Page:Philosophy and Fun of Algebra.djvu/67

MACBETH'S MISTAKE Having given you this general indication of the principle which I am trying to explain, we will go back to the question of an imaginary working hypothesis.

My imagination, as I told you, showed me that my mind would travel quickly and easily along the road opened up by supposing that Israël means Rhythm. Looking back in my memory, I could not find the smallest indication that anybody had either come to grief himself or offended any Hebrew person by behaving as if the people of Israël were the People of Rhythm; and there is nothing in the Ten Commandments to suggest that there is any harm in doing so. So I started off on a glorious, easy, rapid spin; and arrived, without any mishap, at several very interesting bits of scenery.

Now let us take the case of the old Scotch legend of Macbeth, as told by Shakespeare.

Macbeth and his wife appear to have been, at first, very well-intentioned, good people, as human beings go; better than most people; and enormously better than Jacob, or his mother, or his uncle, or 63