would have given effect to the bloody letter of his proclamation had Lantenac come into his hands by the ordinary chances of war. But when Lantenac falls a victim to a sublime impulse of unexpected humanity, the situation is abruptly changed. Cimourdain had made the seizure, and Lantenac himself had approved it; and convictions of his strict duty would have made Gauvain pitiless. But he is placed in turn in a position very similar to that of his uncle; and in spite of convictions and scruples of duty, his chivalrous compas sion speaks to him imperatively. One can conceive the dramatic situations that arise out of the complication. Gauvain assists his uncle's escape, and offers himself as the scapegoat to Cimourdain, who represents the justice of the inexorable Republic. Cimourdain's position is even more painful than that of either of the others. He would gladly give his life for his darling pupil, but that, unhappily, is impossible. On the contrary, he sends to announce the impending execution to the heads of the Republic at Paris even before the court-martial has assembled. His voice gives the casting vote that decides the sentence he has anticipated. Then he visits Gauvain in the condemned cell, where they hold philosophical con verse on political affairs, without an arrière-pensée of bitterness on either side

as each feels that ȧváykη is weighing on him, and that this heart-rending affliction was not to have been avoided. And then it is that on the morrow, on the discharge of the firing-party, Cimourdain puts an end to his existence.

No one but a profound student of the human mind, and a thinker who is a master of the eloquence of language, could have handled so difficult a theme without inviting discomfiture. Victor Hugo was treading on the edge of an abyss, where a single slip or false step might have landed him in a bathos of melodrama. But, as we have remarked at the outset, he is capable of tours de force, which would prepare inevitable failure for ordinary talents; and in this instance, at least, his success has justified his daring. To borrow a favorite idea of his own, he is unquestionably one of the Titans of literature. When he breaks down, it is either from carelessness or on a principle, or from the overconfidence that is born of the consciousness of his strength. Like many men of genius, he has the conviction of a mission, in which he must be instant in season and out of season; and, unhappily, instead of confining himself to the limits of his art, he will expend himself in Titanic exertions to set the world in order. Blackwood's Magazine.

FOR many years the late Professor De Morgan contributed to the columns of the Athenæum' a series of papers in which he dealt with the strange treatises in which the earth is flattened, the circle squared, the angle divided into three, the cube doubled (the famous problem which the Delphic oracle set astronomers), and the whole of modern astronomy shown to be a delusion and a snare. He treated these works in a quaint fashion, not unkindly, for his was a kindly nature; not even earnestly, though he was thoroughly in earnest yet in such sort as to rouse the indignation of the unfortunate paradoxists. He was abused roundly for what he said, but much more roundly when he de

clined further controversy. Paradoxists of the ignorant sort (for it must be remembered that not all are ignorant) are, indeed, well practised in abuse, and have long learned to call mathematicians and astronomers cheats and charlatans. They freely used their vocabulary for the benefit of De Morgan, whom they denounced as a scurrilous scribbler, a defamatory, dishonest, abusive, ungentlemanly, and libellous trickster.

He bore this shower of abuse with exceeding patience and good nature. He had not been wholly unprepared for it, in fact; and, as he had a purpose in dealing with the paradoxists, he was satisfied to continue that quiet analysis of their work which so roused their indig

nation. He found in them a curious subject of study; and he found an equally curious subject of study in their disciples. The simpler-not to say to say more foolish-paradoxists, whose wonderful discoveries are merely amazing misapprehensions, were even more interesting to De Morgan than the craftier sort who make a living, or try to make a living, out of their pretended theories. Indeed, these last he treated, as they deserved, with a scathing satire quite different from his humorous and not ungenial comments on the wonderful theories of the honest paradoxists.

There is one special use to which the study of paradox-literature may be applied, which-so far as I know-has not hitherto been much attended to. It may be questioned whether half the strange notions into which paradoxists fall must not be ascribed to the vagueness of too many of our scientific treatises. A halfunderstood explanation, or a carelessly worded account of some natural phenomenon, leads the paradoxist, whose nature is compounded of conceit and simplicity, to originate a theory of his own on the subject. Once such a theory has been devised, it takes complete possession of the paradoxist's mind. All the facts he thenceforward hears of, which bear in the least on his favorite craze, appear to give evidence in its favor, even though in reality they are most obviously opposed to it. He learns to look upon himself as an unappreciated Newton, and to see the bitterest malevolence in those who venture to question his preposterous notions. He is fortunate if he do not suffer his theories to withdraw him from his means of earning a livelihood, or if he do not waste his substance in propounding and defending them.

One of the favorite subjects for paradox-forming is the accepted theory of the solar system. Our books on astronomy too often present this theory in such sort that it seems only a successor of Ptolemy's; and the impression is conveyed that, like Ptolemy's, it may be one day superseded by some other theory. This is quite enough for the paradoxist. If a new theory is to replace the one now accepted, why should not he be the new Copernicus? He starts upon the road without a tithe of the knowledge that old Ptolemy possessed, unaware of

the difficulties which Ptolemy met and dealt with-free, therefore, because of his perfect ignorance, to form theories at which Ptolemy would have smiled. He has probably heard of the

centrics and eccentrics scribbled o'er Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb, which disfigured the theories of the ancients; but he is quite unconscious that every one of those scribblings had a real for some observed peculiarity of planetmeaning, each being intended to account for by any theory which is to claim acary motion, which must be accounted ceptance. In this happy unconsciousquiring explanation, knowing nothing of ness that there are any peculiarities rethe strange paths which the planets are seen to follow on the heavenly vault, Their wand'ring course now high, now low, then hid,

Progressive, retrograde, or standing still, he placidly puts forward-and presently very vehemently urges-a theory which accounts for none of these things.

It has often seemed to me that a large part of the mischief-for let it be remembered that the published errors of the paradoxist are indicative of much unpublished misapprehension - arises. from the undeserved contempt with which our books of astronomy too often treat the labors of Ptolemy, Tycho Brahe, and others who advocated erroneous theories. If the simple truth were told, that the theory of Ptolemy was a masterpiece of ingenuity and that it was worked out by his followers in a way which merits the highest possible praise,. while the theory of Tycho Brahe was placed in reality on a sounder basis than that of Copernicus, and accounted as well and as simply for observed appearances, the student would begin to realise the noble nature of the problem which those great astronomers dealt with. And again, if stress were laid upon the fact that Tycho Brahe devoted years upon years of his life to secure such observations of the planets as might settle the questions at issue, the student would learn something of the spirit in which the true lover of science proceeds. It seems to me, also, that far too little is said about the kind of work by which Kepler and Newton finally established the accepted theories. There There is a

strange charm in the history of those twenty years of Kepler's life during which he was analysing the observations made by Tycho Brahe. Surrounded with domestic trials and anxieties, which might well have claimed his whole attention, tried grievously by ill-health and bodily anguish, he labored all those years upon erroneous theories. The very worst of these had infinitely more evidence in its favor than the best which the paradoxists have brought forth. There was not one of those theories which nine out of ten of his scientific contemporaries would not have accepted ungrudgingly. Yet he wrought these theories one after another to their own disproof. Nineteen of them he tried and rejected-the twentieth was the true theory of the solar system. Perhaps nothing in the whole history of astronomy affords a nobler lesson to the student of science-unless, indeed, it be the calm philosophy with which Newton for eighteen years suffered the theory of the universe to remain in abeyance, because faulty measurements of the earth prevented his calculations from agreeing with observed facts. But, as Professor Tyndall has well remarked-and the paradoxist should lay the lesson well to heart-Newton's action in this matter was the normal action of the scientific mind. If it were otherwise-if scientific men were not accustomed to demand verification, if they were satisfied with the imperfect while the perfect is attainable their science, instead of being, as it is, a fortress of adamant, would be a house of clay, ill fitted to bear the buffetings of the theologic storms to which it has been from time to time, and is at present, exposed.'

The fame of Newton has proved to many paradoxists an irresistible attraction; it has been to these unfortunates as the candle to the fluttering moth. Circle-squaring, as we shall presently see, has had its attractions, nor have earth-fixing and earth-flattening been neglected; but attacking the law of gravitation has been the favorite work of paradoxists. Newton has been praised as surpassing the whole human race in genius; mathematicians and astronomers have agreed to laud him as unequalled; why should not Paradoxus displace him and be praised in like man

ner? It would be unfair, perhaps, to say that the paradoxist consciously argues thus. He, doubtless, in most instances, convinces himself that he has really detected some flaw in the theory of gravitation. Yet it is impossible not to recognise, as the real motive of every paradox-monger, the desire to have that said of him which has been said of Newton: Genus humanum ingenio superavit.'

I remember a curious instance of this which occurred soon after the appearance of the comet of 1858. It chanced that, while that object was under discussion, reference was made to the action of a repulsive force exerted by the sun upon the matter of the comet's tail. On this, some one addressed a long letter to a Glasgow newspaper, announcing that he had long ago proved that the sun's attraction alone is insufficient to account for the planetary motions. His reasoning was amazingly simple. If the sun's attraction is powerful enough to keep the outer planets in their course, it must be too powerful for Venus and Mercury close by the sun; if it only just suffices to keep these in their course, it cannot possibly be powerful enough to restrain the outer planets. The writer of this letter said that he had been very badly treated by scientific bodies. He had announced his discovery to the Royal Astronomical Society, the Royal Society, the Imperial Academy at Paris, and other scientific bodies; but they had one and all refused to listen to him. He had forsaken or neglected his trade for several years in order to give attention to the new and, as he thought, the true theory of the universe. He complained in a specially bitter manner of the unfavorable comments which men of science had made upon his views in private letters addressed to him in reply to his communications.

There is something melancholy even in what is most ridiculous in cases of this sort. The simplicity which supposes that considerations so obvious as those adduced could escape the scrutiny, not of Newton only, but of all who have followed in the same track during two centuries, is certainly stupendous; nor can one fail to smile at seeing a difficulty, such as might naturally suggest itself to a beginner, and such as half-a-dozen

words from an expert would clear up, regarded gravely as a discovery calculated to make its author famous for all time. Yet, when one considers the probable consequences of the blunder to the unhappy enthusiast, and perchance to his family, it is difficult not to feel a sense of pity, quite apart from that pity allied to contempt which is excited by his mistake. A few words added to the account of Newton's theory, which the paradoxist had probably read in some astronomical treatise, would have prevented all this mischief. Indeed, this difficulty, which, as we have said, is a natural one, should be dealt with and removed in any account of the planetary system intended for beginners. The simple statement that the outer planets move more slowly than the inner, and so require a smaller force to keep them in their course, would have sufficed, not, perhaps, altogether to remove the difficulty, but to show the beginner where the explanation was to be looked for.

It was in connection with this subject of gravitation that one of the most wellmeaning of the paradoxists-the late Mr. James Reddie-came under Professor De Morgan's criticism. Mr. Reddie was something more than well-meaning. He was earnestly desirous of advancing the interests of science, as well as of defending religion from what he mistakenly supposed to be the dangerous teachings of the Newtonians. He founded for these purposes the Victoria Institute, of which society he was the secretary from the time of its institution until his decease, eight or nine years since; and, probably, many who declined to join that society because of the anti-Newtonian proclivities of its secretary, were unaware that to that secretary the Institute owed its existence.

It so chanced that I had myself a good deal of correspondence with Mr. Reddie (who was, however, personally unknown to me). This correspondence served to throw quite a new light on the mental habitudes and the ways of thinking of the honest paradoxist. I believe that Professor De Morgan hardly gave Mr. Reddie credit for the perfect honesty which he really possessed. It may have been that a clear reasoner like De Morgan could hardly (despite his wide experience) appreciate the confu

sion of mind which is the normal characteristic of the paradoxist. But certainly the very candid way in which Mr. Reddie admitted, in the correspondence above named, that he had not known some facts and had misunderstood others, afforded to my mind the most satisfactory proofs of his straightforwardness. It may be instructive to consider a few of those paradoxes of Mr. Reddie's which Professor De Morgan found chief occasion to pulverise.

In a letter to the Astronomer Royal, Mr. Reddie announced that he was about to write a paper, intended to be hereafter published, elaborating more minutely and discussing more rigidly than before the glaring fallacies, dating from the time of Newton, relating to the motion of the moon.' He proceeded to indicate the nature of the issues he intended to raise.' He had discovered that the moon does not, as a matter of fact, go round the earth at the rate of 2,288 miles an hour, as astronomers say; but follows an undulatory path round the sun at a rate varying between 65,000 and 70,000 miles an hour; because, while the moon seems to go round the earth, the latter is travelling onwards at the rate of 67,500 miles an hour round the sun. Of course he was quite right in his facts, and quite wrong in his inferences; as the Astronomer Royal pointed out in a brief letter, closing with the remark that, as a very closely occupied man,' Mr. Airy could not enter further into the matter.' But further Mr. Reddie persisted in going, though he received no more letters from Greenwich. His reply to Sir G. Airy contained, in fact, matter enough for a small pamphlet.

Now here was certainly an amazing fact. A well-known astronomical relation, which astronomers have over and over again described and explained, is treated as though it were something which had throughout all ages escaped attention. It is not here the failure to comprehend the rationale of a simple explanation which is startling, but the notion that an obvious fact had been wholly overlooked.

Of like nature was the mistake which brought Mr. Reddie more specially under Professor De Morgan's notice. It is known that the sun, carrying with him his family of planets, is speeding swiftly

through space-his velocity being estimated as probably not falling short of 20,000 miles per hour. It follows, of course, that the real paths of the planets in space are not closed curves, but spirals of different orders. How then, can the theory of Copernicus be right, according to which the planets circle in closed orbits round the sun? Here was Mr. Reddie's difficulty; and like the other it appeared to his mind as a great discovery. He was no whit concerned by the thought that astronomers ought surely to have noticed the difficulty before. It did not seem in the least wonderful that he, lightly reading a book or two of popular astronomy, should discover that which Laplace, the Herschels, Leverrier, Airy, Adams, and a host of others, who have given their whole lives to astronomy, had failed to notice. Accordingly, Mr. Reddie forwarded to the British Association (in session in Newcastle) a paper controverting the theory of the sun's motion. The paper was declined with thanks by that bigoted body 'as opposed to Newtonian astronomy.' 'That paper I published,' says Mr. Reddie, in September 1863, with an appendix, in both thoroughly exhibiting the illogical reasoning and absurdities in volved in the theory; and with what result? The members of Section A of the British Association, and Fellows of the Royal Society and of the Royal Astronomical Society, to whom I sent copies of my paper, were, without exception, dumb. Professor De Morgan, however, having occasion to examine Mr. Reddie's publications some time after, was in no sort dumb, but in very plain and definite terms exhibited their absurdity. After all, however, the real absurdity consisted, not in the statements which Mr. Reddie made, nor even in the conclusions which he drew from them, but in the astounding simplicity which could suppose that astronomers were unaware of the facts which their own labors had revealed.

In my correspondence with Mr. Reddie I recognised the real source of the amazing self-complacency displayed by the true paradoxist. The very insufficiency of the knowledge which a paradoxist possesses of his subject, affords the measure of his estimate of the care with which other men have studied that sub

ject. Because the paradoxist is ready to pronounce an opinion about matters he has not studied, it does not seem strange to him that Newton and his followers should be ready equally to discuss subjects they had not inquired into.

Another very remarkable instance was afforded by Mr. Reddie's treatment of the subject of comets. And here, by the way, I shall quote a remark made by Sir John Herschel soon after the appearance of the comet of 1861. I have received letters,' he said, 'about the comets of the last few years, enough to make one's hair stand on end at the absurdity of the theories they propose, and at the ignorance of the commonest laws of optics, of motion, of heat, and of general physics, they betray in their writers.' In the present instance, the correspondence showed that the paradoxist supposed the parabolic paths of some comets to be regarded by astronomers as analogous to the parabolic paths traversed by projectiles. He expressed no little astonishment when I informed him that, in the first place, projectiles do not travel on truly parabolic paths; and secondly, that in all respects their motion differs essentially from that which astronomers ascribe to comets. These last move more and more quickly until they reach what is called the vertex of the parabola (the point of such a path which lies nearest to the sun): projectiles, on the contrary, move more and more slowly as they approach the corresponding point of their path; and further, the comet first approaches and then recedes from the centre of attractionthe projectile first recedes from and then approaches the attracting centre.

The earth-flatteners form a considerable section of the paradoxical family. They experienced a practical rebuff, a few years since, which should to some degree have shaken their faith in the present chief of their order. To do this chief justice, he is probably far less confident about the flatness of the earth than any of his disciples. Under the assumed named of Parallax he visited most of the chief towns of England, propounding what he calls his system of zetetic astronomy. Why he should call himself Parallax it would be hard to say; unless it be that the verb from which the word is derived signifies primarily to