Page:A budget of paradoxes (IA cu31924103990507).pdf/496

482 those peculiar persons who, when they do not think an assertion worth notice, let it alone, without noticing it by a notification of non-notice. He would never commit the bull of 'Sir! I will not say a word on that subject.' He would put it thus, 'Sir! I will only say ten words on that subject,'—and, having thus said them, would proceed to something else. He assumed, as a matter of form, that Mr. Reddie would draw the proper inference from his silence: and this because he did not care whether or no the assumption was correct.

The 'Mechanics of the Heavens,' which Mr. Reddie sends to be noticed, shall be noticed, so far as an extract goes:—

This is enough against the book, without a word from me: I insert it only to show those who know the subject what manner of writer Mr. Reddie is. It is clear that 'presumed' is a slip of the pen; it should have been condescended.

Mr. Reddie represents me as dreaming over paltry paradoxes. He is right; many of my paradoxes are paltry: he is wrong; I am wide awake to them. A single moth, beetle, or butterfly, may be a paltry thing; but when a cabinet is arranged by genus and species, we then begin to admire the infinite variety of a system constructed on a wonderful sameness of leading characteristics. And why should paradoxes be denied that collective importance, paltry as many of them may individually be, which is accorded to moths, beetles, or butterflies? Mr. Reddie himself sees that 'there is a method in' my 'mode of dealing with paradoxes.' I hope I have atoned for the scantiness of my former article, and put the demonstrated impossibility of gravitation on that level with Hubongramillposanfy arithmetic and inhabited atoms which the demonstrator—not quite without reason—claims for it.