A Budget of Paradoxes Volume I Part 15

An inquiry into the cause of motion, or a general theory of physics. By S. Miller. London, 1781, 4to

Newton all wrong: matter consists of two kinds of particles, one inert, the other elastic and capable of expanding themselves _ad infinitum_.

SAINT-MARTIN ON ERRORS AND TRUTH.

Des Erreurs et de la Verite, ou les hommes rappeles au principe universel de la science; ouvrage dans lequel, en faisant remarquer aux observateurs l'incert.i.tude de leurs recherches, et leurs meprises continuelles, on leur indique la route qu'ils auroient du suivre, pour acquerir l'evidence physique sur l'origine du bien et du mal, sur l'homme, sur la nature materielle, et la nature sacree; sur la base des gouvernements {168} politiques, sur l'autorite des souverains, sur la justice civile et criminelle, sur les sciences, les langues, et les arts. Par un Ph.... Inc.... A Edimbourg. 1782.[369] Two vols. 8vo.

This is the famous work of Louis Claude de Saint-Martin[370] (1743-1803), for whose other works, vagaries included, the reader must look elsewhere: among other things, he was a translator of Jacob Behmen.[371] The t.i.tle promises much, and the writer has smart thoughts now and then; but the whole is the wearisome omniscience of the author's day and country, which no reader of our time can tolerate. Not that we dislike omniscience; but we have it of our own country, both home-made and imported; and fashions vary.

But surely there can be but one omniscience? Must a man have but one wife?

Nay, may not a man have a new wife while the old one is living? There was a famous instrumental professor forty years ago, who presented a friend to Madame ----. The friend started, and looked surprised; for, not many weeks before, he had been presented to another lady, with the same t.i.tle, at Paris. The musician observed his surprise, and quietly said, "Celle-ci est Madame ---- de Londres." In like manner we have a London omniscience now current, which would make any one start who only knew the old French article.

The book was printed at Lyons, but it was a trick of French authors to pretend to be afraid of prosecution: it {169} made a book look wicked-like to have a feigned place of printing, and stimulated readers. A Government which had undergone Voltaire would never have drawn its sword upon quiet Saint-Martin. To make himself look still worse, he was only ph[ilosophe]

Inc...., which is generally read _Inconnu_[372] but sometimes _Incredule_; [373] most likely the ambiguity was intended. There is an awful paradox about the book, which explains, in part, its leaden sameness. It is all about _l'homme_, _l'homme_, _l'homme_,[374] except as much as treats of _les hommes_, _les hommes_, _les hommes_;[375] but not one single man is mentioned by name in its 500 pages. It reminds one of

"Water, water everywhere, And not a drop to drink."

Not one opinion of any other man is referred to, in the way of agreement or of opposition. Not even a town is mentioned: there is nothing which brings a capital letter into the middle of a sentence, except, by the rarest accident, such a personification as _Justice_. A likely book to want an _Edimbourg_ G.o.dfather!

Saint-Martin is great in mathematics. The number _four_ essentially belongs to straight lines, and _nine_ to curves. The object of a straight line is to perpetuate _ad infinitum_ the production of a point from which it emanates. A circle [circle] bounds the production of all its radii, tends to destroy them, and is in some sort their enemy. How is it possible that things so distinct should not be distinguished in their _number_ as well as in their action? If this important observation had been made earlier, immense trouble would have been saved to the mathematicians, who would have been prevented from searching for a common measure to lines which have nothing in common. But, though all straight lines have the number _four_, it must not be supposed that they are all equal, for a line is the result of its law and {170} its number; but though both are the same for all lines of a sort, they act differently, as to force, energy, and duration, in different individuals; which explains all differences of length, etc. I congratulate the reader who understands this; and I do not pity the one who does not.

Saint-Martin and his works are now as completely forgotten as if they had never been born, except so far as this, that some one may take up one of the works as of heretical character, and lay it down in disappointment, with the reflection that it is as dull as orthodoxy. For a person who was once in some vogue, it would be difficult to pick out a more fossil writer, from Aa to Zypoeus, except,--though it is unusual for (,--) to represent an interval of more than a year--his unknown opponent. This opponent, in the very year of the _Des Erreurs_ ... published a book in two parts with the same fict.i.tious place of printing;

Tableau Naturel des Rapports qui existent entre Dieu, l'Homme, et l'Univers. A Edimbourg, 1782, 8vo.[376]

There is a motto from the _Des Erreurs_ itself, "Expliquer les choses par l'homme, et non l'homme par les choses. _Des Erreurs et de la Verite_, par un PH.... INC...., p. 9."[377] This work is set down in various catalogues and biographies as written by the PH.... INC.... himself. But it is not usual for a writer to publish two works in the same year, one of which takes a motto from the other. And the second work is profuse in capitals and italics, and uses Hebrew learning: its style differs much from the first work. The first work sets out from man, and has nothing to do with G.o.d: the second is religious and raps the knuckles of the first as follows: "Si nous voulons nous preserver de toutes {171} les illusions, et surtout des amorces de l'orgueil par lesquelles l'homme est si souvent seduit, ne prenons jamais les hommes, mais toujours _Dieu_ pour notre terme de comparaison."[378] The first uses _four_ and _nine_ in various ways, of which I have quoted one: the second says, "Et ici se trouve deja une explication des nombres _quatre_ et _neuf_, qui ont peu embarra.s.se dans l'ouvrage deja cite. L'homme s'est egare en allant de _quatre_ a _neuf_...."[379] The work cited is the _Erreurs_, etc., and the citation is in the motto, which is the text of the opposition sermon.

A FORERUNNER OF THE METRIC SYSTEM.

Method to discover the difference of the earth's diameters; proving its true ratio to be not less variable than as 45 is to 46, and shortest in its pole's axis 174 miles.... likewise a method for fixing an universal standard for weights and measures. By Thomas Williams.[380] London, 1788, 8vo.

Mr. Williams was a paradoxer in his day, and proposed what was, no doubt, laughed at by some. He proposed the sort of plan which the French--independently of course--carried into effect a few years after. He would have the 52d degree of lat.i.tude divided into 100,000 parts and each part a geographical yard. The geographical ton was to be the cube of a geographical yard filled with sea-water taken some leagues from land. All multiples and sub-divisions were to be decimal.

I was beginning to look up those who had made similar proposals, when a learned article on the proposal of a {172} metrical system came under my eye in the _Times_ of Sept. 15, 1863. The author cites Mouton,[381] who would have the minute of a degree divided into 10,000 _virgulae_; James Ca.s.sini,[382] whose foot was to be six thousandths of a minute; and Paucton,[383] whose foot was the 400,000th of a degree. I have verified the first and third statements; surely the second ought to be the _six-thousandth_.

An inquiry into the Copernican system ... wherein it is proved, in the clearest manner, that the earth has only her diurnal motion ... with an attempt to point out the only true way whereby mankind can receive any real benefit from the study of the heavenly bodies. By John Cunningham.[384] London, 1789, 8vo.

The "true way" appears to be the treatment of heaven and earth as emblematical of the Trinity.

Cosmology. An inquiry into the cause of what is called gravitation or attraction, in which the motions of the heavenly bodies, and the preservation and operations of all nature, are deduced from an universal principle of efflux and reflux. By T. Vivian,[385] vicar of Cornwood, Devon. Bath, 1792, 12mo.

{173}

Attraction, an influx of matter to the sun; centrifugal force, the solar rays; cohesion, the pressure of the atmosphere. The confusion about centrifugal _force_, so called, as demanding an external agent, is very common.

THOMAS PAINE'S RIGHTS OF MAN.

The rights of MAN, being an answer to Mr. Burke's attack on the French Revolution.[386] By Thomas Paine.[387] In two parts. 1791-1792. 8vo.

(Various editions.)[388]

A vindication of the rights of WOMAN, with strictures on political and moral subjects. By Mary Wollstonecraft.[389] 1792. 8vo.

A sketch of the rights of BOYS and GIRLS. By Launcelot Light, of Westminster School; and Laet.i.tia Lookabout, of Queen's Square, Bloomsbury. [By the Rev. Samuel Parr,[390] LL.D.] 1792. 8vo. (pp.64).

When did we three meet before? The first work has sunk into oblivion: had it merited its t.i.tle, it might have {174} lived. It is what the French call a _piece de circonstance_; it belongs in time to the French Revolution, and in matter to Burke's opinion of that movement. Those who only know its name think it was really an attempt to write a philosophical treatise on what we now call socialism. Silly government prosecutions gave it what it never could have got for itself.

Mary Wollstonecraft seldom has her name spelled right. I suppose the O! O!

character she got made her W_oo_lstonecraft. Watt gives double insinuation, for his cross-reference sends us to G_oo_dwin.[391] No doubt the t.i.tle of the book was an act of discipleship to Paine's _Rights of Man_; but this t.i.tle is very badly chosen. The book was marred by it, especially when the auth.o.r.ess and her husband a.s.sumed the right of dispensing with legal sanction until the approach of offspring brought them to a sense of their child's interest.[392] Not a hint of such a claim is found in the book, which is mostly about female education. The right claimed for woman is to have the education of a rational human being, and not to be considered as nothing but woman throughout youthful training. The maxims of Mary Wollstonecraft are now, though not derived from her, largely followed in the education of girls, especially in home education: just as many of the political principles of Tom Paine, again not derived from him, are the guides of our actual legislation. I remember, forty years ago, an old lady used to declare that she disliked girls from the age of sixteen to five-and-twenty. "They are full," said she, "of _femalities_." She spoke of their behavior to women as well as to men. She {175} would have been shocked to know that she was a follower of Mary Wollstonecraft, and had packed half her book into one sentence.

The third work is a satirical attack on Mary Wollstonecraft and Tom Paine.

The details of the attack would convince any one that neither has anything which would now excite reprobation. It is utterly unworthy of Dr. Parr, and has quite disappeared from lists of his works, if it were ever there. That it was written by him I take to be evident, as follows. Nichols,[393] who could not fail to know, says (_Anecd._, vol. ix, p. 120): "This is a playful essay by a first-rate scholar, who is elsewhere noticed in this volume, but whose name I shall not bring forward on so trifling an occasion." Who the scholar was is made obvious by Master Launcelot being made to talk of b.e.l.l.e.n.denus.[394] Further, the same boy is made to say, "Let Dr. Parr lay his hand upon his heart, if his conscience will let him, and ask himself how many thousands of wagon-loads of this article [birch]

he has cruelly misapplied." How could this apply to Parr, with his handful of private pupils,[395] and no reputation for severity? Any one except himself would have called on the head-master of Westminster or Eton. I doubt whether the name of Parr could be connected with the rod by anything in print, except the above and an anecdote of his pupil, Tom Sheridan.[396]

The Doctor had dressed for a dinner visit, and {176} was ready a quarter of an hour too soon to set off. "Tom," said he, "I think I had better whip you now; you are sure to do something while I am out."--"I wish you would, sir!" said the boy; "it would be a letter of licence for the whole evening." The Doctor saw the force of the retort: my two tutelaries will see it by this time. They paid in advance; and I have given liberal interpretation to the order.

The following story of Dr. Parr was told me and others, about 1829, by the late Leonard Horner,[397] who knew him intimately. Parr was staying in a house full of company, I think in the north of England. Some gentlemen from America were among the guests, and after dinner they disputed some of Parr's a.s.sertions or arguments. So the Doctor broke out with "Do you know what country you come from? You come from the place to which we used to send our thieves!" This made the host angry, and he gave Parr such a severe rebuke as sent him from the room in ill-humor. The rest walked on the lawn, amusing the Americans with sketches of the Doctor. There was a dark cloud overhead, and from that cloud presently came a voice which called _Tham_ (Parr-lisp for _Sam_). The company were astonished for a moment, but thought the Doctor was calling his servant in the house, and that the apparent direction was an illusion arising out of inattention. But presently the sound was repeated, certainly from the cloud,

"And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before."

There was now a little alarm: where could the Doctor have got to? They ran to his bedroom, and there they discovered a sufficient rather than satisfactory explanation. The Doctor had taken his pipe into his bedroom, and had seated himself, in sulky mood, upon the higher bar of a large and deep old-fashioned grate with a high mantelshelf. Here he had {177} tumbled backwards, and doubled himself up between the bars and the back of the grate. He was fixed tight, and when he called for help, he could only throw his voice up the chimney. The echo from the cloud was the warning which brought his friends to the rescue.

ATTACKS ON RELIGIOUS CUSTOMS.

Days of political paradox were coming, at which we now stare. Cobbett[398]

said, about 1830, in earnest, that in the country every man who did not take off his hat to the clergyman was suspected, and ran a fair chance of having something brought against him. I heard this a.s.sertion canva.s.sed, when it was made, in a party of elderly persons. The Radicals backed it, the old Tories rather denied it, but in a way which satisfied me they ought to have denied it less if they could not deny it more. But it must be said that the Governments stopped far short of what their partisans would have had them do. All who know Robert Robinson's[399] very quiet a.s.sault on church-made festivals in his _History and Mystery of Good Friday_ (1777)[400] will hear or remember with surprise that the _British Critic_ p.r.o.nounced it a direct, unprovoked, and malicious libel on the most {178} sacred inst.i.tutions of the national Church. It was reprinted again and again: in 1811 it was in a cheap form at 6s. 6d. a hundred. When the Jacobin day came, the State was really in a fright: people thought twice before they published what would now be quite disregarded. I examined a quant.i.ty of letters addressed to George Dyer[401] (Charles Lamb's G.D.) and what between the autographs of Thelwall, Hardy, Horne Tooke, and all the rebels,[402] put together a packet which produced five guineas, or thereabouts, for the widow. Among them were the following verses, sent by the author--who would not put his name, even in a private letter, for fear of accidents--for consultation whether they could safely be sent to an editor: and they were _not_ sent. The occasion was the public thanksgiving at St. Paul's for the naval victories, December 19, 1797.

"G.o.d bless me! what a thing!

Have you heard that the King Goes to St. Paul's?

{179} Good Lord! and when he's there, He'll roll his eyes in prayer, To make poor Johnny stare At this fine thing.

"No doubt the plan is wise To blind poor Johnny's eyes By this grand show; For should he once suppose That he's led by the nose, Down the whole fabric goes, Church, lords, and king.

"As he shouts Duncan's[403] praise, Mind how supplies they'll raise In wondrous haste.

For while upon the sea We gain one victory, John still a dupe will be And taxes pay.

"Till from his little store Three-fourths or even more Goes to the Crown.

Ah, John! you little think How fast we downward sink And touch the fatal brink At which we're slaves."

I would have indicted the author for not making his thirds and sevenths rhyme. As to the rhythm, it is not much better than what the French sang in the Calais theater when the Duke of Clarence[404] took over Louis XVIII in 1814.