A Budget of Paradoxes Volume I Part 41

[250] This was William Hone (1780-1842), a book publisher, who wrote satires against the government, and who was tried three times because of his parodies on the catechism, creed, and litany (ill.u.s.trated by Cruikshank). He was acquitted on all of the charges.

[251] Valentinus was a Benedictine monk and was still living at Erfurt in 1413. His _Currus triumphalis antimonii_ appeared in 1624. Synesius was Bishop of Ptolemaide, who died about 430. His works were printed at Paris in 1605. Theodor Kirckring (1640-1693) was a fellow-student of Spinoza's.

Besides the commentary on Valentine he left several works on anatomy. His commentary appeared at Amsterdam in 1671. There were several editions of the _Chariot_.

[252] The chief difficulty with this curious "monk-bane" etymology is its absurdity. The real origin of the word has given etymologists a good deal of trouble.

[253] Robert Boyle (1627-1691), son of "the Great Earl" (of Cork). Perhaps his best-known discovery is the law concerning the volume of gases.

[254] The real name of Eirenaeus Philalethes (born in 1622) is unknown. It may have been Childe. He claimed to have discovered the philosopher's stone in 1645. His tract in this work is _The Secret of the Immortal Liquor Alkahest or Ignis-Aqua_. See note 260, _infra_.

[255] Johann Baptist van Helmont, Herr von Merode, Royenborg etc.

(1577-1644). His chemical discoveries appeared in his _Ortus medicinae_ (1648), which went through many editions.

[256] De Morgan should have written up Francis Anthony (1550-1623), whose _Panacea aurea sive tractatus duo de auro potabili_ (Hamburg, 1619) described a panacea that he gave for every ill. He was repeatedly imprisoned for practicing medicine without a license from the Royal College of Physicians.

[257] Bernardus Trevisa.n.u.s (1406-1490), who traveled even through Barbary, Egypt, Palestine, and Persia in search of the philosopher's stone. He wrote several works on alchemy,--_De Chemica_ (1567), _De Chemico Miraculo_ (1583), _Traite de la nature de l'oeuf des philosophes_ (1659), etc., all published long after his death.

[258] George Ripley (1415-1490) was an Augustinian monk, later a chamberlain of Innocent VIII, and still later a Carmelite monk. His _Liber de mercuris philosophico_ and other tracts first appeared in _Opuscula quaedam chymica_ (Frankfort, 1614).

[259] Besides the _Opus majus_, and other of the better known works of this celebrated Franciscan (1214-1294), there are numerous tracts on alchemy that appeared in the _Thesaurus chymicus_ (Frankfort, 1603).

[260] George Starkey (1606-1665 or 1666) has special interest for American readers. He seems to have been born in the Bermudas and to have obtained the bachelor's degree in England. He then went to America and in 1646 obtained the master's degree at Harvard, apparently under the name of Stirk. He met Eirenaeus Philalethes (see note 254 above) in America and learned alchemy from him. Returning to England, he sold quack medicines there, and died in 1666 from the plague after dissecting a patient who had died of the disease. Among his works was the _Liquor Alcahest, or a Discourse of that Immortal Dissolvent of Paracelsus and Helmont_, which appeared (1675) some nine years after his death.

[261] Platt (1552-1611) was the son of a London brewer. Although he left a ma.n.u.script on alchemy, and wrote a book ent.i.tled _Delights for Ladies to adorne their Persons_ (1607), he was knighted for some serious work on the chemistry of agriculture, fertilizing, brewing, and the preserving of foods, published in _The Jewell House of Art and Nature_ (1594).

[262] "Those who wish to call a man a liar and deceiver speak of him a writer of almanacs; but those who (would call him) a scoundrel and an imposter (speak of him as) a chemist."

[263] "Trust your barque to the winds but not your body to a chemist; any breeze is safer than the faith of a chemist."

[264] Probably the Jesuit, Pere Claude Francois Menestrier (1631-1705), a well known historian.

[265] The author was Christopher Nesse (1621-1705), a belligerent Calvinist, who wrote many controversial works and succeeded in getting excommunicated four times. One of his most virulent works was _A Protestant Antidote against the Poison of Popery_.

[266] John Case (c. 1660-1700) was a famous astrologer and physician. He succeeded to Lilly's practice in London. In a darkened room, wherein he kept an array of mystical apparatus, he pretended to show the credulous the ghosts of their departed relatives. Besides his astrological works he wrote one serious treatise, the _Compendium Anatomic.u.m nova methodo inst.i.tutum_ (1695), in which he defends Harvey's theories of embryology.

[267] Marcelis (1636-after 1714) was a soap maker of Amsterdam. It is to be hoped that he made better soap than values of [pi].

[268] John Craig (died in 1731) was a Scotchman, but most of his life was spent at Cambridge reading and writing on mathematics. He endeavored to introduce the Leibnitz differential calculus into England. His mathematical works include the _Methodus Figurarum ... Quadraturas determinandi_ (1685), _Tractatus ... de Figurarum Curvilinearum Quadraturis et locis Geometricis_ (1693), and _De Calculo Fluentium libri duo_ (1718).

[269] As is well known, this subject owes much to the Bernoullis. Craig's works on the calculus brought him into controversy with them. He also wrote on other subjects in which they were interested, as in his memoir _On the Curve of the quickest descent_ (1700), _On the Solid of least resistance_ (1700), and the _Solution of Bernoulli's problem on Curves_ (1704).

[270] This is Samuel Lee (1783-1852), the young prodigy in languages. He was apprenticed to a carpenter at twelve and learned Greek while working at the trade. Before he was twenty-five he knew Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, Samaritan, Persian, and Hindustani. He later became Regius professor of Hebrew at Cambridge.

[271] "Where the devil, Master Ludovico, did you pick up such a collection?"

[272] Lord William Brounker (c. 1620-1684), the first president of the Royal Society, is best known in mathematics for his contributions to continued fractions.

[273] Horace Walpole (1717-1797) published his _Catalogue of the Royal and n.o.ble Authors of England_ in 1758. Since his time a number of worthy names in the domain of science in general and of mathematics in particular might be added from the peerage of England.

[274] It was written by Charles Hayes (1678-1760), a mathematician and scholar of no mean attainments. He travelled extensively, and was deputy governor of the Royal African Company. His _Treatise on Fluxions_ (London, 1704) was the first work in English to explain Newton's calculus. He wrote a work ent.i.tled _The Moon_ (1723) to prove that our satellite shines by its own as well as by reflected light. His _Chronographia Asiatica & Aegyptica_ (1758) gives the results of his travels.

[275] _Publick_ in the original.

[276] Whiston (1667-1752) succeeded Newton as Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge. In 1710 he turned Arian and was expelled from the university. His work on _Primitive Christianity_ appeared the following year. He wrote many works on astronomy and religion.

[277] Ditton (1675-1715) was, on Newton's recommendation, made Head of the mathematical school at Christ's Hospital, London. He wrote a work on fluxions (1706). His idea for finding longitude at sea was to place stations in the Atlantic to fire off bombs at regular intervals, the time between the sound and the flash giving the distance. He also corresponded with Huyghens concerning the use of chronometers for the purpose.

[278] This was John Arbuthnot (c. 1658-1735), the mathematician, physician and wit. He was intimate with Pope and Swift, and was Royal physician to Queen Anne. Besides various satires he published a translation of Huyghens's work on probabilities (1692) and a well-known treatise on ancient coins, weights, and measures (1727).

[279] Greene (1678-1730) was a very eccentric individual and was generally ridiculed by his contemporaries. In his will he directed that his body be dissected and his skeleton hung in the library of King's College, Cambridge. Unfortunately for his fame, this wish was never carried out.

[280] This was the historian, Robert Sanderson (1660-1741), who spent most of his life at Cambridge.

[281] I presume this was William Jones (1675-1749) the friend of Newton and Halley, vice-president of the Royal Society, in whose _Synopsis Palmariorum Matheseos_ (1706) the symbol [pi] is first used for the circle ratio.

[282] This was the _Geometrica solidorum, sive materiae, seu de varia compositione, progressione, rationeque velocitatum_, Cambridge, 1712. The work was parodied in _A Taste of Philosophical Fanaticism ... by a gentleman of the University of Gratz_.

[283] The antiquary and scientist (1690-1754), president of the Royal Society, member of the Academie, friend of Newton, and authority on numismatics.

[284] She was Catherine Barton, Newton's step-niece. She married John Conduitt, master of the mint, who collected materials for a life of Newton.

_A propos_ of Mrs. Conduitt's life of her ill.u.s.trious uncle, Sir George Greenhill tells a very good story on Poincare, the well-known French mathematician. At an address given by the latter at the International Congress of Mathematicians held in Rome in 1908 he spoke of the story of Newton and the apple as a mere fable. After the address Sir George asked him why he had done so, saying that the story was first published by Voltaire, who had heard it from Newton's niece, Mrs. Conduitt. Poincare looked blank and said, "Newton, et la niece de Newton, et Voltaire,--non!

je ne vous comprends pas!" He had thought Sir George meant Professor Volterra of Rome, whose name in French is Voltaire, and who could not possibly have known a niece of Newton without bridging a century or so.

[285] This was the Edmund Turnor (1755-1829) who wrote the _Collections for the Town and Soke of Grantham, containing authentic Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton, from Lord Portsmouth's Ma.n.u.scripts_, London, 1806.

[286] It may be recalled to mind that Sir David (1781-1868) wrote a life of Newton (1855).

[287] "They are in the country. We rejoice."

[288] "I am here, chatterbox, suck!"

[289] "I have been graduated! I decline!"

[290] Giovanni Castiglioni (Castillon, Castiglione), was born at Castiglione, in Tuscany, in 1708, and died at Berlin in 1791. He was professor of mathematics at Utrecht and at Berlin. He wrote on De Moivre's equations (1762), Cardan's rule (1783), and Euclid's treatment of parallels (1788-89).

[291] This was the _Isaaci Newtoni, equitis aurati, opuscula mathematica, philosophica et philologica_, Lausannae & Genevae, 1744.

[292] At London, 4to.

[293] "All the English attribute it to Newton."

[294] Stephen Peter Rigaud (1774-1839), Savilian professor of geometry at Oxford (1810-27) and later professor of astronomy and head of the Radcliffe Observatory. He wrote _An historical Essay on first publication of Sir Isaac Newton's Principia_, Oxford, 1838, and a two-volume work ent.i.tled _Correspondence of Scientific Men of the 17th Century_, 1841.

[295] It is no longer considered by scholars as the work of Newton.

[296] J. Edleston, the author of the _Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes_, London, 1850.

[297] Palmer (1601-1647) was Master of Queen's College, Cambridge, a Puritan but not a separatist. His work, _The Characters of a believing Christian, in Paradoxes and seeming contradictions_, appeared in 1645.