e gaming-house: verily they have their reward.

I shall now select, to the mystic number seven, instances of my personal
knowledge of those who think they have discovered, in illustration of as
many misconceptions.

1. _Attempt by help of the old philosophy, the discoverer not being in
possession of modern knowledge._ A poor schoolmaster, in rags, introduced
himself to a scientific friend with whom I was talking, and announced that
he had found out the composition of the sun. "How was that done?"--"By
consideration of the four elements."--"What are {10} they?"--"Of course,
fire, air, earth, and water."--"Did you not know that air, earth, and
water, have long been known to be no elements at all, but
compounds?"--"What do you mean, sir? Who ever heard of such a thing?"

2. _The notion that difficulties are enigmas, to be overcome in a moment by
a lucky thought._ A nobleman of very high rank, now long dead, read an
article by me on the quadrature, in an early number of the _Penny
Magazine_. He had, I suppose, school recollections of geometry. He put
pencil to paper, drew a circle, and constructed what seemed likely to
answer, and, indeed, was--as he said--certain, if only this bit were equal
to that; which of course it was not. He forwarded his diagram to the
Secretary of the Diffusion Society, to be handed to the author of the
article, in case the difficulty should happen to be therein overcome.

3. _Discovery at all hazards, to get on in the world._ Thirty years ago, an
officer of rank, just come from foreign service, and trying for a
decoration from the Crown, found that his claims were of doubtful amount,
and was told by a friend that so and so, who had got the order, had the
additional claim of scientific distinction. Now this officer, while abroad,
had bethought himself one day, that there really could be no difficulty in
finding the circumference of a circle: if a circle were rolled upon a
straight line until the undermost point came undermost again, there would
be the straight line equal to the circle. He came to me, saying that he did
not feel equal to the statement of his claim in this respect, but that if
some clever fellow would put the thing in a proper light, he thought his
affair might be managed. I was clever enough to put the thing in a proper
light to himself, to this extent at least, that, though perhaps they were
wrong, the advisers of the Crown would never put the letters K.C.B. to such
a circle as h