7« 



NATURE 



[March 23, 1916 



Roman Emperors, he was distinguished by his 

 all-round ability and common-sense ; a lover of 

 peace, he conquered whenever he fought, and was 

 clement to the vanquished. In his quotations and 

 references he is not always exact, but he is emin- 

 ently trustworthy. If he cites a tag from Horace 

 (often, undoubtedly, from memory) it generally 

 agrees with some respectable text ; if he says 

 that such-and-such a book was published at such- 

 and-such a place at such-and-such a date, his 

 information is pretty sure to be substantially accu- 

 rate {e.g., take the case, i. 66), because he knew 

 the trouble caused by " slipslop " references. 



His weakest point was a passion for acrostics, 

 anagrams, et hoc genus onine ; he simply cannot 

 resist the chance of airing it, as when he says 

 about the theory of gravitation that for Newton it 

 was not new, but he ivent on. One of the many 

 puzzles of the " Budget " appears on the title-page 

 in the form : — < 



"UT AGENDO SURGAMUS, ARGUENDO GUSTAMUS." 

 PTOCHODOKIARCHUS ANAGRAMMATISTES. 



His own explanation of the motto is on i. 138-9. 

 One of his friends seems to have shared his ana- 

 grammania ; but for this, and his reference to 

 him as a "powerful mathematician," we should 

 have had little hesitation in ascribing this ana- 

 gram to De Morgan himself. Even yet we have 

 some inclination that way, because "powerful " is 

 ambiguous, even when applied to a mathemati- 

 cian ; and De Morgan was no weakling, either in 

 the physical or in the metaphysical sense. Pto- 

 chodokiarchus looks like a misprint (or slip of the 

 pen) for Ptochodochiarchus , because there is a 

 rare Greek word, nTw\o8oxf'iov, which appears to 

 mean some sort of charitable institution. Thus 

 the term might be applied to the master of a work- 

 house, or the Governor of Chelsea Hospital ; but 

 neither of these officials is likely to be a "power- 

 ful mathematician " in the ordinary sense. 



Here the demon of anagram ( = the man of A. 

 De Morgan) suggests to us that Augustus De 

 Morgan = August Sugar-demon; but this is mere 

 child's play with sugar-plums, and we prefer A 

 snug modest augur, one that (to revive an old 

 pun) is never a bore. 



It is a disgrace for any mathematician not to 

 know of the existence, and general object, of the 

 " Budget," and in writing this review we have acted 

 on that assumption throughout. But to a reader 

 in sympathy with the author, this book ought to be 

 what Burton's "Anatomy" was to Samuel John- 

 son : the one work that would make him get out of 

 bed before he intended. To take only a few 

 examples : we have references to aviation (ii. 9 : 

 here Prof. Smith has a touching, appropriate, and 

 illuminating comment, "The notes on this page 

 were written on the day of the funeral of Wilbur 

 Wright, June i, 1912, the man who realised all 

 of these prophecies, and then died a victim of 

 municipal crime— of tyohoid fever ") ; to wood- 

 pulp paper; to plans for a universal language 

 (i. 116); to the Improbability of Christians sinking 

 their differences (ii. 23), which suggests to De 

 Morgan " the floor of the bottomless pit " ; to the 

 NO. 2421, VOL. q7] 



science (as we may fairly call it now) of meteoro- 

 log"y ; to the duties of an editor (of a journal or a. 

 book, as the case may be). 



A friend of ours has expressed the opinion that 

 no account of De Morgan is complete without 

 some reference to his controversies with Sir 

 William Hamilton (of Edinburgh). This is not the 

 occasion for attempting to give a complete ac- 

 count of De Morgan ; suffice it to say that in this 

 matter he generously buried the hatchet, and that 

 when he twits his opponent with discovering two 

 things which are identical, yet one is greater than 

 the other, he refers to the famous theory of the 

 quantification of the predicate. 



There are one or two cases where the editor 

 has given us no information, although a comment 

 would have been valuable and easily supplied. 

 One of the features of this edition is that it gives- 

 us two portraits of De Morgan (both, apparently, 

 reproduced from photographs). We are not told 

 what the originals were, or the age of the sitter 

 on each occasion. In the preface to the former 

 edition Mrs. De Morgan refers to omissions made 

 by herself from the text as it appeared in the 

 Athenaeum. Among these is a "rather large" 

 one on a quarrel about the telescope at Campden 

 Hill, and Mrs. De Morgan looks forward to its 

 insertion in a future edition. We have not been 

 able to find it in this one; indeed, there is no 

 evidence that Prof. Smith has consulted the 

 Athenaeum at all. 



One other case will appveal to all who, like us, 

 regard University College, London, as their real 

 alma mater. De Morgan says, " Some of the 

 pupils of University College, in which all sub- 

 divisions of religion are (1866; were, 1867) on a 

 level," The reader might infer that the original 

 charter of U.C. had either been altered or in- 

 fringed. This is not so; the fact is that an 

 eminent Unitarian candidate for a chair was 

 rejected, and De Morgan chose to think (rightly 

 or wrongly) that this was due to religious preju- 

 dice, though, of course, no such reason was ever 

 admitted by the electors. 



We conclude with a quotation from the " Budget '*" 

 which, at any rate, is opportune, and we fear 

 has by no means lost its point (i. 289). 



"So far as Mr. Goulburn was concerned, the- 

 above was poetic justice. He was the minister 

 who, in old time, told a deputation of the Astro- 

 nomical Society that the Government did not care j 

 twopence for all the science in the country."" 

 Later on, De Morgan says (1866, or so), " Mat- , 

 ters are much changed " ; thanks in great j 

 measure, we may add, to that German and Eng- j 

 lish patriot, the Prince Consort. But are they j 

 now (1916)? and if so, how? We have seen it' 

 stated in print, and not contradicted, that one of ; 

 our Government's experiments in economy has{ 

 been to shut up the library of the Patent Office — l 

 the one first-class scientific library in London to' 

 which everyone has access, though it is hidden! 

 in a corner, and few there be that find it. i 

 " Patriots " are for tabooing every book in thej 

 German tongue, though if we could get all theiri 

 latest books and papers on chemistry, and a first- 



