A Budget of Paradoxes Volume I Part 43

[346] Of course this is no longer true. The most scholarly work to-day is that of Rudio, _Archimedes, Huygens, Lambert, Legendre, vier Abhandlungen uber die Kreismessung ... mit einer Uebersicht uber die Geschichte des Problems von der Quadratur des Zirkels, von den altesten Zeiten bis auf unsere Tage_, Leipsic, 1892.

[347] Joseph Jerome le Francois de Lalande (1732-1807), professor of astronomy in the College de France (1753) and director of the Paris Observatory (1761). His writings on astronomy and his _Bibliographie astronomique, avec l'histoire de l'astronomie depuis 1781 jusqu'en 1802_ (Paris, 1803) are well known.

[348] De Morgan refers to his _Histoire de l'Astronomie au 18e siecle_, which appeared in 1827, five years after Delambre's death. Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre (1749-1822) was a pupil of and a collaborator with Lalande, following his master as professor of astronomy in the College de France.

His work on the measurements for the metric system is well known, and his four histories of astronomy, _ancienne_ (1817), _au moyen age_ (1819), _moderne_ (1821), and _au 18e siecle_ (posthumous, 1827) are highly esteemed.

[349] Jean-Joseph Rive (1730-1792), a priest who left his cure under grave charges, and a quarrelsome character. His attack on Montucla was a case of the pot calling the kettle black; for while he was a brilliant writer he was a careless bibliographer.

[350] Isaac Barrow (1630-1677) was quite as well known as a theologian as he was from his Lucasian professors.h.i.+p of mathematics at Cambridge.

[351] "Besides we can see by this that Barrow was a poor philosopher; for he believed in the immortality of the soul and in a Divinity other than universal nature."

[352] The _Recreations mathematiques et physiques_ (Paris, 1694) of Jacques Ozanam (1640-1717) is a work that is still highly esteemed. Among various other works he wrote a _Dictionnaire mathematique ou Idee generale des mathematiques_ (1690) that was not without merit. The _Recreations_ went through numerous editions (Paris, 1694, 1696, 1741, 1750, 1770, 1778, and the Montucla edition of 1790; London, 1708, the Montucla-Hutton edition of 1803 and the Riddle edition of 1840; Dublin, 1790).

[353] Hendryk van Etten, the _nom de plume_ of Jean Leurechon (1591-1670), rector of the Jesuit college at Bar, and professor of philosophy and mathematics. He wrote on astronomy (1619) and horology (1616), and is known for his _Selecta Propositiones in tota sparsim mathematica pulcherrime propositae in solemni festo SS. Ignatii et Francesci Xaverii_, 1622. The book to which De Morgan refers is his _Recreation mathematicque, composee de plusieurs problemes plaisants et facetieux_, Lyons, 1627, with an edition at Pont-a-Mousson, 1629. There were English editions published at London in 1633, 1653, and 1674, and Dutch editions in 1662 and 1672.

I do not understand how De Morgan happened to miss owning the work by Claude Gaspar Bachet de Meziriac (1581-1638), _Problemes plaisans et delectables_, which appeared at Lyons in 1612, 8vo, with a second edition in 1624. There was a fifth edition published at Paris in 1884.

[354] His t.i.tle page closes with "Paris, Chez Ch. Ant. Jombert.... M DCC LIV."

This was Charles-Antoine Jombert (1712-1784), a printer and bookseller with some taste for painting and architecture. He wrote several works and edited a number of early treatises.

[355] The late Professor Newcomb made the matter plain even to the non-mathematical mind, when he said that "ten decimal places are sufficient to give the circ.u.mference of the earth to the fraction of an inch, and thirty decimal places would give the circ.u.mference of the whole visible universe to a quant.i.ty imperceptible with the most powerful microscope."

[356] _Antinewtonianismi pars prima, in qua Newtoni de coloribus systema ex propriis principiis geometrice evert.i.tur, et nova de coloribus theoria luculentissimis experimentis demonstrantur_.... Naples, 1754; _pars secunda_, Naples, 1756.

[357] Celestino Cominale (1722-1785) was professor of medicine at the University of Naples.

[358] The work appeared in the years from 1844 to 1849.

[359] There was a Vienna edition in 1758, 4to, and another in 1759, 4to.

This edition is described on the t.i.tle page as _Editio Veneta prima ipso auctore praesente, et corrigente_.

[360] The first edition was ent.i.tled _De solis ac lunae defectibus libri V. P. Rogerii Josephi Boscovich ... c.u.m ejusdem auctoris adnotationibus_, London, 1760. It also appeared in Venice in 1761, and in French translation by the Abbe de Baruel in 1779, and was a work of considerable influence.

[361] Paulian (1722-1802) was professor of physics at the Jesuit college at Avignon. He wrote several works, the most popular of which, the _Dictionnaire de physique_ (Avignon, 1761), went through nine editions by 1789.

[362] This is correct.

[363] Probably referring to the fact that Hill (1795-1879), who had done so much for postal reform, was secretary to the postmaster general (1846), and his name was a synonym for the post office directory.

[364] Richard Lovett (1692-1780) was a good deal of a charlatan. He claimed to have studied electrical phenomena, and in 1758 advertised that he could effect marvelous cures, especially of sore throat, by means of electricity.

Before publis.h.i.+ng the works mentioned by De Morgan he had issued others of similar character, including _The Subtile Medium proved_ (London, 1756) and _The Reviewers Reviewed_ (London, 1760).

[365] Jean Sylvain Bailly (1736-1793), member of the _Academie francaise_ and of the _Academie des sciences_, first deputy elected to represent Paris in the _Etats-generaux_ (1789), president of the first National a.s.sembly, and mayor of Paris (1789-1791). For his vigor as mayor in keeping the peace, and for his manly defence of the Queen, he was guillotined. He was an astronomer of ability, but is best known for his histories of the science.

[366] These were the _Histoire de l'Astronomie ancienne_ (1775), _Histoire de l'Astronomie moderne_ (1778-1783), _Histoire de l'Astronomie indienne et orientale_ (1787), and _Lettres sur l'origine des peuples de l'Asie_ (1775).

[367] "The sick old man of Ferney, V., a boy of a hundred years." Voltaire was born in 1694, and hence was eighty-three at this time.

[368] In Palmezeaux's _Vie de Bailly_, in Bailly's _Ouvrage Posthume_ (1810), M. de Sales is quoted as saying that the _Lettres sur l'Atlantide_ were sent to Voltaire and that the latter did not approve of the theory set forth.

[369] The British Museum catalogue gives two editions, 1781 and 1782.

[370] A mystic and a spiritualist. His chief work was the one mentioned here.

[371] Jacob Behmen, or Bohme (1575-1624), known as "the German theosophist," was founder of the sect of Boehmists, a cult allied to the Swedenborgians. He was given to the study of alchemy, and brought the vocabulary of the science into his mystic writings. His sect was revived in England in the eighteenth century through the efforts of William Law.

Saint-Martin translated into French two of his Latin works under the t.i.tles _L'Aurore naissante, ou la Racine de la philosophie_ (1800), and _Les trois principes de l'essence divine_ (1802). The originals had appeared nearly two hundred years earlier,--_Aurora_ in 1612, and _De tribus principiis_ in 1619.

[372] "Unknown."

[373] "Skeptical."

[374] "Man, man, man."

[375] "Men, men, men."

[376] It is interesting to read De Morgan's argument against Saint-Martin's authors.h.i.+p of this work. It is attributed to Saint-Martin both by the _Biographie Universelle_ and by the _British Museum Catalogue_, and De Morgan says by "various catalogues and biographies."

[377] "To explain things by man and not man by things. _On Errors and Truth_, by a Ph.... Inc...."

[378] "If we would preserve ourselves from all illusions, and above all from the allurements of pride, by which man is so often seduced, we should never take man, but always G.o.d, for our term of comparison."

[379] "And here is found already an explanation of the numbers four and nine which caused some perplexity in the work cited above. Man is lost in pa.s.sing from four to nine."

[380] Williams also took part in the preparation of some tables for the government to a.s.sist in the determination of longitude. He had published a work two years before the one here cited, on the same subject,--_An entire new work and method to discover the variation of the Earth's Diameters_, London, 1786.

[381] This is Gabriel Mouton (1618-1694), a vicar at Lyons, who suggested as a basis for a natural system of measures the _mille_, a minute of a degree of the meridian. This appeared in his _Observationes diametrorum solis et lunae apparentium, meridianarumque aliquot alt.i.tudinum c.u.m tabula declinationum solis_.... Lyons, 1670.

[382] Jacques Ca.s.sini (1677-1756), one of the celebrated Ca.s.sini family of astronomers. After the death of his father he became director of the observatory at Paris. The basis for a metric unit was set forth by him in his _Traite de la grandeur et de la figure de la terre_, Paris, 1720. He was a prolific writer on astronomy.

[383] Alexis Jean Pierre Paucton (1732-1798). He was, for a time, professor of mathematics at Stra.s.sburg, but later (1796) held office in Paris. His leading contribution to metrology was his _Metrologie ou Traite des mesures_, Paris, 1780.

[384] He was an obscure writer, born at Deptford.

[385] He was also a writer of no scientific merit, his chief contributions being religious tracts. One of his productions, however, went through many editions, even being translated into French; _Three dialogues between a Minister and one of his Paris.h.i.+oners; on the true principles of Religion and salvation for sinners by Jesus Christ_. The twentieth edition appeared at Cambridge in 1786.

[386] This was the _Reflections on the Revolution in France, and on the proceedings in certain societies in London relative to that event_ (London, 1790) by Edmund Burke (1729-1797). Eleven editions of the work appeared the first year.

[387] Paine (1736-1809) was born in Norfolks.h.i.+re, of Quaker parents. He went to America at the beginning of the Revolution and published, in January 1776, a violent pamphlet ent.i.tled _Common Sense_. He was a private soldier under Was.h.i.+ngton, and on his return to England after the war he published _The Rights of Man_. He was indicted for treason and was outlawed to France. He was elected to represent Calais at the French convention, but his plea for moderation led him perilously near the guillotine. His _Age of Reason_ (1794) was dedicated to Was.h.i.+ngton. He returned to America in 1802 and remained there until his death.

[388] Part I appeared in 1791 and was so popular that eight editions appeared in that year. It was followed in 1792 by Part II, of which nine editions appeared in that year. Both parts were immediately republished in Paris, and there have been several subsequent editions.

[389] Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) was only thirty-three when this work came out. She had already published _An historical and moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution_ (1790), and _Original Stories from Real Life_ (1791). She went to Paris in 1792 and remained during the Reign of Terror.

[390] Samuel Parr (1747-1827) was for a time head a.s.sistant at Harrow (1767-1771), afterwards headmaster in other schools. At the time this book was written he was vicar of Hatton, where he took private pupils (1785-1798) to the strictly limited number of seven. He was a violent Whig and a caustic writer.

[391] On Mary Wollstonecraft's return from France she married (1797) William G.o.dwin (1756-1836). He had started as a strong Calvinistic Nonconformist minister, but had become what would now be called an anarchist, at least by conservatives. He had written an _Inquiry concerning Political Justice_ (1793) and a novel ent.i.tled _Caleb Williams, or Things as they are_ (1794), both of which were of a nature to attract his future wife.