48 THE SEVEN FOLLIES OF SCIENCE 



This is a typical case. A man of learning and of high 

 position is so confident that his theory is right that he does 

 not think it worth while to test it experimentally, but 

 rushes into print and immortalizes himself as the author 

 of a blunder. It is safe to say that this absurd invention 

 will do more to perpetuate his name than all his learning 

 and real achievements. And there are others in the same 

 predicament circle-squarers who, a quarter of a century 

 hence, will be remembered for their errors when all else 

 connected with them will be forgotten. 



To every miller whose mill ceased working for want of 

 water, the idea has no doubt occurred that if he could only 

 pump the water back again and use it a second or a third 

 time he might be independent of dry or wet seasons. Of 

 course no practical miller was ever so far deluded as to 

 attempt to put such a suggestion into practice, but innu- 

 merable machines of this kind, and of the most crude 

 arrangement, have been sketched and described in maga- 

 zines and papers. Figures of wheels driving an ordinary 

 pump, which returns to an elevated reservoir the water 

 which has driven the wheel, are so common that it is not 

 worth while to reproduce any of them. In the following 

 attempt, however, which is copied from Bishop Wilkins' 

 famous book, "Mathematical Magic" (1648), the well- 

 known Archimedean screw is employed instead of a pump, 

 and the naivete of the good bishop's description and con- 

 clusion are well worth the space they will occupy. 



After an elaborate description of the screw, he says : 

 "These things, considered together, it will hence appear 

 how a perpetual motion may seem easily contrivable. 

 For, if there were but such a waterwheel made on this 

 instrument, upon which the stream that is carried up 



