_Athenaeum_, August, 19, 1865. _Notice to Correspondents._
"R. W.--If you will consult the opening chapter of the Budget of Paradoxes, you will see that the author presents only works in his own library at a given date; and this for a purpose explained. For ourselves we have carefully avoided allowing any writers to present themselves in our columns on the ground that the Budget has passed them over. We gather that Mr. De Morgan contemplates additions at a future time, perhaps in a separate and augmented work; if so, those who complain that others of no greater claims than themselves have been ridiculed may find themselves where they wish to be. We have done what we can for you by forwarding your letter to Mr. De Morgan."
The author of "An Essay on the Constitution of the Earth," published in 1844, demanded of the _Athenaeum_, as an _act of fairness_, that a letter from him should be published, proving that he had as much right to be "impaled" as Capt. Drayson. He holds, on speculative grounds, what the other claims to have proved by measurement, namely, that the earth is growing; and he believes that in time--a good long time, not _our_ time--the earth and other planets may grow into suns, with systems of their own.
This gentleman sent me a copy of his work, after the commencement of my Budget; but I have no recollection of having received it, and I cannot find it on the (nursery? {134} quarantine?) shelves on which I keep my unestablished discoveries. Had I known of this work in time, (see the Introduction) I should of course, have impaled it (heraldically) with the other work; but the two are very different. Capt. Drayson professes to prove his point by results of observation; and I think he does not succeed. The author before me only speculates; and a speculator can get any conclusion into his premises, if he will only build or hire them of shape and size to suit. It reminds me of a statement I heard years ago, that a score of persons, or near it, were to dine inside the skull of one of the aboriginal animals, dear little creatures! Whereat I wondered vastly, nothing doubting; facts being stubborn and not easy drove, as Mrs. Gamp said. But I soon learned that the skull was not a real one, but artificially constructed by the methods--methods which have had striking verifications, too--which enable zoologists to go the whole hog by help of a toe or a bit of tail. This took off the edge of the wonder: a hundred people can dine inside an inference, if you draw it large enough. The method might happen to fail for once: for instance, the toe-bone might have been abnormalized by therian or saurian malady; and the possibility of such failure, even when of small probability, is of great alleviation. The author before me is, apparently, the sole fabricator of his own premises. With vital force in the earth and continual creation on the part of the original Creator, he expands our bit of a residence as desired. But, as the Newtoness of Cookery observed, First catch your hare. When this is done, when you _have_ a growing earth, you shall dress it with all manner of proximate causes, and serve it up with a growing Moon for sauce, a growing Sun, if it please you, at the other end, and growing planets for side-dishes. Hoping this amount of impalement will be satisfactory, I go on to something else. {135}
