has five special figures of
this kind: P means _plus_ in commerce and _pikemen_ in the army; M means
_minus_, and _musketeer_ in the art of war;... R signifies _root_ in the
measurement of a cube, and _rank_ in _the army_; Q means _square_ (French
_quare_, as then spelled) in both cases; C means _cube_ in mensuration, and
_cavalry_ in arranging batallions and squadrons. As for the operations of
this science, they are as follows: to add a _plus_ and a _plus_, the sum
will be _plus_; to add _minus_ with _plus_, take the less from the greater
and the remainder will be the sum required or the number to be found. I say
this only in passing, for the benefit of those who are wholly ignorant of
it."

[241] He refers to the _Joannis de Beaugrand ... Geostatice, seu de vario
pondere gravium secundum varia a terrae (centro) intervalla dissertatio
mathematica_, Paris, 1636. Pascal relates that de Beaugrand sent all of
Roberval's theorems on the cycloid and Fermat's on maxima and minima to
Galileo in 1638, pretending that they were his own.

[242] More (1614-1687) was a theologian, a fellow of Christ College,
Cambridge, and a Christian Platonist.

[243] Matthew Hale (1609-1676) the famous jurist, wrote a number of tracts
on scientific, moral, and religious subjects. These were collected and
published in 1805.

[244] They might have been attributed to many a worse man than Dr. Hales
(1677-1761), who was a member of the Royal Society and of the Paris
Academy, and whose scheme for the ventilation of prisons reduced the
mortality at the Savoy prison from one hundred to only four a year. The
book to which reference is made is _Vegetable Staticks or an Account of
some statical experiments on the sap in Vegetables_, 1727.

[245] _Pleas of the Crown; or a Methodical Summary of the Principal Matters
relating to the subject_, 1678.

[246] _Thomae Streete Astronomia Carolina, a new theory of the celestial
motions_, 1661. It also appeared at Nuremberg in 1705, and at London in
1710 and 1716 (Halley's editions). He wrote other works on astronomy.

[247] This was the Sir Thomas Street (1626-1696) who passed sentence of
death on a Roman Catholic priest for saying mass. The priest was reprieved
by the king, but in the light of the present day one would think the
justice more in need of pardon. He took part in the trial of the Rye House
Conspirators in 1683.

[248] Edmund Halley (1656-1742), who succeeded Wallis (1703) as Savilian
professo