A Budget of Paradoxes Volume II Part 4

Reasons for belief in judicial astrology, and remarks on the dangerous character of popish priestcraft. London, 1849, 12mo.

Astronomy in a nutsh.e.l.l: or the leading problems of the solar system solved by simple proportion only, on the theory of magnetic attraction.

By Lieut. Morrison,[85] N. N. London (_s. a._) 12mo.

{44}

Lieut. Morrison is Zadkiel Tao Sze, and declares himself in real earnest an astrologer. There are a great many books on astrology, but I have not felt interest enough to preserve many of them which have come in my way. If anything ever had a fair trial, it was astrology. The idea itself is natural enough. A human being, set down on this earth, without any tradition, would probably suspect that the heavenly bodies had something to do with the guidance of affairs. I think that any one who tries will ascertain that the planets do not prophesy: but if he should find to the contrary, he will of course go on asking. A great many persons cla.s.s together belief in astrology and belief in apparitions: the two things differ in precisely the way in which a science of observation differs from a science of experiment. Many make the mistake which M. le Marquis made when he came too late, and hoped M. Ca.s.sini[86] would do the eclipse over again for his ladies. The apparition chooses its own time, and comes as seldom or as often as it pleases, be it departed spirit, nervous derangement, or imposition. Consequently it can only be observed, and not experimented upon. But the heavens, if astrology be true, are prophesying away day and night all the year round, and about every body. Experiments can be made, then, except only on rare phenomena, such as eclipses: anybody may choose his time and his question. This is the great difference: and experiments were made, century after century. If astrology had been true, it must have lasted in an ever-improving state. If it be true, it is a truth, and a useful truth, which had experience and prejudice both in its favor, and yet lost ground as soon as astronomy, its working tool, began to improve.

1850. A letter in the handwriting of an educated man, dated from a street in which it must be taken that educated persons live, is addressed to the Secretary of the {45} Astronomical Society about a matter on which the writer says "his professional pursuit will enable him to give a satisfactory reply." In a question before a court of law it is sworn on one side that the moon was s.h.i.+ning at a certain hour of a certain night on a certain spot in London; on the other side it is affirmed that she was clouded. The Secretary is requested to decide. This is curious, as the question is not astrological. Persons still send to Greenwich, now and then, to have their fortunes told. In one case, not very many years ago, a young gentleman begged to know who his wife was to be, and what fee he was to remit.

Sometimes the astronomer turns conjurer for fun, and his prophesies are fulfilled. It is related of Flamsteed[87] that an old woman came to know the whereabouts of a bundle of linen which had strayed. Flamsteed drew a circle, put a square into it, and gravely pointed out a ditch, near her cottage, in which he said it would be found. He meant to have given the woman a little good advice when she came back: but she came back in great delight, with the bundle in her hand, found in the very place. The late Baron Zach[88] received a letter from Pons,[89] a successful finder of comets, complaining that for a certain period he had found no comets, though he had searched diligently. Zach, a man of much sly humor, told him that no spots had been seen on the sun for about the same time--which was true,--and a.s.sured him that when the spots came back, the comets would come with them. Some time after he got a letter {46} from Pons, who informed him with great satisfaction that he was quite right, that very large spots had appeared on the sun, and that he had found a fine comet shortly after. I do not vouch for the first story, but I have the second in Zach's handwriting.

It would mend the joke exceedingly if some day a real relation should be established between comets and solar spots: of late years good reason has been shown for advancing a connection between these spots and the earth's magnetism.[90] If the two things had been put to Zach, he would probably have chosen the comets. Here is a hint for a paradox: the solar spots are the dead comets, which have parted with their light and heat to feed the sun, as was once suggested. I should not wonder if I were too late, and the thing had been actually maintained. My list does not contain the twentieth part of the possible whole.

The mention of coincidences suggests an everlasting source of explanations, applicable to all that is extraordinary. The great paradox of coincidence is that of Leibnitz, known as the _pre-established harmony_, or _law of coincidences_, by which, separately and independently, the body receives impressions, and the mind proceeds as if it had perceived them from without. Every sensation, and the consequent state of the soul, are independent things coincident in time by the pre-established law. The philosopher could not otherwise _account for_ the connection of mind and matter; and he never goes by so vulgar a rule as _Whatever is, is_; to him that which is not clear as to how, is not at all. Philosophers in general, who tolerate each other's theories much better than Christians do each other's failings, seldom revive Leibnitz's fantasy: they seem to act upon the maxim quoted by Father Eustace[91] from the {47} Decretals, _Facinora ostendi dum puniuntur, flagitia autem abscondi debent_.[92]

The great _ghost-paradox_, and its theory of _coincidences_, will rise to the surface in the mind of every one. But the use of the word _coincidence_ is here at variance with its common meaning. When A is constantly happening, and also B, the occurrence of A and B at the same moment is the mere coincidence which may be casualty. But the case before us is that A is constantly happening, while B, when it does happen, almost always happens with A, and very rarely without it. That is to say, such is the phenomenon a.s.serted: and all who rationally refer it to casualty, affirm that B is happening very often as well as A, but that it is not thought worthy of being recorded except when A is simultaneous. Of course A is here a death, and B the spectral appearance of the person who dies. In talking of this subject it is necessary to put out of the question all who play fast and loose with their secret convictions: these had better give us a reason, when they feel internal pressure for explanation, that there is no weatherc.o.c.k at Kilve; this would do for all cases. But persons of real inquiry will see that first, experience does not bear out the a.s.serted frequency of the spectre, without the alleged coincidence of death: and secondly, that if the crowd of purely casual spectres were so great that it is no wonder that, now and then the person should have died at or near the moment, we ought to expect a much larger proportion of cases in which the spectre should come at the moment of the death of one or another of all the cl.u.s.ter who are closely connected with the original of the spectre. But this, we know, is almost without example. It remains then, for all, who speculate at all, to look upon the a.s.serted phenomenon, think what they may of it, the thing which is to be explained, as a _connection_ in time of the death, and the {48} simultaneous appearance of the dead. Any person the least used to the theory of probabilities will see that purely casual coincidence, the _wrong spectre_ being comparatively so rare that it may be said never to occur, is not within the rational field of possibility.

The purely casual coincidence, from which there is no escape except the actual doctrine of special providences, carried down to a very low point of special intention, requires a junction of the things the like of each of which is always happening. I will give three instances which have occurred to myself within the last few years: I solemnly vouch for the literal truth of every part of all three:

In August 1861, M. Senarmont,[93] of the French Inst.i.tute, wrote to me to the effect that Fresnel[94] had sent to England, in or shortly after 1824, a paper for translation and insertion in the _European Review_, which shortly afterwards expired. The question was what had become of that paper.

I examined the _Review_ at the Museum, found no trace of the paper, and wrote back to that effect at the Museum, adding that everything now depended on ascertaining the name of the editor, and tracing his papers: of this I thought there was no chance. I posted this letter on my way home, at a Post Office in the Hampstead Road at the junction with Edward Street, on the opposite side of which is a bookstall. Lounging for a moment over the exposed books, _sicut meus est mos_,[95] I saw, within a few minutes of the posting of the letter, a little catch-penny book of anecdotes of Macaulay, which I bought, and ran over for a minute. My eye was soon caught by this sentence: "One of the young fellows immediately wrote to the editor (Mr.

Walker) {49} of the _European Review_." I thus got the clue by which I ascertained that there was no chance of recovering Fresnel's paper. Of the mention of current reviews, not one in a thousand names the editor.

In the summer of 1865 I made my first acquaintance with the tales of Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the first I read was about the siege of Boston in the War of Independence. I could not make it out: everybody seemed to have got into somebody else's place. I was beginning the second tale, when a parcel arrived: it was a lot of old pamphlets and other rubbish, as he called it, sent by a friend who had lately sold his books, had not thought it worth while to send these things for sale, but thought I might like to look at them and possibly keep some. The first thing I looked at was a sheet which, being opened, displayed "A plan of Boston and its environs, shewing the true situation of his Majesty's army and also that of the rebels, drawn by an engineer, at Boston Oct. 1775." Such detailed plans of current sieges being then uncommon, it is explained that "The princ.i.p.al part of this plan was surveyed by Richard Williams, Lieutenant at Boston; and sent over by the son of a n.o.bleman to his father in town, by whose permission it was published." I immediately saw that my confusion arose from my supposing that the king's troops were besieging the rebels, when it was just the other way.

April 1, 1853, while engaged in making some notes on a logical point, an idea occurred which was perfectly new to me, on the mode of conciliating the notions _omnipresence_ and _indivisibility into parts_. What it was is no matter here: suffice it that, since it was published elsewhere (in a paper on _Infinity_, _Camb. Phil. Trans._ vol. xi. p. 1) I have not had it produced to me. I had just finished a paragraph on the subject, when a parcel came in from a bookseller containing Heywood's[96] _a.n.a.lysis of Kant's Critick_, 1844.

{50} On turning over the leaves I found (p. 109) the identical thought which up to this day, I only know as in my own paper, or in Kant. I feel sure I had not seen it before, for it is in Kant's first edition, which was never translated to my knowledge; and it does not appear in the later editions. Mr. Heywood gives some account of the first edition.

In the broadsheet which gave account of the dying scene of Charles II, it is said that the Roman Catholic priest was introduced by P. M. A. C. F. The chain was this: the d.u.c.h.ess of Portsmouth[97] applied to the Duke of York, who may have consulted his Cordelier confessor, Mansuete, about procuring a priest, and the priest was smuggled into the king's room by the d.u.c.h.ess and Chiffinch.[98] Now the letters are a verbal acrostic of _Pere Mansuete a Cordelier Friar_, and a syllabic acrostic of _PortsMouth and ChifFinch_.

This is a singular coincidence. Macaulay adopted the first interpretation, preferring it to the second, which I brought before him as the conjecture of a near relative of my own. But Mansuete is not mentioned in his narrative: it may well be doubted whether the writer of a broadside for English readers would use _Pere_ instead of _Father_. And the person who really "reminded" the Duke of "the duty he owed to his brother," was the d.u.c.h.ess and not Mansuete. But my affair is only with the coincidence.

But there are coincidences which are really connected without the connection being known to those who find in them matter of astonishment.

Presentiments furnish marked cases: sometimes there is no mystery to those who have the clue. In the _Gentleman's Magazine_ (vol. 80, part 2, p. 33) we read, the subject being presentiment of death, as follows: "In 1778, to come nearer the recollection of {51} survivors, at the taking of Pondicherry, Captain John Fletcher, Captain De Morgan, and Lieutenant Bosanquet, each distinctly foretold his own death on the morning of his fate." I have no doubt of all three; and I knew it of my grandfather long before I read the above pa.s.sage. He saw that the battery he commanded was unduly exposed: I think by the sap running through the fort when produced.

He represented this to the engineer officers, and to the commander-in-chief; the engineers denied the truth of the statement, the commander believed them, my grandfather quietly observed that he must make his will, and the French fulfilled his prediction. His will bore date the day of his death; and I always thought it more remarkable than the fulfilment of the prophecy that a soldier should not consider any danger short of one like the above, sufficient reason to make his will. I suppose the other officers were similarly posted. I am told that military men very often defer making their wills until just before an action: but to face the ordinary risks intestate, and to wait until speedy death must be the all but certain consequence of a stupid mistake, is carrying the principle very far. In the matter of coincidences there are, as in other cases, two wonderful extremes with every intermediate degree. At one end we have the confident people who can attribute anything to casual coincidence; who allow Zadok Imposture and Nathan Coincidence to anoint Solomon Selfconceit king. At the other end we have those who see something _very curious_ in any coincidence you please, and whose minds yearn for a deep reason. A speculator of this cla.s.s happened to find that Matthew viii. 28-33 and Luke viii. 26-33 contain the same account, that of the demons entering into the swine. Very odd! chapters tallying, and verses so nearly: is the versification rightly managed? Examination is sure to show that there are monstrous inconsistencies in the mode of division, which being corrected, the verses tally as well as the chapters. And then how comes it? I cannot go on, {52} for I have no gift at torturing a coincidence, but I would lay twopence, if I could make a bet--which I never did in all my life--that some one or more of my readers will try it. Some people say that the study of chances tends to awaken a spirit of gambling: I suspect the contrary. At any rate, I myself, the writer of a mathematical book and a comparatively popular book, have never laid a bet nor played for a stake, however small: not one single time.

It is useful to record such instances as I have given, with precision and on the solemn word of the recorder. When such a story as that of Flamsteed is told, _a priori_ a.s.sures us that it could not have been: the story may have been a _ben trovato_,[99] but not the bundle. It is also useful to establish some of the good jokes which all take for inventions. My friend Mr. J. Bellingham Inglis,[100] before 1800, saw the tobacconist's carriage with a sample of tobacco in a s.h.i.+eld, and the motto _Quid rides_[101] (_N._ & _Q._, 3d S. i. 245). His father was able to tell him all about it. The tobacconist was Jacob Brandon, well known to the elder Mr. Inglis, and the person who started the motto, the instant he was asked for such a thing, was Harry Calender of Lloyd's, a scholar and a wit. My friend Mr. H. Crabb Robinson[102] remembers the King's Counsel (Samuel Marryat) who took the motto _Causes produce effects_, when his success enabled him to start a carriage.

The coincidences of errata are sometimes very remarkable: it may be that the misprint has a sting. The death of Sir W. Hamilton[103] of Edinburgh was known in London on a Thursday, and the editor of the _Athenaeum_ wrote to {53} me in the afternoon for a short obituary notice to appear on Sat.u.r.day. I dashed off the few lines which appeared without a moment to think: and those of my readers who might perhaps think me capable of contriving errata with meaning will, I am sure, allow the hurry, the occasion, and my own peculiar relation to the departed, as sufficient reasons for believing in my entire innocence. Of course I could not see a proof: and two errata occurred. The words "addition to Stewart"[104]

require "_for_ addition to _read_ edition of." This represents what had been insisted on by the Edinburgh publisher, who, frightened by the edition of Reid,[105] had stipulated for a simple reprint without notes. Again "principles of logic and mathematics" required "_for_ mathematics _read_ metaphysics." No four words could be put together which would have so good a t.i.tle to be Hamilton's motto.

April 1850, found in the letter-box, three loose leaves, well printed and over punctuated, being

Chapter VI. Brethren, lo I come, holding forth the word of life, for so I am commanded.... Chapter VII. Hear my prayer, O generations! and walk by the way, to drink the waters of the river.... Chapter VIII. Hearken o earth, earth, earth, and the kings of the earth, and their armies....

A very large collection might be made of such apostolic writings. They go on well enough in a misty--meant for mystical--imitation of St. Paul or the prophets, until at last some prodigious want of keeping shows the education of the writer. For example, after half a page which might {54} pa.s.s for Irving's[106] preaching--though a person to whom it was presented as such would say that most likely the head and tail would make something more like head and tail of it--we are astounded by a declaration from the _Holy Spirit_, speaking of himself, that he is "not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ." It would be long before we should find in _educated_ rhapsody--of which there are specimens enough--such a thing as a person of the Trinity taking merit for moral courage enough to stand where St. Peter fell. The following declaration comes next--"I will judge between cattle and cattle, that use their tongues."

THE FIGURE OF THE EARTH.

The figure of the earth. By J. L. Murphy,[107] of Birmingham. (London and Birmingham, 4 pages, 12mo.) (1850?)

Mr. Murphy invites attention and objection to some a.s.sertions, as that the earth is prolate, not oblate. "If the philosopher's conclusion be right, then the pole is the center of a valley (!) thirteen miles deep." Hence it would be very warm. It is answer enough to ask--Who knows that it is not?

*** A paragraph in the MS. appears to have been inserted in this place by mistake. It will be found in the Appendix at the end of this volume.--S. E. De M.

PERPETUAL MOTION.

1851. The following letter was written by one of a cla.s.s of persons whom, after much experience of them, I {55} do _not_ p.r.o.nounce insane. But in this case the second sentence gives a suspicion of actual delusion of the senses; the third looks like that eye for the main chance which pa.s.ses for sanity on the Stock Exchange and elsewhere:

15th Sept. 1851.

"Gentlemen,--I pray you take steps to make known that yesterday I completed my invention which will give motion to every country on the Earth;--to move Machinery!--the long sought in vain 'Perpetual Motion'!!--I was supported at the time by the Queen and H.R.H. Prince Albert. If, Gentlemen, you can advise me how to proceed to claim the reward, if any is offered by the Government, or how to secure the PATENT for the machine, or in any way a.s.sist me by advice in this great work, I shall most graciously acknowledge your consideration.

These are my convictions that my SEVERAL discoveries will be realized: and this great one can be at once acted upon: although at this moment it only exists in my mind, from my knowledge of certain fixed principles in nature:--the Machine I have not made, as I only completed the discovery YESTERDAY, Sunday!

I have, etc. ---- ----"

To the Directors of the London University, Gower Street.

ON SPIRITUALISM.

The Divine Drama of History and Civilisation. By the Rev. James Smith, M.A.[108] London, 1854, 8vo.

I have several books on that great paradox of our day, _Spiritualism_, but I shall exclude all but three. The bibliography of this subject is now very large. The question is one both of evidence and speculation;--Are the facts {56} true? Are they caused by spirits? These I shall not enter upon: I shall merely recommend this work as that of a spiritualist who does not enter on the subject, which he takes for granted, but applies his derived views to the history of mankind with learning and thought. Mr. Smith was a man of a very peculiar turn of thinking. He was, when alive, the editor, or _an_ editor, of the _Family Herald_: I say when alive, to speak according to knowledge; for, if his own views be true, he may have a hand in it still. The answers to correspondents, in his time, were piquant and original above any I ever saw. I think a very readable book might be made out of them, resembling "Guesses at Truth:" the turn given to an inquiry about morals, religion, or socials, is often of the highest degree of _unexpectedness_; the poor querist would find himself right in a most unpalatable way.

Answers to correspondents, in newspapers, are very often the f.a.g ends of literature. I shall never forget the following. A person was invited to name a rule without exception, if he could: he answered "A man _must_ be present when he is shaved." A lady--what right have ladies to decide questions about shaving?--said this was not properly a rule; and the oracle was consulted. The editor agreed with the lady; he said that "a man _must_ be present when he is shaved" is not a _rule_, but a _fact_.

[Among my anonymous communicants is one who states that I have done injustice to the Rev. James Smith in "referring to him as a spiritualist,"

and placing his "Divine Drama" among paradoxes: "it is no paradox, nor do _spiritualistic_ views mar or weaken the execution of the design." Quite true: for the design is to produce and enforce "spiritualistic views"; and leather does not mar nor weaken a shoemaker's plan. I knew Mr. Smith well, and have often talked to him on the subject: but more testimony from me is unnecessary; his book will speak for itself. {57} His peculiar style will justify a little more quotation than is just necessary to prove the point.

Looking at the "battle of opinion" now in progress, we see that Mr. Smith was a prescient:

(P. 588.) "From the general review of parties in England, it is evident that no country in the world is better prepared for the great Battle of Opinion. Where else can the battle be fought but where the armies are arrayed? And here they all are, Greek, Roman, Anglican, Scotch, Lutheran, Calvinist, Established and Territorial, with Baronial Bishops, and Nonestablished of every grade--churches with living prophets and apostles, and churches with dead prophets and apostles, and apostolical churches without apostles, and philosophies without either prophets or apostles, and only wanting one more, 'the Christian Church,' like Aaron's rod, to swallow up and digest them all, and then bud and flourish. As if to prepare our minds for this desirable and inevitable consummation, different parties have been favored with a revival of that very spirit of revelation by which the Church itself was originally founded. There is a complete series of spiritual revelations in England and the United States, besides mesmeric phenomena that bear a resemblance to revelation, and thus gradually open the mind of the philosophical and infidel cla.s.ses, as well as the professed believers of that old revelation which they never witnessed in living action, to a better understanding of that Law of Nature (for it is a Law of Nature) in which all revelation originates and by which its spiritual communications are regulated."

Mr. Smith proceeds to say that there are _only_ thirty-five incorporated churches in England, all formed from the New Testament except five, to each of which five he concedes a revelation of its own. The five are the Quakers, the Swedenborgians, the Southcottians, the Irvingites, and the Mormonites. Of Joanna Southcott he speaks as follows: {58}