ing.

I now reply to a question I have been asked again and again since my last
Budget appeared: Why do you take so much trouble to expose such a reasoner
as Mr. Smith? I answer as a deceased friend of mine used to answer on like
occasions--A man's capacity is no measure of his power to do mischief. Mr.
Smith has untiring energy, which does something; self-evident honesty of
conviction, which does more; and a long purse, which does most of all. He
has made at least ten publications, full of figures which few readers can
criticize. A great many people are staggered to this extent, that they
imagine there must be {130} the indefinite _something_ in the mysterious
_all this_. They are brought to the point of suspicion that the
mathematicians ought not to treat "all this" with such undisguised
contempt, at least. Now I have no fear for [pi]: but I do think it possible
that general opinion might in time demand that the crowd of
circle-squarers, etc. should be admitted to the honors of opposition; and
this would be a time-tax of five per cent., one man with another, upon
those who are better employed. Mr. James Smith may be made useful, in hands
which understand how to do it, towards preventing such opinion from
growing. A speculator who expressly assumes what he wants to prove, and
argues that all which contradicts it is absurd, _because_ it cannot stand
side by side with his assumption, is a case which can be exposed to all.
And the best person to expose it is one who has lived in the past as well
as the present, who takes misthinking from points of view which none but a
student of history can occupy, and who has something of a turn for the
business.

Whether I have any motive but public good must be referred to those who can
decide whether a missionary chooses his pursuit solely to convert the
heathen. I shall certainly be thought to have a little of the spirit of
Col. Quagg, who delighted in strapping the Grace-walking Brethren. I must
quote this myself: if I do not, some one else will, and then where am I?
The Colonel's principle is described as follows:

"I licks ye because I kin, and because I like, and because ye'se critters
that licks is good for. Skins ye have on, and skins I'll have off; hard or
soft, wet or dry, spring or fall. Walk in grace if ye like till pumpkins is
peaches; but licked ye must be till your toe-nails drop off and your noses
bleed blue ink. And--licked--they--were--accordingly."

I am reminded