Erreurs et de la Verite_, par
un PH.... INC...., p. 9."[377] This work is set down in various catalogues
and biographies as written by the PH.... INC.... himself. But it is not
usual for a writer to publish two works in the same year, one of which
takes a motto from the other. And the second work is profuse in capitals
and italics, and uses Hebrew learning: its style differs much from the
first work. The first work sets out from man, and has nothing to do with
God: the second is religious and raps the knuckles of the first as follows:
"Si nous voulons nous preserver de toutes {171} les illusions, et surtout
des amorces de l'orgueil par lesquelles l'homme est si souvent seduit, ne
prenons jamais les hommes, mais toujours _Dieu_ pour notre terme de
comparaison."[378] The first uses _four_ and _nine_ in various ways, of
which I have quoted one: the second says, "Et ici se trouve deja une
explication des nombres _quatre_ et _neuf_, qui ont peu embarrasse dans
l'ouvrage deja cite. L'homme s'est egare en allant de _quatre_ a
_neuf_...."[379] The work cited is the _Erreurs_, etc., and the citation is
in the motto, which is the text of the opposition sermon.

A FORERUNNER OF THE METRIC SYSTEM.

Method to discover the difference of the earth's diameters; proving its
true ratio to be not less variable than as 45 is to 46, and shortest in
its pole's axis 174 miles.... likewise a method for fixing an universal
standard for weights and measures. By Thomas Williams.[380] London,
1788, 8vo.

Mr. Williams was a paradoxer in his day, and proposed what was, no doubt,
laughed at by some. He proposed the sort of plan which the
French--independently of course--carried into effect a few years after. He
would have the 52d degree of latitude divided into 100,000 parts and each
part a geographical yard. The geographical ton was to be the cube of a
geographical yard filled with sea-water taken some leagues from land. All
multiples and sub-divisions were to be decimal.

I was beginning to look up those who had made similar proposals, when a
learned article on the proposal of a {172} metrical system came under my
eye in the _Times_ of Sept. 15, 1863. The author cites Mouton,[381] who
would have the minute of a degree divided into 10,000 _virgulae_; James
Cassini,[382] whose foot was to be six thousandths of a minute; and
Paucton,[383] whose foot was the 400,000th of a degree. I have verified the
first and third statement