Augustus De Morgan

“ This gentleman was in no way to blame, but those who imagined that a sale catalogue would serve the purposes of literature: if the Museum library were to be sold off, his evidence would be valuable; but the librarians of the Museum must not be employed, as he proposed. For these gentlemen have no idea, with a volume of six tracts before them, of entering the title of the first, followed by "and five others:" moreover, they waste time in writing down names of authors in their nominative case, when the books before them give genitives; and in other ways. ”

“ From the preface of a Latin edition of Wallis's Algebra, it appears that this practice of advancing title-pages was common in the year 1685. The truth is, that the year alone is not now definite enough: every title-page should bear the month of publication, as well as the year. It would also be of much advantage, if there were an understood place, as at the end of the preface, where the author should mark the last date at which any matter was added to the work, not including the verbal alterations which take place in correcting the press. ”

“ To all of whom we have hitherto been speaking, a correct description of books is most essential: and by half of them, at least, old books, such as we have been examining, are frequently consulted. On the other hand, the library is frequented by many who only acquire the books of most easy description, and by many who come but for books of amusement. ”

“ It is difficult to overrate what this national library has done, and is doing, for the cause of accuracy. And though a certain writer who describes himself, by implication, as of delicate intellect, sneers at the manufacture of the stuff called useful knowledge, which is carried on at the Museum, yet all whose understandings deserve a sounder title will see how much better that indispensable manufacture must go on, with such a library at command of the workman. This workman, fifty years ago, could obtain nothing but what his publisher could lend him [18] in nine cases out of ten. ”

“ Mais la fraude ne pense pas à tout: tandis que le titre falsifie annonçait une èdition de Plaisance, la dernière page révélait une èdition de Venise . . . . . De tels faits ne se discutent pas, ils s'exposent." The supposition that a practiced bibliographer, desiring to falsify the place of printing, would forget that it is almost always at the end in very old books, is more amusing to those who are looking at the last pages of such books every day, than those who do not look into them can easily imagine. Their proverb ought to have been, la fraude ne pense à rien. ”

“ The maker of a catalogue would be compelled to raise the doubt of a second edition, or of a title-page with a new date, unless he happened to know that Maurolycus died in 1575. We now learn the meaning of demum: the work had been waiting for the arithmetic, which the author could not or would not finish, and his death at last enabled the publisher to obtain the manuscript, and complete the undertaking. This view of the case is enforced by our finding the arithmetic wholly destitute of preface or introduction, and with some gaps in the manuscript. ”

“ It is known that there were among the ancients some who maintained the diurnal motion of the earth, and some who maintained the annual, at least as possible; Ptolemy alludes to them, and gives his reasons against them. Down to the time of Copernicus, we are not told of any (except Cardinal Cusa, (10) who is not worth alluding to on this point) who really thought anew on the subject, so as to produce fresh arguments either for or against. Nevertheless, it appears, though we cannot find it mentioned by any historian, that Regiomontanus had seriously considered the subject. ”

“ The second of our four instances is the Cosmographia of the celebrated Maurolycus, 4to. Venice, 1543, the year of publication of the great work of Copernicus. At the end it is stated that this work was finished in 1535, and the preface is dated 1540. It is in dialogue; and the teacher says (p. 12) that nothing more need be said about the earth, unless diversity of opinion and human fickleness should so far increase, that there should be ground to suspect some one of believing and maintaining that the earth turns on its axis. ”

“ In this way we have the two unprinted works of Werner, as already mentioned, incorporated by Weidler with the printed ones.
We have noticed, as an introduction, and by way of amusement, the manner in which the French experts, as they are called, made the bibliographer forge a title at the beginning of an old book, by way of altering the edition, forgetting the description at the end. Those who have experience in books, even of a very moderate extent, know that they must always look at the end ”

“ Why not, rejoins the teacher, many teach themselves greater absurdities; but be this as [9] it may, to remove all possibility of such opposition, I will demonstrate that the earth cannot move. If all this were first published in 1543, in spite of the date of the preface, we should reasonably presume that the intention of Copernicus had reached the ear of Maurolycus, and had given rise to the introduction, at the last moment, perhaps, of what precedes. ”

“ Nor do we see any hope of their final disappearance, as to books yet to be published; unless indeed an increased taste for bibliography should direct opinion against the following practices.
First, new titles are frequently printed, with new dates, sometimes with, and sometimes without, the words second edition. Sometimes the words revised and augmented are added without any change whatever in the book. An author may thus lose his priority of discovery, of adaptation, or of introduction. A printer may thus lose his character as an artist ”

“ In the last instance, it happens that the mistake can be traced to its source in a manner which leaves no doubt that it is a mistake. But the unpracticed reader must not come to such a conclusion too rapidly. If Lalande had not named his authority, as often happens with him, we should have had three alternatives to consider. 1. A mere mistake. 2. The circumstance of his having happened [8] to fall in with a book in which someone had bound together some astronomical tracts of Werner with a copy of Regiomontanus's epistle. 3. ”

“ It often happens that the author has no knowledge of what has been done: the edition may pass from the hands of the original publisher into those of another, with whom the author has nothing to do. Sometimes the alteration is made by the original publisher. (17)
Secondly, a title sometimes undergoes alteration which, whether by intention or carelessness, gives an account very different from the truth. We have before us a book, in which the genuine title describes it as containing matter from 1700 to 1846, mostly German ”

“ And further, foreigners should take notice that English writers are well able to pay in kind any confusion made among the writings of Newton. In proof of this, we have, since the preceding sentences were written, fallen in with a recent work in which Kahle is placed under suspicion of having, under the name of Kayle, answered Voltaire by plagiarizing an answer written by Kable seventeen years before Voltaire wrote.
[19] If we ourselves should have fallen into any mistakes, they will serve our purpose, as helping to prove the truth of our title. ”

“ Any thing imaginable may have taken place in one or more instances; and it happens sometimes that the unlikely thing, stated by a writer who is frequently inaccurate, turns out to be the truth, in spite of the more probable account of a generally more accuarte writer. ”

“ We need not add more examples; we content ourselves with the production of enough to show those who have only seen the popular view of the the controversy, that there is a case on the other side which it is easy to support by instances. ”

“ A preface, dated in February 1540, of a work published in 1543, gives some presumption, not a very great one, of a previous edition in 1540 or 1541; rather too much (8) to neglect, though far from enough to pronounce upon. Lalande, relying again upon Weidler, affirms that this work of Maurolycus was first printed in 1540; and Weidler makes the statement both [10] in his History and in his Bibliography. And, what is more, Riccioli (in 1651) makes the same assertion. ”

“ Super vigintiduobus elementis conicis . . ." [7] lt is said that this book was so rare in the time of Tycho Brahé, that he could not find it in all Germany, though he secured a copy at last in Italy. The two last treatises being astronomical, we turn to Lalande's 'Bibliographie Astronomique,' and we find at the right year, 1522, that this book consists of the two astronomical treatises, followed by an epistle of Regiomontanus to Cardinal Bessarion on the meteoroscope {instead of preceded by four geometrical treatises of Werner himself] . ”

“ Payne and Foss in London; he was condemned for stealing books which it was beyond the power of the French courts to identify, or even to describe correctly." All this we know to be true, with the exception of what is implied in the word even: correct description is no such every day matter. ”

“ If no one of these four volumes had given us either error produced, or difficulty likely to produce it in time to come, our associations would have been rudely invaded; for we have been accustomed to consider it almost impossible to take two old books at hazard without encountering one or the other. It happened that all the four gave us what we wanted to illustrate.
The first book was a collection of four geometrical and two astronomical treatises by John Werner of Nuremberg, quarto, 1522, beginning "In hoc opere haec continentur. ”

“ In the year 1850, appeared the act of accusation against M. Libri, (1) [1] an emi- [6] nent mathematican and bibliographer, and a member of the Institute, charged with robbing the public libraries to the value of many thousand pounds ”