PARADOXES AND PARADOX1STS. 269 



willing to devote a few minutes on Sundays to the 



transmission of weather warnings, when needed, 



whereby, perchance, many lives and much property 

 might be saved from destruction. 



PARADOXES AND PARADOXISTS. 1 



IN Professor De Morgan's Budget of Paradoxes the 

 reader will find how a master of logic and mathematics 

 dealt with error, and in what spirit the paradoxists 

 received correction at his hands. 



We must notice, however, that by the word paradox 

 De Morgan does not understand in all cases mere error. 

 On the contrary, some of the paradoxes he here deals 

 with are now recognised as either probable or admitted 

 truths, and were only paradoxes when they were first 

 enunciated. The Copernican theory of the solar sys- 

 tem is only not included among the paradoxes ' because 

 everybody knows ' it. A paradox is, in fact, any opinion 

 or theory which differs from general opinion either in 

 subject-matter, method, or conclusion. Consequently 

 a paradox may be just, for general opinion may be 

 erroneous. In precise proportion, however, to the 

 probability that general opinion is correct is the 

 probability that a paradox is erroneous. It is other- 



1 A Budget of Paradoxes. By Augustus de Morgan, F.R.A.S. and 

 C.P.S. of Trinity College, Cambridge. London : Longmans Sc Co. 



