thought, silly evasions of all kinds belong to such a work as the present.
Ignorance, which seats itself in the chair of knowledge, is a mother of
revolutions in politics, and of unread pamphlets in circle-squaring. From
1815 to 1830 the question of revolution or no revolution lurked in all our
English discussions. The high classes must govern; the high classes shall
not govern; and thereupon issue was to be joined. In 1828-33 the question
came to issue; and it was, Revolution with or without civil war; choose.
The choice was wisely made; and the Reform Bill started a new system so
well dovetailed into the old that the joinings are hardly visible. And now,
in 1867, the thing is repeated with a marked subsidence of symptoms; and
the party which has taken the place of the extinct Tories is carrying
through Parliament a wider extension of the franchise than their opponents
would have ventured. Napoleon used to say that a decided nose was a sign of
power: on which it has been remarked that he had good reason to say so
before the play was done. And so had our country; it was saved from a
religious war, and from a civil war, by the power of that nose over its
colleagues. {188}

THOMAS TAYLOR, THE PLATONIST.

The Commentaries of Proclus.[420] Translated by Thomas Taylor.[421]
London, 1792, 2 vols. 4to.[422]

The reputation of "the Platonist" begins to grow, and will continue to
grow. The most authentic account is in the _Penny Cyclopaedia_, written by
one of the few persons who knew him well, and one of the fewer who possess
all his works. At page lvi of the Introduction is Taylor's notion of the
way to find the circumference. It is not geometrical, for it proceeds on
the motion of a point: the words "on account of the simplicity of the
impulsive motion, such a line must be either straight or circular" will
suffice to show how Platonic it is. Taylor certainly professed a kind of
heathenism. D'lsraeli said, "Mr. T. Taylor, the Platonic philosopher and
the modern Plethon,[423] consonant to that philosophy, professes
polytheism." Taylor printed this in large type, in a page by itself after
the dedication, without any disavowal. I have seen the following, Greek and
translation both, in his handwriting: "[Greek: Pas agathos hei agathos
ethnikos; kai pas christianos hei christianos kakos.] Every good man, so
far as he is a good man, is a heathen; and every Christian, so far as he is
a Christian, is a bad man." Whether