A Budget of Paradoxes Volume II Part 29

The _Mechanics of the Heavens_, which Mr. Reddie sends to be noticed, shall be noticed, so far as an extract goes:

"My connection with this subject is, indeed, very simply explained. In endeavoring to understand the laws of physical astronomy as generally taught, I happened to entertain some doubt whether gravitating bodies could revolve, and having afterwards imbibed some vague idea that the laws of the universe were chemical and physical rather than mechanical, and somehow connected with electricity and magnetism as opposing correlative forces--most probably suggested to my mind, as to many others, by the transcendent discoveries made in electro-magnetism by Professor Faraday[657]--my former doubts about gravitation were revived, and I was led very naturally to try and discover whether a gravitating body really could revolve; and I became convinced it could not, before I had ever presumed to look into the demonstrations of the _Principia_."

This is enough against the book, without a word from me: I insert it only to show those who know the subject what manner of writer Mr. Reddie is. It is clear that "presumed" is a slip of the pen; it should have been _condescended_.

Mr. Reddie represents me as dreaming over paltry paradoxes. He is right; many of my paradoxes are paltry: he is wrong; I am wide awake to them. A single moth, beetle, or b.u.t.terfly, may be a paltry thing; but when a cabinet is arranged by genus and species, we then begin to admire the {352} infinite variety of a system constructed on a wonderful sameness of leading characteristics. And why should paradoxes be denied that collective importance, paltry as many of them may individually be, which is accorded to moths, beetles, or b.u.t.terflies? Mr. Reddie himself sees that "there is a method in" my "mode of dealing with paradoxes." I hope I have atoned for the scantiness of my former article, and put the demonstrated impossibility of gravitation on that level with Hubongramillposanfy arithmetic and inhabited atoms which the demonstrator--not quite without reason--claims for it.

In the Introduction to a collected edition of the three works, Mr. Reddie describes his _Mechanism of the Heavens_, from which I have just quoted, as--

"a public challenge offered to the British a.s.sociation and the mathematicians at Cambridge, in August, 1862, calling upon them to point to a single demonstration in the _Principia_ or elsewhere, which even attempts to prove that Universal Gravitation is possible, or to show that a gravitating body could possibly revolve about a center of attraction. The challenge was not accepted, and never will be. No such demonstration exists. And the public must judge for themselves as to the character of a so-called "certain science," which thus shrinks from rigid examination, and dares not defend itself when publicly attacked: also of the character of its teachers, who can be content to remain dumb under such circ.u.mstances."

ON PARADOXERS IN GENERAL.

The above is the commonplace talk of the cla.s.s, of which I proceed to speak without more application to this paradoxer than to that. It reminds one of the funny young rascals who used, in times not yet quite forgotten, to abuse the pa.s.sengers, as long as they could keep up with the {353} stage coach; dropping off at last with "Why don't you get down and thrash us?

You're afraid, you're afraid!" They will allow the public to judge for themselves, but with somewhat of the feeling of the worthy uncle in _Tom Jones_, who, though he would let young people choose for themselves, would _have them_ choose wisely. They try to be so awfully moral and so ghastly satirical that they must be answered: and they are best answered in their own division. We have all heard of the way in which sailors cat's-pawed the monkeys: they taunted the dwellers in the trees with stones, and the monkeys taunted them with cocoa-nuts in return. But these were silly dendrobats: had they belonged to the British a.s.sociation they would have said--No! No! dear friends; it is not in the itinerary: if you want nuts, you must climb, as we do. The public has referred the question to Time: the procedure of this great king I venture to describe, from precedents, by an adaptation of some smart anapaestic tetrameters--your anapaest is the foot for satire to halt on, both in Greek and English--which I read about twenty years ago, and with the point of which I was much tickled. Poetasters were laughed at; but Mr. Slum, whom I employed--Mr. Charles d.i.c.kens obliged me with his address--converted the idea into that of a hit at mathematicasters, as easily as he turned the Warren acrostic into Jarley.

As he observed, when I settled his little account, it is cheaper than any prose, though the broom was not stolen quite ready made:

_Forty stripes save one for the smaller Paradoxers._

Hark to the wisdom the sages preach Who never have learnt what they try to teach.

We are the lights of the age, they say!

We are the men, and the thinkers we!

So we build up guess-work the livelong day, In a topsy-turvy sort of way, Some with and some wanting _a_ plus b.

Let the British a.s.sociation fuss; What are theirs to the feats to be wrought by us?

{354} Shall the earth stand still? Will the round come square?

Must Isaac's book be the nest of a mare?

Ought the moon to be taught by the laws of s.p.a.ce To turn half round without right-about-face?

Our whimsey crotchets will manage it all; Deep! Deep! posterity will them call!

Though the world, for the present, lets them fall Down! Down! to the twopenny box of the stall!

Thus they--But the marplot Time stands by, With a knowing wink in his funny old eye.

He grasps by the top an immense fool's cap, Which he calls a philosophaster-trap: And rightly enough, for while these little men Croak loud as a concert of frogs in a fen, He first singles out one, and then another, Down goes the cap--lo! a moment's pother, A spirit like that which a rushlight utters As just at the last it kicks and gutters: When the cruel smotherer is raised again Only snuff, and but little of that, will remain.

But though _uno avulso_ thus comes every day _Non deficit alter_ is also in play: For the vacant parts are, one and all, Soon taken by puppets just as small; Who chirp, chirp, chirp, with a gra.s.shopper's glee, We're the lamps of the Universe, We! We! We!

But Time, whose speech is never long,-- He hasn't time for it--stops the song And says--Lilliput lamps! leave the twopenny boxes, And s.h.i.+ne in the Budget of Paradoxes!

When a paradoxer parades capital letters and diagrams which are as good as Newton's to all who know nothing about it, some persons wonder why science does not rise and triturate the whole thing. This is why: all who are fit to read the refutation are satisfied already, and can, if they please, detect the paradoxer for themselves. Those who are not fit to do this would not know the difference between the true answer and the new capitals and diagrams on which the delighted paradoxer would declare {355} that he had crumbled the philosophers, and not they him. Trust him for having the last word: and what matters it whether he crow the unanswerable sooner or later?

There are but two courses to take. One is to wait until he has committed himself in something which all can understand, as Mr. Reddie has done in his fancy about the Astronomer Royal's change of opinion: he can then be put in his true place. The other is to construct a Budget of Paradoxes, that the world may see how the thing is always going on, and that the picture I have concocted by cribbing and spoiling a bit of poetry is drawn from life. He who wonders at there being no answer has seen one or two: he does not know that there are always fifty with equal claims, each of whom regards his being ranked with the rest as forty-nine distinct and several slanders upon himself, the great Mully Ully Gue. And the fifty would soon be five hundred if any notice were taken of them. They call mankind to witness that science _will not_ defend itself, though publicly attacked in terms which might sting a pickpocket into standing up for his character: science, in return, allows mankind to witness or not, at pleasure, that it _does not_ defend itself, and yet receives no injury from centuries of a.s.sault. Demonstrative reason never raises the cry of _Church in Danger_!

and it cannot have any Dictionary of Heresies except a Budget of Paradoxes.

Mistaken claimants are left to Time and his extinguisher, with the approbation of all thinking non-claimants: there is no need of a succession of exposures. Time gets through the job in his own workmanlike manner as already described.

On looking back more than twenty years, I find among my cuttings the following pa.s.sage, relating to a person who had signalized himself by an effort to teach comets to the conductor of the _Nautical Almanac_:

"Our brethren of the literary cla.s.s have not the least idea of the small amount of appearance of knowledge {356} which sets up the scientific charlatan. Their world is large, and there are many who have that moderate knowledge, and perception of what is knowledge, before which extreme ignorance is detected in its first prank. There is a public of moderate cultivation, for the most part sound in its judgment, always ready in its decisions. Accordingly, all their successful pretenders have _some pretension_. It is not so in science. Those who have a right to judge are fewer and farther between. The consequence is, that many scientific pretenders have _nothing but pretension_."

This is nearly as applicable now as then. It is impossible to make those who have not studied for themselves fully aware of the truth of what I have quoted. The best chance is collection of cases; in fact, a Budget of Paradoxes. Those who have no knowledge of the subject can thus argue from the seen to the unseen. All can feel the impracticability of the Hubongramillposanfy numeration, and the absurdity of the equality of contour of a regular pentagon and hexagon in one and the same circle. Many may accordingly be satisfied, on the a.s.surance of those who have studied, that there is as much of impracticability, or as much of absurdity, in things which are hidden under

"Sines, tangents, secants, radius, cosines Subtangents, segments and all those signs; Enough to prove that he who read 'em Was just as mad as he who made 'em."

Not that I mean to be disrespectful to mathematical terms: they are short and easily explained, and compete favorably with those of most other subjects: for instance, with

"Horse-pleas, traverses, demurrers, Jeofails, imparlances, and errors, Averments, bars, and protestandos, And puis d'arreign continuandos."

{357}

From which it appears that, taking the selections made by satirists for our samples, there are, one with another, four letters more in a law term than in one of mathematics. But pleading has been simplified of late years.

All paradoxers can publish; and any one who likes may read. But this is not enough; they find that they cannot publish, or those who can find they are _not_ read, and they lay their plans athwart the noses of those who, they think, ought to read. To recommend them to be content with publication, like other authors, is an affront: of this I will give the reader an amusing instance. My good nature, of which I keep a stock, though I do not use it all up in this Budget, prompts me to conceal the name.

I received the following letter, accompanied by a prospectus of a work on metaphysics, physics, astronomy, etc. The author is evidently one whom I should delight to honor:

"Sir,--A friend of mine has mentioned your name in terms of panigeric [_sic_], as being of high standing in mathematics, and of greatly original thought. I send you the enclosed without comment; and, a.s.suming that the bent of your mind is in free inquiry, shall feel a pleasure in showing you my portfolio, which, as a mathematician, you will acknowledge to be deeply interesting, even in an educational point of view. The work is complete, and the system so far perfected as to place it above criticism; and, so far as regards astronomy, as will Ptolemy beyond rivalry [_sic_: no doubt some words omitted]. Believe me to be, Sir, with the profoundest respect, etc.

The work is the result of thirty-five years' travel and observation, labor, expense, and self-abnegation."

I replied to the effect that my time was fully occupied, and that I was obliged to decline discussion with many persons who have views of their own; that the proper way is to publish, so that those who choose may read when they can find leisure. I added that I should advise a precursor in the shape of a small pamphlet, as two octavo volumes {358} would be too much for most persons. This was sound advice; but it is not the first, second, or third time that it has proved very unpalatable. I received the following answer, to which I take the liberty of prefixing a bit of leonine wisdom:

"Si doceas stultum, laetum non dat tibi vultum; Odit te multum; vellet te scire sepultum.[658]"

"Sir,--I pray you pardon the error I unintentionally have fallen into; deceived by the F.R.S. [I am not F.R.S.] I took you to be a man of science [_omnis h.o.m.o est animal, Sortes est h.o.m.o, ergo Sortes est animal_][659]

instead of the mere mathematician, or human calculating-machine. Believe me, Sir, you also have mistaken your mission, as I have mine. I wrote to you as I would to any other man well up in mathematics, with the intent to call your attention to a singular fact of omission by Euclid, and other great mathematicians: and, in selecting you, I did you an honor which, from what I have just now heard, was entirely out of place. I think, considering the nature of the work set forth in the prospectus, you are guilty of both folly and presumption, in a.s.suming the character of a patron; for your own sense ought to have a.s.sured you that was such my object I should not have sought him in a De Morgan, who exists only by patronage of others. On the other hand, I deem it to be an unpardonable piece of presumption in offering your advice upon a subject the magnitude, importance, and real utility of which you know nothing about: by doing so you have offered me a direct insult. The system is a manual of Philosophy, a one inseparable whole of metaphysics and physic; embracing points the most interesting, laws the most important, {359} doctrines the most essential to advance man in accordance with the spirit of the times. I may not live to see it in print; for, at ----, life at best is uncertain: but, live or die, be a.s.sured Sir, it is not my intention to debase the work by seeking patronage, or pandering to the public taste. Your advice was the less needed, seeing I am an old-established ----. I remain, etc.--P.S. You will oblige me by returning the prospectus of my work."

My reader will, I am sure, not take this transition from the "profoundest respect" to the loftiest insolence for an _apoc.r.a.phical_ correspondence, to use a word I find in the Prospectus: on my honor it is genuine. He will be better employed in discovering whether I exist by patronizing others, or by being patronized by them. I make any one who can find it out a fair offer: I will give him my patronage if I turn out to be Bufo, on condition he gives me his, if I turn out to be Bavius.[660] I need hardly say that I considered the last letter to be one of those to which no answer is so good as no answer.

These letters remind me in one respect of the correspondents of the newspapers. My other party wrote because a friend had pointed me out: but he would not have written if he had known what another friend told him just in time for the second letter. The man who sends his complaint to the newspaper very often says, in effect, "Don't imagine, Sir, that I read your columns; but a friend who sometimes does has told me ..." It is worded thus: "My attention {360} has been directed to an article in your paper of ..." Many thanks to my friend's friends for not mentioning the Budget: had my friend's attention been directed to it I might have lost a striking example of the paradoxer in search of a patron. That my Friend was on this scent in the first letter is revealed in the second. Language was given to man to conceal his thoughts; but it is not every one who can do it.

Among the most valuable information which my readers will get from me is comparison of the reactions of paradoxers, when not admitted to argument, or when laughed at. Of course, they are misrepresented; and at this they are angry, or which is the same thing, take great pains to a.s.sure the reader that they are not. So far natural, and so far good; anything short of concession of a case which must be seriously met by counter-reasons is sure to be misrepresentation. My friend Mr. James Smith and my friend Mr.

Reddie are both terribly misrepresented: they resent it by some insinuations in which it is not easy to detect whether I am a conscious smotherer of truth, or only muddle-headed and ignorant. [This was written before I received my last communication from Mr. James Smith. He tells me that I am wrong in saying that his work in which I stand in the pillory is all reprint: I have no doubt I confounded some of it with some of the ma.n.u.script or slips which I had received from my much not-agreed-with correspondent. He adds that my mistake was intentional, and that my reason is obvious to the reader. This _is_ information, as the sea-serpent said when he read in the newspaper that he had a mane and tusks.]

THE DOUBLE VAHU PROCESS.

My friend Dr. Thorn[661] sees deeper into my mystery. By the way, he still sends an occasional touch at the old {361} subject; and he wants me particularly to tell my readers that the Latin numeral letters, if M be left out, give 666. And so they do: witness DCLXVI. A person who thinks of the origin of symbols will soon see that 666 is our number because we have five fingers on each hand: had we had but four, our mystic number would have been expressed by 555, and would have stood for our present 365. Had n been the number on each hand, the great number would have been