A Budget of Paradoxes Volume II Part 7

"That is, we should venture to say, a very beautiful result, and we may say it yielded us no little astonishment. What our calculation might lead to we never dreamt of; that it should educe a conclusion so recondite that our una.s.sisted power never could have attained to, and which, if we could have conjectured it, would have been at best the most distant probability, that conclusion being itself, as it would appear, the quintessence of truth, afforded us a measure of satisfaction that was not slight."

That the writings of Mr. Boole and myself "go to the full justification of"

this "principle," is only true in the sense in which the Scotch use, or did use, the word _justification_.

A TRIBUTE TO BOOLE.

[The last number of this Budget had stood in type for months, waiting until there should be a little cessation of correspondence more connected with the things of the day. {80} I had quite forgotten what it was to contain; and little thought, when I read the proof, that my allusions to my friend Mr. Boole, then in life and health, would not be printed till many weeks after his death. Had I remembered what my last number contained, I should have added my expression of regret and admiration to the numerous obituary testimonials, which this great loss to science has called forth.

The system of logic alluded to in the last number of this series is but one of many proofs of genius and patience combined. I might legitimately have entered it among my _paradoxes_, or things counter to general opinion: but it is a paradox which, like that of Copernicus, excited admiration from its first appearance. That the symbolic processes of algebra, invented as tools of numerical calculation, should be competent to express every act of thought, and to furnish the grammar and dictionary of an all-containing system of logic, would not have been believed until it was proved. When Hobbes,[166] in the time of the Commonwealth, published his _Computation or Logique_, he had a remote glimpse of some of the points which are placed in the light of day by Mr. Boole. The unity of the forms of thought in all the applications of reason, however remotely separated, will one day be matter of notoriety and common wonder: and Boole's name will be remembered in connection with one of the most important steps towards the attainment of this knowledge.]

DECIMALS RUN RIOT.

The Decimal System as a whole. By Dover Statter.[167] London and Liverpool, 1856, 8vo.

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The proposition is to make everything decimal. The day, now 24 hours, is to be made 10 hours. The year is to have ten months, Unusber, Duober, etc.

Fortunately there are ten commandments, so there will be neither addition to, nor deduction from, the moral law. But the twelve apostles! Even rejecting Judas, there is a whole apostle of difficulty. These points the author does not touch.

ON PHONETIC SPELLING.

The first book of Phonetic Reading. London, Fred. Pitman,[168] Phonetic Depot, 20, Paternoster Row, 1856, 12mo.

The Phonetic Journal. Devoted to the propagation of phonetic reading, phonetic longhand, phonetic shorthand, and phonetic printing. No. 46.

Sat.u.r.day, 15 November 1856. Vol. 15.

I write the t.i.tles of a couple out of several tracts which I have by me.

But the number of publications issued by the promoters of this spirited attempt is very large indeed.[169] The attempt itself has had no success with the ma.s.s of the public. This I do not regret. Had the world found that the change was useful, I should have gone contentedly with the stream; but not without regretting our old language. I admit the difficulties which our unp.r.o.nounceable spelling puts in the way of learning to read: and I have no doubt that, as affirmed, it is easier to teach children phonetically, and afterwards to introduce them to our common system, than to proceed in the usual way. But by the usual way I mean proceeding by letters from the very beginning. If, which I am sure is a better plan, children be taught at the commencement very much by _complete words_, as if they were learning Chinese, and be gradually accustomed to {82} resolve the known words into letters, a fraction, perhaps a considerable one, of the advantage of the phonetic system is destroyed. It must be remembered that a phonetic system can only be an approximation. The differences of p.r.o.nunciation existing among educated persons are so great, that, on the phonetic system, different persons ought to spell differently.

But the phonetic party have produced something which will immortalize their plan: I mean their _shorthand_, which has had a fraction of the success it deserves. All who know anything of shorthand must see that nothing but a phonetic system can be worthy of the name: and the system promulgated is skilfully done. Were I a young man I should apply myself to it systematically. I believe this is the only system in which books were ever published. I wish some one would contribute to a public journal a brief account of the dates and circ.u.mstances of the phonetic movement, not forgetting a list of the books published in shorthand.

A child beginning to read by himself may owe terrible dreams and waking images of horror to our spelling, as I did when six years old. In one of the common poetry-books there is an admonition against confining little birds in cages, and the child is asked what if a great giant, amazingly strong, were to take you away, shut you up,

And feed you with vic-tu-als you ne-ver could bear.

The book was hyphened for the beginner's use; and I had not the least idea that _vic-tu-als_ were _vittles_: by the sound of the word I judged they must be of iron; and it entered into my soul.

The worst of the phonetic shorthand book is that they nowhere, so far as I have seen, give _all_ the symbols, in every stage of advancement, together, in one or following pages. It is symbols and talk, more symbols and more talk, etc. A universal view of the signs ought to begin the works. {83}

A HANDFUL OF LITTLE PARADOXERS.

Ombrological Almanac. Seventeenth year. An essay on Anemology and Ombrology. By Peter Legh,[170] Esq. London, 1856, 12mo.

Mr. Legh, already mentioned, was an intelligent country gentleman, and a legitimate speculator. But the clue was not reserved for him.

The proof that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles looked for in the inflation of the circle. By Gen. Perronet Thompson. London, 1856, 8vo. (pp. 4.)

Another attempt, the third, at this old difficulty, which cannot be put into few words of explanation.[171]

Comets considered as volcanoes, and the cause of their velocity and other phenomena thereby explained. London (_circa_ 1856), 8vo.

The t.i.tle explains the book better than the book explains the t.i.tle.

1856. A stranger applied to me to know what the ideas of a friend of his were worth upon the magnitude of the earth. The matter being one involving points of antiquity, I mentioned various persons whose speculations he seemed to have ignored; among others, Thales. The reply was, "I am instructed by the author to inform you that he is perfectly acquainted with the works of Thales, Euclid, Archimedes, ..." I had some thought of asking whether he had used the Elzevir edition of Thales,[172] which is known to be very incomplete, or that of Professor Niemand with the lections, Nirgend, 1824, 2 vols. folio; just to see whether the {84} last would not have been the very edition he had read. But I refrained, in mercy.

The moon is the image of the Earth, and is not a solid body. By T^{he} Longitude.[173] (Private Circulation.) In five parts. London, 1856, 1857, 1857; Calcutta, 1858, 1858, 8vo.

The earth is "brought to a focus"; it describes a "looped orbit round the sun." The eclipse of the sun is thus explained: "At the time of eclipses, the image is more or less so directly before or behind the earth that, in the case of new moon, bright rays of the sun fall and bear upon the spot where the figure of the earth is brought to a focus, that is, bear upon the image of the earth, when a darkness beyond is produced reaching to the earth, and the sun becomes more or less eclipsed." How the earth is "brought to a focus" we do not find stated. Writers of this kind always have the argument that some things which have been ridiculed at first have been finally established. Those who put into the lottery had the same kind of argument; but were always answered by being reminded how many blanks there were to one prize. I am loath to p.r.o.nounce against anything: but it does force itself upon me that the author of these tracts has drawn a blank.

LUNAR MOTION AGAIN.

_Times_, April 6 or 7, 1856. The moon has no rotary motion.

A letter from Mr. Jellinger Symons,[174] inspector of schools, which commenced a controversy of many letters and pamphlets. This dispute comes on at intervals, and will continue to do so. It sometimes arises from inability to understand the character of simple rotation, geometrically; sometimes from not understanding the mechanical doctrine of rotation.

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Lunar Motion. The whole argument stated, and ill.u.s.trated by diagrams; with letters from the Astronomer Royal. By Jellinger C. Symons. London, 1856, 8vo.

The Astronomer Royal endeavored to disentangle Mr. J. C. Symons, but failed. Mr. Airy[175] can correct the error of a ship's compa.s.ses, because he can put her head which way he pleases: but this he cannot do with a speculator.

Mr. Symons, in this tract, insinuated that the rotation of the moon is one of the silver shrines of the craftsmen. To see a thing so clearly as to be satisfied that all who say they do not see it are telling wilful falsehood, is the nature of man. Many of all sects find much comfort in it, when they think of the others; many unbelievers solace themselves with it against believers; priests of old time founded the right of persecution upon it, and of our time, in some cases, the right of slander: many of the paradoxers make it an argument against students of science. But I must say for men of science, for the whole body, that they are fully persuaded of the honesty of the paradoxers. The simple truth is, that all those I have mentioned, believers, unbelievers, priests, paradoxers, are not so sure they are right in their points of difference that they can safely allow themselves to be persuaded of the honesty of opponents. Those who know demonstration are differently situated. I suspect a train might be laid for the formation of a better habit in this way. We know that Suvaroff[176]

taught his Russians at Ismail not to fear the Turks by accustoming them to charge bundles of f.a.ggots dressed in turbans, etc.

At which your wise men sneered in phrases witty, He made no answer--but he took the city!

Would it not be a good thing to exercise boys, in pairs, in the following dialogue:--Sir, you are quite wrong!--Sir, {86} I am sure you honestly think so! This was suggested by what used to take place at Cambridge in my day. By statute, every B.A. was obliged to perform a certain number of disputations, and the _father_ of the college had to affirm that it had been done. Some were performed in earnest: the rest were huddled over as follows. Two candidates occupied the places of the respondent and the opponent: _Recte statuit Newtonus_, said the respondent: _Recte non statuit Newtonus_,[177] said the opponent. This was repeated the requisite number of times, and counted for as many _acts_ and _opponencies_. The parties then changed places, and each unsaid what he had said on the other side of the house: I remember thinking that it was capital drill for the House of Commons, if any of us should ever get there. The process was repeated with every pair of candidates.

The real disputations were very severe exercises. I was badgered for two hours with arguments given and answered in Latin,--or what we called Latin--against Newton's first section, Lagrange's[178] derived functions, and Locke[179] on innate principles. And though I _took off_ everything, and was p.r.o.nounced by the moderator to have disputed _magno honore_,[180] I never had such a strain of thought in my life. For the inferior opponents were made as sharp as their betters by their tutors, who kept lists of queer objections, drawn from all quarters. The opponents used to meet the day before to compare their arguments, that the same might not come twice over. But, after I left Cambridge, it became the fashion to invite the respondent to be present, who therefore learnt all that was to be brought against him. This made the whole thing a farce: and the disputations were abolished.

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