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
"... I take a silver plate when she [the moon] is in her fifteenth mansion,
which mansion is in de head of _Libra_, and I engrave upon one side de
worts _Schedbarschemoth Scharta_ch_an_ [_ch_ should be _t_]--dat is, de
Intelligence of de Intelligence of de moon--and I make his picture like a
flying serpent with a turkey-cock's head--vary well--Then upon this side I
make de table of de moon, which is a square of nine, multiplied into
itself, with eighty-one numbers [nine] on every side and diameter nine...."
In the _De Occulta Philosophia_, p. 290, we find that the fifteenth mansion
of the moon _incipit capite Librae_, and is good _pro extrahendis
thesauris_, the object being to discover hidden treasure. In p. 246, we
learn that a _silver_ plate must be used with the moon. In p. 248, we have
the words which denote the Intelligence, etc. But, owing to the falling of
a number into a wrong line, or the misplacement of a line, one or
other--which takes place in all the editions I have examined--Scott has,
sad to say, got hold of the wrong words; he has written down the _demon of
the demons_ of the moon. Instead of the gibberish above, it should have
been _Malcha betarsisim hed beruah schenhakim_. In p. 253, we have the
magic square of the moon, with eighty-one numbers, and the symbol for the
Intelligence, which Scott likens to a flying {50} serpent with a
turkey-cock's head. He was obliged to say something; but I will stake my
character--and so save a woodcut--on the scratches being more like a pair
of legs, one shorter than the other, without a body, jumping over a
six-barred gate placed side uppermost. Those who thought that Scott forged
his own nonsense, will henceforth stand corrected. As to the spirit
Peolphan, etc., no doubt Scott got it from the authors he elsewhere
mentions, Nicolaus Remigius[47] and Petrus Thyracus; but this last word
should be Thyraeus.
The tendency of Scott's mind towards prophecy is very marked, and it is
always fulfilled. Hyder, in his disguise, calls out to Tippoo: "Cursed is
the prince who barters justice for lust; he shall die in the gate by the
sword of the stranger." Tippoo was killed in a gateway at Seringapatam.[48]
FINAEUS ON CIRCLE SQUARING.
Orontii Finaei ... Quadratura Circuli. Paris, 1544, 4to.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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