astronomy. The manner in which the sun dips into the sea, especially in tropical climates, upsets the whole. Mungo Park,[187] I think, gives an African hypothesis which explains phenomena better than this. The sun dips into the western ocean, and the people there cut him in pieces, fry him in a pan, and then join him together again, take him round the underway, and set him up in the east. I hope this book will be read, and that many will be puzzled by it: for there are many whose notions of astronomy deserve no better fate. There is no subject on which there is so little {92} accurate conception as that of the motions of the heavenly bodies. The author, though confident in the extreme, neither impeaches the honesty of those whose opinions he assails, nor allots them any future inconvenience: in these points he is worthy to live on a globe, and to revolve in twenty-four hours.

(_October, 1866._) A follower appears, in a work dedicated to the preceding author: it is _Theoretical Astronomy examined and exposed by Common Sense_. The author has 128 well-stuffed octavo pages. I hope he will not be the last. He prints the newspaper accounts of his work: the _Church Times_ says--not seeing how the satire might be retorted--"We never began to despair of Scripture until we discovered that 'Common Sense' had taken up the cudgels in its defence." This paper considers our author as the type of a _Protestant_. The author himself, who gives a summary of his arguments in verse, has one couplet which is worth quoting:

"How is't that sailors, bound to sea, with _a 'globe'_ would never start, But in its place will always take _Mercator's_[188] LEVEL _chart_!"

To which I answer:

Why, really Mr. Common Sense, you've never got so far As to think Mercator's planisphere shows countries as they are; It won't do to measure distances; it points out how to steer, But this distortion's not for you; another is, I fear. The earth must be a cylinder, if seaman's charts be true, Or else the boundaries, right and left, are one as well as two; They contradict the notion that we dwell upon a plain, For straight away, without a turn, will bring you home again. There are various plane projections; and each one has its use: I wish a milder word would rhyme--but really you're a goose!

The great wish of persons who expose themselves as above, is to be argued with, and to be treated as reputable {93} and refutable opponents. "Common Sense" reminds us that no amount of "blatant ridicule" will turn right into wrong. He is perfectly correct: but then no amount of bad argument will turn wrong into right. These two things balance; and we are just where we were: but you should answer our arguments, for whom, I ask? Would reason convince this kind of reasoner? The issue is a short and a clear one. If these parties be what I contend they are, then ridicule is made for them: if not, for what or for whom? If they be right, they are only passing through the appointed trial of all good things. Appeal is made to the future: and my Budget is intended to show samples of the long line of heroes who have fallen without victory, each of whom had his day of confidence and his prophecy of success. Let the future decide: they say roundly that the earth is flat; I say flatly that it is round.

The paradoxers all want reason, and not ridicule: they are all accessible, and would yield to conviction. Well then, let them reason with one another! They divide into squads, each with a subject, and as many different opinions as persons in each squad. If they be really what they say they are, the true man of each set can put down all the rest, and can come crowned with glory and girdled with scalps, to the attack on the orthodox misbelievers. But they know, to a man, that the rest are not fit to be reasoned with: they pay the regulars the compliment of believing that the only chance lies with them. They think in their hearts, each one for himself, that ridicule is of fit appliance to the rest.

Miranda. A book divided into three parts, entitled Souls, Numbers, Stars, on the Neo-Christian Religion ... Vol. i. London, 1858, 1859, 1860. 8vo.

The name of the author is Filopanti.[189] He announces himself as the 49th and last Emanuel: his immediate {94} predecessors were Emanuel Washington, Emanuel Newton, and Emanuel Galileo. He is to collect nations into one family. He knows the transmigrations of the whole human race. Thus Descartes became William III of England: Roger Bacon became Boccaccio. But Charles IX,[190] in retribution for the massacre of St. Bartholomew, was hanged in London under the name of Barthelemy for the murder of Collard: and many of the Protestants whom he killed as King of France were shouting at his death before the Old Bailey.

THE SABBATH--THE GREAT PYRAMID

A Letter to the members of the Anglo-Biblical Institute, dated Sept. 7, 1858, and signed 'Herman Heinfetter.'[191] (Broadsheet.)

This gentleman is well known to the readers of the _Athenaeum_, in which, for nearly twenty years, he has inserted, as advertisements, long arguments in favor of Christians keeping the Jewish Sabbath, beginning on Friday Evening. The present letter maintains that, by the force of the definite article, the _days_ of creation may not be consecutive, but may have any time--millions of years--between them. This ingenious way of reconciling the author of Genesis and the indications of geology is worthy to be added to the list, already pretty numerous. Mr. Heinfetter has taken such pains to make himself a public agitator, that {95} I do not feel it to be any invasion of private life if I state that I have heard he is a large corn-dealer. No doubt he is a member of the congregation whose almanac has already been described.

The great Pyramid. Why was it built? And who built it? By John Taylor, 1859,[192] 12mo.

This work is very learned, and may be referred to for the history of previous speculations. It professes to connect the dimensions of the Pyramid with a system of metrology which is supposed to have left strong traces in the systems of modern times; showing the Egyptians to have had good approximate knowledge of the dimensions of the earth, and of the quadrature of the circle. These are points on which coincidence is hard to distinguish from intention. Sir John Herschel[193] noticed this work, and gave several coincidences, in the _Athenaeum_, Nos. 1696 and 1697, April 28 and May 5, 1860: and there are some remarks by Mr. Taylor in No. 1701, June 2, 1860.

Mr. Taylor's most recent publication is--

The battle of the Standards: the ancient, of four thousand years, against the modern, of the last fifty years--the less perfect of the two. London, 1864, 12mo.

This is intended as an appendix to the work on the Pyramid. Mr. Taylor distinctly attributes the original system to revelation, of which he says the Great Pyramid is the record. We are advancing, he remarks, towards the end of the Christian dispensation, and he adds that it is satisfactory to see that we retain the standards which were given by unwritten revelation 700 years before Moses. This is lighting the candle at both ends; for myself, I shall not undertake to deny or affirm either what is said about the dark past or what is hinted about the dark future.

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My old friend Mr. Taylor is well known as the author of the argument which has convinced many, even most, that Sir Philip Francis[194] was Junius: pamphlet, 1813; supplement, 1817; second edition "The Identity of Junius with a distinguished living character established," London, 1818, 8vo. He told me that Sir Philip Francis, in a short conversation with him, made only this remark, "You may depend upon it you are quite mistaken:" the phrase appears to me remarkable; it has an air of criticism on the book, free from all personal denial. He also mentioned that a hearer told him that Sir Philip said, speaking of writers on the question,--"Those fellows, for half-a-crown, would prove that Jesus Christ was Junius."

Mr. Taylor implies, I think, that he is the first who started the suggestion that Sir Philip Francis was Junius, which I have no means either of confirming or refuting. If it be so [and I now know that Mr. Taylor himself never heard of any predecessor], the circumstance is very remarkable: it is seldom indeed that the first proposer of any solution of a great and vexed question is the person who so nearly establishes his point in general opinion as Mr. Taylor has done.

As to the Junius question in general, there is a little bit of the philosophy of horse-racing which may be usefully applied. A man who is so confident of his horse that he places him far above any other, may nevertheless, and does, refuse to give odds against all in the field: for many small adverse chances united make a big chance for one or other of the opponents. I suspect Mr. Taylor has made it at least 20 to 1 for Francis against any one competitor who has been named: but what the odds may be against the {97} whole field is more difficult to settle. What if the real Junius should be some person not yet named?

Mr. Jopling, _Leisure Hour_, May 23, 1863, relies on the porphyry coffer of the Great Pyramid, in which he finds "the most ancient and accurate standard of measure in existence."

I am shocked at being obliged to place a thoughtful and learned writer, and an old friend, before such a successor as he here meets with. But chronological arrangement defies all other arrangement.

(I had hoped that the preceding account would have met Mr. Taylor's eye in print: but he died during the last summer. For a man of a very thoughtful and quiet temperament, he had a curious turn for vexed questions. But he reflected very long and very patiently before he published: and all his works are valuable for their accurate learning, whichever side the reader may take.)

MRS. ELIZABETH COTTLE.

1859. _The Cottle Church._--For more than twenty years printed papers have been sent about in the name of Elizabeth Cottle.[195] It is not so remarkable that such papers should be concocted as that they should circulate for such a length of time without attracting public attention. Eighty years ago Mrs. Cottle might have rivalled Lieut. Brothers or Joanna Southcott.[196] Long hence, when the now current volumes of our journals are well-ransacked works of reference, those who look into them will be glad to see this {98} feature of our time: I therefore make a few extracts, faithfully copied as to type. The Italic is from the New Testament; the Roman is the requisite interpretation:

"Robert Cottle '_was numbered_ (5196) _with the transgressors_' at the back of the Church in Norwood Cemetery, May 12, 1858--Isa. liii. 12. The Rev. J. G. Collinson, Minister of St. James's Church, Chapham, the then district church, before All Saints was built, read the funeral service _over the Sepulchre wherein never before man was laid_.

"_Hewn on the stone_, 'at the mouth of the Sepulchre,' is his name,--Robert Cottle, born at Bristol, June 2, 1774; died at Kirkstall Lodge, Clapham Park, May 6, 1858. _And that day_ (May 12, 1858) _was the preparation_ (day and year for 'the PREPARED place for you'--Cottleites---by the widowed mother of the Father's house, at Kirkstall Lodge--John xiv. 2, 3). _And the Sabbath_ (Christmas Day, Dec. 25, 1859) _drew on_ (for the resurrection of the Christian body on 'the third [Protestant Sun]-day'--1 Cor. xv. 35). _Why seek ye the living_ (God of the New Jerusalem--Heb. xii. 22; Rev. iii. 12) _among the dead_ (men): _he_ (the God of Jesus) _is not here_ (in the grave), _but is risen_ (in the person of the Holy Ghost, from the supper of 'the dead in the second death' of Paganism). _Remember how he spake unto you_ (in the church of the Rev. George Clayton,[197] April 14, 1839). _I will not drink henceforth_ (at this last Cottle supper) _of the fruit of this_ (Trinity) _vine, until that day_ (Christmas Day, 1859), _when I_ (Elizabeth Cottle) _drink it new with you_ (Cottleites) _in my Father's kingdom_--John xv. _If this_ (Trinitarian) _cup may not pass away from me_ (Elizabeth Cottle, April 14, 1839), _except I drink it_ ('new with you Cottleites, in my Father's Kingdom'), _thy will be done_--Matt. xxvi. 29, 42, 64. 'Our Father which art (God) in Heaven,' _hallowed be thy name, thy_ (Cottle) _kingdom_ {99} _come, thy will be done in earth, as it is_ (done) _in_ (the new) _Heaven_ (and new earth of the new name of Cottle--Rev. xxi. 1; iii. 12).

"... Queen Elizabeth, from A.D. 1558 to 1566. _And this_ WORD _yet once more_ (by a second Elizabeth--the WORD of his oath) _signifieth_ (at John Scott's baptism of the Holy Ghost) _the removing of those things_ (those Gods and those doctrines) _that are made_ (according to the Creeds and Commandments of men) _that those things_ (in the moral law of God) _which cannot be shaken_ (as a rule of faith and practice) _may remain, wherefore we receiving_ (from Elizabeth) _a kingdom_ (of God,) _which cannot be moved_ (by Satan) _let us have grace_ (in his Grace of Canterbury) _whereby we may serve God acceptably_ (with the acceptable sacrifice of Elizabeth's body and blood of the communion of the Holy Ghost) _with reverence_ (for truth) _and godly fear_ (of the unpardonable sin of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost) _for our God_ (the Holy Ghost) _is a consuming fire_ (to the nation that will not serve him in the Cottle Church). We cannot defend ourselves against the Almighty, and if He is our defence, no nation can invade us.

"In verse 4 the Church of St. Peter is _in prison between four quaternions of soldiers_--the Holy Alliance of 1815. Rev. vii. i. Elizabeth, _the Angel of the Lord_ Jesus _appears_ to the Jewish and Christian body with _the vision_ of prophecy to the Rev. Geo. Clayton and his clerical brethren, April 8th, 1839. _Rhoda_ was the name of her maid at Putney Terrace who used _to open the door to her Peter_, the Rev. Robert Ashton,[198] the Pastor of 'the little flock' 'of 120 names together, assembled in an upper (school) room' at Putney Chapel, to which little flock she gave the revelation (Acts. i. 13, 15) _of Jesus the same_ King of the Jews _yesterday_ at the prayer meeting, Dec. 31, 1841, _and to-day_, {100} Jan. 1, 1842, _and for ever_. See book of Life, page 24. Matt. xviii. 19, xxi. 13-16. In verse 6 the Italian body of St. Peter _is sleeping_ 'in the second death' _between the two_ Imperial _soldiers_ of France and Austria. The Emperor of France from Jan. 1, to July 11, 1859, causes the Italian _chains of St. Peter to fall off from his_ Imperial _hands_.

"_I say unto thee_, Robert Ashton, _thou art Peter_, a stone, _and upon this rock_, of truth, _will I_ Elizabeth, the angel of Jesus, _build my_ Cottle _Church, and the gates of hell_, the doors of St. Peter, at Rome, shall not prevail against it--Matt. xvi. 18. Rev. iii. 7-12."

This will be enough for the purpose. When any one who pleases can circulate new revelations of this kind, uninterrupted and unattended to, new revelations will cease to be a good investment of excentricity. I take it for granted that the gentlemen whose names are mentioned have nothing to do with the circulars or their doctrines. Any lady who may happen to be intrusted with a revelation may nominate her own pastor, or any other clergyman, one of her apostles; and it is difficult to say to what court the nominees can appeal to get the commission abrogated.

_March 16, 1865._ During the last two years the circulars have continued. It is hinted that funds are low: and two gentlemen who are represented as gone "to Bethlehem asylum in despair" say that Mrs. Cottle "will spend all that she hath, while Her Majesty's Ministers are flourishing on the wages of sin." The following is perhaps one of the most remarkable passages in the whole:

"_Extol and magnify Him_ (Jehovah, the Everlasting God, see the Magnificat and Luke i. 45, 46--68--73--79), _that rideth_ (by rail and steam over land and sea, from his holy habitation at Kirkstall Lodge, Psa. lxxvii. 19, 20), _upon the_ (Cottle) _heavens, as it were_ (Sept. 9, 1864, see pages 21, 170), _upon an_ (exercising, Psa. cxxxi. 1), _horse_-(chair, bought of Mr. John Ward, Leicester-square)." {101}

I have pretty good evidence that there is a clergyman who thinks Mrs. Cottle a very sensible woman.

[_The Cottle Church._ Had I chanced to light upon it at the time of writing, I should certainly have given the following. A printed letter to the _Western Times_, by Mr. Robert Cottle, was accompanied by a manuscript letter from Mrs. Cottle, apparently a circular. The date was Nov^{r}. 1853, and the subject was the procedure against Mr. Maurice[199] at King's College for doubting that God would punish human sins by an existence of torture lasting through years numbered by millions of millions of millions of millions (repeat the word _millions_ without end,) etc. The memory of Mr. Cottle has, I think, a right to the quotation: he seems to have been no participator in the notions of his wife:

"The clergy of the Established Church, taken at the round number of 20,000, may, in their first estate, be likened to 20,000 gold blanks, destined to become sovereigns, in succession,--they are placed between the matrix of the Mint, when, by the pressure of the screw, they receive the impress that fits them to become part of the current coin of the realm. In a way somewhat analogous this great body of the clergy have each passed through the crucibles of Oxford and Cambridge,--have been assayed by the Bishop's chaplain, touching the health of their souls, and the validity of their call by the Divine Spirit, and then the gentle pressure of a prelate's hand upon their heads; and the words--'Receive the Holy Ghost,' have, in a brief space of time, wrought a {102} change in them, much akin to the miracle of transubstantiation--the priests are completed, and they become the current ecclesiastical coin of our country. The whole body of clergy, here spoken of, have undergone the preliminary induction of baptism and confirmation; and all have been duly ordained, _professing_ to hold one faith, and to believe in the selfsame doctrines! In short, to be as identical as the 20,000 sovereigns, if compared one with the other. But mind is not malleable and ductile, like gold; and all the preparations of tests, creeds, and catechisms will not insure uniformity of belief. No stamp of orthodoxy will produce the same impress on the minds of different men. Variety is manifest, and patent, upon everything mental and material. The Almighty has not created, nor man fashioned, two things alike! How futile, then, is the attempt to shape and mould man's apprehension of divine truth by one fallible standard of man's invention! If proof of this be required, an appeal might be made to history and the experience of eighteen hundred years."

This is an argument of force against the reasonableness of expecting tens of thousands of educated readers of the New Testament to find the doctrine above described in it. The lady's argument against the doctrine itself is very striking. Speaking of an outcry on this matter among the Dissenters against one of their body, who was the son of "the White Stone (Rev. ii. 17), or the Roman cement-maker," she says--

"If the doctrine for which they so wickedly fight were true, what would become of the black gentlemen for whose redemption I have been sacrificed from April 8 1839."

There are certainly very curious points about this revelation. There have been many surmises about the final restoration of the infernal spirits, from the earliest ages of Christianity until our own day: a collection of them would be worth making. On reading this in proof, I see a possibility that by "black gentlemen" may be meant the clergy: {103} I suppose my first interpretation must have been suggested by context: I leave the point to the reader's sagacity.]

JAMES SMITH, ARCH-PARADOXER.

The Problem of squaring the circle solved; or, the circumference and area of the circle discovered. By James Smith.[200] London, 1859, 8vo.

On the relations of a square inscribed in a circle. Read at the British Association, Sept. 1859, published in the Liverpool Courier, Oct. 8, 1859, and reprinted in broadsheet.

The question: Are there any commensurable relations between a circle and other Geometrical figures? Answered by a member of the British Association ... London, 1860, 8vo.--[This has been translated into French by M. Armand Grange, Bordeaux, 1863, 8vo.]

The Quadrature of the Circle. Correspondence between an eminent mathematician and James Smith, Esq. (Member of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board), London, 1861, 8vo. (pp. 200).

Letter to the ... British Association ... by James Smith, Esq. Liverpool, 1861, 8vo.

Letter to the ... British Association ... by James Smith, Esq. Liverpool, 1862, 8vo.--[These letters the author promised to continue.]

A Nut to crack for the readers of Professor De Morgan's 'Budget of Paradoxes.' By James Smith, Esq. Liverpool, 1863, 8vo.

Paper read at the Liverpool Literary and Philosophical Society, reported in the Liverpool Daily Courier, Jan. 26, 1864. Reprinted as a pamphlet.

The Quadrature of the circle, or the true ratio between the diameter and circumference geometrically and mathematically demonstrated. By James Smith, Esq. Liverpool, 1865, 8vo.

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[On the relations between the dimensions and distances of the Sun, Moon, and Earth; a paper read before the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool, Jan. 25, 1864. By James Smith, Esq.

The British Association in Jeopardy, and Dr. Whewell, the Master of Trinity, in the stocks without hope of escape. Printed for the authors (J. S. confessed, and also hidden under _Nauticus_). (No date, 1865).

The British Association in Jeopardy, and Professor De Morgan in the Pillory without hope of escape. London, 1866, 8vo.]

When my work appeared in numbers, I had not anything like an adequate idea of Mr. James Smith's superiority to the rest of the world in the points in which he is superior. He is beyond a doubt the ablest head at unreasoning, and the greatest hand at writing it, of all who have tried in our day to attach their names to an error. Common cyclometers sink into puny orthodoxy by his side.

The behavior of this singular character induces me to pay him the compliment which Achilles paid Hector, to drag him round the walls again and again. He was treated with unusual notice and in the most gentle manner. The unnamed mathematician, E. M. bestowed a volume of mild correspondence upon him; Rowan Hamilton[201] quietly proved him wrong in a way accessible to an ordinary schoolboy; Whewell,[202] as we shall see, gave him the means of seeing himself wrong, even more easily than by Hamilton's method. Nothing would do; it was small kick and silly fling at all; and he exposed his conceit by alleging that he, James Smith, had placed Whewell in the stocks. He will therefore be universally pronounced a proper object of the severest literary punishment: but the opinion of all who can put two propositions together will be that of the many strokes I have given, the hardest and most telling are my republications of his own attempts to reason.

He will come out of my hands in the position he ought {105} to hold, the Supreme Pontiff of cyclometers, the vicegerent of St. Vitus upon earth, the Mamamouchi of burlesque on inference. I begin with a review of him which appeared in the _Athenaeum_ of May 11, 1861. Mr. Smith says I wrote it: this I neither affirm nor deny; to do either would be a sin against the editorial system elsewhere described. Many persons tell me they know me by my style; let them form a guess: I can only say that many have declared as above while fastening on me something which I had never seen nor heard of.

The Quadrature of the Circle: Correspondence between an Eminent Mathematician and James Smith, Esq. (Edinburgh, Oliver & Boyd; London, Simpkin, Marshall & Co.)

"A few weeks ago we were in perpetual motion. We did not then suppose that anything would tempt us on a circle-squaring expedition: but the circumstances of the book above named have a peculiarity which induces us to give it a few words.

"Mr. James Smith, a gentleman residing near Liverpool, was some years ago seized with the _morbus cyclometricus_.[203] The symptoms soon took a defined form: his circumference shrank into exactly 3-1/8 times his diameter, instead of close to 3-16/113, which the mathematician knows to be so near to truth that the error is hardly at the rate of a foot in 2,000 miles. This shrinking of the circumference remained until it became absolutely necessary that it should be examined by the British Association. This body, which as Mr. James Smith found to his sorrow, has some interest in 'jealously guarding the mysteries of their profession,' refused at first to entertain the question. On this Mr. Smith changed his 'tactics' and the name of his paper, and smuggled in the subject under the form of 'The Relations of a Circle inscribed in a Square'! The paper was thus forced upon the Association, for Mr. Smith informs us that he {106} 'gave the Section to understand that he was not the man that would permit even the British Association to trifle with him.' In other words, the Association bore with and were bored with the paper, as the shortest way out of the matter. Mr. Smith also circulated a pamphlet. Some kind-hearted man, who did not know the disorder as well as we do, and who appears in Mr. Smith's handsome octavo as E. M.--the initials of 'eminent mathematician'--wrote to him and offered to show him in a page that he was all wrong. Mr. Smith thereupon opened a correspondence, which is the bulk of the volume. When the correspondence was far advanced, Mr. Smith announced his intention to publish. His benevolent instructor--we mean in intention--protested against the publication, saying 'I do not wish to be gibbeted to the world as having been foolish enough to enter upon what I feel now to have been a ridiculous enterprise.'

"For this Mr. Smith cared nothing: he persisted in the publication, and the book is before us. Mr. Smith has had so much grace as to conceal his kind adviser's name under E. M., that is to say, he has divided the wrong among all who may be suspected of having attempted so hopeless a task as that of putting a little sense into his head. He has violated the decencies of private life. Against the will of the kind-hearted man who undertook his case, he has published letters which were intended for no other purpose than to clear his poor head of a hopeless delusion. He deserves the severest castigation; and he will get it: his abuse of confidence will stick by him all his days. Not that he has done his benefactor--in intention, again--any harm. The patience with which E. M. put the blunders into intelligible form, and the perseverance with which he tried to find a cranny-hole for common reasoning to get in at, are more than respectable: they are admirable. It is, we can assure E. M., a good thing that the nature of the circle-squarer should be so completely exposed as in this volume. The benefit which he intended Mr. James Smith may be {107} conferred upon others. And we should very much like to know his name, and if agreeable to him, to publish it. As to Mr. James Smith, we can only say this: he is not mad. Madmen reason rightly upon wrong premises: Mr. Smith reasons wrongly upon no premises at all.

"E. M. very soon found out that, to all appearance, Mr. Smith got a circle of 3-1/8 times the diameter by making it the supposition to set out with that there was such a circle; and then finding certain consequences which, so it happened, were not inconsistent with the supposition on which they were made. Error is sometimes self-consistent. However, E. M., to be quite sure of his ground, wrote a short letter, stating what he took to be Mr. Smith's hypothesis, containing the following: 'On AC as diameter, describe the circle D, which by hypothesis shall be equal to three and one-eighth times the length of AC.... I beg, before proceeding further, to ask whether I have rightly stated your argument.' To which Mr. Smith replied: 'You have stated my argument with perfect accuracy.' Still E. M. went on, and we could not help, after the above, taking these letters as the initials of Everlasting Mercy. At last, however, when Mr. Smith flatly denied that the area of the circle lies between those of the inscribed and circumscribed polygons, E. M. was fairly beaten, and gave up the task. Mr. Smith was left to write his preface, to talk about the certain victory of truth--which, oddly enough, is the consolation of all hopelessly mistaken men; to compare himself with Galileo; and to expose to the world the perverse behavior of the Astronomer Royal, on whom he wanted to fasten a conversation, and who replied, 'It would be a waste of time, Sir, to listen to anything you could have to say on such a subject.'

"Having thus disposed of Mr. James Smith, we proceed to a few remarks on the subject: it is one which a journal would never originate, but which is rendered necessary from time to time by the attempts of the autopseustic to become {108} heteropseustic. To the mathematician we have nothing to say: the question is, what kind of assurance can be given to the world at large that the wicked mathematicians are not acting in concert to keep down their superior, Mr. James Smith, the current Galileo of the quadrature of the circle.

"Let us first observe that this question does not stand alone: independently of the millions of similar problems which exist in higher mathematics, the finding of the diagonal of a square has just the same difficulty, namely, the entrance of a pair of lines of which one cannot be definitely expressed by means of the other. We will show the reader who is up to the multiplication-table how he may go on, on, on, ever nearer, never there, in finding the diagonal of a square from the side.

"Write down the following rows of figures, and more, if you like, in the way described:

1 2 5 12 29 70 169 408 985 1 3 7 17 41 99 239 577 1393

After the second, each number is made up of double the last increased by the last but one: thus, 5 is 1 more than twice 2, 12 is 2 more than twice 5, 239 is 41 more than twice 99. Now, take out two adjacent numbers from the upper line, and the one below the first from the lower: as

70 169 99.

Multiply together 99 and 169, giving 16,731. If, then, you will say that 70 diagonals are exactly equal to 99 sides, you are in error about the diagonal, but an error the amount of which is not so great as the 16,731st part of the diagonal. Similarly, to say that five diagonals make exactly seven sides does not involve an error of the 84th part of the diagonal.

"Now, why has not the question of _crossing the square_ been as celebrated as that of _squaring the circle_? Merely because Euclid demonstrated the impossibility of the first {109} question, while that of the second was not demonstrated, completely, until the last century.

"The mathematicians have many methods, totally different from each other, of arriving at one and the same result, their celebrated approximation to the circumference of the circle. An intrepid calculator has, in our own time, carried his approximation to what they call 607 decimal places: this has been done by Mr. Shanks,[204] of Houghton-le-Spring, and Dr. Rutherford[205] has verified 441 of these places. But though 607 looks large, the general public will form but a hazy notion of the extent of accuracy acquired. We have seen, in Charles Knight's[206] _English Cyclopaedia_, an account of the matter which may illustrate the unimaginable, though rationally conceivable, extent of accuracy obtained.

"Say that the blood-globule of one of our animalcules is a millionth of an inch in diameter. Fashion in thought a globe like our own, but so much larger that our globe is but a blood-globule in one of its animalcules: never mind the microscope which shows the creature being rather a bulky instrument. Call this the first globe _above_ us. Let the first globe above us be but a blood-globule, as to size, in the animalcule of a still larger globe, which call the second globe above us. Go on in this way to the twentieth globe above us. Now go down just as far on the other side. Let the blood-globule with which we started be a globe peopled with animals like ours, but rather smaller: {110} and call this the first globe below us. Take a blood-globule out of this globe, people it, and call it the second globe below us: and so on to the twentieth globe below us. This is a fine stretch of progression both ways. Now give the giant of the twentieth globe _above_ us the 607 decimal places, and, when he has measured the diameter of his globe with accuracy worthy of his size, let him calculate the circumference of his equator from the 607 places. Bring the little philosopher from the twentieth globe _below_ us with his very best microscope, and set him to see the small error which the giant must make. He will not succeed, unless his microscopes be much better for his size than ours are for ours.

"Now it must be remembered by any one who would laugh at the closeness of the approximation, that the mathematician generally goes _nearer_; in fact his theorems have usually no error at all. The very person who is bewildered by the preceding description may easily forget that if there were _no error at all_, the Lilliputian of the millionth globe below us could not find a flaw in the Brobdingnagian of the millionth globe above. The three angles of a triangle, of perfect accuracy of form, are _absolutely_ equal to two right angles; no stretch of progression will detect _any_ error.

"Now think of Mr. Lacomme's mathematical adviser (_ante_, Vol. I, p. 46) making a difficulty of advising a stonemason about the quantity of pavement in a circular floor!

"We will now, for our non-calculating reader, put the matter in another way. We see that a circle-squarer can advance, with the utmost confidence, the assertion that when the diameter is 1,000, the circumference is accurately 3,125: the mathematician declaring that it is a trifle more than 3,141-1/2. If the squarer be right, the mathematician has erred by about a 200th part of the whole: or has not kept his accounts right by about 10s. in every 100l. Of course, if he set out with such an error he will accumulate blunder upon blunder. Now, if there be a process in which {111} close knowledge of the circle is requisite, it is in the prediction of the moon's place--say, as to the time of passing the meridian at Greenwich--on a given day. We cannot give the least idea of the complication of details: but common sense will tell us that if a mathematician cannot find his way round the circle without a relative error four times as big as a stockbroker's commission, he must needs be dreadfully out in his attempt to predict the time of passage of the moon. Now, what is the fact? His error is less than a second of time, and the moon takes 27 days odd to revolve. That is to say, setting out with 10s. in 100l. of error in his circumference, he gets within the fifth part of a farthing in 100l. in predicting the moon's transit. Now we cannot think that the respect in which mathematical science is held is great enough--though we find it not small--to make this go down. That respect is founded upon a notion that right ends are got by right means: it will hardly be credited that the truth can be got to farthings out of data which are wrong by shillings. Even the celebrated Hamilton[207] of Edinburgh, who held that in mathematics there was no way of going wrong, was fully impressed with the belief that this was because error was avoided from the beginning. He never went so far as to say that a mathematician who begins wrong must end right somehow.

"There is always a difficulty about the mode in which the thinking man of common life is to deal with subjects he has not studied to a professional extent. He must form opinions on matters theological, political, legal, medical, and social. If he can make up his mind to choose a guide, there is, of course, no perplexity: but on all the subjects mentioned the direction-posts point different ways. Now why should he not form his opinion upon an abstract mathematical question? Why not conclude that, as to the circle, it is possible Mr. James Smith may be the man, just {112} as Adam Smith[208] was the man of things then to come, or Luther, or Galileo? It is true that there is an unanimity among mathematicians which prevails in no other class: but this makes the chance of their all being wrong only different in degree. And more than this, is it not generally thought among us that priests and physicians were never so much wrong as when there was most appearance of unanimity among them? To the preceding questions we see no answer except this, that the individual inquirer may as rationally decide a mathematical question for himself as a theological or a medical question, so soon as he can put himself into a position in mathematics, level with that in which he stands in theology or medicine. The every-day thought and reading of common life have a certain resemblance to the thought and reading demanded by the learned faculties. The research, the balance of evidence, the estimation of probabilities, which are used in a question of medicine, are closely akin in character, however different the matter of application, to those which serve a merchant to draw his conclusions about the markets. But the mathematicians have methods of their own, to which nothing in common life bears close analogy, as to the nature of the results or the character of the conclusions. The logic of mathematics is certainly that of common life: but the data are of a different species; they do not admit of doubt. An expert arithmetician, such as is Mr. J. Smith, may fancy that calculation, merely as such, is mathematics: but the value of his book, and in this point of view it is not small, is the full manner in which it shows that a practised arithmetician, venturing into the field of mathematical demonstration, may show himself utterly destitute of all that distinguishes the reasoning geometrical investigator from the calculator.

{113}

"And further, it should be remembered that in mathematics the power of verifying results far exceeds that which is found in anything else: and also the variety of distinct methods by which they can be attained. It follows from all this that a person who desires to be as near the truth as he can will not judge the results of mathematical demonstration to be open to his criticism, in the same degree as results of other kinds. Should he feel compelled to decide, there is no harm done: his circle may be 3-1/8 times its diameter, if it please him. But we must warn him that, in order to get this circle, he must, as Mr. James Smith has done, _make it at home_: the laws of space and thought beg leave respectfully to decline the order."

I will insert now at length, from the _Athenaeum_ of June 8, 1861, the easy refutation given by my deceased friend, with the remarks which precede.

"Mr. James Smith, of whose performance in the way of squaring the circle we spoke some weeks ago in terms short of entire acquiescence, has advertised himself in our columns, as our readers will have seen. He has also forwarded his letter to the Liverpool _Albion_, with an additional statement, which he did not make in _our_ journal. He denies that he has violated the decencies of private life, since his correspondent revised the proofs of his own letters, and his 'protest had respect only to making his name public.' This statement Mr. James Smith precedes by saying that we have treated as true what we well knew to be false: and he follows by saying that we have not read his work, or we should have known the above facts to be true. Mr. Smith's pretext is as follows. His correspondent E. M. says, 'My letters were not intended for publication, and I protest against their being published,' and he subjoins 'Therefore I must desire that my name may not be used.' The obvious meaning is that E. M. protested against the publication altogether, but, judging that Mr. Smith was {114} determined to publish, desired that his name should not be used. That he afterwards corrected the proofs merely means that he thought it wiser to let them pass under his own eyes than to leave them entirely to Mr. Smith.

"We have received from Sir W. Rowan Hamilton[209] a proof that the circumference is more than 3-1/8 diameters, requiring nothing but a knowledge of four books of Euclid. We give it in brief as an exercise for our juvenile readers to fill up. It reminds us of the old days when real geometers used to think it worth while seriously to demolish pretenders. Mr. Smith's fame is now assured: Sir W. R. Hamilton's brief and easy exposure will procure him notice in connection with this celebrated problem.

"It is to be shown that the perimeter of a regular polygon of 20 sides is greater than 3-1/8 diameters of the circle, and still more, of course, is the circumference of the circle greater than 3-1/8 diameters.

"1. It follows from the 4th Book of Euclid, that the rectangle under the side of a regular decagon inscribed in a circle, and that side increased by the radius, is equal to the square of the radius. But the product 791 (791 + 1280) is less than 1280 x 1280; if then the radius be 1280 the side of the decagon is greater than 791.

"2. When a diameter bisects a chord, the square of the chord is equal to the rectangle under the doubles of the segments of the diameter. But the product 125 (4 x 1280 - 125) is less than 791 x 791. If then the bisected chord be a side of the decagon, and if the radius be still 1280, the double of the lesser segment exceeds 125.

"3. The rectangle under this doubled segment and the radius is equal to the square of the side of an inscribed regular polygon of 20 sides. But the product 125 x 1280 is equal to 400 x 400; therefore, the side of the last-mentioned polygon is greater than 400, if the radius be still 1280. In other words, if the radius be represented by the new {115} member 16, and therefore the diameter by 32, this side is greater than 5, and the perimeter exceeds 100. So that, finally, if the diameter be 8, the perimeter of the inscribed regular polygon of 20 sides, and still more the circumference of the circle, is greater than 25: that is, the circumference is more than 3-1/8 diameters."

The last work in the list was thus noticed in the _Athenaeum_, May 27, 1865.

"Mr. James Smith appears to be tired of waiting for his place in the Budget of Paradoxes, and accordingly publishes a long letter to Professor De Morgan, with various prefaces and postscripts. The letter opens by a hint that the Budget appears at very long intervals, and 'apparently without any sufficient reason for it.' As Mr. Smith hints that he should like to see Mr. De Morgan, whom he calls an 'elephant of mathematics,' 'pumping his brains' 'behind the scenes'--an odd thing for an elephant to do, and an odd place to do it in--to get an answer, we think he may mean to hint that the Budget is delayed until the pump has worked successfully. Mr. Smith is informed that we have had the whole manuscript of the Budget, excepting only a final summing-up, in our hands since October, 1863. [This does not refer to the Supplement.] There has been no delay: we knew from the beginning that a series of historical articles would be frequently interrupted by the things of the day. Mr. James Smith lets out that he has never been able to get a private line from Mr. De Morgan in answer to his communications: we should have guessed it. He says, 'The Professor is an old bird and not to be easily caught, and by no efforts of mine have I been able, up to the present moment, either to induce or twit him into a discussion....' Mr. Smith curtails the proverb: old birds are not to be caught with _chaff_, nor with _twit_, which seems to be Mr. Smith's word for his own chaff, and, so long as the first letter is sounded, a very proper word. Why does he not try a little grain of sense? Mr. Smith evidently {116} thinks that, in his character as an elephant, the Professor has not pumped up brain enough to furnish forth a bird. In serious earnest, Mr. Smith needs no answer. In one thing he excites our curiosity: what is meant by demonstrating 'geometrically _and_ mathematically?'"

I now proceed to my original treatment of the case.

Mr. James Smith will, I have no doubt, be the most uneclipsed circle-squarer of our day. He will not owe this distinction to his being an influential and respected member of the commercial world of Liverpool, even though the power of publishing which his means give him should induce him to issue a whole library upon one paradox. Neither will he owe it to the pains taken with him by a mathematician who corresponded with him until the joint letters filled an octavo volume. Neither will he owe it to the notice taken of him by Sir William Hamilton, of Dublin, who refuted him in a manner intelligible to an ordinary student of Euclid, which refutation he calls a remarkable paradox easily explainable, but without explaining it. What he will owe it to I proceed to show.

Until the publication of the _Nut to Crack_ Mr. James Smith stood among circle-squarers in general. I might have treated him with ridicule, as I have done others: and he says that he does not doubt he shall come in for his share at the tail end of my Budget. But I can make a better job of him than so, as Locke would have phrased it: he is such a very striking example of something I have said on the use of logic that I prefer to make an example of his writings. On one point indeed he well deserves the _scutica_,[210] if not the _horribile flagellum_.[211] He tells me that he will bring his solution to me in such a form as shall compel me to admit it as _un fait accompli_ [_une faute accomplie?_][212] {117} or leave myself open to the humiliating charge of mathematical ignorance and folly. He has also honored me with some private letters. In the first of these he gives me a "piece of information," after which he cannot imagine that I, "as an honest mathematician," can possibly have the slightest hesitation in admitting his solution. There is a tolerable reservoir of modest assurance in a man who writes to a perfect stranger with what he takes for an argument, and gives an oblique threat of imputation of dishonesty in case the argument be not admitted without hesitation; not to speak of the minor charges of ignorance and folly. All this is blind self-confidence, without mixture of malicious meaning; and I rather like it: it makes me understand how Sam Johnson came to say of his old friend Mrs. Cobb,[213]--"I love Moll Cobb for her impudence." I have now done with my friend's _suaviter in modo_,[214] and proceed to his _fortiter in re_[215]: I shall show that he _has_ convicted himself of ignorance and folly, with an honesty and candor worthy of a better value of [pi].

Mr. Smith's method of proving that every circle is 3-1/8 diameters is to assume that it is so,--"if you dislike the term datum, then, by hypothesis, let 8 circumferences be exactly equal to 25 diameters,"--and then to show that every other supposition is thereby made absurd. The right to this assumption is enforced in the "Nut" by the following analogy:

"I think you (!) will not dare (!) to dispute my right to this hypothesis, when I can prove by means of it that every other value of [pi] will lead to the grossest absurdities; unless indeed, you are prepared to dispute the right of Euclid to adopt a false line hypothetically for the purpose {118} of a '_reductio ad absurdum_'[216] demonstration, in pure geometry."

Euclid assumes what he wants to _disprove_, and shows that his _assumption_ leads to absurdity, and so _upsets itself_. Mr. Smith assumes what he wants to _prove_, and shows that _his_ assumption makes _other propositions_ lead to absurdity. This is enough for all who can reason. Mr. James Smith cannot be argued with; he has the whip-hand of all the thinkers in the world. Montucla would have said of Mr. Smith what he said of the gentleman who squared his circle by giving 50 and 49 the same square root, _Il a perdu le droit d'etre frappe de l'evidence_.[217]

It is Mr. Smith's habit, when he finds a conclusion agreeing with its own assumption, to regard that agreement as proof of the assumption. The following is the "piece of information" which will settle me, if I be honest. Assuming [pi] to be 3-1/8, he finds out by working instance after instance that the mean proportional between one-fifth of the area and one-fifth of eight is the radius. That is,

if [pi] = 25/8, sqrt(([pi]r^2)/5 . 8/5) = r.

This "remarkable general principle" may fail to establish Mr. Smith's quadrature, even in an honest mind, if that mind should happen to know that, a and b being any two numbers whatever, we need only assume--

[pi] = a^2/b, to get at sqrt(([pi]r^2)/a . b/a) = r.

We naturally ask what sort of glimmer can Mr. Smith have of the subject which he professes to treat? On this point he has given satisfactory information. I had mentioned the old problem of finding two mean proportionals, {119} as a preliminary to the duplication of the cube. On this mention Mr. Smith writes as follows. I put a few words in capitals; and I write rq[218] for the sign of the square root, which embarrasses small type:

"This establishes the following _infallible_ rule, for finding two mean proportionals OF EQUAL VALUE, and is more than a preliminary, to the famous old problem of 'Squaring the circle.' Let any finite number, say 20, and its fourth part = (1/4)(20) = 5, be given numbers. Then rq(20 x 5) = rq 100 = 10, is their mean proportional. Let this be a given mean proportional TO FIND ANOTHER MEAN PROPORTIONAL OF EQUAL VALUE. Then

20 x [pi]/4 = 20 x 3.125/4 = 20 x .78125 = 15.625

will be the first number; as

25 : 16 :: rq 20 : rq 8.192: and (rq 8.192)^2 x [pi]/4 = 8.192 x .78125 = 6.4

will be the second number; therefore rq(15.625 x 6.4) = rq 100 = 10, is the required mean proportional.... Now, my good Sir, however competent you may be to prove every man a fool [not _every_ man, Mr. Smith! only _some_; pray learn logical quantification] who now thinks, or in times gone by has thought, the 'Squaring of the Circle' _a possibility_; I doubt, and, on the evidence afforded by your Budget, I cannot help doubting, whether you were ever before competent to find two mean proportionals _by my unique method_."--(_Nut_, pp. 47, 48.) [That I never was, I solemnly declare!]

All readers can be made to see the following exposure. When 5 and 20 are given, x is a mean proportional when in 5, x, 20, 5 is to x as x to 20. And x must be 10. But x and y are two mean proportionals when in 5, x, y, 20, x {120} is a mean proportional between 5 and y, and y is a mean proportional between x and 20. And these means are x = 5 [cuberoot]4, y = 5 [cuberoot]16. But Mr. Smith finds _one_ mean, finds it _again_ in a roundabout way, and produces 10 and 10 as the two (equal!) means, in solution of the "famous old problem." This is enough: if more were wanted, there is more where this came from. Let it not be forgotten that Mr. Smith has found a translator abroad, two, perhaps three, followers at home, and--most surprising of all--a real mathematician to try to set him right. And this mathematician did not discover the character of the subsoil of the land he was trying to cultivate until a goodly octavo volume of letters had passed and repassed. I have noticed, in more quarters than one, an apparent want of perception of the _full_ amount of Mr. Smith's ignorance: persons who have not been in contact with the non-geometrical circle-squarers have a kind of doubt as to whether anybody can carry things so far. But I am an "old bird" as Mr. Smith himself calls me; a Simorg, an "all-knowing Bird of Ages" in matters of cyclometry.

The curious phenomena of thought here exhibited illustrate, as above said, a remark I have long ago made on the effect of proper study of logic. Most persons reason well enough on matter to which they are accustomed, and in terms with which they are familiar. But in unaccustomed matter, and with use of strange terms, few except those who are practised in the abstractions of pure logic can be tolerably sure to keep their feet. And one of the reasons is easily stated: terms which are not quite familiar partake of the vagueness of the X and Y on which the student of logic learns to see the formal force of a proposition independently of its material elements.

I make the following quotation from my fourth paper on logic in the _Cambridge Transactions_:

"The uncultivated reason proceeds by a process almost entirely material. Though the necessary law of thought {121} must determine the conclusion of the ploughboy as much as that of Aristotle himself, the ploughboy's conclusion will only be tolerably sure when the matter of it is such as comes within his usual cognizance. He knows that geese being all birds does not make all birds geese, but mainly because there are ducks, chickens, partridges, etc. A beginner in geometry, when asked what follows from 'Every A is B,' answers 'Every B is A.' That is, the necessary laws of thought, except in minds which have examined their tools, are not very sure to work correct conclusions except upon familiar matter.... As the cultivation of the individual increases, the laws of thought which are of most usual application are applied to familiar matter with tolerable safety. But difficulty and risk of error make a new appearance with a new subject; and this, in most cases, until new subjects are familiar things, unusual matter common, untried nomenclature habitual; that is, until it is a habit to be occupied upon a novelty. It is observed that many persons reason well in some things and badly in others; and this is attributed to the consequence of employing the mind too much upon one or another subject. But those who know the truth of the preceding remarks will not have far to seek for what is often, perhaps most often, the true reason.... I maintain that logic tends to make the power of reason over the unusual and unfamiliar more nearly equal to the power over the usual and familiar than it would otherwise be. The second is increased; but the first is almost created."

Mr. James Smith, by bringing ignorance, folly, dishonesty into contact with my name, in the way of conditional insinuation, has done me a good turn: he has given me right to a freedom of personal remark which I might have declined to take in the case of a person who is useful and respected in matters which he understands.

Tit for tat is logic all the world over. By the way, what has become of the rest of the maxim: we never hear it {122} now. When I was a boy, in some parts of the country at least, it ran thus:

"Tit for tat; Butter for fat: If you kill my dog, I'll kill your cat."

He is a glaring instance of the truth of the observations quoted above. I will answer for it that, at the Mersey Dock Board, he never dreams of proving that the balance at the banker's is larger than that in the book by assuming that the larger sum is there, and then proving that the other supposition--the smaller balance--is upon that assumption, an absurdity. He never says to another director, How can you dare to refuse me a right to assume the larger balance, when you yourself, the other day, said,--Suppose, for argument's sake, we had 80,000l. at the banker's, though you knew the book only showed 30,000l.? This is the way in which he has supported his geometrical paradox by Euclid's example: and this is not the way he reasons at the board; I know it by the character of him as a man of business which has reached my ears from several quarters. But in geometry and rational arithmetic he is a smatterer, though expert at computation; at the board he is a trained man of business. The language of geometry is so new to him that he does not know what is meant by "two mean proportionals:" but all the phrases of commerce are rooted in his mind. He is most unerasably booked in the history of the squaring of the circle, as the speculator who took a right to assume a proposition for the destruction of other propositions, on the express ground that Euclid assumes a proposition to show that it destroys itself: which is as if the curate should demand permission to throttle the squire because St. Patrick drove the vermin to suicide to save themselves from slaughter. He is conspicuous as a speculator who, more visibly than almost any other known to history, reasoned in a circle by way of reasoning on a circle. But {123} what I have chiefly to do with is the force of instance which he has lent to my assertion that men who have not had real training in pure logic are unsafe reasoners in matter which is not familiar. It is hard to get first-rate examples of this, because there are few who find the way to the printer until practice and reflection have given security against the grossest slips. I cannot but think that his case will lead many to take what I have said into consideration, among those who are competent to think of the great mental disciplines. To this end I should desire him to continue his efforts, to amplify and develop his great principle, that of proving a proposition by assuming it and taking as confirmation every consequence that does not contradict the assumption.

Since my Budget commenced, Mr. Smith has written me notes: the portion which I have preserved--I suppose several have been mislaid--makes a hundred and seven pages of note-paper, closely written. To all this I have not answered one word: but I think I cannot have read fewer than forty pages. In the last letter the writer informs me that he will not write at greater length until I have given him an answer, according to the "rules of good society." Did I not know that for every inch I wrote back he would return an ell? Surely in vain the net is spread in the eyes of anything that hath a wing. There were several good excuses for not writing to Mr. J. Smith: I will mention five. First, I distinctly announced at the beginning of this Budget that I would not communicate with squarers of the circle. Secondly, any answer I might choose to give might with perfect propriety be reserved for this article; had the imputation of incivility been made after the first note, I should immediately have replied to this effect: but I presumed it was quite understood. Thirdly, Mr. Smith, by his publication of E. M.'s letters against the wish of the writer, had put himself out of the pale of correspondence. Fourthly, he had also gone beyond the rules of good society in sending {124} letter after letter to a person who had shown by his silence an intention to avoid correspondence. Fifthly, these same rules of good society are contrived to be flexible or frangible in extreme cases: otherwise there would be no living under them; and good society would be bad. Father Aldrovand has laid down the necessary distinction--"I tell thee, thou foolish Fleming, the text speaketh but of promises made unto Christians, and there is in the rubric a special exemption of such as are made to Welchmen." There is also a rubric to the rules of good society; and squarers of the circle are among those whom there is special permission not to answer: they are the wild Welchmen of geometry, who are always assailing, but never taking, the Garde Douloureuse[219] of the circle. "At this commentary," proceeds the story, "the Fleming grinned so broadly as to show his whole case of broad strong white teeth." I know not whether the Welchman would have done the like, but I hope Mr. James Smith will: and I hope he has as good a case to show as Wilkin Flammock. For I wish him long life and long health, and should be very glad to see so much energy employed in a productive way. I hope he wishes me the same: if not, I will give him what all his judicious friends will think a good reason for doing so. His pamphlets and letters are all tied up together, and will form a curious lot when death or cessation of power to forage among book-shelves shall bring my little library to the hammer. And this time may not be far off: for I was X years old in A.D. X^2; not 4 in A.D. 16, nor 5 in A.D. 25, but still in one case under that law. And now I have made my own age a problem of quadrature, and Mr. J. Smith may solve it. But I protest against his method of assuming a result, and making itself prove itself: he might in this way, as sure as eggs is eggs (a corruption of X is X), make me 1,864 years old, which is a great deal too much.

{125}

_April 5, 1864._--Mr. Smith continues to write me long letters, to which he hints that I am to answer. In his last, of 31 closely written sides of note-paper, he informs me, with reference to my obstinate silence, that though I think myself and am thought by others to be a mathematical Goliath, I have resolved to play the mathematical snail, and keep within my shell. A mathematical _snail_! This cannot be the thing so called which regulates the striking of a clock; for it would mean that I am to make Mr. Smith sound the true time of day, which I would by no means undertake upon a clock that gains 19 seconds odd in every hour by false quadrature. But he ventures to tell me that pebbles from the sling of simple truth and common sense will ultimately crack my shell, and put me _hors de combat_.[220] The confusion of images is amusing: Goliath turning himself into a snail to avoid [pi] = 3-1/8, and James Smith, Esq., of the Mersey Dock Board: and put _hors de combat_--which should have been _cache_[221]--by pebbles from a sling. If Goliath had crept into a snail-shell, David would have cracked the Philistine with his foot. There is something like modesty in the implication that the crack-shell pebble has not yet taken effect; it might have been thought that the slinger would by this time have been singing--

"And thrice [and one-eighth] I routed all my foes, And thrice [and one-eighth] I slew the slain."

But he promises to give the public his nut-cracker if I do not, before the Budget is concluded, "unravel" the paradox, which is the mathematico-geometrical nut he has given me to crack. Mr. Smith is a crack man: he will crack his own nut; he will crack my shell; in the mean time he cracks himself up. Heaven send he do not crack himself into lateral contiguity with himself.

On June 27 I received a letter, in the handwriting of Mr. James Smith, signed Nauticus. I have ascertained {126} that one of the letters to the _Athenaeum_ signed Nauticus is in the same handwriting. I make a few extracts:

"... The important question at issue has been treated by a brace of mathematical birds with too much levity. It may be said, however, that sarcasm and ridicule sometimes succeed, where reason fails.... Such a course is not well suited to a discussion.... For this reason I shall for the future [this implies there has been a past, so that Nauticus is not before me for the first time] endeavor to confine myself to dry reasoning from incontrovertible premises.

... It appears to me that so far as his theory is concerned he comes off unscathed. You might have found "a hole in Smith's circle" (have you seen a pamphlet bearing this title? [I never heard of it until now]), but after all it is quite possible the hole may have been left by design, for the purpose of entrapping the unwary."

[On the publication of the above, the author of the pamphlet obligingly forwarded a copy to me of _A Hole in Smith's Circle_--by a Cantab: Longman and Co., 1859, (pp. 15). "It is pity to lose any fun we can get out of the affair," says my almamaternal brother: to which I add that in such a case warning without joke is worse than none at all, as giving a false idea of the nature of the danger. The Cantab takes some absurdities on which I have not dwelt: but there are enough to afford a Cantab from every college his own separate hunting ground.]

Does this hint that his mode of proof, namely, assuming the thing to be proved, was a design to entrap the unwary? if so, it bangs Banagher. Was his confounding two mean proportionals with one mean proportional found twice over a trick of the same intent? if so, it beats cockfighting. That Nauticus is Mr. Smith appears from other internal evidence. In 1819, Mr. J. C. Hobhouse[222] was sent to Newgate for a {127} libel on the House of Commons which was only intended for a libel on Lord Erskine.[223] The ex-Chancellor had taken Mr. Hobhouse to be thinking of him in a certain sentence; this Mr. Hobhouse denied, adding, "There is but one man in the country who is always thinking of Lord Erskine." I say that there is but one man of our day who would couple me and Mr. James Smith as a "brace of mathematical birds."

Mr. Smith's "theory" is unscathed by me. Not a doubt about it: but how does he himself come off? I should never think of refuting a theory proved by assumption of itself. I left Mr. Smith's [pi] untouched: or, if I put in my thumb and pulled out a plum, it was to give a notion of the cook, not of the dish. The "important question at issue" was not the circle: it was, wholly and solely, whether the abbreviation of _James_ might be spelled _Jimm_.[224] This is personal to the verge of scurrility: but in literary controversy the challenger names the weapons, and Mr. Smith begins with charge of ignorance, folly, and dishonesty, by conditional implication. So that the question is, not the personality of a word, but its applicability to the person designated: it is enough if, as the Latin grammar has it, _Verbum personale concordat cum nominativo_.[225]

I may plead precedent for taking a liberty with the orthography of _Jem_. An instructor of youth was scandalized at the abrupt and irregular--but very effective--opening of Wordsworth's little piece:

{128}

"A simple child That lightly draws its breath, And feels its life in every limb, What should it know of death?"

So he mended the matter by instructing his pupils to read the first line thus:

"A simple child, dear brother ----."

The brother, we infer from sound, was to be James, and the blank must therefore be filled up with _Jimb_.

I will notice one point of the letter, to make a little more distinction between the two birds. Nauticus lays down--quite correctly--that the sine of an angle is less than its circular measure. He then takes 3.1416 for 180 deg., and finds that 36' is .010472. But this is exactly what he finds for the sine of 36' in tables: he concludes that either 3.1416 or the tables must be wrong. He does not know that sines, as well as [pi], are interminable decimals, of which the tables, to save printing, only take in a finite number. He is a six-figure man: let us go thrice again to make up nine, and we have as follows:

Circular measure of 36' .010471975... Sine of 36' .010471784... Excess of measure over sine .000000191...

Mr. Smith invites me to say which is wrong, the quadrature, or the tables: I leave him to guess. He says his assertions "arise naturally and necessarily out of the arguments of a circle-squarer:" he might just as well lay down that all the pigs went to market because it is recorded that "_This_ pig went to market." I must say for circle-squarers that very few bring their pigs to so poor a market. I answer the above argument because it is, of all which Mr. James Smith has produced, the only one which rises to the level of a schoolboy: to meet him halfway I descend to that level.

Mr. Smith asks me to solve a problem in the _Athenaeum_: {129} and I will do it, because the question will illustrate what is _below_ schoolboy level.

"Let x represent the circular measure of an angle of 15 deg., and y half the sine of an angle of 30 deg. = area of the square on the radius of a circle of diameter unity = .25. If x - y = xy, firstly, what is the arithmetical value of xy? secondly, what is the angle of which xy represents the circular measure?"

If x represent 15 deg. and y be 1/4, xy represents 3 deg. 45', whether x - y be xy or no. But, y being 1/4, x - y is _not_ xy unless x be 1/3, that is, unless 12x or [pi] be 4, which Mr. Smith would not admit. How could a person who had just received such a lesson as I had given immediately pray for further exposure, furnishing the stuff so liberally as this? Is it possible that Mr. Smith, because he signs himself Nauticus, means to deny his own very regular, legible, and peculiar hand? It is enough to make the other members of the Liverpool Dock Board cry, Mersey on the man!

Mr. Smith says that for the future he will give up what he calls sarcasm, and confine himself, "as far as possible," to what he calls dry reasoning from incontrovertible premises. If I have fairly taught him that _his_ sarcasm will not succeed, I hope he will find that his wit's end is his logic's beginning.

I now reply to a question I have been asked again and again since my last Budget appeared: Why do you take so much trouble to expose such a reasoner as Mr. Smith? I answer as a deceased friend of mine used to answer on like occasions--A man's capacity is no measure of his power to do mischief. Mr. Smith has untiring energy, which does something; self-evident honesty of conviction, which does more; and a long purse, which does most of all. He has made at least ten publications, full of figures which few readers can criticize. A great many people are staggered to this extent, that they imagine there must be {130} the indefinite _something_ in the mysterious _all this_. They are brought to the point of suspicion that the mathematicians ought not to treat "all this" with such undisguised contempt, at least. Now I have no fear for [pi]: but I do think it possible that general opinion might in time demand that the crowd of circle-squarers, etc. should be admitted to the honors of opposition; and this would be a time-tax of five per cent., one man with another, upon those who are better employed. Mr. James Smith may be made useful, in hands which understand how to do it, towards preventing such opinion from growing. A speculator who expressly assumes what he wants to prove, and argues that all which contradicts it is absurd, _because_ it cannot stand side by side with his assumption, is a case which can be exposed to all. And the best person to expose it is one who has lived in the past as well as the present, who takes misthinking from points of view which none but a student of history can occupy, and who has something of a turn for the business.

Whether I have any motive but public good must be referred to those who can decide whether a missionary chooses his pursuit solely to convert the heathen. I shall certainly be thought to have a little of the spirit of Col. Quagg, who delighted in strapping the Grace-walking Brethren. I must quote this myself: if I do not, some one else will, and then where am I? The Colonel's principle is described as follows:

"I licks ye because I kin, and because I like, and because ye'se critters that licks is good for. Skins ye have on, and skins I'll have off; hard or soft, wet or dry, spring or fall. Walk in grace if ye like till pumpkins is peaches; but licked ye must be till your toe-nails drop off and your noses bleed blue ink. And--licked--they--were--accordingly."

I am reminded of this by the excessive confidence with which Mr. James Smith predicted that he would treat me as Zephaniah Stockdolloger (Sam Slick calls it _slockdollager_) treated Goliah Quagg. He has announced his {131} intention of bringing me, with a contrite heart, and clean shaved,--4159265... razored down to 25,--to a camp-meeting of circle-squarers. But there is this difference: Zephaniah only wanted to pass the Colonel's smithy in peace; Mr. James Smith sought a fight with me. As soon as this Budget began to appear, he oiled his own strap, and attempted to treat me as the terrible Colonel would have treated the inoffensive brother.

He is at liberty to try again.

THE MOON HOAX.

The Moon-hoax; or the discovery that the moon has a vast population of human beings. By Richard Adams Locke.[226] New York, 1859, 8vo.

This is a reprint of the hoax already mentioned. I suppose R. A. Locke is the name assumed by M. Nicollet.[227] The publisher informs us that when the hoax first appeared day by day in a morning paper, the circulation increased fivefold, and the paper obtained a permanent footing. Besides this, an edition of 60,000 was sold off in less than one month.

The discovery was also published under the name of A. R. Grant.[228] Sohncke's[229] _Bibliotheca Mathematica_ confounds this Grant with Prof. R. Grant[230] of Glasgow, the author of the _History of Physical Astronomy_, who is accordingly made to guarantee the discoveries in the moon. I hope Adams Locke will not merge in J. C. Adams,[231] the co-discoverer of Neptune. Sohncke gives the titles of {132} three French translations of the Moon hoax at Paris, of one at Bordeaux, and of Italian translations at Parma, Palermo, and Milan.

A Correspondent, who is evidently fully master of details, which he has given at length, informs me that the Moon hoax appeared first in the _New York Sun_, of which R. A. Locke was editor. It so much resembled a story then recently published by Edgar A. Poe, in a Southern paper, "Adventures of Hans Pfaal," that some New York journals published the two side by side. Mr. Locke, when he left the _New York Sun_, started another paper, and discovered the manuscript of Mungo Park;[232] but this did not deceive. The _Sun_, however, continued its career, and had a great success in an account of a balloon voyage from England to America, in seventy-five hours, by Mr. Monck Mason,[233] Mr. Harrison Ainsworth,[234] and others. I have no doubt that M. Nicollet was the author of the Moon hoax,[235] written in a way which marks the practised observatory astronomer beyond all doubt, and by evidence seen in the most minute details. Nicollet had an eye to Europe. I suspect that he took Poe's story, and made it a basis for his own. Mr. Locke, it would seem, when he attempted a fabrication for himself, did not succeed.

The Earth we inhabit, its past, present, and future. By Capt. Drayson.[236] London, 1859, 8vo.

The earth is growing; absolutely growing larger: its diameter increases three-quarters of an inch per mile every year. The foundations of our buildings will give way in {133} time: the telegraph cables break, and no cause ever assigned except ships' anchors, and such things. The book is for those whose common sense is unwarped, who can judge evidence as well as the ablest philosopher. The prospect is not a bad one, for population increases so fast that a larger earth will be wanted in time, unless emigration to the Moon can be managed, a proposal of which it much surprises me that Bishop Wilkins has a monopoly.

IMPALEMENT BY REQUEST.

_Athenaeum_, August, 19, 1865. _Notice to Correspondents._

"R. W.--If you will consult the opening chapter of the Budget of Paradoxes, you will see that the author presents only works in his own library at a given date; and this for a purpose explained. For ourselves we have carefully avoided allowing any writers to present themselves in our columns on the ground that the Budget has passed them over. We gather that Mr. De Morgan contemplates additions at a future time, perhaps in a separate and augmented work; if so, those who complain that others of no greater claims than themselves have been ridiculed may find themselves where they wish to be. We have done what we can for you by forwarding your letter to Mr. De Morgan."

The author of "An Essay on the Constitution of the Earth," published in 1844, demanded of the _Athenaeum_, as an _act of fairness_, that a letter from him should be published, proving that he had as much right to be "impaled" as Capt. Drayson. He holds, on speculative grounds, what the other claims to have proved by measurement, namely, that the earth is growing; and he believes that in time--a good long time, not _our_ time--the earth and other planets may grow into suns, with systems of their own.

This gentleman sent me a copy of his work, after the commencement of my Budget; but I have no recollection of having received it, and I cannot find it on the (nursery? {134} quarantine?) shelves on which I keep my unestablished discoveries. Had I known of this work in time, (see the Introduction) I should of course, have impaled it (heraldically) with the other work; but the two are very different. Capt. Drayson professes to prove his point by results of observation; and I think he does not succeed. The author before me only speculates; and a speculator can get any conclusion into his premises, if he will only build or hire them of shape and size to suit. It reminds me of a statement I heard years ago, that a score of persons, or near it, were to dine inside the skull of one of the aboriginal animals, dear little creatures! Whereat I wondered vastly, nothing doubting; facts being stubborn and not easy drove, as Mrs. Gamp said. But I soon learned that the skull was not a real one, but artificially constructed by the methods--methods which have had striking verifications, too--which enable zoologists to go the whole hog by help of a toe or a bit of tail. This took off the edge of the wonder: a hundred people can dine inside an inference, if you draw it large enough. The method might happen to fail for once: for instance, the toe-bone might have been abnormalized by therian or saurian malady; and the possibility of such failure, even when of small probability, is of great alleviation. The author before me is, apparently, the sole fabricator of his own premises. With vital force in the earth and continual creation on the part of the original Creator, he expands our bit of a residence as desired. But, as the Newtoness of Cookery observed, First catch your hare. When this is done, when you _have_ a growing earth, you shall dress it with all manner of proximate causes, and serve it up with a growing Moon for sauce, a growing Sun, if it please you, at the other end, and growing planets for side-dishes. Hoping this amount of impalement will be satisfactory, I go on to something else. {135}

THE HAILESEAN SYSTEM OF ASTRONOMY.

_The Hailesean System of Astronomy._ By John Davey Hailes[237] (two pages duodecimo, 1860).

He offers to _take_ 100,000l. to 1,000l. that he shows the sun to be less than seven millions of miles from the earth. The earth in the center, revolving eastward, the sun revolving westward, so that they "meet at half the circle distance in the 24 hours." The diameter of the circle being 9839458303, the circumference is 30911569920.

The following written challenge was forwarded to the Council of the Astronomical Society: it will show the "general reader"--and help him towards earning his name--what sort of things come every now and then to our scientific bodies. I have added punctuation:

_Challenge._ 1,000 to 30,000. "Leverrier's[238] name stand placed first. Do the worthy Frenchman justice. By awarding him the medal in a trice. Give Adams[239] an extra--of which neck and neck the race. Now I challenge to meet them and the F.R.S.'s all, For good will and _one_ thousand pounds to their _thirty_ thousand withall, That I produce a system, which shall measure the time, When the Sun was vertical to Gibeon, afterward to Syene. To meet any time in London--name your own period, To be decided by a majority of twelve persons--a President, _odd_. That mean, if the twelve equally divide, the President decide, I should prefer the Bishop of London, over the meeting to preside. JOHN DAVY HAILES." Feb. 17, 1847."

Mr. Hailes still issues his flying sheets. The last I have met with (October 7, 1863) informs us that the latitude of {136} England is slowly increasing, which is the true cause of the alteration in the variation of the magnet.

[Mr. Hailes continues his researches. Witness his new Hailesean system of Astronomy, displaying Joshua's miracle-time, origin of time from science, with Bible and Egyptian history. Rewards offered for astronomical problems. With magnetism, etc. etc. Astronomical challenge to all the world. Published at Cambridge, in 1865. The author agrees with Newton in one marked point. _Errores quam minimi non sunt contemnendi_,[240] says Isaac: meaning in figures, not in orthography. Mr. Hailes enters into the spirit, both positive and negative, of this dictum, by giving the distance of _Sidius_ from the center of the earth at 163,162,008 miles 10 feet 8 inches 17-28ths of an inch. Of course, he is aware that the center of _figure_ of the earth is 17.1998 inches from the center of _gravity_. Which of the two is he speaking of?]

The Divine Mystery of Life. London [1861], 18mo. (pp.32).

The author has added one class to zoology, which is printed in capitals, as derived from _zoe_, life, not from _zoon_, animal. That class is of _Incorporealia_, order I., _Infinitum_, of one genus without plurality, _Deus_: order II., _Finita_, angels good and evil. The rest is all about a triune system, with a diagram. The author is not aware that [Greek: zoon] is not _animal_, but _living being_. Aristotle had classed gods under [Greek: zoa], and has been called to account for it by moderns who have taken the word to mean _animal_.

A CHANCE FOR INVENTORS.

Explication du Zodiaque de Denderah, des Pyramides, et de Genese. Par le Capitaine au longcours Justin Roblin.[241] Caen, 1861. 8vo.

{137}

Capt. Roblin, having discovered the sites of gold and diamond mines by help of the zodiac of Denderah, offered half to the shareholders of a company which he proposed to form. One of our journals, by help of the zodiac of Esne, offered, at five francs a head, to tell the shareholders the exact amount of gold and diamonds which each would get, and to make up the amount predicted to those who got less. There are moods of the market in England in which this company could have been formed: so we must not laugh at our neighbors.

JOHANNES VON GUMPACH.

A million's worth of property, and five hundred lives annually lost at sea by the Theory of Gravitation. A letter on the true figure of the earth, addressed to the Astronomer Royal, by Johannes von Gumpach.[242] London, 1861, 8vo. (pp. 54).

The true figure and dimensions of the earth, in a letter addressed to the Astronomer Royal. By Joh. von Gumpach. 2nd ed. entirely recast. London, 1862, 8vo. (pp. 266).

Two issues of a letter published with two different title-pages, one addressed to the Secretary of the Royal Society, the other to the Secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society. It would seem that the same letter is also issued with two other titles, addressed to the British Association and the Royal Geographical Society. By Joh. von Gumpach. London, 1862, 8vo.

Baby-Worlds. An essay on the nascent members of our solar household. By Joh. von Gumpach. London, 1863, 8vo.

The earth, it appears, instead of being flattened, is elongated at the poles: by ignorance of which the loss above mentioned occurs yearly. There is, or is to be, a substitute for attraction and an "application hitherto neglected, of a {138} recognized law of optics to the astronomical theory, showing the true orbits of the heavenly bodies to be perfectly circular, and their orbital motions to be perfectly uniform." all irregularities being, I suppose, optical delusions. Mr. Von Gumpach is a learned man; what else, time must show.

SLANDER PARADOXES.

Perpetuum Mobile: or Search for self-motive Power. By Henry Dircks.[243] London, 1861, 8vo.

A useful collection on the history of the attempts at perpetual motion, that is, at obtaining the consequences of power without any power to produce them. September 7, 1863, a correspondent of the _Times_ gave an anecdote of George Stephenson,[244] which he obtained from Robert Stephenson.[245] A perpetual motionist wanted to explain his method; to which George replied--"Sir! I shall believe it when I see you take yourself up by the waistband, and carry yourself about the room." Never was the problem better stated.

There is a paradox of which I ought to give a specimen, I mean the _slander-paradox_; the case of a person who takes it into his head, upon evidence furnished entirely by the workings of his own thoughts, that some other person has committed a foul act of which the world at large would no more suppose him guilty than they would suppose that the earth is a flat bordered by ice. If I were to determine on giving cases in which the self-deluded person imagines {139} a conspiracy against _himself_, there would be no end of choices. Many of the grosser cases are found at last to be accompanied by mental disorder, and it is difficult to avoid referring the whole class to something different from simple misuse of the reasoning power. The first instance is one which puts in a strong light the state of things in which we live, brought about by our glorious freedom of thought, speech, and writing. The Government treated it with neglect, the press with silent contempt, and I will answer for it many of my readers now hear of it for the first time, when it comes to be enrolled among circle-squarers and earth-stoppers, where, as the old philosopher said, it will not gravitate, being _in proprio loco_.[246]

1862. On new year's day, 1862, when the nation was in the full tide of sympathy with the Queen, and regret for its own loss, a paper called the _Free Press_ published a number devoted to the consideration of the causes of the death of the Prince Consort. It is so rambling and inconsecutive that it takes more than one reading to understand it. It is against the _Times_ newspaper. First, the following insinuation:

"To the legal mind, the part of [the part taken by] the _Times_ will present a _prima facie_ case of the gravest nature, in the evident fore-knowledge of the event, and the preparation to turn it to account when it should have occurred. The article printed on Saturday must have been written on Friday. That article could not have appeared had the Prince been intended to live."

Next, it is affirmed that the _Times_ intended to convey the idea that the Prince had been poisoned.

"Up to this point we are merely dealing with words which the _Times_ publishes, and these can leave not a shadow of doubt that there is an intention to promulgate the idea that Prince Albert had been poisoned."

The article then goes on with a strange olio of {140} insinuations to the effect that the Prince was the obstacle to Russian intrigue, and that if he should have been poisoned,--which the writer strongly hints may have been the case,--some Minister under the influence of Russia must have done it. Enough for this record. _Un sot trouve toujours un plus sot qui l'admire_:[247] who can he be in this case?

THE NEPTUNE CONTROVERSY.

1846. At the end of this year arose the celebrated controversy relative to the discovery of Neptune. Those who know it are well aware that Mr. Adams's[248] now undoubted right to rank with Le Verrier[249] was made sure at the very outset by the manner in which Mr. Airy,[250] the Astronomer Royal, came forward to state what had taken place between himself and Mr. Adams. Those who know all the story about Mr. Airy being arrested in his progress by the neglect of Mr. Adams to answer a letter, with all the imputations which might have been thrown upon himself for laxity in the matter, know also that Mr. Airy's conduct exhibited moral courage, honest feeling, and willingness to sacrifice himself, if need were, to the attainment of the ends of private justice, and the establishment of a national claim. A writer in a magazine, in a long and elaborate article, argued the supposition--put in every way except downright assertion, after the fashion of such things--that Mr. Airy had communicated Mr. Adams's results to M. Le Verrier, with intention that they should be used. His presumption as to motive is that, had Mr. Adams been recognized, "then the discovery must have been indisputably an _Englishman's_, and that Englishman not the Astronomer Royal." Mr. Adams's conclusions were "retouched in France, and sent {141} over the year after." The proof given is that it cannot be "imagined" otherwise.

"Can it then be imagined that the Astronomer Royal received such results from Mr. Adams, supported as they were by Professor Challis's[251] valuable testimony as to their probable accuracy, and did not bring the French astronomer acquainted with them, especially as he was aware that his friend was engaged in matters bearing directly upon these results?"

The whole argument the author styles "evidence which I consider it difficult to refute." He ends by calling upon certain persons, of whom I am one, to "see ample justice done." This is the duty of every one, according to his opportunities. So when the reputed author--the article being anonymous--was, in 1849, proposed as a Fellow of the Astronomical Society, I joined--if I remember right, I originated--an opposition to his election, until either the authorship should be denied, or a proper retraction made. The friends of the author neither denied the first, nor produced the second: and they judged it prudent to withdraw the proposal. Had I heard of any subsequent repentance, I would have taken some other instance, instead of this: should I yet hear of such a thing, I will take care to notice it in the continuation of this list, which I confidently expect, life and health permitting, to be able to make in a few years. This much may be said, that the author, in a lecture on the subject, given in 1849, and published with his name, did _not_ repeat the charge.

[The libel was published in the _Mechanics' Magazine_,[252] (vol. for 1846, pp. 604-615): and the editor supported it as follows, (vol. for 1847, p. 476). In answer to Mr. Sheepshanks's charitable hope that he had been hoaxed, {142} he says: "Mr. Sheepshanks cannot certainly have read the article referred to.... Severe and inculpatory it is--unjust some may deem it (though we ourselves are out of the number.)... A 'hoax' forsooth! May we be often the dupes of such hoaxes!" He then goes on to describe the article as directed against the Astronomer Royal's alleged neglect to give Mr. Adams that "encouragement and protection" which was his due, and _does not hint one word_ about the article containing the charge of having secretly and fraudulently transmitted news of Mr. Adams's researches to France, that an Englishman might not have the honor of the discovery. Mr. Sheepshanks having called this a "deliberate calumny," without a particle of proof or probability to support it, the editor says "what the reverend gentleman means by this, we are at a loss to understand." He then proceeds _not_ to remember. I repeat here, what I have said elsewhere, that the management of the journal has changed hands; but from 1846 to 1856, it had the collar of S.S. (scientific slander). The prayer for more such things was answered (See p. 349).]

JAMES IVORY.[253]

I have said that those who are possessed with the idea of conspiracy against themselves are apt to imagine both conspirators and their bad motives and actions. A person who should take up the idea of combination against himself without feeling ill-will and originating accusations would be indeed a paradox. But such a paradox has existed. It is very well known, both in and beyond the scientific world, that the late James Ivory was subject to the {143} impression of which I am speaking; and the diaries and other sources of anecdote of our day will certainly, sooner or later, make it a part of his biography. The consequence will be that to his memory will be attached the unfavorable impression which the usual conduct of such persons creates; unless it should happen that some one who knows the real state of the case puts the two sides of it properly together. Ivory was of that note in the scientific world which may be guessed from Laplace's description of him as the first geometer in Britain and one of the first in Europe. Being in possession of accurate knowledge of his peculiarity in more cases than one; and in one case under his own hand: and having been able to make full inquiry about him, especially from my friend the late Thomas Galloway[254]--who came after him at Sandhurst--one of the few persons with whom he was intimate:--I have decided, after full deliberation, to forestall the future biographies.

That Ivory was haunted by the fear of which I have spoken, to the fullest extent, came to my own public and official knowledge, as Secretary of the Astronomical Society. It was the duty of Mr. Epps,[255] the Assistant Secretary, at the time when Francis Baily[256] first announced his discovery of the Flamsteed Papers, to report to me that Mr. Ivory had called at the Society's apartments to inquire into the contents of those papers, and to express his hope that Mr. Baily was not attacking living persons under the names of Newton and Flamsteed.[257] Mr. Galloway, to whom I communicated this, immediately went to Mr. Ivory, and succeeded, after some explanation, in setting him right. This is but one of many instances in which a man of thoroughly sound judgment in every other respect seemed to be under a complete chain of delusions about the conduct of {144} others to himself. But the paradox is this:--I never could learn that Ivory, passing his life under the impression that secret and unprovoked enemies were at work upon his character, ever originated a charge, imputed a bad motive, or allowed himself an uncourteous expression. Some letters of his, now in my possession, referring to a private matter, are, except in the main impression on which they proceed, unobjectionable in every point: they might have been written by a cautious friend, whose object was, if possible, to prevent a difference from becoming a duel without compromising his principal's rights or character. Knowing that in some quarters the knowledge of Ivory's peculiarity is more or less connected with a notion that the usual consequences followed, I think the preceding statement due to his memory.

THREE CLASSES OF JOURNALS.

In such a record as the present, which mixes up the grossest speculative absurdities with every degree of what is better, an instance of another kind may find an appropriate place. The faults of journalism, when merely exposed by other journalism pass by and are no more regarded. A distinct account of an undeniable meanness, recorded in a work of amusement and reference both, may have its use: such a thing may act as a warning. An editor who is going to indulge his private grudge may be prevented from counting upon oblivion as a matter of certainty.

There are three kinds of journals, with reference to the mode of entrance of contributors. First, as a thing which has been, but which now hardly exists, there is the journal in which the editor receives a fixed sum to _find the matter_. In such a journal, every article which the editor can get a friend to give him is so much in his own pocket, which has a great tendency to lower the character of the articles; but I am not concerned with this point. Secondly, there is the journal which is supported by voluntary contributions of {145} matter, the editor selecting. Thirdly, there is the journal in which the contributor is paid by the proprietors in a manner with which the literary editor has nothing to do.

The third class is the safe class, as its editors know: and, as a usual rule, they refuse unpaid contributions of the editorial cast. It is said that when Canning[258] declined a cheque forwarded for an article in the _Quarterly_, John Murray[259] sent it back with a blunt threat that if he did not take his money he could never be admitted again. The great publisher told him that if men like himself in position worked for nothing, all the men like himself in talent who could not afford it would not work for the _Quarterly_. If the above did not happen between Canning and Murray, it _must have happened_ between some other two. Now journals of the second class--and of the first, if such there be--have a fault to which they alone are very liable, to say nothing of the editorial function (see the paper at the beginning, p. 11 et seq.), being very much cramped, a sort of gratitude towards effective contributors leads the journal to help their personal likes and dislikes, and to sympathize with them. Moreover, this sort of journal is more accessible than others to articles conveying personal imputation: and when these provoke discussion, the journal is apt to take the part of the assailant to whom it lent itself in the first instance.

THE MECHANICS' MAGAZINE.

Among the journals which went all lengths with contributors whom they valued, was the _Mechanics' Magazine_[260] in the period 1846-56. I cannot say that matters have not mended in the last ten years: and I draw some {146} presumption that they have mended from my not having heard, since 1856, of anything resembling former proceedings. And on actual inquiry, made since the last sentence was written, I find that the property has changed hands, the editor is no longer the same, and the management is of a different stamp. This journal is chiefly supported by voluntary articles: and it is the journal in which, as above noted, the ridiculous charge against the Astronomer Royal was made in 1849. The following instance of attempt at revenge is so amusing that I select it as the instance of the defect which I intend to illustrate; for its puerility brings out in better relief the points which are not so easily seen in more adult attempts.

The _Mechanics' Magazine_, which by its connection with engineering, etc., had always taken somewhat of a mathematical character, began, a little before 1846, to have more to do with abstract science. Observing this, I began to send short communications, which were always thankfully received, inserted, and well spoken of. Any one who looks for my name in that journal in 1846-49, will see nothing but the most respectful and even laudatory mention. In May 1849 occurred the affair at the Astronomical Society, and my share in forcing the withdrawal of the name of the alleged contributor to the journal. In February 1850 occurred the opportunity of payment. The _Companion to the Almanac_[261] had to be noticed, in which, as then usual, was an article signed with my name. I shall give the review of this article entire, as a sample of a certain style, as well as an illustration of my point. The reader will observe that my name is not mentioned. This would not have done; the readers of the Magazine would have stared to see a name of not infrequent occurrence in previous years all of a sudden fallen from the heaven of respect into the pit of contempt, like Lucifer, son of the morning. But before {147} giving the review, I shall observe that Mr. Adams, in whose _favor_ the attack on the Astronomer Royal was made, did not appreciate the favor; and of course did not come forward to shield his champion. This gave deadly offence, as appear from the following passage, (February 16, 1850):

"It was our intention to enter into a comparison of the contents of our Nautical Almanack with those of its rival, the _Connaissance des Temps_; but we shall defer it for the present. The Nautical Almanack for 1851 will contain Mr. Adams's paper 'On the Perturbation of Uranus'; and when it comes, in due course, before the public, we are quite sure that that gentleman will expect that we shall again enter upon the subject with peculiar delight. Whilst we have a thorough loathing for mean, cowardly, crawlers--we have an especial pleasure in maintaining the claims of men who are truly grateful as well as highly talented: Mr. Adams, therefore, will find that he cannot be disappointed--and the occasion will afford us an opportunity for making the comparison to which we have adverted."

This passage illustrates what I have said on the editorial function (Vol. I, p. 15). What precedes and follows has some criticism on the Government, the Astronomer Royal, etc., but reserved in allusion, oblique in sarcasm, and not fiercely uncourteous. The coarseness of the passage I have quoted shows editorial insertion, which is also shown by its blunder. The inserter is waiting for the Almanac of 1851 that he may review Mr. Adams's paper, which is to be contained in it. His own contributor, only two sentences before the insertion, had said, "The Nautical Almanac, we believe, is published three or four years in advance." In fact, the Almanac for 1851--with Mr. Adams's paper at the end--was published at the end of 1847 or very beginning of 1848; it had therefore been more than two years before the public when the passage quoted was written. And probably every person in the country who was fit to review Mr. Adams's {148} paper--and most of those who were fit to read it--knew that it had been widely circulated, in revise, at the end of 1846: my copy has written on it, "2d revise, December 27, 1846, at noon," in the handwriting of the Superintendent of the Almanac; and I know that there was an extensive issue of these revises, brought out by the Le-Verrier-and-Adams discussion. I now give the review of myself, (February 23, 1850):

"_The British Almanack and Companion._

"The Companion to this Almanack, for some years after its first publication, annually contained scientific articles by Sir J. Lubbock[262] and others of a high order and great interest; we have now, however, closed the publication as a scientific one in remembrance of what it was, and not in consequence of what it is. Its list of contributors on science, has grown 'small by degrees and beautifully less,' until it has dwindled down to one--'a last rose of summer left withering alone.' The one contributor has contributed one paper 'On Ancient and Modern Usage in Reckoning.'

"The learned critic's _chef d'oeuvre_, is considered, by competent judges, to be an Essay on _Old Almanacks_ printed a few years ago in this annual, and supposed to be written with the view of surpassing a profound memoir on the same subject by James O. Halliwell,[263] Esq., F.R. and A.S.S., but the tremendous effort which the learned writer then made to excel many titled competitors for honors in the antique line appears to have had a sad effect upon his mental powers--at any rate, his efforts have since yearly become duller and duller; happily, at last, we should suppose, 'the ancient {149} and modern usage in reckoning' indicates the lowest point to which the _vis inertia_ of the learned writer's peculiar genius can force him.

"We will give a few extracts from the article.

"The learned author says, 'Those who are accustomed to settle the meaning of ancient phrases by self-examination will find some _strange_ conclusions arrived at by us.' The writer never wrote a more correct sentence--it admits of no kind of dispute.

"'Language and counting,' says the learned author, 'both came before the logical discussion of either. It is not allowable to argue that something is or was, because it ought to be or ought to have been. That two negatives make an affirmative, ought to be; if _no_ man have done _nothing_, the man who has done nothing does not exist, and _every_ man has done _something_. But in Greek, and in uneducated English, it is unquestionable that 'no man has done nothing' is only an emphatic way of saying that no man has done _anything_; and it would be absurd to reason that it could not have been so, because it should not.'--p. 5.

"'But there _is_ another difference between old and new times, yet more remarkable, for we have _nothing_ of it now: whereas in things indivisible we count with our fathers, and should say in buying an acre of land, that the result has no parts, and that the purchaser, till he owns all the ground, owns none, the change of possession being instantaneous. This second difference lies in the habit of considering nothing, nought, zero, cipher, or whatever it may be called, to be at the beginning of the scale of numbers. Count four days from Monday: we should now say Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday; formerly, it would have been Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Had we asked, what at that rate is the first day from Monday, all would have stared at a phrase they had never heard. Those who were capable of extending language would have said, Why it must be Monday itself: the rest would have said, there can {150} be no first day from Monday, for the day after is Tuesday, which must be the second day: Monday, one; Tuesday, two,'--p. 10.

"We assure our readers that the whole article is equally lucid, and its logic alike formal.

"There are some exceedingly valuable footnotes; we give one of the most interesting, taken from the learned Mr. Halliwell's profound book on Nursery Rhymes[264]--a celebrated production, for which it is supposed the author was made F.R.S.

"'_One's nine_, Two's some, Three's a many, Four's a penny, Five's a little hundred.'

'The last line refers to five score, the so-called hundred being more usually six score. The first line, looked at etymologically, is _one is not one_, and the change of thought by which _nine_, the decimal of _one_, aims to be associated with the decimal of _plurality_ is curious:'--Very.

"This valuable and profound essay will very probably be transferred to the next edition of the learned Mr. Halliwell's rare work, of kindred worth, entitled 'RARA MATHEMATICA,' it will then be deservedly handed down to posterity as a covering for cheap trunks--a most appropriate archive for such a treasure."

In December, 1846, the _Mechanics' Magazine_ published a libel on Airy in the matter of the discovery of Neptune. In May, 1849, one * * * was to have been brought forward for election at the Astronomical Society, and was opposed by me and others, on the ground that he was the probable author of this libel, and that he would not, perhaps could {151} not, deny it. [N.B. I no more doubt that he was the author then I doubt that I am the author of this sentence.][265]

Accordingly, * * * was withdrawn, and a discussion took place, for which see the _Athenaeum_, No. 1126, May 26, 1849, p. 544. The _Mechanics' Magazine_ was very sore, but up to this day has never ventured beyond an attack on Airy, private whisperings against Adams--(see _ante_, p. 147),--and the above against myself. In due time, I doubt not my name will appear as one of the _ames damnees_[266] of the _Mechanics' Magazine_.[267]

T. S. DAVIES ON EUCLID.

First, as to Mr. Halliwell. The late Thomas Stephens Davies,[268] excellent in geometry, and most learned in its history, was also a good hand at enmity, though not implacable. He and Mr. Halliwell, who had long before been very much one, were, at this date, very much two. I do not think T. S. Davies wrote this article; and I think that by giving my reasons I shall do service to his memory. It must have been written at the beginning of February; and within three days of that time T. S. Davies was making over to me, by his own free act, to be kept until claimed by the relatives, what all who knew even his writings knew that he considered as the most precious deposit he had ever had in his keeping--Horner's[269] papers. His letter announcing the transmission is dated February 2, 1850. This is a strong point; but there is another quite as strong. Euclid and {152} his writings were matters on which T. S. Davies knew neither fear nor favor: he could not have written lightly about a man who stood high with him as a judge of Euclid. Now in this very letter of Feb. 2, there is a sentence which I highly value, because, as aforesaid, it is on a point on which he would never have yielded anything, to which he had paid life-long attention, and on which he had the bias of having long stood alone. In fact, knowing--and what I shall quote confirms me,--that in the matter of Euclid his hand was against every man, I expected, when I sent him a copy of my 22-column article, "Eucleides" in Smith's _Dictionary_,[270] to have received back a criticism, that would have blown me out of the water: and I thought it not unlikely that a man so well up in the subject might have made me feel demolished on some points. Instead of this, I got the following: "Although on one or two minor points I do not quite accord with your views, yet as a whole and without regard to any minor points, I think you are the first who has succeeded in a delineation of Euclid as a geometer." All this duly considered, it is utterly incredible that T. S. Davies should have written the review in question. And yet Mr. Halliwell is treated just as T. S. Davies would have treated him, as to tone and spirit. The inference in my mind is that we have here a marked instance of the joining of hatreds which takes place in journals supported by voluntary contributions of matter. Should anything ever have revived this article--and no one ever knows what might have been fished up from the forgotten mass of journals--the treatment of Mr. Halliwell would certainly have thrown a suspicion on T. S. Davies, a large and regular contributor to the Magazine. It is good service to his memory to point out what makes it incredible that he should have written so unworthy an article.

The fault is this. There are four extracts: the first {153} three are perfectly well printed. The printing of the _Mechanics' Magazine_ was very good. I was always exceedingly satisfied with the manner in which my articles appeared, without my seeing proof. Most likely these extracts were printed from my printed paper; if not the extractor was a good copier. I know this by a test which has often served me. I use the subjunctive--"if no man _have_ done nothing," an ordinary transcriber, narrating a quotation almost always lets his own habit write _has_. The fourth extract has three alterations, all tending to make me ridiculous. _None_ is altered, in two places, into _nine_, _denial_ into _decimal_, and _comes_ into _aims_; so that "none, the denial of one, comes to be associated with the denial of plurality," reads as "nine, the decimal of one, aims to be associated with the decimal of plurality." This is intentional; had it been a compositor's reading of bad handwriting, these would not have been the only mistakes; to say nothing of the corrector of the press. And both the compositor and reader would have guessed, from the first line being translated into "one is not one," that it must have been "one's none," not "one's nine." But it was not intended that the gem should be recovered from the unfathomed cave, and set in a Budget of Paradoxes.

We have had plenty of slander-paradox. I now give a halfpennyworth of bread to all this sack, an instance of the paradox of benevolence, in which an individual runs counter to all the ideas of his time, and sees his way into the next century. At Amiens, at the end of the last century, an institution was endowed by a M. de Morgan, to whom I hope I am of kin, but I cannot trace it; the name is common at Amiens. It was the first of the kind I ever heard of. It is a Salle d'Asyle for children, who are taught and washed and taken care of during the hours in which their parents must be at work. The founder was a large wholesale grocer and colonial importer, who was made a Baron by Napoleon I for his commercial success and his charities. {154}

JAS. SMITH AGAIN.

1862. Mr. Smith replies to me, still signing himself Nauticus: I give an extract:

"By hypothesis [what, again!] let 14 deg. 24' be the chord of an arc of 15 deg. [but I wont, says 14 deg. 24'], and consequently equal to a side of a regular polygon of 24 sides inscribed in the circle. Then 4 times 14 deg. 24' = 57 deg. 36' = the radius of the circle ..."

That is, four times the chord of an arc is the chord of four times the arc: and the sum of four sides of a certain pentagon is equal to the fifth. This is the capital of the column, the crown of the arch, the apex of the pyramid, the watershed of the elevation. Oh! J. S.! J. S.! groans Geometry--_Summum J. S. summa injuria_![271] The other J. S., Joseph Scaliger,[272] as already mentioned, had his own way of denying that a straight line is always the shortest distance between two points. A parallel might be instituted, but not in half a column. And J. S. the _second_ has been so tightly handled that he may now be dismissed, with an inscription for his circular shield, obtained by changing _Lexica contexat_ into _Circus quadrandus_ in an epigram of J. S. the _first_:

"Si quem dura manet sententia judicis, olim Damnatum aerumnis suppliciisque caput, Hunc neque fabrili lassent ergastula massa, Nec rigidas vexent fossa metalla manus. Circus quadrandus: nam--caetera quid moror?--omnes Poenarum facies hic labor unus habet."[273]

{155}

I had written as far as _damnatum_ when in came the letter of Nauticus as a printed slip, with a request that I would consider the slip as a 'revised copy.' Not a word of alteration in the part I have quoted! And in the evening came a letter desiring that I would alter a gross error; but not the one above: this is revising without revision! If there were cyclometers enough of this stamp, they would, as cultivation progresses--and really, with John Stuart Mill in for Westminster, it seems on the move, even though, as I learn while correcting the proof, Gladstone be out from Oxford; for Oxford is no worse than in 1829, while Westminster is far above what she ever has been: election time excuses even such a parenthesis as this--be engaged to amuse those who can afford it with paralogism at their meals, after the manner of the other jokers who wore the caps and bells. The rich would then order their dinners with _panem et Circenses_,--up with the victuals and the circle-games--as the poor did in the days of old.

Mr. Smith is determined that half a column shall not do. Not a day without something from him: letter, printed proof, pamphlet. In what is the last at this moment of writing he tells me that part of the title of a work of his will be "Professor De Morgan in the pillory without hope of escape." And where will he be himself? This I detected by an effort of reasoning which I never could have made except by following in his steps. In all matters connected with [pi] the letters l and g are closely related: this appears in the well-known formula for the time of oscillation [pi] [sqrt](l : g). Hence g may be written for l, but only once: do it twice, and you require the time to be [pi] [sqrt](l^2 : g^2). This may be reinforced by observing that if as a datum, or if you dislike that word, by hypothesis, the first l be a g, it is absurd that it should be an l. Write g for the first l, and we have _un fait accompli_. I shall be in pillory; and overhead, in a cloud, will sit Mr. James Smith on one stick laid across two others, under a nimbus of 3-1/8 diameters to {156} the circumference--in [pi]-glory. Oh for a drawing of this scene! Mr. De Morgan presents his compliments to Mr. James Smith, and requests the honor of an exchange of photographs.

_July 26._--Another printed letter.--Mr. James Smith begs for a distinct answer to the following plain question: "Have I not in this communication brought under your notice _truths_ that were never before dreamed of in your geometrical and mathematical philosophy?" To which, he having taken the precaution to print the word _truths_ in italics, I can conscientiously answer, Yes, you have. And now I shall take no more notice of these _truths_, until I receive something which surpasses all that has yet been done.

A FEW SMALL PARADOXERS.

The Circle secerned from the Square; and its area gauged in terms of a triangle common to both. By Wm. Houlston,[274] Esq. London and Jersey, 1862, 4to.

Mr. Houlston squares at about four poetical quotations in a page, and brings out [pi] = 3.14213.... His frontispiece is a variegated diagram, having parts designated Inigo and Outigo. All which relieves the subject, but does not remove the error.

Considerations respecting the figure of the Earth.... By C. F. Bakewell.[275] London, 1862, 8vo.

Newton and others think that in a revolving sphere the {157} loose surface matter will tend to the equator: Mr. Bakewell thinks it will tend to the poles.

On eccentric and centric force: a new theory of projection. By H. F. A. Pratt, M.D.[276] London, 1862, 8vo.

Dr. Pratt not only upsets Newton, but cuts away the very ground he stands on: for he destroys the first law of motion, and will not have the natural tendency of matter in motion to be rectilinear. This, as we have seen, was John Walsh's[277] notion. In a more recent work "On Orbital Motion," London, 1863, 8vo., Dr. Pratt insists on another of Walsh's notions, namely, that the precession of the equinoxes is caused by the motion of the solar system round a distant central sun. In this last work the author refers to a few notes, which completely destroy the theory of gravitation in terms "perfectly intelligible as well to the unlearned as to the learned": to me they are quite unintelligible, which rather tends to confirm a notion I have long had, that I am neither one thing nor the other. There is an ambiguity of phrase which delights a writer on logic, always on the look-out for specimens of _homonymia_ or _aequivocatio_. The author, as a physician, is accustomed to "appeal from mere formulae": accordingly, he sets at nought the whole of the mathematics, which he does not understand. This equivocation between the formula of the physician and that of the mathematician is as good, though not so perceptible to the world at large, as that made by Mr. Briggs's friend in _Punch's_ picture, which I cut out to paste into my Logic. Mr. Briggs wrote for a couple of _bruisers_, meaning to prepare oats for his horses: his friend sent him the Whitechapel Chicken and the Bayswater Slasher, with the gloves, all ready.

{158}

On matter and ether, and the secret laws of physical change. By T. R. Birks, M.A.[278] Cambridge, 1862, 8vo.

Bold efforts are made at molecular theories, and the one before me is ably aimed. When the Newton of this subject shall be seated in his place, books like the present will be sharply looked into, to see what amount of anticipation they have made.

DR. THORN AND MR. BIDEN.

The history of the 'thorn tree and bush' from the earliest to the present time: in which is clearly and plainly shown the descent of her most gracious Majesty and her Anglo-Saxon people from the half tribe of Ephraim, and possibly from the half tribe of Manasseh; and consequently her right and title to possess, at the present moment, for herself and for them, a share or shares of the desolate cities and places in the land of their forefathers! By Theta, M.D.[279] (Private circulation.) London, 1862, 8vo.

This is much about _Thorn_, and its connected words, Thor, Thoth, Theta, etc. It is a very mysterious vagary. The author of it is the person whom I have described elsewhere as having for his device the round man in the three-cornered hole, the writer of the little heap of satirical anonymous letters about the Beast and 666. By accident I discovered the writer: so that if there be any more thorns to crackle under the pot, they need not be anonymous.

Nor will they be anonymous. Since I wrote the above, I have received _onymous_ letters, as _ominous_ as the rest. The writer, William Thorn, M.D., is obliged to reveal {159} himself, since it is his object to prove that he himself is one 666. By using W for double Vau (or 12) he cooks the number out of his own name. But he says it is the number not of a beast but of a man, and adds, "Thereby hangs a tale!" which sounds like contradiction. He informs me that he will talk the matter over with me: but I shall certainly have nothing to say to a gentleman of his number; it is best to keep on the safe side.

In one letter I am informed that not a line should I have had, but for my "sneer at 666," which, therefore, I am well pleased to have given. I am also told that my name means the "'garden of death,' that place in which the tree of knowledge was plucked, and so you are like your name 'dead' to the fact that you are an Israelite, like those in Ezekiel 37 ch." Some hints are given that I shall not fare well in the next world, which any one who reads the chapter in Ezekiel will see is quite against his comparison. The reader must not imagine that my prognosticator means _Morgan_ to be a corruption of _Mortjardin_; he proves his point by Hebrew: but any philologist would tell him the true derivation of the name, and how _Glamorgan_ came to get it. It will be of much comfort to those young men who have not got through to know that the tree of knowledge itself was once in the same case. And so good bye to 666 for the present, and the assumption that the enigma is to be solved by the united numeral forces of the letters of a word.

It is worthy of note that, as soon as my Budget commenced, two guardian spirits started up, fellow men as to the flesh, both totally unknown to me: they have stuck to me from first to last. James Smith, Esq., finally Nauticus, watches over my character in this world, and would fain preserve me from ignorance, folly, and dishonesty, by inclosing me in a magic circle of 3-1/8 diameters in circumference. The round man in the three-cornered hole, finally William Thorn, M.D., takes charge of my future destiny, {160} and tries to bring me to the truth by unfolding a score of meanings--all right--of 666. He hints that I, and my wife, are servants of Satan: at least he desires us both to remember that we cannot serve God and Satan; and he can hardly mean that we are serving the first, and that he would have us serve the second. As becomes an interpreter of the Apocalypse, he uses seven different seals; but not more than one to one letter. If his seals be all signet-rings, he must be what Aristophanes calls a sphragidonychargocometical fellow. But--and many thanks to him for the same--though an M.D., he has not sent me a single vial. And so much for my tree of secular knowledge and my tree of spiritual life: I dismiss them with thanks from myself and thanks from my reader. The dual of the Pythagorean system was Isis and Diana; of the Jewish law, Moses and Aaron; and of the City of London, Gog and Magog; of the Paradoxiad, James Smith, Esq., and William Thorn, M.D.

_September, 1866._ Mr. James Biden[280] has favored me with some of his publications. He is a rival of Dr. Thorn; a prophet by name-right and crest-right. He is of royal descent through the De Biduns. He is the _watchman_ of Ezekiel: God has told him so. He is the author of _The True Church_, a phrase which seems to have a book-meaning and a mission-meaning. He shall speak for himself:

"A crest of the Bidens has significance. It is a lion rampant between wings--wings in Scripture denote the flight of time. Thus the beasts or living creatures of the Revelations have each six wings, intimating a condition of mankind up to and towards the close of six thousand years of Bible teaching. The two wings of the crest would thus intimate power towards the expiration of 2000 years, as time is marked in the history of Great Britain.

{161}

"In a recent publication, _The Pestilence, Why Inflicted_, are given many reasons why the writer thinks himself to be the appointed watchman foretold by Ezekiel, chapters iii. and xxxiii. Among the reasons are many prophecies fulfilled in him. Of these it is now needful to note two as bearing especially on the subject of the reign of Darius.

"1.--In Daniel it is said, 'Darius the Median took the kingdom, being about threescore and two years old.'--Daniel v. 31.

"When 'Belshazzar' the king of the Chaldeans is found wanting, Darius takes the kingdom. It is not given him by the popular voice; he asserts his right, and this is not denied. He takes it when about sixty-two years of age. The language of Daniel is prophetic, and Darius has in another an antitype. The writer was born July 18th, 1803; and the claim was asserted at the close of 1865, when he was about sixty-two years of age.

"The claims which have been asserted demand a settled faith, and which could only be reached through a long course of divine teaching."

When I was a little boy at school, one of my school-fellows took it into his head to set up a lottery of marbles: the thing took, and he made a stony profit. Soon, one after another, every boy had his lottery, and it was, "I won't put into yours unless you put into mine." This knocked up the scheme. It will be the same with the prophets. Dr. Thorn, Mr. Biden, Mrs. Cottle,[281] etc. will grow imitators, until we are all pointed out in the Bible: but A will not admit B's claim unless B admits his. For myself, as elsewhere shown, I am the first Beast in the Revelations.

Every contraband prophet gets a few followers: it is a great point to make these sequacious people into Buridan's asses, which they will become when prophets are so numerous that there is no choosing.

{162}

SIR G. C. LEWIS.

An historical survey of the Astronomy of the Ancients. By the Rt. Hon. Sir G. C. Lewis.[282] 8vo. 1862.

There are few men of our day whom I admire more than the late Sir G. Lewis: he was honest, earnest, sagacious, learned, and industrious. He probably sacrificed his life to his conjunction of literature and politics: and he stood high as a minister of state in addition to his character as a man of letters. The work above named is of great value, and will be read for its intrinsic merit, consulted for its crowd of valuable references, quoted for its aid to one side of many a discussion, and opposed for its force against the other. Its author was also a wit and a satirist. I know of three classical satires of our day which are inimitable imitations: Mr. Malden's[283] _Pragmatized Legends_, Mr. Mansel's[284] _Phrontisterion_, and Sir G. Cornewall Lewis's _Inscriptio Antiqua_. In this last, HEYDIDDLEDIDDLETHECATANDTHEFIDDLE etc. is treated as an Oscan inscription, and rendered into Latin by approved methods. As few readers have seen it, I give the result:

"Hejus dedit libenter, dedit libenter. Deus propitius [est], deus [donatori] libenter favet. Deus in viarum {163} junctura ovorum dape [colitur], deus mundi. Deus in litatione voluit, benigno animo, haedum, taurum intra fines [loci sacri] portandos. Deus, bis lustratus, beat fossam sacrae libationis."[285]

How then comes the history of astronomy among the paradoxes? Simply because the author, so admirably when writing about what he knew, did not know what he did not know, and blundered like a circle-squarer. And why should the faults of so good a writer be recorded in such a list as the present? For three reasons: First, and foremost, because if the exposure be not made by some one, the errors will gradually ooze out, and the work will get the character of inaccurate. Nothing hurts a book of which few can fathom the depths so much as a plain blunder or two on the surface. Secondly, because the reviews either passed over these errors or treated them too gently, rather implying their existence than exposing them. Thirdly, because they strongly illustrate the melancholy truth, that no one knows enough to write about what he does not know. The distinctness of the errors is a merit; it proceeds from the clear-headedness of the author. The suppression in the journals may be due partly to admiration of the talent and energy which lived two difficult lives at once, partly to respect for high position in public affairs, partly to some of the critics being themselves men of learning only, unable to detect the errors. But we know that action and reaction are equal and contrary. If our generation take no notice of defects, and allow them to go down undetected among merits, the next generation will discover them, will perhaps believe us incapable of detecting them, at least will pronounce our judgment good for nothing, and will form an {164} opinion in which the merits will be underrated: so it has been, is, and will be. The best thing that can be done for the memory of the author is to remove the unsound part that the remainder may thrive. The errors do not affect the work; they occur in passages which might very well have been omitted: and I consider that, in making them conspicuous, I am but cutting away a deleterious fungus from a noble tree.

(P. 154). The periodic times of the five planets were stated by Eudoxus,[286] as we learn from Simplicius;[287] the following is his statement, to which the true times are subjoined, for the sake of comparison:

STATEMENT OF EUDOXUS TRUE TIME Mercury 1 year -- 87d. 23h. Venus 1 " -- 224d. 16h. Mars 2 " 1y. 321d. 23h. Jupiter 12 " 11y. 315d. 14h. Saturn 30 " 29y. 174d. 1h.

Upon this determination two remarks may be made. First, the error with respect to Mercury and Venus is considerable; with respect to Mercury, it is, in round numbers, 365 instead of 88 days, more than four times too much. Aristotle remarks that Eudoxus distinguishes Mercury and Venus from the other three planets by giving them one sphere each, with the poles in common. The proximity of Mercury to the sun would render its course difficult to observe and to measure, but the cause of the large error with respect to Venus (130 days) is not apparent.

{165}

Sir G. Lewis takes Eudoxus as making the planets move round the sun; he has accordingly compared the _geocentric_ periods of Eudoxus with our _heliocentric_ periods. What greater blunder can be made by a writer on ancient astronomy than giving Eudoxus the Copernican system? If Mercury were a black spot in the middle of the sun it would of course move round the earth in a year, or appear to do so: let it swing a little on one side and the other of the sun, and the average period is still a year, with slight departures both ways. The same for Venus, with larger departures. Say that a person not much accustomed to the distinction might for once write down the mistake; how are we to explain its remaining in the mind in a permanent form, and being made a ground for such speculation as that of the difficulty of observing Mercury leading to a period four times what it ought to be, corrected in proof and published by an industrious and thoughtful person? Only in one way: the writer was quite out of his depth. This one case is conclusive; be it said with all respect for the real staple of the work and of the author. He knew well the difference of the systems, but not the effect of the difference: he is another instance of what I have had to illustrate by help of a very different person, that it is difficult to reason well upon matter which is not familiar.

(P. 254). Copernicus, in fact, supposed the axis of the earth to be always turned towards the Sun.^{(169)} [(169). See Delambre, _Hist. Astr. Mod._, Vol. I, p. 96]. It was reserved to Kepler to propound the hypothesis of the constant parallelism of the earth's axis to itself.

If there be one thing more prominent than another in the work of Copernicus himself, in the popular explanations of it, and in the page of Delambre[288] cited, it is that the _parallelism of the earth's axis_ is a glaring part of the {166} theory of Copernicus. What Kepler[289] did was to throw away, as unnecessary, the method by which Copernicus, _per fas et nefas_,[290] secured it. Copernicus, thinking of the earth's orbital revolution as those would think who were accustomed to the _solid orbs_--and much as the stoppers of the moon's rotation do now: why do they not strengthen themselves with Copernicus?--thought that the earth's axis would always incline the same end towards the sun, unless measures were taken to prevent it. He _did_ take measures: he invented a _compensating_ conical motion of the axis to preserve the parallelism; and, which is one of the most remarkable points of his system, he obtained the precession of the equinoxes by giving the necessary trifle more than compensation. What stares us in the face at the beginning of the paragraph to which the author refers?

"C'est donc pour arriver a ce parallelisme, ou pour le conserver, que Copernic a cru devoir recourir a ce mouvement egal et oppose qui detruit l'effet qu'il attribue si gratuitement au premier, de deranger le parallelisme."[291]

Parallelism at any price, is the motto of Copernicus: you need not pay so dear, is the remark of Kepler.

The opinions given by Sir G. Lewis about the effects of modern astronomy, which he does not understand and singularly undervalues, will now be seen to be of no authority. He fancies that--to give an instance--for the determination of a ship's place, the invention of chronometers has been far more important than any improvement in astronomical theory (p. 254). Not to speak of latitude,--though the omission is not without importance,--he ought to have known that longitude is found by the difference between what o'clock it is at Greenwich and at the ship's place, at {167} one absolute moment of time. Now if a chronometer were quite perfect--which no chronometer is, be it said--and would truly tell Greenwich mean time all over the world, it ought to have been clear that just as good a watch is wanted for the time at _the place of observation_, before the longitude of that place with respect to Greenwich can be found. There is no such watch, except the starry heaven itself: and that watch can only be read by astronomical observation, aided by the best knowledge of the heavenly motions.

I think I have done Sir G. Lewis's very excellent book more good than all the reviewers put together.

I will give an old instance in which literature got into confusion about astronomy. Theophrastus,[292] who is either the culprit or his historian, attributes to Meton,[293] the contriver of the lunar calendar of nineteen years, which lasts to this day, that his solstices were determined for him by a certain Phaeinus of Elis on Mount Lycabettus. Nobody else mentions this astronomer: though it is pretty certain that Meton himself made more than one appointment with him for the purpose of observing solstices; and we may be sure that if either were behind his time, it was Meton. For _Phaeinus Helius_ is the shining sun himself; and in the astronomical poet Aratus[294] we read about the nineteen years of the shining sun:

[Greek: Enneakaideka kukla phaeinou eelioio].[295]

Some man of letters must have turned Apollo into Phaeinus of Elis; and there he is in the histories of astronomy to {168} this day. Salmasius[296] will have Aratus to have meant him, and proposes to read [Greek: eleioio]: he did not observe that Phaeinus is a very common adjective of Aratus, and that, if his conjecture were right, this Phaeinus would be the only non-mythical man in the poems of Aratus.

[When I read Sir George Lewis's book, the points which I have criticized struck me as not to be wondered at, but I did not remember why at the time. A Chancellor of the Exchequer and a writer on ancient astronomy are birds of such different trees that the second did not recall the first. In 1855 I was one of a deputation of about twenty persons who waited on Sir G. Lewis, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the subject of a decimal coinage. The deputation was one of much force: Mr. Airy, with myself and others, represented mathematics; William Brown,[297] whose dealings with the United States were reckoned by yearly millions, counted duodecimally in England and decimally in America, was the best, but not the only, representative of commerce. There were bullionists, accountants, retailers, etc. Sir G. L. walked into the room, took his seat, and without waiting one moment, began to read the deputation a smart lecture on the evils of a decimal coinage; it would require alteration of all the tables, it would impede calculation, etc. etc. Of those arguments against it which weighed with many of better knowledge than his, he obviously knew nothing. The members of the deputation began to make their statements, and met with curious denials. He interrupted me with "Surely there is no doubt that the calculations of our books of arithmetic are easier {169} than those in the French books." He was not aware that the _universally admitted_ superiority of decimal _calculation_ made many of those who prefer our system for the market and the counter cast a longing and lingering look towards decimals. My answer and the smiles which he saw around, made him give a queer puzzled look, which seemed to say, "I may be out of my depth here!" His manner changed, and he listened. I saw both the slap-dash mode in which he dealt with subjects on which he had not thought, and the temperament which admitted suspicion when the means of knowledge came in his way. Having seen his two phases, I wonder neither at his more than usual exhibition of shallowness when shallow, nor at the intensity of the contrast when he had greater depth.]

DECIMAL COINAGE.

Among the paradoxers are the political paradoxers who care not how far they go in debate, their only object being to carry the House with them for the current evening. What I have said of editors I repeat of them. The preservation of a very marked instance, the association of political recklessness with cyclometrical and Apocalyptic absurdity, may have a tendency to warn, not indeed any hardened public-man and sinner, but some young minds which have yearnings towards politics, and are in formation of habits.

In the debate on decimal coinage of July 12, 1855, Mr. Lowe,[298] then member for Kidderminster, an effective speaker and a smart man, exhibited himself in a speech on which I wrote a comment for the Decimal Association. I have seldom seen a more wretched attempt to distort the points of a public question than the whole of this speech. Looking at the intelligence shown by the speaker on other occasions, {170} it is clear that if charity, instead of believing all things, believed only all things but one, he might tremble for his political character; for the honesty of his intention on this occasion might be the incredible exception. I give a few paragraphs with comments:

"In commenting on the humorous, but still argumentative speech of Mr. Lowe, the member for Kidderminster, we may observe, in general, that it consists of points which have been several times set forth, and several times answered. Mr. Lowe has seen these answers, but does not allude to them, far less attempt to meet them. There are, no doubt, individuals, who show in their public speaking the outward and visible signs of a greater degree of acuteness than they can summon to guide their private thinking. If Mr. Lowe be not one of these, if the power of his mind in the closet be at all comparable to the power of his tongue in the House, it may be suspected that his reserve with respect to what has been put forward by the very parties against whom he was contending, arises from one or both of two things--a high opinion of the arguments which he ignored--a low opinion of the generality of the persons whom he addressed. [Both, I doubt not].

"Did they calculate in florins In the name of common sense, ?" how can it be objected to a system that people do not use it before it is introduced? Let the decimal system be completed, and calculation shall be made in florins; that is, florins shall take their proper place. If florins were introduced _now_, there must be a column for the odd shilling. "He was glad that some hon. If the hon. gentleman make gentleman had derived benefit this assertion of himself, it from the issue of florins. His is not for us to gainsay it. only experience of their It only proves that he is one convenience was, that when he of that class of {171} men who ought to have received are described in the old song, half-a-crown, he had generally of which one couplet runs received a florin, and when he thus: ought to have paid a florin, he had generally paid I sold my cow to buy me a half-a-crown." (Hear, hear, calf; and laughter.) I never make a bargain but I lose half, With a etc. etc. etc.

But he cannot mean that Englishmen in general are so easily managed. And as to Jonathan, who is but John lengthened out a little, he would see creation whittled into chips before he would even split what may henceforth be called the Kidderminster difference. The House, not unmoved--for it laughed--with sly humor decided that the introduction of the florin had been "eminently successful and satisfactory."

The truth is that Mr. Lowe here attacks nothing except the coexistence of the florin and half-crown. We are endeavoring to abolish the half-crown. Let Mr. Lowe join us; and he will, if we succeed, be relieved from the pressure on his pocket which must arise from having the turn of the market always against him.

"From a florin they get to 2 Note the sophism of expressing 2-5ths of a penny, but who our coin in terms of the ever bought anything, who ever penny, which we abandon, reckoned or wished to reckon instead of the florin, which in such a coin as that?" we retain. Remember that this (Hear, hear.) 2 2-5ths is the hundredth part of the pound, which is called, as yet, a _cent_. Nobody buys anything at a cent, because the cent is not yet introduced. Nobody reckons in cents for the same reason. Everybody wishes to reckon in cents, who wishes to combine the advantage of decimal reckoning with the preservation of the pound as {172} the highest unit of account; amongst others, a majority of the House of Commons, the Bank of England, the majority of London bankers, the Chambers of Commerce in various places, etc. etc. etc. "Such a coin could never come Does 2-1/2d. never pass from into general circulation hand to hand? And is 2-1/2d. because it represents nothing so precisely the modulus of which corresponds with any of popular wants, that an the wants of the people." alteration of 4 per cent. would make it useless? Of all the values which 2-1/2d. measures, from three pounds of potatoes down to certain arguments used in the House of Commons, there is not one for which a cent would not do just as well. Mr. Lowe has fallen into the misconception of the person who admired the dispensation of Providence by which large rivers are made to run through cities so great and towns so many. If the cent were to be introduced to-morrow, straightway the buns and cakes, the soda-water bottles, the short omnibus fares, the bunches of radishes, etc. etc. etc., would adapt themselves to the coin. "If the proposed system were The confusion of ideas here adopted, they would all be exhibited is most instructive. compelled to live in decimals The speaker is under the for ever; if a man dined at a impression that _we_ are public house he would have to introducing fractions: the pay for his dinner in decimal truth is, that we only want to fractions. (Hear, hear.) He abandon the _more difficult_ objected to that, for he fractions which we _have got_, thought that a man ought to be and to introduce _easier able to pay for his dinner in fractions_. Does he deny this? integers." (Hear, hear, and a Let us trace his denial to its laugh.) legitimate consequences. A man ought to pay for his dinner in integers.

{173}

Now, if Mr. Lowe insists on it that our integer is the pound, he is bound to admit that the present integer is the pound, of which a shilling, etc., are fractions. The next time he has a chop and a pint of stout in the city, the waiter should say--"A pound, sir, to you," and should add, "Please to remember the waiter in integers." Mr. Lowe fancies that when he pays one and sixpence, he pays in integers, and so he does, if his integer be a penny or a sixpence. Let him bring his mind to contemplate a mil as the integer, the lowest integer, and the seven cents five mils which he would pay under the new system would be payment in integers also. But, as it happens with some others, he looks _up_ the present system, with Cocker,[299] and Walkingame,[300] and always looks _down_ the proposed system. The word _decimal_ is obstinately associated with _fractions_, for which there is no need. Hence it becomes so much of a bugbear, that, to parody the lines of Pope, which probably suggested one of Mr. Lowe's phrases--

"Dinner he finds too painful an endeavor, Condemned to pay in decimals for ever."

"The present system, however, A pleasant sum even for an had not yet been changed into accomplished mathematician. decimal system. That change What does divided by the might appear very easy to decimal of a pound mean? accomplished mathematicians Perhaps it means _reduced_ to and men of science, but it was the decimal of a pound! Mr. one which it would be very Lowe supposes, as many others difficult to carry out. (Hear, do, that, after the change, hear). What would have to be all calculations will be done? Every sum would have to _proposed in old money_, and be reduced into a vulgar then _converted into new_. He fraction of a pound, and then cannot hit the {174} idea that divided by the decimal of a the new coins will take the pound--a pleasant sum for an place of the old. This lack of old applewoman to work out!" apprehension will presently (Hear, hear, and laughter.) appear further. "It would not be an agreeable Let the members be assured task, even for some members of that nine half-pence will be, that House, to reduce 4-1/2d., for every practical purpose, or nine half-pence, to mils." 18 mils. But now to the fact (Hear, hear.) asserted. Davies Gilbert[301] used to maintain that during the long period he sat in the House, he never knew more than three men in it, at one time, who had a tolerable notion of fractions. [I heard him give the names of three at the time when he spoke: they were Warburton,[302] Pollock,[303] and Hume.[304] He himself was then out of Parliament.] Joseph Hume affirmed that he had never met with more than ten members who were arithmeticians. But both these gentlemen had a high standard. Mr. Lowe has given a much more damaging opinion. He evidently means that the general run of members could not do his question. It is done as follows: Since farthings gain on mils, at the rate of a whole mil in 24 farthings (24 farthings being 25 mils), it is clear that 18 farthings being three-quarters of 24 farthings, will gain three-quarters of a mil; that is, 18 farthings are eighteen {175} mils and three-quarters of a mil. Any number of farthings is as many mils and as many twenty-fourths of a