A Budget of Paradoxes Volume I Part 19

A PATRIOTIC PARADOX.

Britain independent of commerce; or proofs, deduced from an investigation into the true cause of the wealth of nations, that our riches, prosperity, and power are derived from sources inherent in ourselves, and would not be affected, even though our commerce were annihilated. By Wm. Spence.[522] 4th edition, 1808, 8vo.

A patriotic paradox, being in alleviation of the Commerce panic which the measures of Napoleon I.--who _felt_ our Commerce, while Mr. Spence only _saw_ it--had awakened. In this very month (August, 1866), the Pres. Brit.

a.s.soc. has applied a similar salve to the coal panic; it is fit that science, which rubbed the sore, should find a plaster. We ought to have an iron panic and a timber panic; and {232} a solemn emba.s.sy to the Americans, to beg them not to whittle, would be desirable. There was a gold panic beginning, before the new fields were discovered. For myself, I am the unknown and unpitied victim of a chronic gutta-percha panic: I never could get on without it; to me, gutta percha and Rowland Hill are the great discoveries of our day; and not unconnected either, gutta percha being to the submarine post what Rowland Hill is to the superterrene. I should be sorry to lose cow-choke--I gave up trying to spell it many years ago--but if gutta percha go, I go too. I think, that perhaps when, five hundred years hence, the people say to the Brit. a.s.soc. (if it then exist) "Pray gentlemen, is it not time for the coal to be exhausted?" they will be answered out of Moliere (who will certainly then exist): "_Cela etait autrefois ainsi, mais nous avons change tout cela._"[523] A great many people think that if the coal be used up, it will be announced some unexpected morning by all the yards being shut up and written notice outside, "Coal all gone!" just like the "Please, ma'am, there ain't no more sugar," with which the maid servant damps her mistress just at breakfast-time. But these persons should be informed that there is every reason to think that there will be time, as the city gentleman said, to _venienti_ the _occurrite morbo_.[524]

SOME SCIENTIFIC PARADOXES.

An appeal to the republic of letters in behalf of injured science, from the opinions and proceedings of some modern authors of elements of geometry. By George Douglas.[525] Edinburgh, 1810, 8vo.

Mr. Douglas was the author of a very good set of {233} mathematical tables, and of other works. He criticizes Simson,[526] Playfair,[527] and others,--sometimes, I think, very justly. There is a curious phrase which occurs more than once. When he wants to say that something or other was done before Simson or another was born, he says "before he existed, at least as an author." He seems to reserve the possibility of Simson's _pre-existence_, but at the same time to a.s.sume that he never wrote anything in his previous state. Tell me that Simson pre-existed in any other way than as editor of some pre-existent Euclid? Tell Apella![528]

1810. In this year Jean Wood, Professor of Mathematics in the University of Virginia (Richmond),[529] addressed a printed circular to "Dr. Herschel, Astronomer, Greenwich Observatory." No mistake was more common than the natural one of imagining that the _Private Astronomer_ of the king was the _Astronomer Royal_. The letter was on the {234} difference of velocities of the two sides of the earth, arising from the composition of the rotation and the orbital motion. The _paradox_ is a fair one, and deserving of investigation; but, perhaps it would not be easy to deduce from it tides, trade-winds, aerolithes, &c., as Mr. Wood thought he had done in a work from which he gives an extract, and which he describes as published. The composition of rotations, &c., is not for the world at large: the paradox of the non-rotation of the moon about her axis is an instance. How many persons know that when a wheel rolls on the ground, the lowest point is moving upwards, the highest point forwards, and the intermediate points in all degrees of betwixt and between? This is too short an explanation, with some good difficulties.

The Elements of Geometry. In 2 vols. [By the Rev. J. Dobson,[530] B.D.]

Cambridge, 1815. 4to.

Of this unpunctuating paradoxer I shall give an account in his own way: he would not stop for any one; why should I stop for him? It is worth while to try how unpunctuated sentences will read.

The reverend J Dobson BD late fellow of saint Johns college Cambridge was rector of Brandesburton in Yorkshire he was seventh wrangler in 1798 and died in 1847 he was of that sort of eccentricity which permits account of his private life if we may not rather say that in such cases private life becomes public there is a tradition that he was called Death Dobson on account of his head and aspect of countenance being not very unlike the ordinary pictures of a human skull his mode of life is reported to have been very singular whenever he visited Cambridge he was never known to go twice to the same inn he never would sleep at the rectory with another person in the house some ancient charwoman used to attend to the house but never slept in it he has been known in the time of coach travelling to have {235} deferred his return to Yorkshire on account of his disinclination to travel with a lady in the coach he continued his mathematical studies until his death and till his executors sold the type all his tracts to the number of five were kept in type at the university press none of these tracts had any stops except full stops at the end of paragraphs only neither had they capitals except one at the beginning of a paragraph so that a full stop was generally followed by some white as there is not a single proper name in the whole of the book I have I am not able to say whether he would have used capitals before proper names I have inserted them as usual for which I hope his spirit will forgive me if I be wrong he also published the elements of geometry in two volumes quarto Cambridge 1815 this book had also no stops except when a comma was wanted between letters as in the straight lines AB, BC I should also say that though the t.i.tle is unpunctuated in the author's part it seems the publishers would not stand it in their imprint this imprint is punctuated as usual and Deighton and Sons to prove the completeness of their allegiance have managed that comma semicolon and period shall all appear in it why could they not have contrived interrogation and exclamation this is a good precedent to establish the separate right of the publisher over the imprint it is said that only twenty of the tracts were printed and very few indeed of the book on geometry it is doubtful whether any were sold there is a copy of the geometry in the university library at Cambridge and I have one myself the matter of the geometry differs entirely from Euclid and is so fearfully prolix that I am sure no mortal except the author ever read it the man went on without stops and without stop save for a period at the end of a paragraph this is the unpunctuated account of the unpunctuating geometer _suum cuique tribuito_[531] Mrs Thrale[532] would have been amused {236} at a Dobson who managed to come to a full stop without either of the three warnings.

I do not find any difficulty in reading Dobson's geometry; and I have read more of it to try reading without stops than I should have done had it been printed in the usual way. Those who dip into the middle of my paragraph may be surprised for a moment to see "on account of his disinclination to travel with a lady in the coach he continued his mathematical studies until his death and [further, of course] until his executors sold the type." But a person reading straight through would hardly take it so. I should add that, in order to give a fair trial, I did not compose as I wrote, but copied the words of the correspondent who gave me the facts, so far as they went.

A RELIGIOUS PARADOX.

_Philosophia Sacra, or the principles of natural Philosophy. Extracted from Divine Revelation._ By the Rev. Samuel Pike.[533] Edited by the Rev. Samuel Kittle.[534] Edinburgh, 1815, 8vo.

This is a work of modified Hutchinsonianism, which I have seen cited by several. Though rather dark on the subject, it seems not to contradict the motion of the earth, or the doctrine of gravitation. Mr. Kittle gives a list of some Hutchinsonians,--as Bishop Horne;[535] Dr. Stukeley;[536] the Rev. {237} W. Jones,[537] author of _Physiological Disquisitions_; Mr.

Spearman,[538] author of _Letters on the Septuagint_ and editor of Hutchinson; Mr. Barker,[539] author of _Reflexions on Learning_; Dr.

Catcott,[540] author of a work on the creation, &c.; Dr. Robertson,[541]

author of a _Treatise on the Hebrew Language_; _Dr. Holloway_,[542] author of _Originals, Physical and Theological_; Dr. Walter Hodges,[543] author of a work on _Elohim_; Lord President Forbes (_ob._ 1747).[544]

The Rev. William Jones, above mentioned (1726-1800), the friend and biographer of Bishop Horne and his stout {238} defender, is best known as William Jones of Nayland, who (1757)[545] published the _Catholic Doctrine of the Trinity_; he was also strong for the Hutchinsonian physical trinity of fire, light, and spirit. This well-known work was generally recommended, as the defence of the orthodox system, to those who could not go into the learning of the subject. There is now a work more suited to our time: _The Rock of Ages_, by the Rev. E. H. Bickersteth,[546] now published by the Religious Tract Society, without date, answered by the Rev. Dr.

Sadler,[547] in a work (1859) ent.i.tled _Gloria Patri_, in which, says Mr.

Bickersteth, "the author has not even attempted to grapple with my main propositions." I have read largely on the controversy, and I think I know what this means. Moreover, when I see the note "There are two other pa.s.sages to which Unitarians sometimes refer, but the deduction they draw from them is, in each case, refuted by the context"--I think I see why the two texts are not named. Nevertheless, the author is a little more disposed to yield to criticism than his foregoers; he does not insist on texts and readings which the greatest editors have rejected. And he writes with courtesy, both direct and oblique, towards his antagonists; which, on his side of this subject, is like letting in fresh air. So that I suspect the two books will together make a tolerably good introduction to the subject for those who cannot go deep. Mr. Bickersteth's book is well arranged and indexed, which is a point of superiority to Jones of Nayland. There is a point which I should gravely recommend to writers on the orthodox side. The Unitarians in {239} England have frequently contended that the method of proving the divinity of Jesus Christ from the New Testament would equally prove the divinity of Moses. I have not fallen in the way of any orthodox answers specially directed at the repeated tracts written by Unitarians in proof of their a.s.sertion. If there be any, they should be more known; if there be none, some should be written. Which ever side may be right, the treatment of this point would be indeed coming to close quarters. The heterodox a.s.sertion was first supported, it is said, by John Bidle or Biddle (1615-1662) of Magdalen College, Oxford, the earliest of the English Unitarian writers, previously known by a translation of part of Virgil and part of Juvenal.[548] But I cannot find that he wrote on it.[549] It is the subject of "[Greek: haireseon anastasis], or a new way of deciding old controversies. By Basanistes. Third edition, enlarged," London, 1815, 8vo.[550] It is the appendix to the amusing, "Six more letters to Granville Sharp, Esq., ... By Gregory Blunt, Esq." London, 8vo., 1803.[551] This much I can confidently say, that the study of these tracts would prevent orthodox writers from some curious slips, which are slips obvious to all sides of opinion. The lower defenders of orthodoxy frequently vex the spirits of the higher ones.

Since writing the above I have procured Dr. Sadler's answer. I thought I knew what the challenger meant when he said the respondent had not grappled with his main {240} propositions. I should say that he is clung on to from beginning to end. But perhaps Mr. B. has his own meaning of logical terms, such as "proposition": he certainly has his own meaning of "c.u.mulative." He says his evidence is c.u.mulative; not a catena, the strength of which is in its weakest part, but distinct and independent lines, each of which corroborates the other. This is the very opposite of _c.u.mulative_: it is _distributive_. When different arguments are each necessary to a conclusion, the evidence is _c.u.mulative_; when any one will do, even though they strengthen each other, it is _distributive_. The word "c.u.mulative" is a synonym of the law word "constructive"; a whole which will do made out of parts which separately will not. Lord Strafford [552] opens his defence with the use of both words: "They have invented a kind of _acc.u.mulated_ or _constructive_ evidence; by which many actions, either totally innocent in themselves, or criminal in a much inferior degree, shall, when united, _amount_ to treason." The conclusion is, that Mr. B. is a Cambridge man; the Oxford men do not confuse the elementary terms of logic. O dear old Cambridge! when the New Zealander comes let him find among the relics of your later sons some proof of attention to the elementary laws of thought.

A little-go of logic, please!

Mr. B., though apparently not a Hutchinsonian, has a nibble at a physical Trinity. "If, as we gaze on the sun shining in the firmament, we see any faint adumbration of the doctrine of the Trinity in the fontal orb, the light ever generated, and the heat proceeding from the sun and its beams--threefold and yet one, the sun, its light, and its {241} heat,--that luminous globe, and the radiance ever flowing from it, are both evident to the eye; but the vital warmth is felt, not seen, and is only manifested in the life it transfuses through creation. The proof of its real existence is self-demonstrating."

We shall see how Revilo[553] ill.u.s.trates orthodoxy by mathematics. It was my duty to have found one of the many ill.u.s.trations from physics; but perhaps I should have forgotten it if this instance had not come in my way.

It is very bad physics. The sun, apart from its light, evident to the eye!

Heat more self-demonstrating than light, because _felt_! Heat only manifested by the life it diffuses! Light implied not necessary to life!

But the theology is worse than Sabellianism[554]. To adumbrate--i.e., make a picture of--the orthodox doctrine, the sun must be heavenly body, the light heavenly body, the heat heavenly body; and yet, not three heavenly bodies, but one heavenly body. The truth is, that this ill.u.s.tration and many others most strikingly ill.u.s.trate the Trinity of fundamental doctrine held by the Unitarians, in all its differences from the Trinity of persons held by the Orthodox. Be right which may, the right or wrong of the Unitarians shines out in the comparison. Dr. Sadler confirms me--by which I mean that I wrote the above before I saw what he says--in the following words: "The sun is one object with two _properties_, and these properties have a parallel not in the second and third persons of the Trinity, but in the attributes of Deity."

The letting light alone, as self-evident, and making heat self-demonstrating, because felt--i.e., perceptible now and then--has the character of the Irishman's astronomy:

{242}

"Long life to the moon, for a dear n.o.ble cratur, Which serves us for lamplight all night in the dark, While the sun only shines in the day, which by natur, Wants no light at all, as ye all may remark."

SIR RICHARD PHILLIPS.

_Sir Richard Phillips_[555] (born 1768) was conspicuous in 1793, when he was sentenced to a year's imprisonment[556] for selling Paine's _Rights of Man_; and again when, in 1807[557], he was knighted as Sheriff of London.

As a bookseller, he was able to enforce his opinions in more ways than others. For instance, in James Mitch.e.l.l's[558] _Dictionary of the Mathematical and Physical Sciences_, 1823, 12mo, which, though he was not technically a publisher, was printed for him--a book I should recommend to the collector of works of reference--there is a temperate description of his doctrines, which one may almost swear was one of his conditions previous to undertaking the work. Phillips himself was not only an anti-Newtonian, but carried to a fearful excess the notion that statesmen and Newtonians were in league to deceive the world. He saw this plot in Mrs. Airy's[559] pension, and in Mrs. Somerville's[560]. In 1836, he {243} did me the honor to attempt my conversion. In his first letter he says:

"Sir Richard Phillips has an inveterate abhorrence of all the pretended wisdom of philosophy derived from the monks and doctors of the middle ages, and not less of those of higher name who merely sought to make the monkish philosophy more plausible, or so to disguise it as to mystify the mob of small thinkers."

So little did his writings show any knowledge of antiquity, that I strongly suspect, if required to name one of the monkish doctors, he would have answered--Aristotle. These schoolmen, and the "philosophical trinity of gravitating force, projectile force, and void s.p.a.ce," were the bogies of his life.

I think he began to publish speculations in the _Monthly Magazine_ (of which he was editor) in July 1817: these he republished separately in 1818.

In the Preface, perhaps judging the feelings of others by his own, he says that he "fully expects to be vilified, reviled, and anathematized, for many years to come." Poor man! he was let alone. He appeals with confidence to the "impartial decision of posterity"; but posterity does not appoint a hearing for one per cent. of the appeals which are made; and it is much to be feared that an article in such a work of reference as this will furnish nearly all her materials fifty years hence. The following, addressed to M.

Arago,[561] in 1835, will give posterity as good a notion as she will probably need:

"Even the present year has afforded EVER-MEMORABLE examples, paralleled only by that of the Romish Conclave which persecuted Galileo. Policy has adopted that maxim of Machiavel which teaches that it is _more prudent_ to _reward_ {244} partisans than to _persecute_ opponents. Hence, a bigotted party had influence enough with the late short-lived administration [I think he is wrong as to the administration] of Wellington, Peel, &c., to confer munificent royal pensions on three writers whose sole distinction was their advocacy of the Newtonian philosophy. A Cambridge professor last year published an elaborate volume in ill.u.s.tration of _Gravitation_, and on him has been conferred a pension of 300l. per annum. A lady has written a light popular view of the Newtonian Dogmas, and she has been complimented by a pension of 200l. per annum. And another writer, who has recently published a volume to prove that the only true philosophy is that of Moses, has been endowed with a pension of 200l. per annum. Neither of them were needy persons, and the political and ecclesiastical bearing of the whole was indicated by another pension of 300l. bestowed on a political writer, the advocate of all abuses and prejudices. Whether the conduct of the Romish Conclave was more base for visiting with legal penalties the promulgation of the doctrines that the Earth turns on its axis and revolves around the Sun; or that of the British Court, for its craft in conferring pensions on the opponents of the plain corollary, that all the motions of the Earth are 'part and parcel' of these great motions, and those again and all like them consecutive displays of still greater motions in equality of action and reaction, is A QUESTION which must be reserved for the casuists of other generations.... I cannot expect that on a sudden you and your friends will come to my conclusion, that the present philosophy of the Schools and Universities of Europe, based on faith in witchcraft, magic, &c., is a system of execrable nonsense, _by which quacks live on the faith of fools_; but I desire a free and fair examination of my Aphorisms, and if a few are admitted to be true, merely as courteous concessions to arithmetic, my purpose will be effected, for men will thus be led to think; and if they think, then the fabric {245} of false a.s.sumptions, and degrading superst.i.tions will soon tumble in ruins."

This for posterity. For the present time I ground the fame of Sir R.

Phillips on his having squared the circle without knowing it, or intending to do it. In the _Protest_ presently noted he discovered that "the force taken as 1 is equal to the sum of all its fractions ... thus 1 = 1/4 + 1/9 + 1/16 + 1/25, &c., carried to infinity." This the mathematician instantly sees is equivalent to the theorem that the circ.u.mference of any circle is double of the diagonal of the cube on its diameter.[562]

I have examined the following works of Sir R. Phillips, and heard of many others:

Essays on the proximate mechanical causes of the general phenomena of the Universe, 1818, 12mo.[563]

Protest against the prevailing principles of natural philosophy, with the development of a common sense system (no date, 8vo, pp. 16).[564]

Four dialogues between an Oxford Tutor and a disciple of the common-sense philosophy, relative to the proximate causes of material phenomena. 8vo, 1824.

A century of original aphorisms on the proximate causes of the phenomena of nature, 1835, 12mo.

Sir Richard Phillips had four valuable qualities; honesty, zeal, ability, and courage. He applied them all to teaching {246} matters about which he knew nothing; and gained himself an uncomfortable life and a ridiculous memory.

Astronomy made plain; or only way the true perpendicular distance of the Sun, Moon, or Stars, from this earth, can be obtained. By Wm.

Wood.[565] Chatham, 1819, 12mo.

If this theory be true, it will follow, of course, that this earth is the only one G.o.d made, and that it does not whirl round the sun, but _vice versa_, the sun round it.