_Athenaeum_, August, 19, 1865. _Notice to Correspondents._
"R. W.--If you will consult the opening chapter of the Budget of Paradoxes,
you will see that the author presents only works in his own library at a
given date; and this for a purpose explained. For ourselves we have
carefully avoided allowing any writers to present themselves in our columns
on the ground that the Budget has passed them over. We gather that Mr. De
Morgan contemplates additions at a future time, perhaps in a separate and
augmented work; if so, those who complain that others of no greater claims
than themselves have been ridiculed may find themselves where they wish to
be. We have done what we can for you by forwarding your letter to Mr. De
Morgan."
The author of "An Essay on the Constitution of the Earth," published in
1844, demanded of the _Athenaeum_, as an _act of fairness_, that a letter
from him should be published, proving that he had as much right to be
"impaled" as Capt. Drayson. He holds, on speculative grounds, what the
other claims to have proved by measurement, namely, that the earth is
growing; and he believes that in time--a good long time, not _our_
time--the earth and other planets may grow into suns, with systems of their
own.
This gentleman sent me a copy of his work, after the commencement of my
Budget; but I have no recollection of having received it, and I cannot find
it on the (nursery? {134} quarantine?) shelves on which I keep my
unestablished discoveries. Had I known of this work in time, (see the
Introduction) I should of course, have impaled it (heraldically) with the
other work; but the two are very different. Capt. Drayson professes to
prove his point by results of observation; and I think he does not succeed.
The author before me only speculates; and a speculator can get any
conclusion into his premises, if he will only build or hire them of shape
and size to suit. It reminds me of a statement I heard years ago, that a
score of persons, or near it, were to dine inside the skull of one of the
aboriginal animals, dear little creatures! Whereat I wondered vastly,
nothing doubting; facts being stubborn and not easy drove, as Mrs. Gamp
said. But I soon learned that the skull was not a real one, but
artificially constructed by the methods--methods which have had striking
verifications, too--which enable zoologists to go the whole hog by help of
a toe or a bit of tail. This took off the edge of the wonder: a hundred
people can dine inside an inference, if you draw it large enough. The
method might happen to fail for once: for instance, the toe-bone might have
been abnormalized by therian or saurian malady; and the possibility of such
failure, even when of small probability, is of great alleviation. The
author before me is, apparently, the sole fabricator of his own premises.
With vital force in the earth and continual creation on the part of the
original Creator, he expands our bit of a residence as desired. But, as the
Newtoness of Cookery observed, First catch your hare. When this is done,
when you _have_ a growing earth, you shall dress it with all manner of
proximate causes, and serve it up with a growing Moon for sauce, a growing
Sun, if it please you, at the other end, and growing planets for
side-dishes. Hoping this amount of impalement will be satisfactory, I go on
to something else. {135}