Mr. Gladstone has paid a visit to the Pope.
_By Greek Power._
G = 6
L = 30
A = 1
D = 4
S = 200
T = 300
O = 70
N = 50
E = 5
----
666
And what then [swastika]?
{235}
In other letters _John Stuart Mill_ is 666 if the _a_ be left out;
_Chasuble_ is perfect. _John Brighte_[376] is a _fait accompli_; and I am
asked whether intellect can account for the final e. Very easily: this
Beast is not the M. P., but another person who spells his name differently.
But if John Sturt Mill and John Brighte choose so to write themselves, they
may.
A curious collection; a mystical phantasmagoria! There are those who will
try to find meaning: there are those who will try to find purpose.
"And some they said--What are you at?
And some--What are you arter?"
My account of Mr. Thom and his 666 appeared on October 27: and on the 29th
I received from the editor a copy of Mr. Thom's sermons published in 1863
(he died Feb. 27, 1862) with best wishes for my health and happiness. The
editor does not name himself in the book; but he signed his name in my
copy: and may my circumference never be more than 3-1/8 of my diameter if
the signature, name and writing both, were not that of my [circle square]
ing friend Mr. James Smith! And so I have come in contact with him on 666
as well as on [pi]! I should have nothing left to live for, had I not
happened to hear that he has a perpetual motion on hand. I returned thanks
and kind regards: and Miss Miggs's words--"Here's forgivenesses of
injuries! here's amicablenesses!"--rang in my ears. But I was made slightly
uncomfortable: how could the war go on after this armistice? Could I ever
make it understood that the truce only extended to the double Vahu and
things thereunto relating? It was once held by seafaring men that there was
no peace with Spaniards beyond the line: I was determined that there must
be no concord with J. S. inside the circle; that this must be a special
exception, like Father Huddleston {236} and old Grouse in the gun-room. I
was not long in anxiety; twenty-four hours after the book of sermons there
came a copy of the threatened exposure--_The British Association in
Jeopardy, and Professor De Morgan in the Pillory without hope of escape_.
By James Smith, Esq. London and Liverpool, 8vo., 1866 (pp. 94). This
exposure consists of reprints from the _Athenaeum_ and _Correspondent_: of
things new there is but one. In a short preface Mr. J. S. particularly
recommends to "_read to the end_." At the end is an appendix of two pages,
in type as large as the work; a very prominent peroration. It is an article
from the _Athenaeum_, left out of its place. In the last sentence Mr. J.
Smith, who had asked whether his character as an honest Geometer and
Mathematician was not at stake, is warned against the _fallacia plurium
interrogationum_.[377] He is told that there is not a more honest
what's-his-name in the world: but that as to the counter which he calls his
character as a mathematician, he is assured that it has been staked years
ago, and lost. And thus truth has the last word. There is no occasion to
say much about reprints. One of them is a letter [that given above] of
August 25, 1865, written by Mr. J. S. to the _Correspondent_. It is one of
his quadratures; and the joke is that I am made to be the writer: it
appears as what Mr. J. S. hopes I shall have the sense to write in the
_Athenaeum_ and forestall him. When I saw myself thus quoted--yes! quoted!
double commas, first person--I felt as I suppose did Wm. Wilberforce[378]
when he set eyes on the affectionate benediction of the potato which
waggish comrades had imposed on a raw Irish reporter as part of his speech.
I felt as Martin[379] of {237} Galway--kind friend of the poor dumb
creatures!--when he was told that the newspapers had put him in Italics. "I
appeal to you, Mr. Speaker! I appeal to the House! Did I speak in Italics?
Do I ever speak in Italics?" I appeal to editor and readers, whether I ever
squared the circle until a week or two ago, when I gave my charitable mode
of reconciling the discrepant cyclometers.
The absurdity of the imitation of symbolic reasoning is so lusciously rich,
that I shall insert it when I make up my final book. Somebody mastered
Spanish merely to read Don Quixote: it would be worth while to learn a
little algebra merely to enjoy this a b-istical attack on the windmills.
The principle is, Prove something in as roundabout a way as possible,
mention the circle once or twice irrelevantly in the course of your proof,
and then make an act of Q. E. D. in words at length. The following is
hardly caricature:--
To prove that 2 and 2 make 5. Let a = 2, b = 5: let c = 658, the number of
the House: let d = 666, the number of the Beast. Then of necessity d = a +
b + c + 1; so that 1 is a harmonious and logical quantification of the
number of which we are to take care. Now, b, the middle of our digital
system, is, by mathematical and geometrical combination, a mean between 5 +
1 and 2 + 2. Let 1 be removed to be taken care of, a thing no real
mathematician can refuse without serious injury to his mathematical and
geometrical reputation. It follows of necessity that 2 + 2 = 5, _quod erat
demonstrumhorrendum_. If Simpkin & Marshall have not, after my notice, to
account for a gross of copies more than would have gone off without me, the
world is not worthy of its James Smith!
The only fault of the above is, that there is more {238} connection than in
the process of Faber Cyclometricus: so much, in fact, that the blunders are
visible. The utter irrelevance of premises to conclusion cannot be
exhibited with the requisite obscurity by any one who is able to follow
reasoning: it is high art displayed in a certain toning down of the _aegri
somnia_, which brings them to a certain look of reproach to reasoning which
I can only burlesque. Mr. J. S. produces something which resembles argument
much as a chimpanzee in dolor, because balked of his dinner, resembles a
thinking man at his studies. My humble attempt at imitation of him is more
like a monkey hanging by his tail from a tree and trying to crack a
cocoa-nut by his chatter.
I could forgive Mr. J. S. anything, properly headed. I would allow him to
prove--_for himself_--that the Quadrature of the Circle is the child of a
private marriage between the Bull Unigenitus and the Pragmatic Sanction,
claiming tithe of onions for repeal of the Mortmain Act, before the Bishops
in Committee under the kitchen table: his mode of imitating reason would do
this with ease. But when he puts his imitation into my mouth, to make me
what _he_ calls a "real mathematician," my soul rises in epigram against
him. I say with the doll's dressmaker--such a job makes me feel like a
puppet's tailor myself--"He ought to have a little pepper? just a few
grains? I think the young man's tricks and manners make a claim upon his
friends for a little pepper?" De Faure[380] and Joseph Scaliger[381] come
into my head: my reader may look back for them.
"Three circlesquarers to the manner born,
Switzerland, France, and England did adorn,
De Faure in equations did surpass,
Joseph at contradictions was an ass.
Groaned Folly, I'm used up! What shall I do
To make James Smith? Grinned Momus, _Join the two_!"
{239}
As to my _locus poenitentiae_,[382] the reader who is fit to enjoy the
letter I have already alluded to will see that I have a soft and easy
position; that the thing is really a _pillowry_; and that I am, like
Perrette's pot of milk,
"Bien pose sur un coussinet."[383]
Joanna Southcott[384] never had a follower who believed in her with more
humble piety than Mr. James Smith believes in himself. After all that has
happened to him, he asks me with high confidence to "favor the writer with
a proof" that I still continue of opinion that "the best of the argument is
in my jokes, and the best of the joke is in his arguments." I will not so
favor him. At the very outset I told him in plain English that he has the
whiphand of all the reasoners in the world, and in plain French that _il a
perdu le droit d'etre frappe de l'evidence_[385]; I might have said
_pendu_.[386] To which I now add, in plain Latin, _Sapienti pauca, indocto
nihil_.[387] The law of Chancery says that he who will have equity must do
equity: the law of reasoning says that he who will have proof must see
proof.
The introduction of things quite irrelevant, by way of reproach, is an
argument in universal request: and it often happens that the argument so
produced really tells against the producer. So common is it that we forget
how boyish it is; but we are strikingly reminded when it actually comes
from a boy. In a certain police court, certain small boys were arraigned
for conspiring to hoot an obnoxious individual on his way from one of their
school exhibitions. This proceeding was necessary, because there seemed to
be a permanent conspiracy to annoy the gentleman; and the {240} masters did
not feel able to interfere in what took place outside the school. So the
boys were arraigned; and their friends, as silly in their way as
themselves, allowed one of them to make the defence, instead of employing
counsel; and did not even give them any useful hints. The defence was as
follows; and any one who does not see how richly it sets off the defences
of bigger boys in bigger matters has much to learn. The innocent conviction
that there was answer in the latter part is delightful. Of course fine and
recognizance followed.
A---- said the boys had received great provocation from B----. He was
constantly threatening them with a horsewhip which he carried in his hand
[the boy did not say what had passed to induce him to take such a weapon],
and he had repeatedly insulted the master, which the boys could not stand.
B---- had in his own drawing-room told him (A----) that he had drawn his
sword against the master and thrown away the scabbard. B---- knew well that
if he came to the college he would catch it, and then he went off through a
side door--which was no sign of pluck; and then he brought Mrs. B---- with
him, thinking that her presence would protect him.
My readers may expect a word on Mr. Thom's sermons, after my account of his
queer doings about 666. He is evidently an honest and devout man, much
wanting in discrimination. He has a sermon about private _judgment_, in
which he halts between the logical and legal meanings of the word. He
loathes those who apply their private judgment to the word of God: here he
means those who decide what it _ought to be_. He seems in other places
aware that the theological phrase means taking right to determine what it
_is_. He uses his own private judgment very freely, and is strong in the
conclusion that others ought not to use theirs except as he tells them how;
he leaves all the rest of mankind free to think with him. In this he is not
original: his fame must rest on his senary tripod. {241}