Josephus, says to Paul (Acts xxvi. 28),
"Almost thou persuadest me to be (what I and other followers of the state
religion despise under the name) a Christian." Again (Acts xi. 26), "The
disciples (as they called _themselves_) were called (by the surrounding
heathens) Christians first in Antioch." Thirdly (1 Peter iv. 16), "Let none
of you suffer as a _murderer_.... But if as a _Christian_ (as the heathen
call it by whom the suffering comes), let him not be ashamed." That is to
say, no _disciple_ ever called _himself_ a Christian, or applied the name,
as from himself, to another disciple, from one end of the New Testament to
the other; and no disciple need apply that name to himself in our day, if
he dislike the associations with which the conduct of Christians has
clothed it.

WRONSKI ON THE LONGITUDE PROBLEM.

Address of M. Hoene Wronski to the British Board of Longitude, upon the
actual state of the mathematics, their reform, {250} and upon the new
celestial mechanics, giving the definitive solution of the problem of
longitude.[570] London, 1820, 8vo.

M. Wronski[571] was the author of seven quartos on mathematics, showing
very great power of generalization. He was also deep in the transcendental
philosophy,[572] and had the Absolute at his fingers' ends. All this
knowledge was rendered useless by a persuasion that he had greatly advanced
beyond the whole world, with many hints that the Absolute would not be
forthcoming, unless prepaid. He was a man of the widest extremes. At one
time he desired people to see all possible mathematics in

F_x_ = A_{0}[Omega]_{0} + A_{1}[Omega]_{1} + A_{2}[Omega]_{2} +
A_{3}[Omega]_{3} + &c.

which he did not explain, though there is meaning to it in the quartos. At
another time he was proposing the general solution of the[573] fifth degree
by help of 625 independent equations of one form and 125 of another. The
first separate memoir from any Transactions that I ever possessed was given
to me when at Cambridge; the refutation (1819) of this asserted solution,
presented to the Academy of Lisbon by Evangelista Torriano. I cannot say I
read it. The tract above is an attack on modern mathematicians in general,
and on the Board of Longitude, and Dr. Young.[574]

{251}

DR. MILNER'S PARADOXES.

1820. In this year died Dr. Isaac Milner,[575] President of Queens'
College, Cambridge, one of the class of rational paradoxers. Under this
name I include all