But suppose the general body were to combine, in opposition to those who have studied. Of course all my list must be admitted to their trial; and then arises the question whether both sides are to be heard. If so, the general body of the intelligent must hear all the established side have to say: that is, they must become just as much of students as the inculpated orthodox themselves. And will they not then get into _professional rule_, pique, pride, and prejudice, as the others did? But if, which I suspect, they are intended to judge as they are, they will be in a rare difficulty. All the paradoxers are of like pretensions: they cannot, as a class, be right, for each one contradicts a great many of the rest. There will be the puzzle which silenced the crew of the cutter in Marryat's novel of the Dog Fiend.[182] "A tog is a tog," said Jansen.--"Yes," replied another, "we all know a dog is a dog; but the question is--Is _this_ dog { 88} a dog?" And this question would arise upon every dog of them all.
Zetetic Astronomy: Earth not a globe. 1857 (Broadsheet).
Though only a traveling lecturer's advertisement, there are so many arguments and quotations that it is a little pamphlet. The lecturer gained great praise from provincial newspapers for his ingenuity in proving that the earth is a flat, surrounded by ice. Some of the journals rather incline to the view: but the _Leicester Advertiser_ thinks that the statements "would seem very seriously to invalidate some of the most important conclusions of modern astronomy," while the _Norfolk Herald_ is clear that "there must be a great error on one side or the other." This broadsheet is printed at Aylesbury in 1857, and the lecturer calls himself _Parallax_: but at Trowbridge, in 1849, he was S. Goulden.[183] In this last advertisement is the following announcement: "A paper on the above subjects was read before the Council and Members of the Royal Astronomical Society, Somerset House, Strand, London (Sir John F. W. Herschel,[184] President), Friday, Dec. 8, 1848." No account of such a paper appears in the _Notice_ for that month: I suspect that the above is Mr. S. Goulden's way of representing the following occurrence: Dec. 8, 1848, the Secretary of the Astronomical Society (De Morgan by name) said, at the close of the proceedings,--"Now, gentlemen, if you will promise not to tell the Council, I will read something for your amusement": and he then read a few of the arguments which had been transmitted by the lecturer. The fact is worth noting that from 1849 to 1857, arguments on the roundness or flatness of the earth did itinerate. I have { 89} no doubt they did much good: for very few persons have any distinct idea of the evidence for the rotundity of the earth. The _Blackburn Standard_ and _Preston Guardian_ (Dec. 12 and 16, 1849) unite in stating that the lecturer ran away from his second lecture at Burnley, having been rather too hard pressed at the end of his first lecture to explain why the large hull of a ship disappeared before the sails. The persons present and waiting for the second lecture assuaged their disappointment by concluding that the lecturer had slipped off the icy edge of his flat disk, and that he would not be seen again till he peeped up on the opposite side.