I find among my miscellaneous papers the following _jeu d'esprit_, or _jeu de betise_,[719] whichever the reader pleases--I care not--intended, before I saw ground for abstaining, to have, as the phrase is, come in somehow. I think I could manage to bring anything into anything: certainly into a Budget of Paradoxes. Sir W. H. rather piqued himself upon some caniculars, or doggerel verses, which he had put together _in memoriam_ [_technicam_] of the way in which A E I O are used in logic: he added U, Y, for the addition of _meet_, etc., to the system. I took the liberty of concocting some counter-doggerel, just to show that a mathematician may have architectonic power as well as a metaphysician.
DOGGEREL. BY SIR W. HAMILTON. A it affirms of _this_, _these_, _all_, Whilst E denies of _any_; I it affirms (whilst O denies) Of some (or few, or many).
Thus A affirms, as E denies, And definitely either; Thus I affirms, as O denies, And definitely neither.
A half, left semidefinite, Is worthy of its score; U, then, affirms, as Y denies, This, neither less nor more.
Indefinito-definites, I, UI, YO, last we come; {342} And this affirms, as that denies Of _more_, _most_ (_half_, _plus_, _some_).
COUNTER DOGGEREL. BY PROF. DE MORGAN. (1847.) Great A affirms of all; Sir William does so too: When the subject is "my suspicion," And the predicate "must be true."
Great E denies of all; Sir William of all but one: When he speaks about this present time, And of those who in logic have done.
Great I takes up but _some_; Sir William! my dear soul! Why then in all your writings, Does "Great I" fill[720] the whole!
Great O says some are not; Sir William's readers catch, That some (modern) Athens is not without An Aristotle to match.
"A half, left semi-definite, Is worthy of its score:" This looked very much like balderdash, And neither less nor more.
It puzzled me like anything; In fact, it puzzled me worse: Isn't schoolman's logic hard enough, Without being in Sibyl's verse?
{343} At last, thinks I, 'tis German; And I'll try it with some beer! The landlord asked what bothered me so, And at once he made it clear.
It's _half-and-half_, the gentleman means; Don't you see he talks of _score_? That's the bit of memorandum That we chalk behind the door.
_Semi-definite_'s outlandish; But I see, in half a squint, That he speaks of the lubbers who call for a quart, When they can't manage more than a pint.
Now I'll read it into English, And then you'll answer me this: If it isn't good logic all the world round, I should like to know what is?
When you call for a pot of half-and-half, If you're lost to sense of shame, You may leave it _semi-definite_, But you pay for it all just the same. * * * * * *
I am unspeakably comforted when I look over the above in remembering that the question is not whether it be Pindaric or Horatian, but whether the copy be as good as the original. And I say it is: and will take no denial.
Long live--long will live--the glad memory of William Hamilton, Good, Learned, Acute, and Disputatious! He fought upon principle: the motto of his book is:
"Truth, like a torch, the more it's shook it shines."
There is something in this; but metaphors, like puddings, quarrels, rivers, and arguments, always have two sides to them. For instance,
"Truth, like a torch, the more it's shook it shines; But those who want to use it, hold it steady. They shake the flame who like a glare to gaze at, They keep it still who want a light to see by."
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