Saint-Martin and his works are now as completely forgotten as if they had never been born, except so far as this, that some one may take up one of the works as of heretical character, and lay it down in disappointment, with the reflection that it is as dull as orthodoxy. For a person who was once in some vogue, it would be difficult to pick out a more fossil writer, from Aa to Zypœus, except,—though it is unusual for (,—) to represent an interval of more than a year—his unknown opponent. This opponent, in the very year of the Des Erreurs ... published a book in two parts with the same fictitious place of printing;
Tableau Naturel des Rapports qui existent entre Dieu, l'Homme, et l'Univers. A Edimbourg, 1782, 8vo.[[376]]
There is a motto from the Des Erreurs itself, "Expliquer les choses par l'homme, et non l'homme par les choses. Des Erreurs et de la Vérité, par un PH.... INC...., p. 9."[[377]] This work is set down in various catalogues and biographies as written by the PH.... INC.... himself. But it is not usual for a writer to publish two works in the same year, one of which takes a motto from the other. And the second work is profuse in capitals and italics, and uses Hebrew learning: its style differs much from the first work. The first work sets out from man, and has nothing to do with God: the second is religious and raps the knuckles of the first as follows: "Si nous voulons nous préserver de toutes
les illusions, et surtout des amorces de l'orgueil par lesquelles l'homme est si souvent séduit, ne prenons jamais les hommes, mais toujours Dieu pour notre terme de comparaison."[[378]] The first uses four and nine in various ways, of which I have quoted one: the second says, "Et ici se trouve déjà une explication des nombres quatre et neuf, qui ont peu embarrassé dans l'ouvrage déjà cité. L'homme s'est égaré en allant de quatre à neuf...."[[379]] The work cited is the Erreurs, etc., and the citation is in the motto, which is the text of the opposition sermon.
A FORERUNNER OF THE METRIC SYSTEM.
Method to discover the difference of the earth's diameters; proving its true ratio to be not less variable than as 45 is to 46, and shortest in its pole's axis 174 miles.... likewise a method for fixing an universal standard for weights and measures. By Thomas Williams.[[380]] London, 1788, 8vo.
Mr. Williams was a paradoxer in his day, and proposed what was, no doubt, laughed at by some. He proposed the sort of plan which the French—independently of course—carried into effect a few years after. He would have the 52d degree of latitude divided into 100,000 parts and each part a geographical yard. The geographical ton was to be the cube of a geographical yard filled with sea-water taken some leagues from land. All multiples and sub-divisions were to be decimal.
I was beginning to look up those who had made similar proposals, when a learned article on the proposal of a
metrical system came under my eye in the Times of Sept. 15, 1863. The author cites Mouton,[[381]] who would have the minute of a degree divided into 10,000 virgulæ; James Cassini,[[382]] whose foot was to be six thousandths of a minute; and Paucton,[[383]] whose foot was the 400,000th of a degree. I have verified the first and third statements; surely the second ought to be the six-thousandth.