MATHEMATICS.
Mathematics drew from Edmund Gurney the odd definition, that “a mathematician is like one that goes to market to buy an axe to break an egg.”
Bacon complains that men do not sufficiently understand the excellent use of the Pure Mathematics, in that they do remedy and cure many defects in the wit and faculties intellectual. For if the wit be too dull, they sharpen it; if too wandering, they fix it; if too inherent in the sense, they abstract it. So that as tennis is a game of no use in itself, but of great use in respect it maketh a quick eye, and a body ready to put itself into any postures; so in the mathematics, that use which is collateral and intervenient is no less worthy than that which is principal and intended. And as for the Mixed Mathematics, I only make this prediction, that there cannot fail to be more kinds of them, as nature grows further disclosed;” thus foretelling the advance of Natural Philosophy.
However, the understanding of Applied Mathematics is not unattainable under ordinary circumstances. Lord Rosse has observed that, without any special mathematical knowledge, a well-informed man may often, in the results announced, and from the observations elicited, obtain very interesting glimpses of the nature of mathematical processes, and some general idea as to the progress making in that direction. In applied mathematics there is much more of general interest, and the results are often perfectly intelligible without special education. In proof of this Lord Rosse adduces, that “at the meeting of the British Association at Oxford, the general results of a very abstruse investigation in applied mathematics in physical astronomy were made very interesting. The subject was so brought forward as to rivet the attention of the whole section, and there were many ladies present. The paper was given in by M. Leverrier, and the subject was the identification of a comet. How wonderful from its origin has been the progress of mathematical science! Beginning perhaps three thousand years ago almost from nothing—one simple relation of magnitude suggesting another, and those relations gradually becoming more complicated, more interesting, I may add more important, till at length in our day it has expanded into a science which enables us to weigh the planets, and, more wonderful still, to calculate the course they will take when acted continually upon by forces varying in magnitude and direction.”
We trace in Porson’s habits of thought the influence which the study of mathematics had upon him.[[76]] He was to his dying day fond of these studies. There are still preserved many papers of his scribbled over with mathematical calculations; and when the fit seized him in the street which caused his death, an equation was found in his pocket.
[76]. In enabling him to give to English scholarship its accuracy and certainty,—as a substratum on which to rest other branches of knowledge often more useful in themselves. See Mr. Luard’s able Cambridge Essay.