erably well attested, if
it were not for {221} one circumstance, for the book was not published. The
celebrated theorem, "Pascal's hexagram,"[483] makes all the rest come very
easy. Now Curabelle,[484] in a work published in 1644, sneers at
Desargues,[485] whom he quotes, for having, in 1642, deferred a discussion
until "cette grande proposition nommee le Pascale verra le jour."[486] That
is, by the time Pascal was nineteen, the _hexagram_ was circulating under a
name derived from the author. The common story about Pascal, given by his
sister,[487] is an absurdity which no doubt has prejudiced many against
tales of early proficiency. He is made, when quite a boy, to invent
geometry _in the order of Euclid's propositions_: as if that order were
natural sequence of investigation. The hexagram at ten years old would be a
hundred times less unlikely.

The instances named are painfully astonishing: I give one which has fallen
out of sight, because it will preserve an imperfect biography. John
Wilson[488] is Wilson of that {222} Ilk, that is, of "Wilson's Theorem." It
is this: if _p_ be a prime number, the product of all the numbers up to
_p_-1, increased by 1, is divisible without remainder by _p_. All
mathematicians know this as Wilson's theorem, but few know who Wilson was.
He was born August 6, 1741, at the Howe in Applethwaite, and he was heir to
a small estate at Troutbeck in Westmoreland. He was sent to Peterhouse, at
Cambridge, and while an undergraduate was considered stronger in algebra
than any one in the University, except Professor Waring, one of the most
powerful algebraists of the century.[489] He was the senior wrangler of
1761, and was then for some time a private tutor. When Paley,[490] then in
his third year, determined to make a push for the senior wranglership,
which he got, Wilson was recommended to him as a tutor. Both were ardent in
their work, except that sometimes Paley, when he came for his lesson, would
find "Gone a fishing" written on his tutor's outer door: which was insult
added to injury, for Paley was very fond of fishing. Wilson soon left
Cambridge, and went to the bar. He practised on the northern circuit with
great success; and, one day, while passing his vacation on his little
property at Troutbeck, he received information, to his great surprise, that
Lord Thurlow,[491] with whom he had {223} no acquaintance, had recommended
him to be a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas. He died, Oct. 18, 1