[483] This proposition shows that if a hexagon is inscribed in a conic (in particular a circle) and the opposite sides are produced to meet, the three points determined by their intersections will be in the same straight line.
[484] Jacques Curabelle, Examen des Œuvres du Sr. Desargues, Paris, 1644. He also published without date a work entitled: Foiblesse pitoyable du Sr. G. Desargues employée contre l'examen fait de ses œuvres.
[485] See page [119], note [233].
[486] Until "this great proposition called Pascal's should see the light."
[487] The story is that his father, Etienne Pascal, did not wish him to study geometry until he was thoroughly grounded in Latin and Greek. Having heard the nature of the subject, however, he began at the age of twelve to construct figures by himself, drawing them on the floor with a piece of charcoal. When his father discovered what he was doing he was attempting to demonstrate that the sum of the angles of a triangle equals two right angles. The story is given by his sister, Mme. Perier.
[488] Sir John Wilson (1741-1793) was knighted in 1786 and became Commissioner of the Great Seal in 1792. He was a lawyer and jurist of recognized merit. He stated his theorem without proof, the first demonstration having been given by Lagrange in the Memoirs of the Berlin Academy for 1771,—Demonstration d'un théorème nouveau concernant les nombres premiers. Euler also gave a proof in his Miscellanea Analytica (1773). Fermat's works should be consulted in connection with the early history of this theorem.
[489] He wrote, in 1760, a tract in defense of Waring, a point of whose algebra had been assailed by a Dr. Powell. Waring wrote another tract of the same date.—A. De M.
William Samuel Powell (1717-1775) was at this time a fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. In 1765 he became Vice Chancellor of the University. Waring was a Magdalene man, and while candidate for the Lucasian professorship he circulated privately his Miscellanea Analytica. Powell attacked this in his Observations on the First Chapter of a Book called Miscellanea (1760). This attack was probably in the interest of another candidate, a man of his own college (St. John's), William Ludlam.
[490] William Paley (1743-1805) was afterwards a tutor at Christ's College, Cambridge. He never contributed anything to mathematics, but his Evidences of Christianity (1794) was long considered somewhat of a classic. He also wrote Principles of Morality and Politics (1785), and Natural Theology (1802).
[491] Edward, first Baron Thurlow (1731-1806) is known to Americans because of his strong support of the Royal prerogative during the Revolution. He was a favorite of George III, and became Lord Chancellor in 1778.