By I. D’ISRAELI.
Nothing is so capable of disordering the intellects as an intense
application to any one of these six things: the Quadrature of the
Circle; the Multiplication of the Cube; the Perpetual Motion; the
Philosophical Stone; Magic; and Judicial Astrology. In youth we may
exercise our imagination on these curious topics, merely to convince
us of their impossibility; but it shows a great defect in judgment
to be occupied on them in an advanced age. “It is proper, however,”
Fontenelle remarks, “to apply one’s self to these inquiries; because we
find, as we proceed, many valuable discoveries of which we were before
ignorant.” The same thought Cowley has applied, in an address to his
mistress, thus:
“Although I think thou never wilt be found,
Yet I’m resolved to search for thee:
The search itself rewards the pains.
So though the chymist his great secret miss,
(For neither it in art or nature is)
Yet things well worth his toil he gains;
And does his charge and labor pay
With good unsought experiments by the way.”
The same thought is in Donne. Perhaps Cowley did not suspect that he
was an imitator. Fontenelle could not have read either; he struck out
the thought by his own reflection. It is very just. Glauber searched
long and deeply for the philosopher’s stone, which though he did not
find, yet in his researches he discovered a very useful purging salt,
which bears his name.
Maupertuis, in a little volume of his letters, observes on the
“Philosophical Stone,” that we can not prove the impossibility of
obtaining it, but we can easily see the folly of those who employ
their time and money in seeking for it. This price is too great to
counterbalance the little probability of succeeding in it. However
it is still a bantling of modern chemistry, who has nodded very
affectionately on it. Of the “Perpetual Motion,” he shows the
impossibility, at least in the sense in which it is generally received.
On the “Quadrature of the Circle,” he says he can not decide if this
problem be resolvable or not; but he observes, that it is very useless
to search for it any more; since we have arrived by approximation to
such a point of accuracy, that on a large circle, such as the orbit
which the earth describes round the sun, the geometrician will not
mistake by the thickness of a hair. The quadrature of the circle is
still, however, a favorite game of some visionaries, and several are
still imagining that they have discovered the perpetual motion; the
Italians nick-name them _matto perpetuo_; and Bekker tells us of the
fate of one Hartmann, of Leipsic, who was in such despair at having
passed his life so vainly in studying the perpetual motion, that at
length he hanged himself.