Augustus De Morgan

“ 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. ”

“ And I dare say our several professions are far more true in extent than in many which are made under more parliamentary form. We find excuses for each other: they make allowances for my being hoodwinked by Aristotle, by Newton, by the Devil; and I permit them to feel, for I know they cannot get on without it, that their reasons are such as none but a knave or a sinner can resist. ”

“ 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 assault. Demonstrative reason never raises the cry of Church in Danger! and it cannot have any Dictionary of Heresies except a Budget of Paradoxes. ”

“ Our brethren of the literary class have not the least idea of the small amount of appearance of knowledge 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. ”

“ 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 Association fuss; What are theirs to the feats to be wrought by us? Shall the earth stand still? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Reddie informs me that I have not said a single word against his books, though I have given nearly a column to sixteen-string arithmetic, and as much to animalcule universes. What need to say anything to readers of Newton against a book from which I quoted that revolution by gravitation is demonstrably impossible? It would be as useless as evidence against a man who has pleaded guilty. Mr. Reddie derisively thanks me for "small mercies"; he wrote me private letters; he published them, and more, in the Correspondent. ”

“ Reddie demands my attention to a point which had already particularly struck me, as giving the means of showing to all readers the kind of confusion into which paradoxers are apt to fall, in spite of the clearest instruction. It is a very honest blunder, and requires notice: it may otherwise mislead some, who may suppose that no one able to read could be mistaken about so simple a matter, let him be ever so wrong about Newton. According to his own mis-statement, in less than five months he made the Astronomer Royal abandon the theory of the solar motion in space. ”

“ 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. ”

“ ORTHODOX PARADOXERS. And pray, Sir! I have been asked by more than one—do your orthodox never fall into mistake, nor rise into absurdity? They not only do both, but they admit it of each other very freely; individually, they are convinced of sin, but not of any particular sin. There is not a syndoxer among them all but draws his line in such a way as to include among paradoxers a great many whom I should exclude altogether from this work. ”

“ How can one explain Copernically that the velocity of the Moon must be added to the velocity of the Earth on the one place in the Earth's orbit, to learn how far the Moon has advanced from one fixed star to another; but in another place in the orbit these velocities must be subtracted (the movements taking place in opposite directions) to attain the same result? In the Copernican and other systems, it is well known that the Moon, abstracting from the insignificant excentricity of the orbit, always in twenty-four hours performs an equally long distance. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ I think I shall find, on casting up, that two out of five of my paradoxers are not to be utterly condemned. Among the better lot will be found all gradations of merit; at the same time, as was remarked on quite a different subject, there may be little to choose between the last of the saved and the first of the lost. The higher and better class is worthy of blame; the lower and worse class is worthy of praise. The higher men are to be reproved for not taking up things in which they could do some good: the lower men are to be commended for taking up things in which they can do no great harm. ”

“ If Newton had produced enough to match his reception of the story that Nausicaa, Homer's Phæacian princess, invented the celestial sphere, followed by his serious surmise that she got it from the Argonauts,—then Newton himself would have had an appearance entered for him, in spite of the Principia. In illustration, I may cite a few words from Tristram Shandy:
"'A soldier,' cried my uncle Toby, interrupting the Corporal, 'is no more exempt from saying a foolish thing, Trim, than a man of letters.'—'But not so often, an' please your honor,' replied the Corporal. ”

“ James Smith is below the necessity of being told that he is unworthy of answer. His friends complain that I do nothing but chaff him. Absurd! I winnow him; and if nothing but chaff results, whose fault is that? I am usefully employed: for he is the type of a class which ought to be known, and which I have done much to make known.
Nothing came of this until July 1869, when I received a reprint of the above letter, with a comment, described as Appendix D of a work in course of publication on the geometry of the circle. ”

“ I may not live to see it in print; for, at ——, life at best is uncertain: but, live or die, be assured Sir, it is not my intention to debase the work by seeking patronage, or pandering to the public taste. ”

“ The system is a manual of Philosophy, a one inseparable whole of metaphysics and physic; embracing points the most interesting, laws the most important, doctrines the most essential to advance man in accordance with the spirit of the times. ”

“ I answer for you, that We-We of the Athenæum, not being Wa-Wa the wild goose, so conspicuous in "Hiawatha," will leave what controverts itself to print itself, if it please.
Philomath is a good old word, easier to write and speak than mathematician. It wants the words between which I have placed it. They are not well formed: pseudomathete and graphomathete would be better: but they will do. I give an instance of each.
The pseudomath is a person who handles mathematics as the monkey handled the razor. ”

“ There are some persons who feel inclined to think that Mr. Smith should be argued with: let those persons understand that he has been argued with, refuted, and has never attempted to stick a pen into the refutation. ”

“ Should it happen that the investigation ends in doubt upon the sufficiency of the grounds, the investigator is not put in the wrong. He knew beforehand that there was an alternative: and he takes the horn of the alternative indicated by his calculations. The two sides of this case present an instructive contrast. Eight astronomers produce nearly the same result, and yet the last two doubt the sufficiency of their means: compare them with the what's-his-name who rushes in where thing-em-bobs fear to tread. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Does he think that he would get more notice if you were to print him in your journal? Who would study his columns? Not the mathematician, we know; and he knows. Would others? His balls are aimed too wide to be blocked by any one who is near the wicket. He has long ceased to be worth the answer which a new invader may get. ”

“ Reddie challenged answer, especially from the British Association, and got none. He presumes that this is because he is right, and cannot be answered: the Association is willing to risk itself upon the counter-notion that he is wrong, and need not be answered; because so wrong that none who could understand an answer would be likely to want one. ”

“ I received the following answer, to which I take the liberty of prefixing a bit of leonine wisdom:
"Si doceas stultum, lætum 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 homo est animal, Sortes est homo, ergo Sortes est animal] [659] instead of the mere mathematician, or human calculating-machine. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ O Christ, who hatest strife and slayst all things in peace, Destroy where'er are rife, briars, friars, flies and fleas. Fleas, flies, and friars foul fall them these fifteen years For none that there is loveth fleas, flies, nor freres." 668 ↑ "It is my plan to restore to an unskilled race the worthy arts of a better life." ”

“ He appeals to the "truly scientific," and would be glad to have readers who have read what he controverts, i.e., Newton's Principia: I wish he may get them; I mean I hope he may obtain them. To none but these would an account of his speculations be intelligible: I accordingly disposed of him in a very short paragraph of description. Now many paradoxers desire notice, even though it be disparaging. I have letters from more than one—besides what have been sent to the Editor of the Athenæum—complaining that they are not laughed at ”

“ Really the second question is more effective against Newton than against Copernicus; for it upsets gravity: the first is of great depth.
JAMES SMITH WILL NOT DOWN. The Correspondent journal makes a little episode in the history of my Budget (born May, 1865, died April, 1866) . It consisted entirely of letters written by correspondents. In August, a correspondent who signed "Fair Play"—and who I was afterwards told was a lady—thought it would be a good joke to bring in the Cyclometers. ”

“ Airy is, that the whole question of solar motion in space, so far at least as accounting for the proper motion of the stars is concerned, [I have put in italics the words omitted by Mr. Reddie] appears to remain at this moment in doubt and abeyance." Mr. Reddie has forked me, as he thinks, on a dilemma: if unaware, culpable ignorance ”

“ James Smith, and Thau Mr. Reddie: if either be deparadoxed by the treatment, I will consent to undergo it myself. Provided always that the temperature required be not so high as the Doctor hints at: if the Turkish Baths will do for this world, I am content.
The three paradoxers last named and myself have a pentasyllable convention, under which, though we go far beyond civility, we keep within civilization. Though Mr. James Smith pronounced that I must be dishonest if I did not see his argument, which he knew I should not do [to say nothing of recent accusation] ; though Dr. ”

“ Airy had given a sufficient answer on the point. Mr. Reddie says (Correspondent, Jan. 20, 1866) :
"I claim to have forced Professor Airy to give up the notion of 'solar motion in space' altogether, for he admits it to be 'at present in doubt and abeyance.' I first made that claim in a letter addressed to the Astronomer Royal himself in June, 1864, and in replying, very courteously, to other portions of my letter, he did not gainsay that part of it." Mr. ”