22 

 November 16th. 

 Mr. B. LOMAX, on — 



THE CONSTANCY OF CERTAIN NUMBERS IN 

 NATURE. 

 The subject of this paper is so different to those which are 

 generally brought before you as to render some explanation, if not 

 apology, necessary. In the earUer days of learning everyone 

 knows how much importance was attached to the recurrence of 

 particular numbers. The so-called science of Astrology was based 

 entirely on the cycles in which history had been found to revolve, 

 according so strangely with those recognised by the astronomer. 

 The belief in a coming millenium, so interwoven with the history 

 of the Christian church, seems to have had at first no better 

 foundation than the continual recurrence of the number seven in 

 Holy Writ, leading the earlier Jewish writers on theology to 

 speculate on the possibility of this world's history being that of a 

 mighty week, made of "a thousand years for a day," whose 

 Sabbath was the millenium. In the field of Natural History, the 

 uniformity of numbers was insisted upon from Aristotle to Bacon, 

 who in his " Novum Organum," notices the supposed fact of the 

 serpent family always arranging themselves in four curves. Nor 

 were the Mathematicans slow to follow the fashion. With the 

 Arabic numerals and the .decimal notation came curious 

 disquisitions on the properties of number nine, the formation of 

 magic squares, and the series into which their sums arranged 

 themselves. In fact, the study of series, arithmetical and 

 algebraical, is our modern sacrifice at the same altar, and the 

 results have been of the greatest practical utility. We cannot to- 

 day pass by as foolish those who in earher times observed 

 recurring numbers. Kepler, whose name must ever stand high 

 on the roll of astronomical fame, was no mathematican, no chemist, 

 no inventor; he merely observed recurring numbers. Yet 

 Kepler defined the place of an unseen planet that others were to 

 ■discover in the form of a group, and established three laws 



