A Budget of Paradoxes Volume I Part 10

In the advertis.e.m.e.nts at the ends of these tracts there are upwards of a hundred English tracts, nearly all of the period, and most of them translations. Alchemy looks up since the chemists have found perfectly different substances composed of the same elements and proportions. It is true the chemists cannot yet _trans.m.u.te_; but they may in time: they poke about most a.s.siduously. It seems, then, that the conviction that alchemy _must_ be impossible was a delusion: but we do not mention it.

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The astrologers and the alchemists caught it in company in the following, of which I have an unreferenced note.

"Mendacem et futilem hominem nominare qui volunt, calendariographum dic.u.n.t; at qui sceleratum simul ac impostorem, chimic.u.m.[262]

"Crede ratem ventis corpus ne crede chimistis; Est quaevis chimica tutior aura fide."[263]

Among the smaller paradoxes of the day is that of the _Times_ newspaper, which always spells it _chymistry_: but so, I believe, do Johnson, Walker, and others. The Arabic work is very likely formed from the Greek: but it may be connected either with [Greek: chemeia] or with [Greek: chumeia].

Lettre d'un gentil-homme de province a une dame de qualite, sur le sujet de la Comete. Paris, 1681, 4to.

An opponent of astrology, whom I strongly suspect to have been one of the members of the Academy of Sciences under the name of a country gentleman,[264] writes very good sense on the tremors excited by comets.

The Pet.i.tioning-Comet: or a brief Chronology of all the famous Comets and their events, that have happened from the birth of Christ to this very day. Together with a modest enquiry into this present comet, London, 1681, 4to.

A satirical tract against the cometic prophecy:

"This present comet (it's true) is of a menacing aspect, but if the _new parliament_ (for whose convention so many good men pray) continue long to sit, I fear not but the star will lose its virulence and malignancy, or at least its portent be averted from this our nation; which being the humble request to G.o.d of all good men, makes me thus ent.i.tle it, a Pet.i.tioning-Comet."

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The following anecdote is new to me:

"Queen Elizabeth (1558) being then at Richmond, and being disswaded from looking on a comet which did then appear, made answer, _jacta est alea_, the dice are thrown; thereby intimating that the pre-order'd providence of G.o.d was above the influence of any star or comet."

The argument was worth nothing: for the comet might have been _on the dice_ with the event; the astrologers said no more, at least the more rational ones, who were about half of the whole.

An astrological and theological discourse upon this present great conjunction (the like whereof hath not (likely) been in some ages) ushered in by a great comet. London, 1682, 4to. By C. N.[265]

The author foretells the approaching "sabbatical jubilee," but will not fix the date: he recounts the failures of his predecessors.

A judgment of the comet which became first generally visible to us in Dublin, December 13, about 15 minutes before 5 in the evening, A.D.

1680. By a person of quality. Dublin, 1682, 4to.

The author argues against cometic astrology with great ability.

A prophecy on the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in this present year 1682. With some prophetical predictions of what is likely to ensue therefrom in the year 1684. By John Case, Student in physic and astrology.[266] London, 1682, 4to.

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According to this writer, great conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn occur "in the fiery trigon," about once in 800 years. Of these there are to be seven: six happened in the several times of Enoch, Noah, Moses, Solomon, Christ, Charlemagne. The seventh, which is to happen at "the lamb's marriage with the bride," seems to be that of 1682; but this is only vaguely hinted.

De Quadrature van de Circkel. By Jacob Marcelis. Amsterdam, 1698, 4to.

Ampliatie en demonstratie wegens de Quadrature ... By Jacob Marcelis.

Amsterdam, 1699, 4to.

Eenvoudig vertoog briev-wys geschrevem am J. Marcelis ... Amsterdam, 1702, 4to.

De sleutel en openinge van de quadrature ... Amsterdam, 1704, 4to.

Who shall contradict Jacob Marcelis?[267] He says the circ.u.mference contains the diameter exactly times

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But he does not come very near, as the young arithmetician will find.

MATHEMATICAL THEOLOGY.

Theologiae Christianae Principia Mathematica. Auctore Johanne Craig.[268]

London, 1699, 4to.

This is a celebrated speculation, and has been reprinted abroad, and seriously answered. Craig is known in the early history of fluxions, and was a good mathematician. {130} He professed to calculate, on the hypothesis that the suspicions against historical evidence increase with the square of the time, how long it will take the evidence of Christianity to die out. He finds, by formulae, that had it been oral only, it would have gone out A.D. 800; but, by aid of the written evidence, it will last till A.D. 3150. At this period he places the second coming, which is deferred until the extinction of evidence, on the authority of the question "When the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?" It is a pity that Craig's theory was not adopted: it would have spared a hundred treatises on the end of the world, founded on no better knowledge than his, and many of them falsified by the event. The most recent (October, 1863) is a tract in proof of Louis Napoleon being Antichrist, the Beast, the eighth Head, etc.; and the present dispensation is to close soon after 1864.

In order rightly to judge Craig, who added speculations on the variations of pleasure and pain treated as functions of time, it is necessary to remember that in Newton's day the idea of force, as a quant.i.ty to be measured, and as following a law of variation, was very new: so likewise was that of probability, or belief, as an object of measurement.[269] The success of the _Principia_ of Newton put it into many heads to speculate about applying notions of quant.i.ty to other things not then brought under measurement. Craig imitated Newton's t.i.tle, and evidently thought he was making a step in advance: but it is not every one who can plough with Samson's heifer.

It is likely enough that Craig took a hint, directly or indirectly, from Mohammedan writers, who make a reply to the argument that the Koran has not the evidence derived {131} from miracles. They say that, as evidence of Christian miracles is daily becoming weaker, a time must at last arrive when it will fail of affording a.s.surance that they were miracles at all: whence would arise the necessity of another prophet and other miracles.

Lee,[270] the Cambridge Orientalist, from whom the above words are taken, almost certainly never heard of Craig or his theory.

THE ARISTOCRAT AS A SCIENTIST.

Copernicans of all sorts convicted ... to which is added a Treatise of the Magnet. By the Hon. Edw. Howard, of Berks. London, 1705, 8vo.

Not all the blood of all the Howards will gain respect for a writer who maintains that eclipses admit no possible explanation under the Copernican hypothesis, and who asks how a man can "go 200 yards to any place if the moving superficies of the earth does carry it from him?" Horace Walpole, at the beginning of his _Royal and n.o.ble Authors_, has mottoed his book with the Cardinal's address to Ariosto, "Dove diavolo, Messer Ludovico, avete pigliato tante coglionerie?"[271] Walter Scott says you could hardly pick out, on any principle of selection--except badness itself, he means of course--the same number of plebeian authors whose works are so bad. But his implied satire on aristocratic writing forgets two points. First, during a large period of our history, when persons of rank condescended to write, they veiled themselves under "a person of honor," "a person of quality,"

and the like, when not wholly undescribed. Not one of these has Walpole got; he omits, {132} for instance, Lord Brounker's[272] translation of Descartes on Music. Secondly, Walpole only takes the heads of houses: this cuts both ways; he equally eliminates the Hon. Robert Boyle and the precious Edward Howard. The last writer is hardly out of the time in which aristocracy suppressed its names; the avowal was then usually meant to make the author's greatness useful to the book. In our day, literary peers and honorables are very favorably known, and contain an eminent cla.s.s.[273]

They rough it like others, and if such a specimen as Edw. Howard were now to appear, he would be greeted with

"Hereditary noodle! knowest thou not Who would be wise, himself must make him so?"