a lesson to presumption. The following anecdote is found in Thiébault's 'Souvenirs de vingt ans de'séjour à Berlin,' published in 1804. The book itself got a high character for truth. In 1807 Marshal Mollendorff answered an inquiry of the Duc de Bassano, by saying that it was the most veracious of books, written by the most honest of men, Thiébault does not claim personal knowledge of the anecdote, but he vouches for its being received as true all over the north of Europe.[1]
Diderot paid a visit to Russia at the invitation of Catherine the Second. At that time he was an atheist, or at least talked atheism: it would be easy to prove him either one thing or the other from his writings. His lively sallies on this subject much amused the Empress, and all the younger part of her Court. But some of the older courtiers suggested that it was hardly prudent to allow such unreserved exhibitions. The Empress thought so too, but did not like to muzzle her guest by an express prohibition: so a plot was contrived. The scorner was informed that an eminent mathematician had an algebra1cal proof of the existence of God, which he would communicate before the whole Court, if agreeable. Diderot gladly consented. The mathematician, who is not named, was Euler. He came to Diderot with the gravest air, and in a tone of perfect conviction said, "Monsieur!
done Dieu existe; répondez!" Diderot, to whom algebra was Hebrew, though this is expressed in a very roundabout way by Thiébault—and whom we may suppose to have expected some verbal argument of alleged algebraical closeness, was disconcerted; while peals of laughter sounded on all sides. Next day he asked permission to return to France, which was granted. An algebraist would have turned the tables completely, by saying, 'Monsieur! vous savez bien que votre raisonnement demande le développement de w suivant les puissances entiéres de .' Goldsmith could not have seen the anecdote, or he might have been supposed to have drawn from it a hint as to the way in which the Squire demolished poor Moses.
The graphomath is a person who, having no mathematics, attempts to describe a mathematician, Novelists perform in this way: even Walter Scott now and then burns his fingers. His dreaming calculator, Davy Ramsay, swears 'by the bones of the immortal Napier.' Scott thought that the philomaths worshipped relics: so they do, m one sense. Look into Hutton's Dictionary for Napier's Bones, and you shall learn all about the little knick-knacks by which he did multiplication and division. But never a bone of his own did he contribute; he preferred elephants' tusks. The author of 'Headlong
- ↑ This anecdote is printed at p. 251; but as it is used in ilustration here, and is given more in detail, I have not omitted it.—Ed.
