And pray, Sir! I have been asked by more than one--do your orthodox never
fall into mistake, nor rise into absurdity? They not only do both, but they
admit it of each other very freely; individually, they are convinced of
sin, but not of any particular sin. There is not a syndoxer among them all
but draws his line in such a way as to include among paradoxers a great
many whom I should exclude altogether from this work. My worst specimens
are but exaggerations of what may be found, occasionally, in the thoughts
of sagacious investigators. At the end of the {364} glorious dream, we
learn that there is a way to Hell from the gates of Heaven, as well as from
the City of Destruction: and that this is true of other things besides
Christian pilgrimage is affirmed at the end of the Budget of Paradoxes. If
D'Alembert[665] had produced _enough_ of a quality to match his celebrated
mistake on the chance of throwing head in two throws, he would have been in
my list. If Newton had produced _enough_ to match his reception of the
story that Nausicaa, Homer's Phaeacian princess, invented the celestial
sphere, followed by his serious surmise that she got it from the
Argonauts,--then Newton himself would have had an appearance entered for
him, in spite of the _Principia_. In illustration, I may cite a few words
from _Tristram Shandy_:
"'A soldier,' cried my uncle Toby, interrupting the Corporal, 'is no more
exempt from saying a foolish thing, Trim, than a man of letters.'--'But not
so often, an' please your honor,' replied the Corporal. My uncle Toby gave
a nod."
I now proceed to die out. Some prefatory remarks will follow in time.[666]
I shall have occasion to insist that all is not barren: I think I shall
find, on casting up, that two out of five of my paradoxers are not to be
utterly condemned. Among the better lot will be found all gradations of
merit; at the same time, as was remarked on quite a different subject,
there may be little to choose between the last of the saved and the first
of the lost. The higher and better class is worthy of blame; the lower and
worse class is worthy of praise. The higher men are to be reproved for not
taking up things in which they could do some good: the lower men are to be
commended for taking up things in which they can do no great harm. The
circle problem is like Peter Peebles's lawsuit:
{365}
"'But, Sir, I should really spoil any cause thrust on me so hastily.'--'Ye
cannot spoil it, Alan,' said my father, 'that is the very cream of the
business, man,--... the case is come to that pass that Stair or Arniston
could not mend it, and I don't think even you, Alan, can do it much harm.'"
I am strongly reminded of the monks in the darker part of the Middle Ages.
To a certain proportion of them, perhaps two out of five, we are indebted
for the preservation of literature, and their contemporaries for good
teaching and mitigation of socials evils. But the remaining three were the
fleas and flies and thistles and briars with whom the satirist lumps them,
about a century before the Reformation:
"Flen, flyys, and freris, populum domini male caedunt;
Thystlis and breris crescentia gramina laedunt.
Christe nolens guerras qui cuncta pace tueris,
Destrue per terras breris, flen, flyys, and freris.
Flen, flyys, and freris, foul falle hem thys fyften yeris,
For non that her is lovit flen, flyys ne freris."[667]
I should not be quite so savage with my second class. Taken together, they
may be made to give useful warning to those who are engaged in learning
under better auspices: aye, even useful hints; for bad things are very
often only good things spoiled or misused. My plan is that of a predecessor
in the time of Edward the Second:
"Meum est propositum genti imperitae
Artes frugi reddere melioris vitae."[668]
To this end I have spoken with freedom of books as books, of opinions as
opinions, of ignorance as ignorance, of {366} presumption as presumption;
and of writers as I judge may be fairly inferred from what they have
written. Some--to whom I am therefore under great obligation--have
permitted me to enlarge my plan by assaults to which I have alluded;
assaults which allow a privilege of retort, of which I have often availed
myself; assaults which give my readers a right of partnership in the
amusement which I myself have received.
For the present I cut and run: a Catiline, pursued by a chorus of Ciceros,
with _Quousque tandem? Quamdiu nos? Nihil ne te?_[669] ending with, _In te
conferri pestem istam jam pridem oportebat, quam tu in nos omnes jamdiu
machinaris!_ I carry with me the reflection that I have furnished to those
who need it such a magazine of warnings as they will not find elsewhere; _a
signatis cavetote_:[670] and I throw back at my pursuers--_Valete, doctores
sine doctrina; facite ut proxima congressu vos salvos corporibus et sanos
mentibus videamus._[671] Here ends the Budget of Paradoxes.
{367}
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