A Budget of Paradoxes Volume II Part 2

"1849 July 3."

"July 7th, 1849.

"Sir, I have been given to understand that a friend of mine one whom I shall never be ashamed to acknowledge as {18} such tho' lowly his origine; nay not only not ashamed but proud of doing so for I am one of those who esteem and respect a man according to his ability and probity, deeming with Dr. Watts 'that the mind is the standard of the man,'[40] has laid before you and asked your opinion of his extraordinary performance, viz. the quadrature of the circle, he did this with the firmest belief that you would not only treat the matter in a straightforward manner but with the conviction that from your known or supposed knowledge of mathematicks would have given an upright and honorable decision upon the subject; but the question is have you done so? Could I say yes I would with the greatest of pleasure and have congratulated you upon your decision whatever it might have been but I am sorry to say that I cannot your letter is a paltry evasion, you say 'that it is a great pity that you (Mr. ----) should have attempted this (the quadrature of the circle) for your mathematical knowledge is not sufficient to make you know in what the problem consists,'

you don't say in what it does consist _according to your ideas_, oh! no nothing of the sort, you enter into no disquisition upon the subject in order to show where you think Mr. ---- is wrong and why you have not is simply--_because you cannot_--you know that he has done it and what is if I am not wrongly informed _you have been heard to say so_. He has done what you nor any other mathematician as those who call themselves such have done. And what is the reason that you will not candidly acknowledge to him as you have to others that he has squared the circle shall I tell you? it is because he has performed the feat to obtain the glory of which mathematicians have battled from time immemorial that they might encircle their brows with a wreath of laurels far more glorious than ever conqueror won it is simply this that it is a poor man a {19} humble artisan who has gained that victory that you don't like to acknowledge it you don't like to be beaten and worse to acknowledge that you have miscalculated, you have in short too small a soul to acknowledge that he is right.

"I was asked my opinion and _I_ gave it unhesitatingly in the affirmative and I am backed in my opinion not only by Mr. ---- a mathematician and watchmaker residing in the boro of Southwark but by no less an authority than the Professor of mathematics of ---- College ---- ---- United States Mr. ---- and I presume that he at least is your equal as an authority and Mr. ---- says that the government of the U.S. will recompense M. D. for the discovery he has made if so what a reflection upon Old england the boasted land of freedom the nursery of arts and sciences that her sons are obliged to go to a foreign country to obtain that recompense to which they are justly ent.i.tled

"In conclusion I had to contradict an a.s.sertion you made to the effect that 'there is not nor ever was any reward offered by the government of this country for the discovery of the quadrature of the circle.' I beg to inform you that there _was_ but that it having been deemed an impossibility the government has withdrawn it. I do this upon no less an authority than the Marquis of Northampton.[41]

"I am, sir, yours ----"

"Dr. Morgan."

THE MOON'S ROTATION.

Notes on the Kinematic Effects of Revolution and Rotation, with reference to the Motions of the Moon and of the earth. By Henry Perigal, Jun. Esq. London, 1846-1849, 8vo.

On the misuse of technical terms. Ambiguity of the terms _Rotation_ and _Revolution_, owing to the double meaning improperly {20} attributed to each of the words. (No date nor place, but by Mr. Perigal,[42] I have no doubt, and containing letters of 1849 and 1850.)

The moon controversy. Facts _v._ Definitions. By H. P., Jun. London, 1856, 8vo. (pp. 4.)

Mr. Henry Perigal helped me twenty years ago with the diagrams, direct from the lathe to the wood, for the article "Trochoidal Curves," in the _Penny Cyclopaedia_: these cuts add very greatly to the value of the article, which, indeed, could not have been made intelligible without them. He has had many years' experience, as an amateur turner, in combination of double and triple circular motions, and has published valuable diagrams in profusion. A person to whom the double circular motion is familiar in the lathe naturally looks upon one circle moving upon another as in _simple_ motion, if the second circle be fixed to the revolving radius, so that one and the same point of the moving circle travels upon the fixed circle. Mr.

Perigal commenced his attack upon the moon for moving about her axis, in the first of the tracts above, ten years before Mr. Jellinger Symons;[43]

but he did not think it necessary to make it a subject for the _Times_ newspaper. His familiarity with combined motions enabled him to handle his arguments much better than Mr. J. Symons could do: in fact, he is the clearest a.s.sailant of the lot which turned out with Mr. J. Symons. But he is as wrong as the rest. The a.s.sault is now, I suppose, abandoned, until it becomes epidemic again. This it will do: it is one of those fallacies which are very tempting. There was a dispute on the subject in 1748, between James Ferguson[44] and an anonymous opponent; and I think there have been others.

{21}

A poet appears in the field (July 19, 1863) who calls himself Cyclops, and writes four octavo pages. He makes a distinction between _rotation_ and _revolution_; and his doctrines and phrases are so like those of Mr.

Perigal that he is a follower at least. One of his arguments has so often been used that it is worth while to cite it:

"Would Mathematicals--forsooth-- If true, have failed to prove its truth?

Would not they--if they could--submit Some overwhelming proofs of it?

But still it totters _proofless_! Hence There's strong presumptive evidence None do--or can--such proof profound Because _the dogma is unsound_.

For, were there means of doing so, They would have proved it long ago."

This is only one of the alternatives. Proof requires a person who can give and a person who can receive. I feel inspired to add the following:

"A blind man said, As to the Sun, I'll take my Bible oath there's none; For if there had been one to show They would have shown it long ago.

How came he such a goose to be?

Did he not know he couldn't see?

Not he!"

The absurdity of the verses is in the argument. The writer was not so ignorant or so dishonest as to affirm that nothing had been offered by the other side as proof; accordingly, his syllogism amounts to this: If your proposition were true, you could have given proof satisfactory to _me_; but this you have not done, therefore, your proposition is not true.

The echoes of the moon-controversy reached Benares in 1857, in which year was there published a pamphlet "Does the Moon Rotate?" in Sanskrit and English. The {22} arguments are much the same as those of the discussion at home.

ON THE NAMES OF RELIGIOUS BODIES.

We see that there are paradoxers in argument as well as in a.s.sertion of fact: my plan does not bring me much into contact with these; but another instance may be useful. Sects, whether religious or political, give themselves names which, in meaning, are claimed also by their opponents; loyal, liberal, conservative (of good), etc. have been severally appropriated by parties. _Whig_ and _Tory_ are un.o.bjectionable names: the first--which occurs in English ballad as well as in Scotland--is sour milk;[45] the second is a robber. In theology, the Greek Church is _Orthodox_, the Roman is _Catholic_, the modern Puritan is _Evangelical_, etc.

The word _Christian_ (Vol. I, p. 248[46]) is an instance. When words begin, they carry their meanings. The Jews, who had their Messiah to come, and the followers of Jesus of Nazareth, who took _Him_ for their Messiah, were both _Christians_ (which means _Messianites_): the Jews would never have invented the term to signify _Jesuans_, nor would the disciples have invented such an ambiguous term for themselves; had they done so, the Jews would have disputed it, as they would have done in later times if they had had fair play. The Jews of our day, I see by their newspapers, speak of Jesus Christ as the _Rabbi Joshua_. But the {23} heathens, who knew little or nothing about the Jewish hope, would naturally apply the term _Christians_ to the only followers of a _Messiah_ of whom they had heard.

For the _Jesuans_ invaded them in a missionary way; while the Jews did not attempt, at least openly, to make proselytes.

All such words as Catholic, etc., are well enough as mere nomenclature; and the world falls for the most part, into any names which parties choose to give themselves. Silly people found inferences on this concession; and, as usually happens, they can cite some of their betters. St. Augustine,[47] a freakish arguer, or, to put it in the way of an old writer, _lectorem ne multiloquii taedio fastidiat, Punicis quibusdam argutiis recreare solet_,[48] asks, with triumph, to what chapel a stranger would be directed, if he inquired the way to the _Catholic a.s.sembly_. But the best exhibition of this kind in our own century is that made by the excellent Dr. John Milner,[49] in a work (first published in 1801 or 1802) which I suppose still circulates, "The End of Religious Controversy": a startling t.i.tle which, so far as its truth is concerned, might as well have been "The floor of the bottomless pit." This writer, whom every one of his readers will swear to have been a worthy soul, though many, even of his own sect, will not admire some of his logic, speaks as follows:

"Letter xxv. _On the true Church being Catholic._ In treating of this third mark of the true Church, as expressed in our common creed, I feel my spirits sink within me, and I am almost tempted to throw away my pen in despair. For what chance is there of opening the eyes of candid Protestants to the other marks of the Church, if they are capable of keeping them shut to this? Every time they address the {24} G.o.d of Truth, either in solemn worship or in private devotion [stretch of rhetoric], they are forced, each of them, to repeat: _I believe in_ THE CATHOLIC _Church_, and yet if I ask any of them the question: _Are you a_ CATHOLIC? he is sure to answer me, _No, I am a_ PROTESTANT! Was there ever a more glaring instance of inconsistency and self-condemnation among rational beings!"

"John Milner, honest and true, Did what honest people still may do, If they write for the many and not for the few, But what by and bye they must eschew."

He _shortened his clause_; and for a reason. If he had used the whole epithet which he knew so well, any one might have given his argument a half-turn. Had he written, as he ought, "the _Holy_ Catholic Church" and then argued as above, some sly Protestant would have parodied him with "and yet if I ask any of them the question: _Are you_ HOLY? he is sure to answer me _No, I am a_ SINNER." To take the adjective from the Church, and apply it to the individual partisan, is recognized slipslop, but not ground of argument. If Dr. M. had asked his Protestant whether he belonged to the Catholic _Church_, the answer would have been Yes, but not to the Roman branch. When he put his question as he did, he was rightly answered and in his own division. This leaving out words is a common practice, especially when the omitter is in authority, and cannot be exposed. A year or two ago a bishop wrote a snubbing letter to a poor parson, who had complained that he was obliged, in burial, to send the worst of sinners to everlasting happiness. The bishop sternly said, "_hope_[50] is not _a.s.surance_." {25} Could the clergyman have dared to answer, he would have said, "No, my Lord!

but '_sure and certain_ hope' is as like a.s.surance as a _minikin_ man is like a dwarf." Sad to say, a theologian must be illogical: I feel sure that if you took the clearest headed writer on logic that ever lived, and made a bishop of him, he would be shamed by his own books in a twelvemonth.

Milner's sophism is glaring: but why should Dr. Milner be wiser than St.

Augustine, one of his teachers? I am tempted to let out the true derivation of the word _Catholic, as exclusively applied to the Church of Rome_. All can find it who have access to the _Rituale_ of Bonaventura Piscator[51]

(lib. i. c. 12, _de nomine Sacrae Ecclesiae_, p. 87 of the Venice {26} folio of 1537). I am told that there is a _Rituale_ in the Index Expurgatorius, but I have not thought it worth while to examine whether this be the one: I am rather inclined to think, as I have heard elsewhere, that the book was held too dangerous for the faithful to know of it, even by a prohibition: it would not surprise me at all if Roman Christians should deny its existence.[52]

It amuses me to give, at a great distance of time, a small Rowland for a small Oliver,[53] which I received, _de par l'Eglise_,[54] so far as lay in the Oliver-carrier more than twenty years ago. The following contribution of mine to _Notes and Queries_ (3d Ser. vi. p. 175, Aug. 27, 1864) will explain what I say. There had been a complaint that a contributor had used the term _Papist_, which a very excellent dignitary of the Papal system p.r.o.nounced an offensive term:

PAPIST.

The term _papist_ should be stripped of all except its etymological meaning, and applied to those who give the higher and final authority to the declaration _ex cathedra_[55] of the Pope. See Dr. Wiseman's[56]

article, _Catholic Church_, in the _Penny Cyclopaedia_.

What is one to do about these names? First, it is clear that offence should, when possible, be avoided: secondly, no one must be required to give a name which favors _any_ a.s.sumption made by those to whom it is given, and not {27} granted by those who give it. Thus the subdivision which calls itself distinctly _Evangelical_ has no right to expect others to concede the t.i.tle. Now the word _Catholic_, of course, falls under this rule; and even _Roman Catholic_ may be refused to those who would restrict the word _Catholic_ to themselves. _Roman Christian_ is un.o.bjectionable, since the Roman Church does not deny the name of Christian to those whom she calls heretics. No one is bound in this matter by Acts of Parliament.

In many cases, no doubt, names which have offensive a.s.sociation are used merely by habit, sometimes by hereditary transmission. Boswell records of Johnson that he always used the words "dissenting teacher," refusing _minister_ and _clergyman_ to all but the recipients of episcopal ordination.

This distinctive phrase has been widely adopted: it occurs in the Index of 3d S. iv. [_Notes and Queries_]. Here we find "Platts (Rev. John), Unitarian teacher, 412;" the article indexed has "Unitarian minister."

This, of course is habit: an intentional refusal of the word _minister_ would never occur in an index. I remember that, when I first read about Sam Johnson's little bit of exclusiveness, I said to myself: "Teacher? Teacher?

surely I remember One who is often called _teacher_, but never _minister_ or _clergyman_: have not the dissenters got the best of it?"

When I said that the Roman Church concedes the epithet Christians to Protestants, I did not mean that all its adherents do the same. There is, or was, a Roman newspaper, the _Tablet_, which, seven or eight years ago, was one of the most virulent of the party journals. In it I read, referring to some complaint of grievance about mixed marriages, that if _Christians_ would marry _Protestants_ they must take the consequences. My memory notes this well; because I recollected, when I saw it, that there was in the stable a horse fit to run in the curricle with this one. About seventeen years ago an Oxford M. A., who hated {28} mathematics like a genuine Oxonian of the last century, was writing on education, and was compelled to give some countenance to the nasty subject. He got out cleverly; for he gave as his reason for the permission, that man is an arithmetical, geometrical, and mechanical _animal_, as well as a rational _soul_.

The _Tablet_ was founded by an old pupil of mine, Mr. Frederic Lucas,[57]

who availed himself of his knowledge of me to write some severe articles--even abusive, I was told, but I never saw them--against me, for contributing to the _Dublin Review_, and poking my heretic nose into orthodox places. Dr. Wiseman, the editor, came in for his share, and ought to have got all. Who ever blamed the pig for intruding himself into the cabin when the door was left open? When Mr. Lucas was my pupil, he was of the Society of Friends--in any article but this I should say _Quaker_--and was quiet and gentlemanly, as members of that Church--in any article but this I should, from mere habit, say _sect_--usually are. This is due to his memory; for, by all I heard, when he changed his religion he ceased to be Lucas couchant, and became Lucas rampant, fanged and langued gules. (I looked into Guillim[58] to see if my terms were right: I could not find them; but to prove I have been there, I notice that he calls a violin a _violent_. How comes the word to take this form?) I met with several Roman Christians, born and bred, who were very much annoyed at Mr. Lucas and his doings; and said some severe things about new converts needing kicking-straps.

{29}

The mention of Dr. Wiseman reminds me of another word, appropriated by Christians to themselves: _fides_;[59] the Roman faith is _fides_, and nothing else; and the adherents are _fideles_.[60] Hereby hangs a retort.

When Dr. Wiseman was first in England, he gave a course of lectures in defence of his creed, which were thought very convincing by those who were already convinced. They determined to give him a medal, and there was a very serious discussion about the legend. Dr. Wiseman told me himself that he had answered to his subscribers that he would not have the medal at all unless--(naming some Italian authority, whom I forget) approved of the legend. At last _pro fide vindicata_[61] was chosen: this may be read either in a Popish or heretical sense. The feminine substantive _fides_ means confidence, trust, (it is made to mean _belief_), but _fidis_, with the same ablative, _fide_, and also feminine, is a _fiddle-string_.[62] If a Latin writer had had to make a legend signifying "For the defence of the fiddle-string," he could not have done it otherwise, in the terseness of a legend, than by writing _pro fide vindicata_. Accordingly, when a Roman Christian talks to you of the _faith_, as a thing which is his and not yours, you may say _fiddle_. I have searched Bonaventura Piscator in vain for notice of this ambiguity. But the Greeks said fiddle; according to Suidas,[63] [Greek: skindapsos][64]--a word meaning a four stringed instrument played with a quill--was an exclamation of contemptuous dissent.