ather 'dense,' does not understand, but we
understand ourselves, which is the root of the matter. Let us try again:
these historical delineations are not lifeless facts, bearing no sense
or moral value, but living realities organized into the unity of some
great constructive idea.

Perhaps we are obscure; and possibly (though it is treason in a writer
to hint such a thing, as tending to produce hatred or disaffection
towards his liege lord who is and must be his reader), yet, perhaps,
even the reader--that great character--may be 'dense.' 'Dense' is the
word used by young ladies to indicate a slight shade--a _soupcon_--of
stupidity; and by the way it stands in close relationship of sound to
_Duns_, the schoolman, who (it is well known) shared with King Solomon
the glory of furnishing a designation for men weak in the upper
quarters. But, reader, whether the fault be in you or in ourselves,
certain it is that the truth which we wish to communicate is not
trivial; it is the noblest and most creative of truths, if only we are
not a Duns Scholasticus for explanation, nor you (most excellent
reader!) altogether a Solomon for apprehension. Therefore, again lend us
your ears.

It is not, it has not been, perhaps it never will be, understood--how
vast a thing is combination. We remember that Euler, and some other
profound Prussians, such as Lambert, etc., tax this word _combination_
with a fault: for, say they, it indicates that composition of things
which proceeds two by two (viz., com-_bina_); whereas three by three,
ten by ten, fifty by fifty, is combination. It is so. But, once for all,
language is so difficult a structure, being like a mail-coach and four
horses required to turn round Lackington's counter[12]--required in one
syllable to do what oftentimes would require a sentence--that it must
use the artifices of a short-hand. The word _bini-ae-a_ is here but an
exponential or representative word: it stands for any number, for
_number_ in short generally as opposed to unity. And the secret truth
which some years ago we suggested, but which doubtless perished as
pearls to swine, is, that com_bina_tion, or com_terna_tion, or
com_quaterna_tion, or com_dena_tion, possesses a mysterious virtue quite
unobserved by men. All knowledge is probably within its keeping. What we
mean is, that where A is not capable simply of revealing a truth
(_i.e._, by way of direct inference), very possible it is that A viewed
by the light of B