heir intrinsic
interest, just like other novels or romances, not for the quality
sometimes claimed for them of combining instruction with amusement.

X.

_ON SOME ASTRONOMICAL PARADOXES._

For many years the late Professor De Morgan contributed to the columns
of the 'Athenaeum' a series of papers in which he dealt with the strange
treatises in which the earth is flattened, the circle squared, the angle
divided into three, the cube doubled (the famous problem which the
Delphic oracle set astronomers), and the whole of modern astronomy shown
to be a delusion and a snare. He treated these works in a quaint
fashion: not unkindly, for his was a kindly nature; not even earnestly,
though he was thoroughly in earnest; yet in such sort as to rouse the
indignation of the unfortunate paradoxists. He was abused roundly for
what he said, but much more roundly when he declined further
controversy. Paradoxists of the ignorant sort (for it must be remembered
that not all are ignorant) are, indeed, well practised in abuse, and
have long learned to call mathematicians and astronomers cheats and
charlatans. They freely used their vocabulary for the benefit of De
Morgan, whom they denounced as a scurrilous scribbler, a defamatory,
dishonest, abusive, ungentlemanly, and libellous trickster.

He bore this shower of abuse with exceeding patience and good nature. He
had not been wholly unprepared for it, in fact; and, as he had a purpose
in dealing with the paradoxists, he was satisfied to continue that quiet
analysis of their work which so roused their indignation. He found in
them a curious subject of study; and he found an equally curious subject
of study in their disciples. The simpler--not to say more
foolish--paradoxists, whose wonderful discoveries are merely amazing
misapprehensions, were even more interesting to De Morgan than the
craftier sort who make a living, or try to make a living, out of their
pretended theories. Indeed, these last he treated, as they deserved,
with a scathing satire quite different from his humorous and not
ungenial comments on the wonderful theories of the honest paradoxists.

There is one special use to which the study of paradox-literature may be
applied, which--so far as I know--has not hitherto been much attended
to. It may be questioned whether half the strange notions into which
paradoxists fall must not be ascribed to the vagueness of too many of
our scientific treatises. A half-understood