ine could be drawn without
latitude; or a superficies be without depth or thickness; but
mathematicians conceive them without these qualities, when they exist
abstractedly in the mind; though, when for the purposes of science
they are produced to the senses, they necessarily have all the
qualities. It was understanding these figures, in the vulgar way,
which led Hobbes into a labyrinth of confusions and absurdities.[384]
They appear to have nearly maddened the clear and vigorous intellect
of our philosopher; for he exclaims, in one of these writings:--

"I alone am mad, or they are all out of their senses: so that no third
opinion can be taken, unless any will say that we are all mad."

Four years of truce were allowed to intervene between the next battle;
when the irrefutable Hobbes, once more collecting his weak and his
incoherent forces, arranged them, as well as he was able, into "Six
Dialogues," 1661. The utter annihilation he intended for his
antagonist fell on himself. Wallis borrowing the character of "The
Self-tormentor" from Terence, produced "Hobbius Heauton-timorumenos
(Hobbes the Self-tormentor); or, a Consideration of Mr. Hobbes's
Dialogues; addressed to Robert Boyle," 1662.

This attack of Wallis is of a very opposite character to the arid
discussion of abstract blunders in geometry. He who began with points,
and doubling the cube, and squaring the circle, now assumes a loftier
tone, and carrying his personal and moral feelings into a mere
controversy between two idle mathematicians, he has formed a solemn
invective, and edged it with irony. I hope the reader has experienced
sufficient interest in the character of Hobbes to read the long, but
curious extract I shall now transcribe, with that awe and reverence
which the old man claims. It will show how even the greatest genius
may be disguised, when viewed through the coloured medium of an
adversary. One is, however, surprised to find such a passage in a
mathematical work.

"He doth much improve; I mean he doth, _proficere in pejus_; more,
indeed, than I could reasonably have expected he would have
done;--insomuch, that I cannot but profess some relenting thoughts
(though I had formerly occasion to use him somewhat coarsely), to
see an old man thus fret and torment himself to no purpose. You,
too, should pity your antagonist; not as if he did deserve it, but
because he needs it; and as Chremes, in Terence, of his Senex, his
self-tormenting Menedemus--