[197] The full title is worth giving, because it shows the mathematical interests of Hobbes, and the nature of the six dialogues: _Examinatio et emendatio mathematicae hodiernae qualis explicatur in libris Johannis Wallisii geometriae professoris Saviliani in Academia Oxoniensi: distributa in sex dialogos (1. De mathematicae origine ...; 2. De principiis traditis ab Euclide; 3. De demonstratione operationum arithmeticarum ...; 4. De rationibus; 5. De angula contactus, de sectionibus coni, et arithmetica infinitorum; 6. Dimensio circuli tribus methodis demonstrata ... item cycloidis verae descriptio et proprietates aliquot.)_ Londini, 1660 (not 1666). For a full discussion of the controversy over the circle, see George Croom Robertson's biography of Hobbes in the eleventh edition of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_. [198] This is his _Animadversions upon Mr. Hobbes' late book De principiis et ratiocinatione geometrarum_, 1666, or his _Hobbianae quadraturae circuli, cubationis sphaerae et duplicationis cubi confutatio_, also of 1669. [199] This is the work of 1669 referred to above. [200] Gregoire de St. Vincent (1584-1667) published his _Opus geometricum quadraturae circuli et sectionum coni_ at Antwerp in 1647. [201] This appears in _J. Scaligeri cyclometrica elementa duo_, Lugduni Batav., 1594. [202] Adriaen van Roomen (1561-1615) gave the value of [pi] to sixteen decimal places in his _Ideae mathematicae pars prima_ (1593), and wrote his _In Archimedis circuli dimensionem expositio & analysis_ in 1597. [203] Kaestner. See note 30 on page 43. [204] Bentley (1662-1742) might have done it, for as the head of Trinity College, Cambridge, and a follower of Newton, he knew some mathematics. Erasmus (1466-1536) lived a little too early to attempt it, although his brilliant satire might have been used to good advantage against those who did try. [205] "In grammar, to give the winds to the ships and to give the ships to the winds mean the same thing. But in geometry it is one thing to assume the circle BCD not greater than thirty-six segments BCDF, and another (to assume) the thirty-six segments BCDF not greater than the circle. The one assumption is true, the other false." [206] The Greek scholar (1559-1614) who edited a Greek and Latin edition of Aristotle in 1590. [207] Jacques Auguste de Thou (1553-1617), the historian and statesman. [208] "To value Scaliger higher even when wrong, than the multitude when right." [209] "I would rather err with Scaliger than be right with Clavius." [210] "The perimeter of the dodecagon to be inscribed in a circle is greater than the perimeter of the circle. And the more sides a polygon to be inscribed in a circle successively has, so much the greater will the perimeter of the polygon be than the perimeter of the circle."