Page:Carroll - Euclid and His Modern Rivals.djvu/55

. II. § 2.] to recommend it, and secondly, it discards my system of numbers, so that its adoption, as a standard for examinations, would seriously interfere with the retention of my Manual as the standard text-book.

Now, of these questions, I shall be most happy to discuss with you the general ones (I mean questions 1, 2, 3, and 4) before we conclude this interview: but, when it comes to criticising particular authors, I must leave you to yourself, to deal with them as best you can.

Min. It will be weary work to do it all alone. And yet I suppose you cannot, even with your supernatural powers, fetch me the authors themselves?

Euc. I dare not. The living human race is so strangely prejudiced. There is nothing men object to so emphatically as being transferred by ghosts from place to place. I cannot say they are consistent in this matter: they are for ever 'raising' or 'laying' us poor ghosts—we cannot even haunt a garret without having the parish at our heels, bent on making us change our quarters: whereas if I were to venture to move one single small boy—say to lift him by the hair of his head over only two or three houses, and to set him down safe and sound in a neighbour's garden—why, I give you my word, it would be the talk of the town for the next month!

Min. I can well believe it. But what can you do for me? Are their Doppelgänger available?

Euc. I fear not. The best thing I can do is to send you the Phantasm of a German Professor, a great friend of mine. He has read all books, and is ready to defend any thesis, true or untrue.