There is, perhaps, no topic in polite literature which has been more
pertinaciously discussed, and there is certainly not one about which
so much inaccuracy, confusion, misconception, misrepresentation,
mystification, and downright ignorance on all sides, can be fairly
said to exist. Were the topic really difficult, or did it lie, even,
in the cloudland of metaphysics, where the doubt- vapors may be made
to assume any and every shape at the will or at the fancy of the
gazer, we should have less reason to wonder at all this
contradiction and perplexity; but in fact the subject is exceedingly
simple; one-tenth of it, possibly, may be called ethical; nine-tenths,
however, appertain to mathematics; and the whole is included within
the limits of the commonest common sense.
"But, if this is the case, how," it will be asked, "can so much
misunderstanding have arisen? Is it conceivable that a thousand
profound scholars, investigating so very simple a matter for
centuries, have not been able to place it in the fullest light, at
least, of which it is susceptible?" These queries, I confess, are
not easily answered: at all events, a satisfactory reply to them might
cost more trouble than would, if properly considered, the whole vexata
quaestio to which they have reference. Nevertheless, there is little
difficulty or danger in suggesting that the "thousand profound
scholars" may have failed first, because they were scholars; secondly,
because they were profound; and thirdly, because they were a
thousand-the impotency of the scholarship and profundity having been
thus multiplied a thousand fold.
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