Budget of Paradoxes (London, 1872), p. 262.
[2103]. Mathematical research, with all its wealth of hidden treasure, is all too apt to yield nothing to our research: for it is haunted by certain ignes fatui—delusive phantoms, that float before us, and seem so fair, and are all but in our grasp, so nearly that it never seems to need more than one step further, and the prize shall be ours! Alas for him who has been turned aside from real research by one of these spectres—who has found a music in its mocking laughter—and who wastes his life and energy in the desperate chase!—Dodgson, C. L.
A new Theory of Parallels (London, 1895), Introduction.
[2104]. As lightning clears the air of impalpable vapours, so an incisive paradox frees the human intelligence from the lethargic influence of latent and unsuspected assumptions. Paradox is the slayer of Prejudice.—Sylvester, J. J.
On a Lady’s Fan etc. Collected Mathematical Papers, Vol. 3, p. 36.
[2105]. When a paradoxer parades capital letters and diagrams which are as good as Newton’s to all who know nothing about it, some persons wonder why science does not rise and triturate the whole thing. This is why: all who are fit to read the refutation are satisfied already, and can, if they please, detect the paradoxer for themselves. Those who are not fit to do this would not know the difference between the true answer and the new capitals and diagrams on which the delighted paradoxer would declare that he had crumbled the philosophers, and not they him.—De Morgan, A.
A Budget of Paradoxes (London, 1872), p. 484.
[2106]. Demonstrative reason never raises the cry of Church in Danger! and it cannot have any Dictionary of heresies except a Budget of Paradoxes. Mistaken claimants are left to Time and his extinguisher, with the approbation of all non-claimants: there is no need of a succession of exposures. Time gets through the job in his own workmanlike manner.—De Morgan, A.
A Budget of Paradoxes (London, 1872), p. 485.
[2107]. D’Israeli speaks of the “six follies of science,” —the quadrature, the duplication, the perpetual motion, the philosopher’s stone, magic, and astrology. He might as well have added the trisection, to make the mystic number seven; but had he done so, he would still have been very lenient; only seven follies in all science, from mathematics to chemistry! Science might have said to such a judge—as convicts used to say who got seven years, expecting it for life, “Thank you, my Lord, and may you sit there until they are over,” —may the Curiosities of Literature outlive the Follies of Science!—De Morgan, A.