432 A Century of Science 



Sabbatic number for my radius." At the end of 

 his book Mr. Dingle exclaims : " To the Lor<J be 

 all thanksgiving, who has kept my intellect and 

 the directing of its thoughts sound, while seeking 

 to deliver his word from the exulting shouts of his 

 enemies and the seducers of mankind ! " 



From these grotesque rigmaroles it is not a long 

 step to the lucubrations of the writers in whose 

 bonnets the bee of prophecy has buzzed until they 

 have come to fancy themselves skilled interpreters. 

 There is apt to be the same droll mixing of arith- 

 metic with history that we find among the pyramid 

 cranks, and to the performance of such antics the 

 book of Daniel and the Apocalypse present irre- 

 sistible temptations. In my library days, I never 

 used to pick up a commentary on either of those 

 books without looking for some of the stigmata 

 or witch-marks of crankery. Many a feeble intel- 

 lect has been toppled over by that shining image, 

 with head of gold and feet of iron and clay, which 

 Nebuchadnezzar beheld in a dream. For example, 

 let us take a few sentences from " Emmanuel : An 

 Original and Exhaustive Commentary on Creation 

 and Providence Alike. By an Octogenarian Lay- 

 man," London, 1883, pp. 420 : " Upwards of thirty 

 years ago, a fancy for chronological research, fos- 

 tered by boundless leisure and a competent facility 



