Page:Calculus Made Easy.pdf/28

 would receive £$$10$$ and the boy $$2$$ shillings. Ten pounds would be a small quantity compared with £$$1000$$; but two shillings is a small small quantity indeed, of a very secondary order. But what would be the disproportion if the fraction, instead of being $$\tfrac{1}{100}$$, had been settled at $$\tfrac{1}{1000}$$ part? Then, while Mr. Millionaire got his £$$1000$$, Mr. Secretary would get only £$$1$$, and the boy less than one farthing!

The witty Dean Swift once wrote:

An ox might worry about a flea of ordinary size–a small creature of the first order of smallness. But he would probably not trouble himself about a flea’s flea; being of the second order of smallness, it would be negligible. Even a gross of fleas’ fleas would not be of much account to the ox.