here one will,
there's no _plasing_ ye!"

Mr. Reddie attaches much force to Berkeley's[653] old arguments against the
doctrine of fluxions, and advances objections to Newton's second section,
which he takes to be new. To me they appear "such as have been often made,"
to copy a description given in a review: though I have no doubt Mr. Reddie
got them out of himself. But the whole matter comes to this: Mr. Reddie
challenged answer, especially from the British Association, and got none.
He presumes that this is because he is right, and cannot be answered: the
Association is willing to risk itself upon the counter-notion that he is
wrong, and need not be answered; because so wrong that none who could
understand an answer would be likely to want one.

Mr. Reddie demands my attention to a point which had already particularly
struck me, as giving the means of showing to _all_ readers the kind of
confusion into which paradoxers are apt to fall, in spite of the clearest
instruction. It is a very honest blunder, and requires notice: it may
otherwise mislead some, who may suppose that no one able to read could be
mistaken about so simple a matter, {347} let him be ever so wrong about
Newton. According to his own mis-statement, in less than five months he
made the Astronomer Royal abandon the theory of the solar motion in space.
The announcement is made in August, 1865, as follows: the italics are not
mine:

"The third (_Victoria ..._), although only published in September,
1863, has already had its triumph. _It is the book that forced the
Astronomer Royal of England, after publicly teaching the contrary for
years, to come to the conclusion, "strange as it may appear," that "the
whole question of solar motion in space is at the present time in doubt
and abeyance."_ This admission is made in the Annual Report of the
Council of the Royal Astronomical Society, published in the Society's
_Monthly Notices_ for February, 1864."

It is added that solar motion is "full of self-contradiction, which "the
astronomers" simply overlooked, but which they dare not now deny after
being once pointed out."

The following is another of his accounts of the matter, given in the
_Correspondent_, No. 18, 1865:

"... You ought, when you came to put me in the 'Budget,' to have been
aware of the Report of the Council of the Royal Astronomical Society,
where it appears that Professor Airy,[654] with a better