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THE CANADIAN JOURNAL 



NE\V SERIES. 



No. LI.— MAY, 1864. 



ON ERRATA RECEPTA, WRITTEN AND SPOKEN. 



BY THE REV. DR. SCADDING, 



IIBEAKIAN TO THE IITSTIIUTE. 



(Read before the Canadian Institute, April 2nd, 1864.) 



In treating of Errata Recepta, written and spoken, I shall confine 

 myself principally to specimens of such as are formal, verhal, and 

 phraseological. By formal, is meant those that are involved in the 

 present forms of our letters and numerical symhols. 



Errata Recepta, in notion and opinion, would be too wide a field, 

 although a legitimate one here, so far as science is concerned, for it is 

 no doubt one of the functions of this and similar Institutions to de- 

 tect and remove out of the way, so far as shall be practicable, the 

 phantasms, — the idola, as Lord Bacon would say — the vulgar errors 

 as Sir Thomas Browne would phrase it, — which still are the plagues 

 of human knowledge. 



I use the title Errata Recepta, however, with no feeling that a 

 crusade should be proclaimed against the matters in question, but 

 simply to express that while they can now no longer be said to be 

 wrong, they are nevertheless per se erroneous. 



Vol. IX. K 



