, is
not one who, according to Pascal's creed, or any other worth naming, will
really secure that gain. I wonder whether Pascal's curious imagination ever
presented to him in sleep his convert, in the future state, shaken out of a
red-hot dice-box upon a red-hot hazard-table, as perhaps he might have
been, if Dante had been the later of the two. The original idea is due to
the elder Arnobius,[157] who, as cited by Bayle,[158] speaks thus:

"Sed et ipse [Christus] quae pollicetur, non probat. Ita est. Nulla enim, ut
dixi, futurorum potest existere comprobatio. Cum ergo haec sit conditio
futurorum, ut teneri et comprehendi nullius possint anticipationis attactu;
nonne {74} purior ratio est, ex duobus incertis, et in ambigua expectatione
pendentibus, id potius credere, quod aliquas spes ferat, quam omnino quod
nullas? In illo enim periculi nihil est, si quod dicitur imminere, cassum
fiat et vacuum: in hoc damnum est maximum, id est salutis amissio, si cum
tempus advenerit aperiatur non fuisse mendacium."[159]

Really Arnobius seems to have got as much out of the notion, in the third
century, as if he had been fourteen centuries later, with the arithmetic of
chances to help him.]

NOVUM ORGANUM MORALIUM.

The Sentinel, vol. ix. no. 27. London, Saturday, May 26, 1855.

This is the first London number of an Irish paper, Protestant in politics.
It opens with "Suggestions on the subject of a _Novum Organum Moralium_,"
which is the application of algebra and the differential calculus to
morals, socials, and politics. There is also a leading article on the
subject, and some applications in notes to other articles. A separate
publication was afterwards made, with the addition of a long Preface; the
author being a clergyman who I presume must have been the editor of the
_Sentinel_.

Suggestions as to the employment of a _Novum Organum Moralium_. Or,
thoughts on the nature of the Differential Calculus, and on the
application of its principles to metaphysics, with a view to the
attainment of demonstration and certainty in moral, {75} political and
ecclesiastical affairs. By Tresham Dames Gregg,[160] Chaplain of St.
Mary's, within the church of St. Nicholas intra muros, Dublin. London,
1859, 8vo. (pp. xl + 32).

I have a personal interest in this system, as will appear from the
following extract from the newspaper:

"We were subsequently referred to De Morgan's _Formal Logic_ and
Bo