The first book of Euclid's Elements. With alterations and familiar
notes. Being an attempt to get rid of axioms altogether; and to
establish the theory of parallel lines, without the introduction of any
principle not common to other parts of the elements. By a member of the
University of Cambridge. Third edition. In usum serenissimae filiolae.
London, 1830.
The author was Lieut. Col. (now General) Perronet Thompson,[619] the author
of the "Catechism on the Corn Laws." I reviewed the fourth edition--which
had the name of "Geometry without Axioms," 1833--in the quarterly _Journal
of Education_ for January, 1834. Col. Thompson, who then was a contributor
to--if not editor of--the _Westminster Review_, replied in an article the
authorship of which could not be mistaken.
Some more attempts upon the problem, by the same author, will be found in
the sequel. They are all of acute and legitimate speculation; but they do
not conquer the difficulty in the manner demanded by the conditions of the
problem. The paradox of parallels does not contribute much to my pages: its
cases are to be found for the most part in geometrical systems, or in notes
to them. Most of them consist in the proposal of additional postulates;
some are attempts to do without any new postulate. Gen. Perronet Thompson,
whose paradoxes are always constructed on much study of previous writers,
has collected in the work above named, a budget of attempts, the heads of
which are in the _Penny_ and _English Cyclopaedias_, at "Parallels." He has
given thirty instances, selected from what he had found.[620]
{288}
Lagrange,[621] in one of the later years of his life, imagined that he had
overcome the difficulty. He went so far as to write a paper, which he took
with him to the Institute, and began to read it. But in the first paragraph
something struck him which he had not observed: he muttered _Il faut que
j'y songe encore_,[622] and put the paper in his pocket.