admitted to be true, merely as courteous concessions to arithmetic, my purpose will be effected, for men will thus be led to think; and if they think, then the fabric of false assumptions, and degrading superstitions will soon tumble in ruins.
This for posterity. For the present time I ground the fame of Sir E. Phillips on his having squared the circle without knowing it, or intending to do it. In the Protest presently noted he discovered that 'the force taken as 1 is equal to the sum of all its fractions.…thus , &c. carried to infinity.' This the mathematician instantly sees is equivalent to the theorem that the circumference of any circle is double of the diagonal of the cube on its diameter.
I have examined the following works of Sir R. Phillips, and heard of many others:—
Essays on the proximate mechanical causes of the general phenomena of the Universe, 1818, 12mo.
Protest against the prevailing principles of natural philosophy, with the development of a common sense system (no date, 8vo, pp. 16).
Four dialogues between an Oxford Tutor and a disciple of the common-sense philosophy, relative to the proximate causes of material phenomena. 8vo. 1824.
A century of original aphorisms on the proximate causes of the phenomena of nature, 1835, 12mo.
Sir Richard Phillips had four valuable qualities; honesty, zeal, ability, and courage. He applied them all to teaching matters about which he knew nothing; and gained himself an uncomfortable life and a ridiculous memory.
Astronomy made plain; or only way the true perpendicular distance of the Sun, Moon, or Stars, from this earth, can be obtained. By Wm. Wood. Chatham, 1819, 12mo.
If this theory be true, it will follow, of course, that this earth is the only one God made, and that it does not whirl round the sun, but vice versâ, the sun round it.
Historic doubts relative to Napoleon Buonaparte. London, 1819, 8vo.
This tract has since been acknowledged by Archbishop Whately and reprinted. It is certainly a paradox: but differs from most of those in my list as being a joke, and a satire upon the reasoning of those who cannot receive narrative, no matter
