Some Cranks and their Crotchets 411 



Of humour he is pretty sure to be destitute; an 

 abounding sense of the ludicrous is one of the best 

 safeguards of mental health, and even a slight 

 endowment will usually nip and stunt the fungus 

 growth of crankery. 



The slightest glimmering sense of humour would 

 have restrained that inveterate circle-squarer, James 

 Smith, from publishing (in 1865) his pamphlet en- 

 titled " The British Association in Jeopardy, and 

 Dr. Whewell, the Master of Trinity, in the Stocks 

 without Hope of Escape." His case, with those of 

 many other ingenious lunatics, was racily set forth 

 by the late Professor De Morgan in his " Budget 

 of Paradoxes " (London, 1872), a bulky book deal- 

 ing with the author's personal experiences with 

 cranks and their crotchets. It was De Morgan's 

 lot as an eminent mathematician to be outrageously 

 bored by circle-squarers and their kin, and it was 

 a happy thought to put on record the queer things 

 that happened. His friends asked him again and 

 again why he took the trouble to mention and 

 expose such absurdities. He replied that, when 

 your crank publishes a book " full of figures which 

 few readers can criticise, a great many people are 

 staggered to this extent, that they imagine there 

 must be the indefinite something in the mysterious 

 all this. They are brought to the point of sus- 



