discoverers, in every matter
ruled by thought, have been men versed in the minds of their
predecessors, and learned in what had been before them. There is not
one exception. I do not say that every man has made direct
acquaintance with the whole of his mental ancestry; many have, as I
may say, only known their grandfathers by the report of their fathers.
But even on this point it is remarkable how many of the greatest names
in all departments of knowledge have been real antiquaries in their
several subjects.
I may cite, among those who have wrought strongly upon opinion or
practice in science, Aristotle, Plato, Ptolemy, Euclid, Archimedes,
Roger Bacon, Copernicus, Francis Bacon, Ramus, Tycho Brahé,
Galileo, Napier, Descartes, Leibnitz, Newton, Locke. I take none but
names known out of their {6} fields of work; and all were learned as
well as sagacious. I have chosen my instances: if any one will
undertake to show a person of little or no knowledge who has
established himself in a great matter of pure thought, let him bring
forward his man, and we shall see.
This is the true way of putting off those who plague others with their
great discoveries. The first demand made should be--Mr. Moses, before
I allow you to lead me over the Red Sea, I must have you show that
you are learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians upon your own
subject. The plea that it is unlikely that this or that unknown person
should succeed where Newton, etc. have failed, or should show Newton,
etc. to be wrong, is utterly null and void. It was worthily versified by
Sylvanus Morgan (the great herald who in his Sphere of Gentry gave
coat armor to "Gentleman Jesus," as he said), who sang of Copernicus
as follows (1652):
"If Tellus winged be, The earth a motion round; Then much deceived
are they Who nere before it found. Solomon was the wisest, His wit
nere this attained; Cease, then, Copernicus, Thy hypothesis is vain."
Newton, etc. were once unknown; but they made themselves known by
what they knew, and then brought forward what they could do; which I
see is as good verse as that of Herald Sylvanus. The demand for
previous knowledge disposes of twenty-nine cases out of thirty, and the
thirtieth is worth listening to.
I have not set down Copernicus, Galileo, etc. among the paradoxers,
merely because everybody knows them; if my list were quite complete,
they would have been in it. But the reader will find Gilbert, the great
precursor of sound magnetical theory; and several others on whom no
censure can be cast, though some of their paradoxes are inadmissible,
{7} some unprovoked, and some capital jokes, true or false: the author
of Vestiges of Creation is an instance. I expect that my old
correspondent, General Perronet Thompson, will admit that his
geometry is part and parcel of my plan; and also that, if that plan
embraced politics, he would claim a place for his Catechism on the
Corn Laws, a work at one time paradoxical, but which had more to do
with the abolition of the bread-tax than Sir Robert Peel.
My intention in publishing this Budget in the Athenæum is to enable
those who have been puzzled by one or two discoverers to see how they
look in a lump. The only question is, has the selection been fairly made?
To this my answer is, that no selection at all has been made. The books
are, without exception, those which I have in my own library; and I
have taken all--I mean all of the kind: Heaven forbid that I should be
supposed to have no other books! But I may have been a collector,
influenced in choice by bias? I answer that I never have collected books
of this sort--that is, I have never searched for them, never made up my
mind to look out for this book or that. I have bought what happened to
come in my way at show or auction; I have retained what came in as
part of the undescribed portion of miscellaneous auction lots; I have
received a few from friends who found them among what they called
their rubbish; and I have preserved books sent to me for review. In not
a few instances the books have been bound up with others,
unmentioned at the back; and for years I knew no more I had them than
I knew I had Lord Macclesfield's speech on moving the change of Style,
which, after I had searched shops, etc. for it in vain, I found had been
reposing on my own shelves for many years, at the end of a summary
of Leibnitz's philosophy. Consequently, I may positively affirm that the
following list is
Continue reading on your phone by scaning this QR Code
Tip: The current page has been bookmarked automatically. If you wish to continue reading later, just open the
Dertz Homepage, and click on the 'continue reading' link at the bottom of the page.