The legion fiends of glory and of gold”
This sentiment is here expanded into four lines.
[198]. Ver. 6. Definition—A distinct notion explaining the genesis of a thing.—Wolfius.
[199]. Ver. 7. Postulate—A self-evident proposition.
[200]. Ver. 8. Axiom—An indemonstrable truth.
[201]. Ver. 9. Tangents—So called from touching, because they touch circles, and never cut them.
[202]. Ver. 10. Circles—See Chambers’s Dictionary, article “Circle”.
[203]. Ver. 10. Osculation—For the osculation, or kissing of circles and other curves, see Huygens, who has veiled this delicate and inflammatory subject in the decent obscurity of a learned language.
[204]. Ver. 11. Cissois—A curve supposed to resemble the sprig of ivy, from which it has its name, and therefore peculiarly adapted to poetry.
[205]. Ver. 12. Conchois, or Conchylis—A most beautiful and picturesque curve; it bears a fanciful resemblance to a conch shell. The conchois is capable of infinite extension, and presents a striking analogy between the animal and mathematical creation—every individual of this species containing within itself a series of young conchoids for several generations, in the same manner as the Aphides and other insect tribes are observed to do.