A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume IDe Morgan, Augustus
Philosophy
A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I
De Morgan, Augustus
Circle-squaring; Perpetual motion; Science -- Miscellanea; Trisection of angle
[434] Sydney Owenson (c. 1783-1859) married Sir Thomas Morgan, a well-known
surgeon, in 1812. Her Irish stories were very popular with the patriots but
were attacked by the _Quarterly Review_. _The Wild Irish Girl_ (1806) went
through seven editions in two years.
[435] 1775-1817.
[436] 1771-1832.
[437] The famous preacher (1732-1808). He was the first chairman of the
Religious Tract Society. He is also known as one of the earliest advocates
of vaccination, in his _Cow-pock Inoculation vindicated and recommended
from matters of fact_, 1806.
[438] Sir Rowland Hill (1795-1879), the father of penny postage.
[439] Beilby Porteus (1731-1808), Bishop of Chester (1776) and Bishop of
London (1787). He encouraged the Sunday-school movement and the
dissemination of Hannah More's tracts. He was an active opponent of
slavery, but also of Catholic emancipation.
[440] Henrietta Maria Bowdler (1754-1830), generally known as Mrs. Harriet
Bowdler. She was the author of many religious tracts and poems. Her _Poems
and Essays_ (1786) were often reprinted. The story goes that on the
appearance of her _Sermons on the Doctrines and duties of Christianity_
(published anonymously), Bishop Porteus offered the author a living under
the impression that it was written by a man.
[441] William Frend (1757-1841), whose daughter Sophia Elizabeth became De
Morgan's wife (1837), was at one time a clergyman of the Established
Church, but was converted to Unitarianism (1787). He came under De Morgan's
definition of a true paradoxer, carrying on a zealous warfare for what he
thought right. As a result of his _Address to the Inhabitants of Cambridge_
(1787), and his efforts to have abrogated the requirement that candidates
for the M.A. must subscribe to the thirty-nine articles, he was deprived of
his tutorship in 1788. A little later he was banished (see De Morgan's
statement in the text) from Cambridge because of his denunciation of the
abuses of the Church and his condemnation of the liturgy. His eccentricity
is seen in his declining to use negative quantities in the operations of
algebra. He finally became an actuary at London and was prominent in
radical associations. He was a mathematician of ability, having been second
wrangler and having nearly attained the first place, and he was also an
excellent scholar in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.
[442] George Peacock (1791-1858), Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge,
Lowndean professor of astronomy, and Dean of Ely Cathedral (1839). His tomb
may be seen at Ely where he spent the latter part of his life. He was one
of the group that introduced the modern continental notation of the
calculus into England, replacing the cumbersome notation of Newton, passing
from "the _dot_age of fluxions to the _de_ism of the calculus."
[443] Robert Simson (1687-1768); professor of mathematics at Glasgow. His
restoration of Apollonius (1749) and his translation and restoration of
Euclid (1756, and 1776--posthumous) are well known.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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