I find among my miscellaneous papers the following _jeu d'esprit_, or _jeu
de betise_,[719] whichever the reader pleases--I care not--intended, before
I saw ground for abstaining, to have, as the phrase is, come in somehow. I
think I could manage to bring anything into anything: certainly into a
Budget of Paradoxes. Sir W. H. rather piqued himself upon some caniculars,
or doggerel verses, which he had put together _in memoriam_ [_technicam_]
of the way in which A E I O are used in logic: he added U, Y, for the
addition of _meet_, etc., to the system. I took the liberty of concocting
some counter-doggerel, just to show that a mathematician may have
architectonic power as well as a metaphysician.
DOGGEREL.
BY SIR W. HAMILTON.
A it affirms of _this_, _these_, _all_,
Whilst E denies of _any_;
I it affirms (whilst O denies)
Of some (or few, or many).
Thus A affirms, as E denies,
And definitely either;
Thus I affirms, as O denies,
And definitely neither.
A half, left semidefinite,
Is worthy of its score;
U, then, affirms, as Y denies,
This, neither less nor more.
Indefinito-definites,
I, UI, YO, last we come;
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And this affirms, as that denies
Of _more_, _most_ (_half_, _plus_, _some_).
COUNTER DOGGEREL.
BY PROF. DE MORGAN.
(1847.)
Great A affirms of all;
Sir William does so too:
When the subject is "my suspicion,"
And the predicate "must be true."
Great E denies of all;
Sir William of all but one:
When he speaks about this present time,
And of those who in logic have done.
Great I takes up but _some_;
Sir William! my dear soul!
Why then in all your writings,
Does "Great I" fill[720] the whole!
Great O says some are not;
Sir William's readers catch,
That some (modern) Athens is not without
An Aristotle to match.
"A half, left semi-definite,
Is worthy of its score:"
This looked very much like balderdash,
And neither less nor more.
It puzzled me like anything;
In fact, it puzzled me worse:
Isn't schoolman's logic hard enough,
Without being in Sibyl's verse?
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At last, thinks I, 'tis German;
And I'll try it with some beer!
The landlord asked what bothered me so,
And at once he made it clear.
It's _half-and-half_, the gentleman means;
Don't you see he talks of _score_?
That's the bit of memorandum
That we chalk behind the door.
_Semi-definite_'s outlandish;
But I see, in half a squint,
That he speaks of the lubbers who call for a quart,
When they can't manage more than a pint.
Now I'll read it into English,
And then you'll answer me this:
If it isn't good logic all the world round,
I should like to know what is?
When you call for a pot of half-and-half,
If you're lost to sense of shame,
You may leave it _semi-definite_,
But you pay for it all just the same.
* * * * * *
I am unspeakably comforted when I look over the above in remembering that
the question is not whether it be Pindaric or Horatian, but whether the
copy be as good as the original. And I say it is: and will take no denial.
Long live--long will live--the glad memory of William Hamilton, Good,
Learned, Acute, and Disputatious! He fought upon principle: the motto of
his book is:
"Truth, like a torch, the more it's shook it shines."
There is something in this; but metaphors, like puddings, quarrels, rivers,
and arguments, always have two sides to them. For instance,
"Truth, like a torch, the more it's shook it shines;
But those who want to use it, hold it steady.
They shake the flame who like a glare to gaze at,
They keep it still who want a light to see by."
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