ing by _twelves_, I should reply,
with Candide, when he had the option given of running the gauntlet or being
shot: Les volontes sont libres, et je ne veux ni l'un ni l'autre.[316] We
can imagine a speculator providing such a system for Utopia as it would be
in the mind of a Laputan: but to explain how an engineer who has surveyed
mankind from Philadelphia to Rostof on the Don should for a moment
entertain the idea of such a system being actually adopted, would beat a
jury of solar-system-makers, though they were shut up from the beginning of
Anuary to the end of Tonborius. When I see such a scheme as this imagined
to be practicable, I admire the wisdom of Providence in providing the
quadrature of the circle, etc., to open a harmless sphere of action to the
possessors of the kind of ingenuity which it displays. Those who cultivate
mathematics have a right to speak strongly on such efforts of arithmetic as
this: for, to my knowledge, persons who have no knowledge are frequently
disposed to imagine that their makers are true brothers of the craft, a
little more intelligible than the rest.

SOME SMALL PARADOXERS.

Vis inertiae victa,[317] or Fallacies affecting science. By James
Reddie.[318] London, 1862, 8vo.

{184}

An attack on the Newtonian mechanics; revolution by gravitation
demonstrably impossible; much to be said for the earth being the immovable
center. A good analysis of contents at the beginning, a thing seldom found.
The author has followed up his attack in a paper submitted to the British
Association, but which it appears the Association declined to consider. It
is entitled--

_Victoria Toto Coelo_; or, Modern Astronomy recast. London, 1863, 8vo.

At the end is a criticism of Sir G. Lewis's _History of Ancient Astronomy_.

On the definition and nature of the Science of Political Economy. By H.
Dunning Macleod,[319] Esq. Cambridge, 1862, 8vo.

A paper read--but, according to the report, not understood--at the British
Association. There is a notion that political economy is entirely
mathematical; and its negative quantity is strongly recommended for study:
it contains "the whole of the Funds, Credit, 32 parts out of 33 of the
value of Land...." The mathematics are described as consisting of--first,
number, or Arithmetic; secondly, the theory of dependent quantities,
subdivided into dependence by cause and effect, and dependence by
simultaneous variations; thirdly, "indepen