Page:Carroll - Euclid and His Modern Rivals.djvu/130

92 I hardly know which to pity most—the master who has to teach these Theorems, or the boy who has to learn them!

But I have neither the 'one-way spread with moments as elements' nor the 'three-way spread with points as elements' to—

Nie. (gasping) What are you talking about?

Min. Excuse me. I fear I am getting demoralised. I meant to say—I have neither the time nor the space to criticise this book throughout.

I will, however, try to sum up its faults in a general description.

'Olla Podrida' is perhaps the best name for it, its contents are so hopelessly jumbled together. Most of the Axioms, and all the Theorems, are without numbers, and, as there is no index, the difficulty of finding them when wanted is obvious: and none the less that they are imbedded in oceans of 'padding.' Dip into the book anywhere, and you find yourself in the midst of some discursive talk, which perhaps culminates in an Axiom. Then perhaps comes a Definition. Then comes a little more talk, which, after appealing to sentiment, or probability, or some other motive degrading to Pure Mathematics, gradually becomes more and more logical, and at last warms into a regular proof—but of what? The reader has no warning as to what is to be proved. Unsuspectingly he glides on with the stream, till with a crash he is landed on an enunciation, and finds himself committed to an entire Theorem. This singular writer always reserves the enunciation for the end of the