Chapter VIII: Part 8

The reverend J Dobson BD late fellow of saint Johns college Cambridge was rector of Brandesburton in Yorkshire he was seventh wrangler in 1798 and died in 1847 he was of that sort of eccentricity which permits account of his private life if we may not rather say that in such cases private life becomes public there is a tradition that he was called Death Dobson on account of his head and aspect of countenance being not very unlike the ordinary pictures of a human skull his mode of life is reported to have been very singular whenever he visited Cambridge he was never known to go twice to the same inn he never would sleep at the rectory with another person in the house some ancient charwoman used to attend to the house but never slept in it he has been known in the time of coach travelling to have {235} deferred his return to Yorkshire on account of his disinclination to travel with a lady in the coach he continued his mathematical studies until his death and till his executors sold the type all his tracts to the number of five were kept in type at the university press none of these tracts had any stops except full stops at the end of paragraphs only neither had they capitals except one at the beginning of a paragraph so that a full stop was generally followed by some white as there is not a single proper name in the whole of the book I have I am not able to say whether he would have used capitals before proper names I have inserted them as usual for which I hope his spirit will forgive me if I be wrong he also published the elements of geometry in two volumes quarto Cambridge 1815 this book had also no stops except when a comma was wanted between letters as in the straight lines AB, BC I should also say that though the title is unpunctuated in the author's part it seems the publishers would not stand it in their imprint this imprint is punctuated as usual and Deighton and Sons to prove the completeness of their allegiance have managed that comma semicolon and period shall all appear in it why could they not have contrived interrogation and exclamation this is a good precedent to establish the separate right of the publisher over the imprint it is said that only twenty of the tracts were printed and very few indeed of the book on geometry it is doubtful whether any were sold there is a copy of the geometry in the university library at Cambridge and I have one myself the matter of the geometry differs entirely from Euclid and is so fearfully prolix that I am sure no mortal except the author ever read it the man went on without stops and without stop save for a period at the end of a paragraph this is the unpunctuated account of the unpunctuating geometer _suum cuique tribuito_[531] Mrs Thrale[532] would have been amused {236} at a Dobson who managed to come to a full stop without either of the three warnings.

I do not find any difficulty in reading Dobson's geometry; and I have read more of it to try reading without stops than I should have done had it been printed in the usual way. Those who dip into the middle of my paragraph may be surprised for a moment to see "on account of his disinclination to travel with a lady in the coach he continued his mathematical studies until his death and [further, of course] until his executors sold the type." But a person reading straight through would hardly take it so. I should add that, in order to give a fair trial, I did not compose as I wrote, but copied the words of the correspondent who gave me the facts, so far as they went.

A RELIGIOUS PARADOX.

_Philosophia Sacra, or the principles of natural Philosophy. Extracted
from Divine Revelation._ By the Rev. Samuel Pike.[533] Edited by the
Rev. Samuel Kittle.[534] Edinburgh, 1815, 8vo.

This is a work of modified Hutchinsonianism, which I have seen cited by several. Though rather dark on the subject, it seems not to contradict the motion of the earth, or the doctrine of gravitation. Mr. Kittle gives a list of some Hutchinsonians,--as Bishop Horne;[535] Dr. Stukeley;[536] the Rev. {237} W. Jones,[537] author of _Physiological Disquisitions_; Mr. Spearman,[538] author of _Letters on the Septuagint_ and editor of Hutchinson; Mr. Barker,[539] author of _Reflexions on Learning_; Dr. Catcott,[540] author of a work on the creation, &c.; Dr. Robertson,[541] author of a _Treatise on the Hebrew Language_; _Dr. Holloway_,[542] author of _Originals, Physical and Theological_; Dr. Walter Hodges,[543] author of a work on _Elohim_; Lord President Forbes (_ob._ 1747).[544]

The Rev. William Jones, above mentioned (1726-1800), the friend and biographer of Bishop Horne and his stout {238} defender, is best known as William Jones of Nayland, who (1757)[545] published the _Catholic Doctrine of the Trinity_; he was also strong for the Hutchinsonian physical trinity of fire, light, and spirit. This well-known work was generally recommended, as the defence of the orthodox system, to those who could not go into the learning of the subject. There is now a work more suited to our time: _The Rock of Ages_, by the Rev. E. H. Bickersteth,[546] now published by the Religious Tract Society, without date, answered by the Rev. Dr. Sadler,[547] in a work (1859) entitled _Gloria Patri_, in which, says Mr. Bickersteth, "the author has not even attempted to grapple with my main propositions." I have read largely on the controversy, and I think I know what this means. Moreover, when I see the note "There are two other passages to which Unitarians sometimes refer, but the deduction they draw from them is, in each case, refuted by the context"--I think I see why the two texts are not named. Nevertheless, the author is a little more disposed to yield to criticism than his foregoers; he does not insist on texts and readings which the greatest editors have rejected. And he writes with courtesy, both direct and oblique, towards his antagonists; which, on his side of this subject, is like letting in fresh air. So that I suspect the two books will together make a tolerably good introduction to the subject for those who cannot go deep. Mr. Bickersteth's book is well arranged and indexed, which is a point of superiority to Jones of Nayland. There is a point which I should gravely recommend to writers on the orthodox side. The Unitarians in {239} England have frequently contended that the method of proving the divinity of Jesus Christ from the New Testament would equally prove the divinity of Moses. I have not fallen in the way of any orthodox answers specially directed at the repeated tracts written by Unitarians in proof of their assertion. If there be any, they should be more known; if there be none, some should be written. Which ever side may be right, the treatment of this point would be indeed coming to close quarters. The heterodox assertion was first supported, it is said, by John Bidle or Biddle (1615-1662) of Magdalen College, Oxford, the earliest of the English Unitarian writers, previously known by a translation of part of Virgil and part of Juvenal.[548] But I cannot find that he wrote on it.[549] It is the subject of "[Greek: haireseon anastasis], or a new way of deciding old controversies. By Basanistes. Third edition, enlarged," London, 1815, 8vo.[550] It is the appendix to the amusing, "Six more letters to Granville Sharp, Esq., ... By Gregory Blunt, Esq." London, 8vo., 1803.[551] This much I can confidently say, that the study of these tracts would prevent orthodox writers from some curious slips, which are slips obvious to all sides of opinion. The lower defenders of orthodoxy frequently vex the spirits of the higher ones.

Since writing the above I have procured Dr. Sadler's answer. I thought I knew what the challenger meant when he said the respondent had not grappled with his main {240} propositions. I should say that he is clung on to from beginning to end. But perhaps Mr. B. has his own meaning of logical terms, such as "proposition": he certainly has his own meaning of "cumulative." He says his evidence is cumulative; not a catena, the strength of which is in its weakest part, but distinct and independent lines, each of which corroborates the other. This is the very opposite of _cumulative_: it is _distributive_. When different arguments are each necessary to a conclusion, the evidence is _cumulative_; when any one will do, even though they strengthen each other, it is _distributive_. The word "cumulative" is a synonym of the law word "constructive"; a whole which will do made out of parts which separately will not. Lord Strafford [552] opens his defence with the use of both words: "They have invented a kind of _accumulated_ or _constructive_ evidence; by which many actions, either totally innocent in themselves, or criminal in a much inferior degree, shall, when united, _amount_ to treason." The conclusion is, that Mr. B. is a Cambridge man; the Oxford men do not confuse the elementary terms of logic. O dear old Cambridge! when the New Zealander comes let him find among the relics of your later sons some proof of attention to the elementary laws of thought. A little-go of logic, please!

Mr. B., though apparently not a Hutchinsonian, has a nibble at a physical Trinity. "If, as we gaze on the sun shining in the firmament, we see any faint adumbration of the doctrine of the Trinity in the fontal orb, the light ever generated, and the heat proceeding from the sun and its beams--threefold and yet one, the sun, its light, and its {241} heat,--that luminous globe, and the radiance ever flowing from it, are both evident to the eye; but the vital warmth is felt, not seen, and is only manifested in the life it transfuses through creation. The proof of its real existence is self-demonstrating."

We shall see how Revilo[553] illustrates orthodoxy by mathematics. It was my duty to have found one of the many illustrations from physics; but perhaps I should have forgotten it if this instance had not come in my way. It is very bad physics. The sun, apart from its light, evident to the eye! Heat more self-demonstrating than light, because _felt_! Heat only manifested by the life it diffuses! Light implied not necessary to life! But the theology is worse than Sabellianism[554]. To adumbrate--i.e., make a picture of--the orthodox doctrine, the sun must be heavenly body, the light heavenly body, the heat heavenly body; and yet, not three heavenly bodies, but one heavenly body. The truth is, that this illustration and many others most strikingly illustrate the Trinity of fundamental doctrine held by the Unitarians, in all its differences from the Trinity of persons held by the Orthodox. Be right which may, the right or wrong of the Unitarians shines out in the comparison. Dr. Sadler confirms me--by which I mean that I wrote the above before I saw what he says--in the following words: "The sun is one object with two _properties_, and these properties have a parallel not in the second and third persons of the Trinity, but in the attributes of Deity."

The letting light alone, as self-evident, and making heat self-demonstrating, because felt--i.e., perceptible now and then--has the character of the Irishman's astronomy:

{242}

"Long life to the moon, for a dear noble cratur,
Which serves us for lamplight all night in the dark,
While the sun only shines in the day, which by natur,
Wants no light at all, as ye all may remark."

SIR RICHARD PHILLIPS.

_Sir Richard Phillips_[555] (born 1768) was conspicuous in 1793, when he was sentenced to a year's imprisonment[556] for selling Paine's _Rights of Man_; and again when, in 1807[557], he was knighted as Sheriff of London. As a bookseller, he was able to enforce his opinions in more ways than others. For instance, in James Mitchell's[558] _Dictionary of the Mathematical and Physical Sciences_, 1823, 12mo, which, though he was not technically a publisher, was printed for him--a book I should recommend to the collector of works of reference--there is a temperate description of his doctrines, which one may almost swear was one of his conditions previous to undertaking the work. Phillips himself was not only an anti-Newtonian, but carried to a fearful excess the notion that statesmen and Newtonians were in league to deceive the world. He saw this plot in Mrs. Airy's[559] pension, and in Mrs. Somerville's[560]. In 1836, he {243} did me the honor to attempt my conversion. In his first letter he says:

"Sir Richard Phillips has an inveterate abhorrence of all the pretended wisdom of philosophy derived from the monks and doctors of the middle ages, and not less of those of higher name who merely sought to make the monkish philosophy more plausible, or so to disguise it as to mystify the mob of small thinkers."

So little did his writings show any knowledge of antiquity, that I strongly suspect, if required to name one of the monkish doctors, he would have answered--Aristotle. These schoolmen, and the "philosophical trinity of gravitating force, projectile force, and void space," were the bogies of his life.

I think he began to publish speculations in the _Monthly Magazine_ (of which he was editor) in July 1817: these he republished separately in 1818. In the Preface, perhaps judging the feelings of others by his own, he says that he "fully expects to be vilified, reviled, and anathematized, for many years to come." Poor man! he was let alone. He appeals with confidence to the "impartial decision of posterity"; but posterity does not appoint a hearing for one per cent. of the appeals which are made; and it is much to be feared that an article in such a work of reference as this will furnish nearly all her materials fifty years hence. The following, addressed to M. Arago,[561] in 1835, will give posterity as good a notion as she will probably need:

"Even the present year has afforded EVER-MEMORABLE examples, paralleled only by that of the Romish Conclave which persecuted Galileo. Policy has adopted that maxim of Machiavel which teaches that it is _more prudent_ to _reward_ {244} partisans than to _persecute_ opponents. Hence, a bigotted party had influence enough with the late short-lived administration [I think he is wrong as to the administration] of Wellington, Peel, &c., to confer munificent royal pensions on three writers whose sole distinction was their advocacy of the Newtonian philosophy. A Cambridge professor last year published an elaborate volume in illustration of _Gravitation_, and on him has been conferred a pension of 300l. per annum. A lady has written a light popular view of the Newtonian Dogmas, and she has been complimented by a pension of 200l. per annum. And another writer, who has recently published a volume to prove that the only true philosophy is that of Moses, has been endowed with a pension of 200l. per annum. Neither of them were needy persons, and the political and ecclesiastical bearing of the whole was indicated by another pension of 300l. bestowed on a political writer, the advocate of all abuses and prejudices. Whether the conduct of the Romish Conclave was more base for visiting with legal penalties the promulgation of the doctrines that the Earth turns on its axis and revolves around the Sun; or that of the British Court, for its craft in conferring pensions on the opponents of the plain corollary, that all the motions of the Earth are 'part and parcel' of these great motions, and those again and all like them consecutive displays of still greater motions in equality of action and reaction, is A QUESTION which must be reserved for the casuists of other generations.... I cannot expect that on a sudden you and your friends will come to my conclusion, that the present philosophy of the Schools and Universities of Europe, based on faith in witchcraft, magic, &c., is a system of execrable nonsense, _by which quacks live on the faith of fools_; but I desire a free and fair examination of my Aphorisms, and if a few are admitted to be true, merely as courteous concessions to arithmetic, my purpose will be effected, for men will thus be led to think; and if they think, then the fabric {245} of false assumptions, and degrading superstitions will soon tumble in ruins."

This for posterity. For the present time I ground the fame of Sir R. Phillips on his having squared the circle without knowing it, or intending to do it. In the _Protest_ presently noted he discovered that "the force taken as 1 is equal to the sum of all its fractions ... thus 1 = 1/4 + 1/9 + 1/16 + 1/25, &c., carried to infinity." This the mathematician instantly sees is equivalent to the theorem that the circumference of any circle is double of the diagonal of the cube on its diameter.[562]

I have examined the following works of Sir R. Phillips, and heard of many others:

Essays on the proximate mechanical causes of the general phenomena of
the Universe, 1818, 12mo.[563]

Protest against the prevailing principles of natural philosophy, with
the development of a common sense system (no date, 8vo, pp. 16).[564]

Four dialogues between an Oxford Tutor and a disciple of the
common-sense philosophy, relative to the proximate causes of material
phenomena. 8vo, 1824.

A century of original aphorisms on the proximate causes of the
phenomena of nature, 1835, 12mo.

Sir Richard Phillips had four valuable qualities; honesty, zeal, ability, and courage. He applied them all to teaching {246} matters about which he knew nothing; and gained himself an uncomfortable life and a ridiculous memory.

Astronomy made plain; or only way the true perpendicular distance of
the Sun, Moon, or Stars, from this earth, can be obtained. By Wm.
Wood.[565] Chatham, 1819, 12mo.

If this theory be true, it will follow, of course, that this earth is the only one God made, and that it does not whirl round the sun, but _vice versa_, the sun round it.

WHATELY'S FAMOUS PARADOX.

Historic doubts relative to Napoleon Buonaparte. London, 1819, 8vo.

This tract has since been acknowledged by Archbishop Whately[566] and reprinted. It is certainly a paradox: but differs from most of those in my list as being a joke, and a satire upon the reasoning of those who cannot receive narrative, no matter what the evidence, which is to them utterly improbable _a priori_. But had it been serious earnest, it would not have been so absurd as many of those which I have brought forward. The next on the list is not a joke.

The idea of the satire is not new. Dr. King,[567] in the dispute on the genuineness of Phalaris, proved with humor that Bentley did not write his own dissertation. An attempt has lately been made, for the honor of Moses, to prove, {247} without humor, that Bishop Colenso did not write his own book. This is intolerable: anybody who tries to use such a weapon without banter, plenty and good, and of form suited to the subject, should get the drubbing which the poor man got in the Oriental tale for striking the dervishes with the wrong hand.

The excellent and distinguished author of this tract has ceased to live. I call him the Paley of our day: with more learning and more purpose than his predecessor; but perhaps they might have changed places if they had changed centuries. The clever satire above named is not the only work which he published without his name. The following was attributed to him, I believe rightly: "Considerations on the Law of Libel, as relating to Publications on the subject of Religion, by John Search." London, 1833, 8vo. This tract excited little attention: for those who should have answered, could not. Moreover, it wanted a prosecution to call attention to it: the fear of calling such attention may have prevented prosecutions. Those who have read it will have seen why.

The theological review elsewhere mentioned attributes the pamphlet of John Search on blasphemous libel to Lord Brougham. This is quite absurd: the writer states points of law on credence where the judge must have spoken with authority. Besides which, a hundred points of style are decisive between the two. I think any one who knows Whately's writing will soon arrive at my conclusion. Lord Brougham himself informs me that he has no knowledge whatever of the pamphlet.

It is stated in _Notes and Queries_ (3 S. xi. 511) that Search was answered by the Bishop of Ferns[568] as S. N., with {248} a rejoinder by Blanco White.[569] These circumstances increase the probability that Whately was written against and for.

VOLTAIRE A CHRISTIAN.

Voltaire Chretien; preuves tirees de ses ouvrages. Paris, 1820, 12mo.

If Voltaire have not succeeded in proving himself a strong theist and a strong anti-revelationist, who is to succeed in proving himself one thing or the other in any matter whatsoever? By occasional confusion between theism and Christianity; by taking advantage of the formal phrases of adhesion to the Roman Church, which very often occur, and are often the happiest bits of irony in an ironical production; by citations of his morality, which is decidedly Christian, though often attributed to Brahmins; and so on--the author makes a fair case for his paradox, in the eyes of those who know no more than he tells them. If he had said that Voltaire was a better Christian than himself knew of, towards all mankind except men of letters, I for one should have agreed with him.

_Christian!_ the word has degenerated into a synonym of _man_, in what are called Christian countries. So we have the parrot who "swore for all the world like a Christian," and the two dogs who "hated each other just like Christians." When the Irish duellist of the last century, whose name may be spared in consideration of its historic fame {249} and the worthy people who bear it, was (June 12, 1786) about to take the consequence of his last brutal murder, the rope broke, and the criminal got up, and exclaimed, "By ---- Mr. Sheriff, you ought to be ashamed of yourself! this rope is not strong enough to hang a dog, far less a Christian!" But such things as this are far from the worst depravations. As to a word so defiled by usage, it is well to know that there is a way of escape from it, without renouncing the New Testament. I suppose any one may assume for himself what I have sometimes heard contended for, that no New Testament word is to be used in religion in any sense except that of the New Testament. This granted, the question is settled. The word _Christian_, which occurs three times, is never recognized as anything but a term of contempt from those without the pale to those within. Thus, Herod Agrippa, who was deep in Jewish literature, and a correspondent of Josephus, says to Paul (Acts xxvi. 28), "Almost thou persuadest me to be (what I and other followers of the state religion despise under the name) a Christian." Again (Acts xi. 26), "The disciples (as they called _themselves_) were called (by the surrounding heathens) Christians first in Antioch." Thirdly (1 Peter iv. 16), "Let none of you suffer as a _murderer_.... But if as a _Christian_ (as the heathen call it by whom the suffering comes), let him not be ashamed." That is to say, no _disciple_ ever called _himself_ a Christian, or applied the name, as from himself, to another disciple, from one end of the New Testament to the other; and no disciple need apply that name to himself in our day, if he dislike the associations with which the conduct of Christians has clothed it.

WRONSKI ON THE LONGITUDE PROBLEM.

Address of M. Hoene Wronski to the British Board of Longitude, upon the
actual state of the mathematics, their reform, {250} and upon the new
celestial mechanics, giving the definitive solution of the problem of
longitude.[570] London, 1820, 8vo.

M. Wronski[571] was the author of seven quartos on mathematics, showing very great power of generalization. He was also deep in the transcendental philosophy,[572] and had the Absolute at his fingers' ends. All this knowledge was rendered useless by a persuasion that he had greatly advanced beyond the whole world, with many hints that the Absolute would not be forthcoming, unless prepaid. He was a man of the widest extremes. At one time he desired people to see all possible mathematics in

F_x_ = A_{0}[Omega]_{0} + A_{1}[Omega]_{1} + A_{2}[Omega]_{2} +
A_{3}[Omega]_{3} + &c.

which he did not explain, though there is meaning to it in the quartos. At another time he was proposing the general solution of the[573] fifth degree by help of 625 independent equations of one form and 125 of another. The first separate memoir from any Transactions that I ever possessed was given to me when at Cambridge; the refutation (1819) of this asserted solution, presented to the Academy of Lisbon by Evangelista Torriano. I cannot say I read it. The tract above is an attack on modern mathematicians in general, and on the Board of Longitude, and Dr. Young.[574]

{251}

DR. MILNER'S PARADOXES.

1820. In this year died Dr. Isaac Milner,[575] President of Queens' College, Cambridge, one of the class of rational paradoxers. Under this name I include all who, in private life, and in matters which concern themselves, take their own course, and suit their own notions, no matter what other people may think of them. These men will put things to uses they were never intended for, to the great distress and disgust of their gregarious friends. I am one of the class, and I could write a little book of cases in which I have incurred absolute reproach for not "doing as other people do." I will name two of my atrocities: I took one of those butter-dishes which have for a top a dome with holes in it, which is turned inward, out of reach of accident, when not in use. Turning the dome inwards, I filled the dish with water, and put a sponge in the dome: the holes let it fill with water, and I had a penwiper, always moist, and worth its price five times over. "Why! what do you mean? It was made to hold butter. You are always at some queer thing or other!" I bought a leaden comb, intended to dye the hair, it being supposed that the application of lead will have this effect. I did not try: but I divided the comb into two, separated the part of closed prongs from the other; and thus I had two ruling machines. The lead marks paper, and by drawing the end of one of the machines along a ruler, I could rule twenty lines at a time, quite fit to write on. I thought I should have killed a friend to whom I explained it: he could not for the life of him understand how leaden _lines_ on paper would dye the hair.

But Dr. Milner went beyond me. He wanted a seat suited to his shape, and he defied opinion to a fearful point. {252} He spread a thick block of putty over a wooden chair and sat in it until it had taken a ceroplast copy of the proper seat. This he gave to a carpenter to be imitated in wood. One of the few now living who knew him--my friend, General Perronet Thompson[576]--answers for the wood, which was shown him by Milner himself; but he does not vouch for the material being putty, which was in the story told me at Cambridge; William Frend[577] also remembered it. Perhaps the Doctor took off his great seal in green wax, like the Crown; but some soft material he certainly adopted; and very comfortable he found the wooden copy.

The same gentleman vouches for Milner's lamp: but this had visible _science_ in it; the vulgar see no science in the construction of the chair. A hollow semi-cylinder, but not with a circular curve, revolved on pivots. The curve was calculated on the law that, whatever quantity of oil might be in the lamp, the position of equilibrium just brought the oil up to the edge of the cylinder, at which a bit of wick was placed. As the wick exhausted the oil, the cylinder slowly revolved about the pivots so as to keep the oil always touching the wick.

Great discoveries are always laughed at; but it is very often not the laugh of incredulity; it is a mode of distorting the sense of inferiority into a sense of superiority, or a mimicry of superiority interposed between the laugher and his feeling of inferiority. Two persons in conversation {253} agreed that it was often a nuisance not to be able to lay hands on a bit of paper to mark the place in a book, every bit of paper on the table was sure to contain something not to be spared. I very quietly said that I always had a stock of bookmarkers ready cut, with a proper place for them: my readers owe many of my anecdotes to this absurd practice. My two colloquials burst into a fit of laughter; about what? Incredulity was out of the question; and there could be nothing foolish in my taking measures to avoid what they knew was an inconvenience. I was in this matter obviously their superior, and so they laughed at me. Much more candid was the Royal Duke of the last century, who was noted for slow ideas. "The rain comes into my mouth," said he, while riding. "Had not your Royal Highness better shut your mouth?" said the equerry. The Prince did so, and ought, by rule, to have laughed heartily at his adviser; instead of this, he said quietly, "It doesn't come in now."

HERBART'S MATHEMATICAL PSYCHOLOGY.

De Attentionis mensura causisque primariis. By J. F. Herbart.[578]
Koenigsberg, 1822, 4to.

{254}

This celebrated philosopher maintained that mathematics ought to be applied to psychology, in a separate tract, published also in 1822: the one above seems, therefore, to be his challenge on the subject. It is on _attention_, and I think it will hardly support Herbart's thesis. As a specimen of his formula, let _t_ be the time elapsed since the consideration began, [beta] the whole perceptive intensity of the individual, [phi] the whole of his mental force, and _z_ the force given to a notion by attention during the time _t_. Then,

z = [phi] (1 - [epsilon]^{-[beta]t})

Now for a test. There is a _jactura_, _v_, the meaning of which I do not comprehend. If there be anything in it, my mathematical readers ought to interpret it from the formula

_v_ = [pi][phi][beta]/(1 - [beta])[epsilon]^{-[beta]t} + C[epsilon]^{-t}

and to this task I leave them, wishing them better luck than mine. The time may come when other manifestations of mind, besides _belief_, shall be submitted to calculation: at that time, should it arrive, a final decision may be passed upon Herbart.

ON THE WHIZGIG.

The theory of the Whizgig considered; in as much as it mechanically
exemplifies the three working properties of nature; which are now set
forth under the guise of this toy, for children of all ages. London,
1822, 12mo (pp. 24, B. McMillan, Bow Street, Covent Garden).

The toy called the _whizgig_ will be remembered by many. The writer is a follower of Jacob Behmen,[579] William Law,[580] {255} Richard Clarke,[581] and Eugenius Philalethes.[582] Jacob Behmen first announced the three working properties of nature, which Newton stole, as described in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, July, 1782, p. 329. These laws are illustrated in the whizgig. There is the harsh astringent, attractive compression; the bitter compunction, repulsive expansion; and the stinging anguish, duplex motion. The author hints that he has written other works, to which he gives no clue. I have heard that Behmen was pillaged by Newton, and Swedenborg[583] by Laplace,[584] and Pythagoras by Copernicus,[585] and Epicurus by Dalton,[586] &c. I do not think this mention will revive Behmen; but it may the whizgig, a very pretty toy, and philosophical withal, for few of those who used it could explain it.

{256}

SOME MYTHOLOGICAL PARADOXES.

A Grammar of infinite forms; or the mathematical elements of ancient
philosophy and mythology. By Wm. Howison.[587] Edinburgh, 1823, 8vo.

A curius combination of geometry and mythology. Perseus, for instance, is treated under the head, "the evolution of diminishing hyperbolic branches."

The Mythological Astronomy of the Ancients; part the second: or the key
of Urania, the words of which will unlock all the mysteries of
antiquity. Norwich, 1823, 12mo.

A Companion to the Mythological Astronomy, &c., containing remarks on
recent publications.... Norwich, 1824, 12mo.

A new Theory of the Earth and of planetary motion; in which it is
demonstrated that the Sun is vicegerent of his own system. Norwich,
1825, 12mo.

The analyzation of the writings of the Jews, so far as they are found
to have any connection with the sublime science of astronomy. [This is
pp. 97-180 of some other work, being all I have seen.]

These works are all by Sampson Arnold Mackey,[588] for whom see _Notes and Queries_, 1st S. viii. 468, 565, ix. 89, 179. Had it not been for actual quotations given by one correspondent only (1st S. viii. 565), that journal would have handed him down as a man of some real learning. An extraordinary man he certainly was: it is not one illiterate shoemaker in a thousand who could work upon such a singular mass of Sanskrit and Greek words, without showing {257} evidence of being able to read a line in any language but his own, or to spell that correctly. He was an uneducated Godfrey Higgins.[589] A few extracts will put this in a strong light: one for history of science, one for astronomy, and one for philology:

"Sir Isaac Newton was of opinion that 'the atmosphere of the earth was the sensory of God; by which he was enabled to see quite round the earth:' which proves that Sir Isaac had no idea that God could see through the earth.

"Sir Richard [Phillips] has given the most rational explanation of the cause of the earth's elliptical orbit that I have ever seen in print. It is because the earth presents its watery hemisphere to the sun at one time and that of solid land the other; but why has he made his Oxonian astonished at the coincidence? It is what I taught in my attic twelve years before.

"Again, admitting that the Eloim were powerful and intelligent beings that managed these things, we would accuse _them_ of being the authors of all the sufferings of Chrisna. And as they and the constellation of Leo were below the horizon, and consequently cut off from the end of the zodiac, there were but eleven constellations of the zodiac to be seen; the three at the end were wanted, but those three would be accused of bringing Chrisna into the troubles which at last ended in his death. All this would be expressed in the Eastern language by saying that Chrisna was persecuted by those Judoth Ishcarioth!!!!! [the five notes of exclamation are the author's]. But the astronomy of those distant ages, when the sun was at the south pole in winter, would leave five of those Decans cut off from our view, in the latitude of twenty-eight degrees; hence Chrisna died of {258} wounds from five Decans, but the whole five may be included in Judoth Ishcarioth! for the phrase means 'the men that are wanted at the extreme parts.' Ishcarioth is a compound of _ish_, a man, and _carat_ wanted or taken away, and oth the plural termination, more ancient than _im_...."

I might show at length how Michael is the sun, and the D'-ev-'l in French Di-ob-al, also 'L-evi-ath-an--the evi being the radical part both of d_evi_l and l_evi_athan--is the Nile, which the sun dried up for Moses to pass: a battle celebrated by Jude. Also how _Moses_, the same name as _Muses_, is from _mesha_, drawn out of the water, "and hence we called our land which is saved from the water by the name of _marsh_." But it will be of more use to collect the character of S. A. M. from such correspondents of _Notes and Queries_ as have written after superficial examination. Great astronomical and philological attainments, much ability and learning; had evidently read and studied deeply; remarkable for the originality of his views upon the very abstruse subject of mythological astronomy, in which he exhibited great sagacity. Certainly his views were _original_; but their sagacity, if it be allowable to copy his own mode of etymologizing, is of an _ori-gin-ale_ cast, resembling that of a person who puts to his mouth liquors both distilled and fermented.

A KANTESIAN JEWELER.

Principles of the Kantesian, or transcendental philosophy. By Thomas
Wirgman.[590] London, 1824, 8vo.

Mr. Wirgman's mind was somewhat attuned to psychology; but he was cracky and vagarious. He had been a fashionable jeweler in St. James's Street, no doubt the son or grandson of Wirgman at "the well-known toy-shop in {259} St. James's Street," where Sam Johnson smartened himself with silver buckles. (Boswell, _aet._ 69). He would not have the ridiculous large ones in fashion; and he would give no more than a guinea a pair; such, says Boswell, in Italics, were the _principles_ of the business: and I think this may be the first place in which the philosophical word was brought down from heaven to mix with men. However this may be, _my_ Wirgman sold snuff-boxes, among other things, and fifty years ago a fashionable snuff-boxer would be under inducement, if not positively obliged, to have a stock with very objectionable pictures. So it happened that Wirgman--by reason of a trifle too much candor--came under the notice of the _Suppression_ Society, and ran considerable risk. Mr. Brougham was his counsel; and managed to get him acquitted. Years and years after this, when Mr. Brougham was deep in the formation of the London University (now University College), Mr. Wirgman called on him. "What now?" said Mr. B. with his most sarcastic look--a very perfect thing of its kind--"you're in a scrape again, I suppose!" "No! indeed!" said W., "my present object is to ask your interest for the chair of Moral Philosophy in the new University!" He had taken up Kant!

Mr. Wirgman, an itinerant paradoxer, called on me in 1831: he came to convert me. "I assure you," said he, "I am nothing but an old brute of a jeweler;" and his eye and manner were of the extreme of jocosity, as good in their way, as the satire of his former counsel. I mention him as one of that class who go away quite satisfied that they have wrought conviction. "Now," said he, "I'll make it clear to you! Suppose a number of gold-fishes in a glass bowl,--you understand? Well! I come with my cigar and go puff, puff, puff, over the bowl, until there is a little cloud of smoke: now, tell me, what will the gold-fishes say to that?" "I should imagine," said I, "That they would not know what to make of it." "By Jove! you're a Kantian;" said he, and with this and the like, he left me, vowing that {260} it was delightful to talk to so intelligent a person. The greatest compliment Wirgman ever received was from James Mill, who used to say he did not _understand_ Kant. That such a man as Mill should think this worth saying is a feather in the cap of the jocose jeweler.

Some of my readers will stare at my supposing that Boswell may have been the first down-bringer of the word _principles_ into common life; the best answer will be a prior instance of the word as true vernacular; it has never happened to me to notice one. Many words have very common uses which are not old. Take the following from Nichols (_Anecd._ ix. 263): "Lord Thurlow presents his best respects to Mr. and Mrs. Thicknesse, and assures them that he knows of no cause to complain of any part of Mr. Thicknesse's carriage; least of all the circumstance of sending the head to Ormond Street." Surely Mr. T. had lent Lord T. a satisfactory carriage with a movable head, and the above is a polite answer to inquiries. Not a bit of it! _carriage_ is here _conduct_, and the _head_ is a _bust_. The vehicles of the rich, at the time, were coaches, chariots, chaises, etc., never carriages, which were rather _carts_. Gibbon has the word for baggage-wagons. In Jane Austen's novels the word carriage is established.

WALSH'S DELUSIONS.

_John Walsh_,[591] of Cork (1786-1847). This discoverer has had the honor of a biography from Professor Boole, who, at my request, collected information about him on the scene of his labors. It is in the _Philosophical Magazine_ for November, 1851, and will, I hope, be transferred to some biographical collection where it may find a larger class of readers. It is the best biography of a single hero of the kind that I know. Mr. Walsh introduced himself to me, {261} as he did to many others, in the anterowlandian days of the Post-office; his unpaid letters were double, treble, &c. They contained his pamphlets, and cost their weight in silver: all have the name of the author, and all are in octavo or in quarto letter-form: most are in four pages, and all dated from Cork. I have the following by me:

The Geometric Base, 1825.--The theory of plane angles. 1827.--Three
Letters to Dr. Francis Sadleir. 1838.--The invention of polar geometry.
By Irelandus. 1839.--The theory of partial functions. Letter to Lord
Brougham. 1839.--On the invention of polar geometry. 1839.--Letter to
the Editor of the Edinburgh Review. 1840.--Irish Manufacture. A new
method of tangents. 1841.--The normal diameter in curves. 1843.--Letter
to Sir R. Peel. 1845.--[Hints that Government should compel the
introduction of Walsh's Geometry into Universities.]--Solution of
Equations of the higher orders. 1845.

Besides these, there is a _Metalogia_, and I know not how many others.

Mr. Boole,[592] who has taken the moral and social features of Walsh's delusions from the commiserating point of view, which makes ridicule out of place, has been obliged to treat Walsh as Scott's Alan Fairford treated his client Peter Peebles; namely, keep the scarecrow out of court while the case was argued. My plan requires me to bring him in: and when he comes in at the door, pity and sympathy fly out at the window. Let the reader remember that he was not an ignoramus in mathematics: he might have won his spurs if he could have first served as an esquire. Though so illiterate that even in Ireland he never picked up anything more Latin than _Irelandus_, he was a very pretty mathematician spoiled in the making by intense self-opinion.

This is part of a private letter to me at the back of a page of print: I had never addressed a word to him:

{262}

"There are no limits in mathematics, and those that assert there are, are infinite ruffians, ignorant, lying blackguards. There is no differential calculus, no Taylor's theorem, no calculus of variations, &c. in mathematics. There is no quackery whatever in mathematics; no % equal to anything. What sheer ignorant blackguardism that!

"In mechanics the parallelogram of forces is quackery, and is dangerous; for nothing is at rest, or in uniform, or in rectilinear motion, in the universe. Variable motion is an essential property of matter. Laplace's demonstration of the parallelogram of forces is a begging of the question; and the attempts of them all to show that the difference of twenty minutes between the sidereal and actual revolution of the earth round the sun arises from the tugging of the Sun and Moon at the pot-belly of the earth, without being sure even that the earth has a pot-belly at all, is perfect quackery. The said difference arising from and demonstrating the revolution of the Sun itself round some distant center."

In the letter to Lord Brougham we read as follows:

"I ask the Royal Society of London, I ask the Saxon crew of that crazy hulk, where is the dogma of their philosophic god now?... When the Royal Society of London, and the Academy of Sciences of Paris, shall have read this memorandum, how will they appear? Like two cur dogs in the paws of the noblest beast of the forest.... Just as this note was going to press, a volume lately published by you was put into my hands, wherein you attempt to defend the fluxions and _Principia_ of Newton. Man! what are you about? You come forward now with your special pleading, and fraught with national prejudice, to defend, like the philosopher Grassi,[593] the persecutor of Galileo, principles {263} and reasoning which, unless you are actually insane, or an ignorant quack in mathematics, you know are mathematically false. What a moral lesson this for the students of the University of London from its head! Man! demonstrate corollary 3, in this note, by the lying dogma of Newton, or turn your thoughts to something you understand.

"WALSH IRELANDUS."

Mr. Walsh--honor to his memory--once had the consideration to save me postage by addressing a pamphlet under cover to a Member of Parliament, with an explanatory letter. In that letter he gives a candid opinion of himself:

(1838.) "Mr. Walsh takes leave to send the enclosed corrected copy to Mr. Hutton as one of the Council of the University of London, and to save postage for the Professor of Mathematics there. He will find in it geometry more deep and subtle, and at the same time more simple and elegant, than it was ever contemplated human genius could invent."

He then proceeds to set forth that a certain "tomfoolery lemma," with its "tomfoolery" superstructure, "never had existence outside the shallow brains of its inventor," Euclid. He then proceeds thus:

"The same spirit that animated those philosophers who sent Galileo to the Inquisition animates all the philosophers of the present day without exception. If anything can free them from the yoke of error, it is the [Walsh] problem of double tangence. But free them it will, how deeply soever they may be sunk into mental slavery--and God knows that is deeply enough; and they bear it with an admirable grace; for none bear slavery with a better grace than tyrants. The lads must adopt my theory.... It will be a sad reverse for all our great professors to be compelled to become schoolboys in their gray years. But the sore scratch is to be compelled, as they had before been compelled one thousand years ago, to have recourse to Ireland for instruction." {264}

The following "Impromptu" is no doubt by Walsh himself: he was more of a poet than of an astronomer:

"Through ages unfriended,
With sophistry blended,
Deep science in Chaos had slept;
Its limits were fettered,
Its voters unlettered,
Its students in movements but crept.
Till, despite of great foes,
Great WALSH first arose,
And with logical might did unravel
Those mazes of knowledge,
Ne'er known in a college,
Though sought for with unceasing travail.
With cheers we now hail him,
May success never fail him,
In Polar Geometrical mining;
Till his foes be as tamed
As his works are far-famed
For true philosophic refining."

Walsh's system is, that all mathematics and physics are wrong: there is hardly one proposition in Euclid which is demonstrated. His example ought to warn all who rely on their own evidence to their own success. He was not, properly speaking, insane; he only spoke his mind more freely than many others of his class. The poor fellow died in the Cork union, during the famine. He had lived a happy life, contemplating his own perfections, like Brahma on the lotus-leaf.[594]

{265}

GROWTH OF FREEDOM OF OPINION.

The year 1825 brings me to about the middle of my _Athenaeum_ list: that is, so far as mere number of names mentioned is concerned. Freedom of opinion, beyond a doubt, is gaining ground, for good or for evil, according to what the speaker happens to think: admission of authority is no longer made in the old way. If we take soul-cure and body-cure, divinity and medicine, it is manifest that a change has come over us. Time was when it was enough that dose or dogma should be certified by "Il a ete ordonne, Monsieur, il a ete ordonne,"[595] as the apothecary said when he wanted to operate upon poor de Porceaugnac. Very much changed: but whether for good or for evil does not now matter; the question is, whether contempt of _demonstration_ such as our paradoxers show has augmented with the rejection of _dogmatic authority_. It ought to be just the other way: for the worship of reason is the system on which, if we trust them, the deniers of guidance ground their plan of life. The following attempt at an experiment on this point is the best which I can make; and, so far as I know, the first that ever was made.

Say that my list of paradoxers divides in 1825: this of itself proves nothing, because so many of the earlier books are lost, or not likely to be come at. It would be a fearful rate of increase which would make the number of paradoxes since 1825 equal to the whole number before that date. Let us turn now to another collection of mine, arithmetical books, of which I have published a list. The two collections are similarly circumstanced as to new and old books; the paradoxes had no care given to the collection of either; the arithmetical books equal care to both. The list of arithmetical books, published in 1847, divides at 1735; the paradoxes, up to 1863, divide at 1825. If we take the process which is most against the distinction, and allow every year {266} from 1847 to 1863 to add a year to 1735, we should say that the arithmetical writers divide at 1751. This rough process may serve, with sufficient certainty, to show that the proportion of paradoxes to books of sober demonstration is on the increase; and probably, quite as much as the proportion of heterodoxes to books of orthodox adherence. So that divinity and medicine may say to geometry, Don't _you_ sneer: if rationalism, homoeopathy, and their congeners are on the rise among us, your enemies are increasing quite as fast. But geometry replies--Dear friends, content yourselves with the rational inference that the rise of heterodoxy within your pales is not conclusive against you, taken alone; for it rises at the same time within mine. Store within your garners the precious argument that you are not proved wrong by increase of dissent; because there is increase of dissent against exact science. But do not therefore _even_ yourselves to me: remember that you, Dame Divinity, have inflicted every kind of penalty, from the stake to the stocks, in aid of your reasoning; remember that you, Mother Medicine, have not many years ago applied to Parliament for increase of forcible hindrance of antipharmacopoeal drenches, pills, and powders. Who ever heard of my asking the legislature to fine blundering circle-squarers? Remember that the D in dogma is the D in decay; but the D in demonstration is the D in durability.

THE STATUS OF MEDICINE.

I have known a medical man--a young one--who was seriously of the opinion that the country ought to be divided into medical parishes, with a practitioner appointed to each, and a penalty for calling in any but the incumbent curer. How should people know how to choose? The hair-dressers once petitioned Parliament for an act to compel people to wear wigs. My own opinion is of the opposite extreme, as in the following letter (_Examiner_, April 5, 1856); which, to my surprise, I saw reprinted in a medical journal, as a {267} plan not absolutely to be rejected. I am perfectly satisfied that it would greatly promote true medical orthodoxy, the predominance of well educated thinkers, and the development of their desirable differences.

"SIR. The Medical Bill and the medical question generally is one on which experience would teach, if people would be taught.

"The great soul question took three hundred years to settle: the little body question might be settled in thirty years, if the decisions in the former question were studied.

"Time was when the State believed, as honestly as ever it believed anything, that it _might_, _could_, and _should_ find out the true doctrine for the poor ignorant community; to which, like a worthy honest state, it added _would_. Accordingly, by the assistance of the Church, which undertook the physic, the surgery, and the pharmacy of sound doctrine all by itself, it sent forth its legally qualified teachers into every parish, and woe to the man who called in any other. They burnt that man, they whipped him, they imprisoned him, they did everything but what was Christian to him, all for his soul's health and the amendment of his excesses.