‘The centre of weight; that point in a body round where all the other parts balance each other. It is not necessarily the centre of the figure, because one part of a figure may be denser and heavier than another; but it is the centre of its weight.’
‘Now take the other half of your bullet, and use it for the head of another figure. This man will be still more eccentric than the Greek, for he will persist in standing upon his head. His brains are evidently the heaviest part of him. The centre of gravity is in his skull, and therefore it will seek the lowest place, and keep it too. So you see what inconveniences a thick-brained, heavy-headed fellow is exposed to.’
‘He is not much worse off, though, than the light-headed Greek.’
‘I suspect Ælian was quizzing some one who had no force of character, and was easily turned this way or that by anybody who would take the trouble to persuade him: like St. James’s double-minded man, unstable in all his ways, driven by the wind and tossed.’
‘Whereabouts is the centre of gravity in a man?’
‘That would be difficult to say. Somewhere in his body or trunk; for that is, of course, the heaviest part of him.’
‘How could you find it out?’
‘You might get near it by hanging him up in two different positions. Hang him first by his head, and by means of a plumb-line draw a perpendicular from the point of suspension. Then hang him by the shoulder or side, and draw another perpendicular, which, this time, will fall across him. Where these two lines cross each other will be the centre of gravity; and on that point you might balance him, if you were strong enough. I dare say you have seen it done in the streets or at a circus—a man balanced at the end of a long pole.’
‘Yes. And I once saw a donkey balanced at the top of a ladder. It was a very small donkey; but the ladder was rather a long one, and rested on the man’s chin.’