8 THE SEVEN FOLLIES OF SCIENCE 



they expected either money or the credit and glory of having 

 done that which had been hitherto considered impossible. 



Some of the questions here discussed have been called 

 " scientific impossibilities " an epithet which many have 

 considered entirely inapplicable to any problem, on the 

 ground that all things are possible to science. And in 

 view of the wonderful things that have been accomplished 

 in the past, some of my readers may well ask : "Who shall 

 decide when doctors disagree ? " 



Perhaps the best answer to this question is that given by 

 Ozanam, the old historian of these and many other scientific 

 puzzles. He claimed that " it was the business of the 

 Doctors of the Sorbonne to discuss, of the Pope to decide, 

 and of a mathematician to go straight to heaven in a per- 

 pendicular line ! " 



In this connection the words of De Morgan have a deep 

 significance. Alluding to the difficulty of preventing men 

 of no authority from setting up false pretensions and the 

 impossibility of destroying the assertions of fancy specula- 

 tion, he says : " Many an error of thought and learning has 

 fallen before a gradual growth of thoughtful and learned 

 opposition. But such things as the quadrature of the circle, 

 etc., are never put down. And why ? Because thought 

 can influence thought, but thought cannot influence self- 

 conceit ; learning can annihilate learning ; but learning 

 cannot annihilate ignorance. A sword may cut through an 

 iron bar, and the severed ends will not reunite ; let it go 

 through the air, and the yielding substance is whole again 

 in a moment." 



