The above is the commonplace talk of the class, of which I proceed to speak
without more application to this paradoxer than to that. It reminds one of
the funny young rascals who used, in times not yet quite forgotten, to
abuse the passengers, as long as they could keep up with the {353} stage
coach; dropping off at last with "Why don't you get down and thrash us?
You're afraid, you're afraid!" They will allow the public to judge for
themselves, but with somewhat of the feeling of the worthy uncle in _Tom
Jones_, who, though he would let young people choose for themselves, would
_have them_ choose wisely. They try to be so awfully moral and so ghastly
satirical that they must be answered: and they are best answered in their
own division. We have all heard of the way in which sailors cat's-pawed the
monkeys: they taunted the dwellers in the trees with stones, and the
monkeys taunted them with cocoa-nuts in return. But these were silly
dendrobats: had they belonged to the British Association they would have
said--No! No! dear friends; it is not in the itinerary: if you want nuts,
you must climb, as we do. The public has referred the question to Time: the
procedure of this great king I venture to describe, from precedents, by an
adaptation of some smart anapaestic tetrameters--your anapaest is the foot
for satire to halt on, both in Greek and English--which I read about twenty
years ago, and with the point of which I was much tickled. Poetasters were
laughed at; but Mr. Slum, whom I employed--Mr. Charles Dickens obliged me
with his address--converted the idea into that of a hit at
mathematicasters, as easily as he turned the Warren acrostic into Jarley.
As he observed, when I settled his little account, it is cheaper than any
prose, though the broom was not stolen quite ready made:
_Forty stripes save one for the smaller Paradoxers._
Hark to the wisdom the sages preach
Who never have learnt what they try to teach.
We are the lights of the age, they say!
We are the men, and the thinkers we!
So we build up guess-work the livelong day,
In a topsy-turvy sort of way,
Some with and some wanting _a_ plus b.
Let the British Association fuss;
What are theirs to the feats to be wrought by us?
{354}
Shall the earth stand still? Will the round come square?
Must Isaac's book be the nest of a mare?
Ought the moon to be taught by the laws of space
To turn half round without right-about-face?
Our whimsey crotchets will manage it all;
Deep! Deep! posterity will them call!
Though the world, for the present, lets them fall
Down! Down! to the twopenny box of the stall!
Thus they--But the marplot Time stands by,
With a knowing wink in his funny old eye.
He grasps by the top an immense fool's cap,
Which he calls a philosophaster-trap:
And rightly enough, for while these little men
Croak loud as a concert of frogs in a fen,
He first singles out one, and then another,
Down goes the cap--lo! a moment's pother,
A spirit like that which a rushlight utters
As just at the last it kicks and gutters:
When the cruel smotherer is raised again
Only snuff, and but little of that, will remain.
But though _uno avulso_ thus comes every day
_Non deficit alter_ is also in play:
For the vacant parts are, one and all,
Soon taken by puppets just as small;
Who chirp, chirp, chirp, with a grasshopper's glee,
We're the lamps of the Universe, We! We! We!
But Time, whose speech is never long,--
He hasn't time for it--stops the song
And says--Lilliput lamps! leave the twopenny boxes,
And shine in the Budget of Paradoxes!
When a paradoxer parades capital letters and diagrams which are as good as
Newton's to all who know nothing about it, some persons wonder why science
does not rise and triturate the whole thing. This is why: all who are fit
to read the refutation are satisfied already, and can, if they please,
detect the paradoxer for themselves. Those who are not fit to do this would
not know the difference between the true answer and the new capitals and
diagrams on which the delighted paradoxer would declare {355} that he had
crumbled the philosophers, and not they him. Trust him for having the last
word: and what matters it whether he crow the unanswerable sooner or later?
There are but two courses to take. One is to wait until he has committed
himself in something which all can understand, as Mr. Reddie has done in
his fancy about the Astronomer Royal's change of opinion: he can then be
put in his true place. The other is to construct a Budget of Paradoxes,
that the world may see how the thing is always going on, and that the
picture I have concocted by cribbing and spoiling a bit of poetry is drawn
from life. He who wonders at there being no answer has seen one or two: he
does not know that there are always fifty with equal claims, each of whom
regards his being ranked with the rest as forty-nine distinct and several
slanders upon himself, the great Mully Ully Gue. And the fifty would soon
be five hundred if any notice were taken of them. They call mankind to
witness that science _will not_ defend itself, though publicly attacked in
terms which might sting a pickpocket into standing up for his character:
science, in return, allows mankind to witness or not, at pleasure, that it
_does not_ defend itself, and yet receives no injury from centuries of
assault. Demonstrative reason never raises the cry of _Church in Danger_!
and it cannot have any Dictionary of Heresies except a Budget of Paradoxes.
Mistaken claimants are left to Time and his extinguisher, with the
approbation of all thinking non-claimants: there is no need of a succession
of exposures. Time gets through the job in his own workmanlike manner as
already described.
On looking back more than twenty years, I find among my cuttings the
following passage, relating to a person who had signalized himself by an
effort to teach comets to the conductor of the _Nautical Almanac_:
"Our brethren of the literary class have not the least idea of the small
amount of appearance of knowledge {356} which sets up the scientific
charlatan. Their world is large, and there are many who have that moderate
knowledge, and perception of what is knowledge, before which extreme
ignorance is detected in its first prank. There is a public of moderate
cultivation, for the most part sound in its judgment, always ready in its
decisions. Accordingly, all their successful pretenders have _some
pretension_. It is not so in science. Those who have a right to judge are
fewer and farther between. The consequence is, that many scientific
pretenders have _nothing but pretension_."
This is nearly as applicable now as then. It is impossible to make those
who have not studied for themselves fully aware of the truth of what I have
quoted. The best chance is collection of cases; in fact, a Budget of
Paradoxes. Those who have no knowledge of the subject can thus argue from
the seen to the unseen. All can feel the impracticability of the
Hubongramillposanfy numeration, and the absurdity of the equality of
contour of a regular pentagon and hexagon in one and the same circle. Many
may accordingly be satisfied, on the assurance of those who have studied,
that there is as much of impracticability, or as much of absurdity, in
things which are hidden under
"Sines, tangents, secants, radius, cosines
Subtangents, segments and all those signs;
Enough to prove that he who read 'em
Was just as mad as he who made 'em."
Not that I mean to be disrespectful to mathematical terms: they are short
and easily explained, and compete favorably with those of most other
subjects: for instance, with
"Horse-pleas, traverses, demurrers,
Jeofails, imparlances, and errors,
Averments, bars, and protestandos,
And puis d'arreign continuandos."
{357}
From which it appears that, taking the selections made by satirists for our
samples, there are, one with another, four letters more in a law term than
in one of mathematics. But pleading has been simplified of late years.
All paradoxers can publish; and any one who likes may read. But this is not
enough; they find that they cannot publish, or those who can find they are
_not_ read, and they lay their plans athwart the noses of those who, they
think, ought to read. To recommend them to be content with publication,
like other authors, is an affront: of this I will give the reader an
amusing instance. My good nature, of which I keep a stock, though I do not
use it all up in this Budget, prompts me to conceal the name.
I received the following letter, accompanied by a prospectus of a work on
metaphysics, physics, astronomy, etc. The author is evidently one whom I
should delight to honor:
"Sir,--A friend of mine has mentioned your name in terms of panigeric
[_sic_], as being of high standing in mathematics, and of greatly original
thought. I send you the enclosed without comment; and, assuming that the
bent of your mind is in free inquiry, shall feel a pleasure in showing you
my portfolio, which, as a mathematician, you will acknowledge to be deeply
interesting, even in an educational point of view. The work is complete,
and the system so far perfected as to place it above criticism; and, so far
as regards astronomy, as will Ptolemy beyond rivalry [_sic_: no doubt some
words omitted]. Believe me to be, Sir, with the profoundest respect, etc.
The work is the result of thirty-five years' travel and observation, labor,
expense, and self-abnegation."
I replied to the effect that my time was fully occupied, and that I was
obliged to decline discussion with many persons who have views of their
own; that the proper way is to publish, so that those who choose may read
when they can find leisure. I added that I should advise a precursor in the
shape of a small pamphlet, as two octavo volumes {358} would be too much
for most persons. This was sound advice; but it is not the first, second,
or third time that it has proved very unpalatable. I received the following
answer, to which I take the liberty of prefixing a bit of leonine wisdom:
"Si doceas stultum, laetum non dat tibi vultum;
Odit te multum; vellet te scire sepultum.[658]"
"Sir,--I pray you pardon the error I unintentionally have fallen into;
deceived by the F.R.S. [I am not F.R.S.] I took you to be a man of science
[_omnis homo est animal, Sortes est homo, ergo Sortes est animal_][659]
instead of the mere mathematician, or human calculating-machine. Believe
me, Sir, you also have mistaken your mission, as I have mine. I wrote to
you as I would to any other man well up in mathematics, with the intent to
call your attention to a singular fact of omission by Euclid, and other
great mathematicians: and, in selecting you, I did you an honor which, from
what I have just now heard, was entirely out of place. I think, considering
the nature of the work set forth in the prospectus, you are guilty of both
folly and presumption, in assuming the character of a patron; for your own
sense ought to have assured you that was such my object I should not have
sought him in a De Morgan, who exists only by patronage of others. On the
other hand, I deem it to be an unpardonable piece of presumption in
offering your advice upon a subject the magnitude, importance, and real
utility of which you know nothing about: by doing so you have offered me a
direct insult. The system is a manual of Philosophy, a one inseparable
whole of metaphysics and physic; embracing points the most interesting,
laws the most important, {359} doctrines the most essential to advance man
in accordance with the spirit of the times. I may not live to see it in
print; for, at ----, life at best is uncertain: but, live or die, be
assured Sir, it is not my intention to debase the work by seeking
patronage, or pandering to the public taste. Your advice was the less
needed, seeing I am an old-established ----. I remain, etc.--P.S. You will
oblige me by returning the prospectus of my work."
My reader will, I am sure, not take this transition from the "profoundest
respect" to the loftiest insolence for an _apocraphical_ correspondence, to
use a word I find in the Prospectus: on my honor it is genuine. He will be
better employed in discovering whether I exist by patronizing others, or by
being patronized by them. I make any one who can find it out a fair offer:
I will give him my patronage if I turn out to be Bufo, on condition he
gives me his, if I turn out to be Bavius.[660] I need hardly say that I
considered the last letter to be one of those to which no answer is so good
as no answer.
These letters remind me in one respect of the correspondents of the
newspapers. My other party wrote because a friend had pointed me out: but
he would not have written if he had known what another friend told him just
in time for the second letter. The man who sends his complaint to the
newspaper very often says, in effect, "Don't imagine, Sir, that I read your
columns; but a friend who sometimes does has told me ..." It is worded
thus: "My attention {360} has been directed to an article in your paper of
..." Many thanks to my friend's friends for not mentioning the Budget: had
my friend's attention been directed to it I might have lost a striking
example of the paradoxer in search of a patron. That my Friend was on this
scent in the first letter is revealed in the second. Language was given to
man to conceal his thoughts; but it is not every one who can do it.
Among the most valuable information which my readers will get from me is
comparison of the reactions of paradoxers, when not admitted to argument,
or when laughed at. Of course, they are misrepresented; and at this they
are angry, or which is the same thing, take great pains to assure the
reader that they are not. So far natural, and so far good; anything short
of concession of a case which must be seriously met by counter-reasons is
sure to be misrepresentation. My friend Mr. James Smith and my friend Mr.
Reddie are both terribly misrepresented: they resent it by some
insinuations in which it is not easy to detect whether I am a conscious
smotherer of truth, or only muddle-headed and ignorant. [This was written
before I received my last communication from Mr. James Smith. He tells me
that I am wrong in saying that his work in which I stand in the pillory is
all reprint: I have no doubt I confounded some of it with some of the
manuscript or slips which I had received from my much not-agreed-with
correspondent. He adds that my mistake was intentional, and that my reason
is obvious to the reader. This _is_ information, as the sea-serpent said
when he read in the newspaper that he had a mane and tusks.]