Page:Passages from the Life of a Philosopher.djvu/44

28 At this period Cambridge was agitated by a fierce controversy. Societies had been formed for printing and circulating the Bible. One party proposed to circulate it with notes, in order to make it intelligible; whilst the other scornfully rejected all explanations of the word of God as profane attempts to mend that which was perfect.

The walls of the town were placarded with broadsides, and posters were sent from house to house. One of the latter form of advertisement was lying upon my table when Slegg left me. Taking up the paper, and looking through it, I thought it, from its exaggerated tone, a good subject for a parody.

I then drew up the sketch of a society to be instituted for translating the small work of Lacroix on the Differential and Integral Lacroix. It proposed that we should have periodical meetings for the propagation of d's; and consigned to perdition all who supported the heresy of dots. It maintained that the work of Lacroix was so perfect that any comment was unnecessary.

On Slegg's return from chapel I put the parody into his hands. My friend enjoyed the joke heartily, and at parting asked my permission to show the parody to a mathematical friend of his, Mr. Bromhead.

The next day Slegg called on me, and said that he had put the joke into the hand of his friend, who, after laughing heartily, remarked that it was too good a joke to be lost, and proposed seriously that we should form a society for the cultivation of mathematics.

The next day Bromhead called on me. We talked the subject over, and agreed to hold a meeting at his lodgings