ematics_, New York, 1911.

The editor wishes to express his appreciation and thanks to Dr. Paul Carus,
editor of _The Monist_ and _The Open Court_ for the opportunity of
undertaking this work; to James Earl Russell, LL.D., Dean of Teachers
College, Columbia University, for his encouragement in its prosecution; to
Miss Caroline Eustis Seely for her intelligent and painstaking assistance
in securing material for the notes; and to Miss Lydia G. Robinson and Miss
Anna A. Kugler for their aid and helpful suggestions in connection with the
proof-sheets. Without the generous help of all five this work would have
been impossible.

DAVID EUGENE SMITH.

TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.

* * * * *

A BUDGET OF PARADOXES

{1}

INTRODUCTORY.

If I had before me a fly and an elephant, having never seen more than one
such magnitude of either kind; and if the fly were to endeavor to persuade
me that he was larger than the elephant, I might by possibility be placed
in a difficulty. The apparently little creature might use such arguments
about the effect of distance, and might appeal to such laws of sight and
hearing as I, if unlearned in those things, might be unable wholly to
reject. But if there were a thousand flies, all buzzing, to appearance,
about the great creature; and, to a fly, declaring, each one for himself,
that he was bigger than the quadruped; and all giving different and
frequently contradictory reasons; and each one despising and opposing the
reasons of the others--I should feel quite at my ease. I should certainly
say, My little friends, the case of each one of you is destroyed by the
rest. I intend to show flies in the swarm, with a few larger animals, for
reasons to be given.

In every age of the world there has been an established system, which has
been opposed from time to time by isolated and dissentient reformers. The
established system has sometimes fallen, slowly and gradually: it has
either been upset by the rising influence of some one man, or it has been
sapped by gradual change of opinion in the many.

I have insisted on the isolated character of the dissentients, as an
element of the _a priori_ probabilities of the case. Show me a schism,
especially a growing schism, and it is another thing. The homeopathists,
for instance, shall be, if any one so think, as wrong as St. John Long; but
an {2} organized opposition, supported by the efforts of many acting