PARADOXES AND PARADOXISTS. 275 



ing can scarcely be questioned, though, as it appears 

 to us, his main object in preparing the budget was to 

 collect together the curiosities of paradoxical literature. 

 * My intention in publishing this budget in the 

 Athenaeum,' he says, 'was to enable those who have 

 been puzzled by one or two discoveries to see how they 

 look in the lump.' But he often gives page after page 

 not apparently penned in fulfilment of this intention. 

 Accordingly, the book is full of matter of very varied 

 interest. There is much to amuse even the general 

 reader, who may care nothing whatever about the true 

 or false in science ; much to interest the dabbler in 

 science, the natural prey of the blatant paradox ist; but 

 there is also much to engross the attention of the 

 student of science. 



The paradoxes chiefly treated of in this book are 



(1) those relating to the solar system, gravitation, &c. ; 



(2) the quadration of the circle and the attempted 

 solution of other famous mathematical problems long 

 recognised as insoluble ; and (3) the * number of the 

 beast.' But many other paradoxical subjects are dealt 

 with at less length. 



Among the paradoxists who have invented new 

 systems of astronomy, our friend * Parallax ' gets a 

 page or two, though he was not so well known when 

 De Morgan wrote as he has since become. It appears 

 he went in 1849 by the name of S. Groulden. Later, 

 as we know, he has been called ' Kowbotham ' ; though 

 the name in which he specially delights has been 

 always ' Parallax.' This name may have been chosen 



III. T 



