190 CHARLES BABBAGE. 



really value truth, by statlug some of the methods of deceiving prac- 

 ticed by unworthy claimants for its honors, while the mere circum- 

 stance of their arts being known may deter future offenders. 



There are several species of impositions that have been practiced in 

 science,- which are but little known, except to the initiated, and which it 

 may, perhaps, be possible to render quite intelligible to ordinary under- 

 standings. These may be classed under the heads of hoaxing, forging, 

 trimming, and cooking. 



Of .Hoaxing. — This, perhaps, will be better explained by an example. 

 In the year 1788, M. Gioeni, a knight of Malta, published at E^aples an 

 account of a new family of Testacea, of which he described with great 

 minuteness one species, the specific name of which has been taken from 

 its hahitat, and the generic he took from his own family, calling it Gioe- 

 nia sicula. It consisted of two round triangular valves, united by the 

 body of the animal to a smaller valve in front. He gave figures of 

 the animal, and of its parts ; described its structure, its mode of ad- 

 vancing along the sand, the figure of the track it left, and estimated 

 the velocity of its course at about two-thirds of an inch per minute. 

 He then described the structure of the shell, which he treated with 

 nitric acid and found it approached nearer to the nature of bone than 

 any other shell. 



The editors of the Uncyclojpedie methodique have copied this descrip- 

 tion and have given figures of the Gioenia sicula. The fact, however, 

 is, that no such animal exists, but that the knight of Malta, finding on 

 the Sicilian shores the three internal bones of one of the species of Bulla, 

 of which some are found on the southwestern coast of England,* 

 described and figured these bones most accurately, and drew the whole 

 of the rest of the description from the stores of his own imagination. 



Such frauds are far from^ustifiable 5 the only excuse which has been 

 made for them is, when they have been practiced on scientific academies 

 which had reached the period of dotage. 



It should, however, be remembered that the productions of nature are 

 so various that mere strEtngeness t is very far from sufficient to render 

 doubtful the existence of any creature for which there is evidence 5 and 

 that, unless the memoir itself involves principles so contradictory! as to 

 outweigh the evidence of a single witness, it can only be regarded as a 

 deception without the accompaniment of wit. 



Forging differs from hoaxing, inasmuch as in the latter the deceit is 

 intended to last for a time, and then be discovered to the ridicule of 



*jBuUa lignaria. 



tTlie number of vertebrse in the neck of tlie Plesiosaurus is a strange but ascertained 

 fact. 



t The kind of contradiction which is here alluded to is that which arises from iveU- 

 ascertained final causes ; for instance, the I'uminatiug stomach of the hoofed animals is 

 iu no case combined with the claw-shaped form of the extremities, frequent in many 

 of the carnivorous animals, and necessary to some of them for the purpose of seizing 

 their prey. 



