"Ambitus dodecagoni circulo inscribendi plus potest quam circuli ambitus. Et quanto deinceps plurium laterum fuerit polygonum circulo inscribendum, tanto plus poterit ambitus polygoni quam ambitus circuli."[[210]]
There is much resemblance between Joseph Scaliger and William Hamilton,[[211]] in a certain impetuousity of character, and inaptitude to think of quantity. Scaliger maintained that the arc of a circle is less than its chord in arithmetic, though greater in geometry; Hamilton arrived at two quantities which are identical, but the greater the one the less the other. But, on the whole, I liken Hamilton rather to Julius than to Joseph. On this last hero of literature I repeat Thomas Edwards,[[212]] who says that a man is unlearned who, be his other knowledge what it may, does not
understand the subject he writes about. And now one of many instances in which literature gives to literature character in science. Anthony Teissier,[[213]] the learned annotator of De Thou's biographies, says of Finæus, "Il se vanta sans raison avoir trouvé la quadrature du cercle; la gloire de cette admirable découverte était réservée à Joseph Scalinger, comme l'a écrit Scévole de St. Marthe."[[214]]
JOHN GRAUNT AS A PARADOXER.
Natural and Political Observations ... upon the Bills of Mortality. By John Graunt, citizen of London. London, 1662, 4to.[[215]]
This is a celebrated book, the first great work upon mortality. But the author, going ultra crepidam, has attributed to the motion of the moon in her orbit all the tremors which she gets from a shaky telescope.[[216]] But there is another paradox about this book: the above absurd opinion is attributed to that excellent mechanist, Sir William Petty, who passed his days among the astronomers. Graunt did not write his own book! Anthony Wood[[217]] hints that Petty "assisted, or put into a way" his old benefactor: no doubt the two friends talked the matter over many a time. Burnet and Pepys[[218]] state that Petty wrote the book. It is enough for me that
Graunt, whose honesty was never impeached, uses the plainest incidental professions of authorship throughout; that he was elected into the Royal Society because he was the author; that Petty refers to him as author in scores of places, and published an edition, as editor, after Graunt's death, with Graunt's name of course. The note on Graunt in the Biographia Britannica may be consulted; it seems to me decisive. Mr. C. B. Hodge, an able actuary, has done the best that can be done on the other side in the Assurance Magazine, viii. 234. If I may say what is in my mind, without imputation of disrespect, I suspect some actuaries have a bias: they would rather have Petty the greater for their Coryphæus than Graunt the less.[[219]]
Pepys is an ordinary gossip: but Burnet's account has an animus which is of a worse kind. He talks of "one Graunt, a Papist, under whose name Sir William Petty[[220]] published his observations on the bills of mortality." He then gives the cock without a bull story of Graunt being a trustee of the New River Company, and shutting up the cocks and carrying off their keys, just before the fire of London, by which a supply of water was delayed.[[221]] It was one of the first objections made to Burnet's work, that Graunt was not a trustee at the time; and Maitland, the historian of London, ascertained from the books of the Company that he was not admitted until twenty-three days after the breaking out of the fire. Graunt's first admission
to the Company took place on the very day on which a committee was appointed to inquire into the cause of the fire. So much for Burnet. I incline to the view that Graunt's setting London on fire strongly corroborates his having written on the bills of mortality: every practical man takes stock before he commences a grand operation in business.
MANKIND A GULLIBLE LOT.