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Updated: June 22, 2025
All that is left of the universe henceforward is a whirl of atoms in which nothing counts but certain fixed quantities translated by our systems of equations; the rest has vanished "in algebraical smoke." There is therefore nothing more or less in the effect than in the group of causes; and the causal relation moves towards identity as towards its asymptote.
But this is after all only shifting the problem to another place, and translating the mystery into algebraical terms, so to speak, into symbols with which one can calculate and work for a little, which formulate a definite series of observations, an orderly sequence of phenomena, which are, however, after all, “unknown quantities” that explain nothing.
In that superstitious age, when emperors and princes daily investigated the future, by alchemy, by astrology, and by books of fate, filled with formula; as gravely and precisely set forth as algebraical equations; when men of every class, from monarch to peasant, implicitly believed in supernatural portents and prophecies, it was not singular that a somewhat striking appearance, observed in the sky some weeks previously to the battle of Mookerheyde, should have inspired many persons with a shuddering sense of impending evil.
A mathematician, when he has calculated a sufficient number of the terms of an algebraical or arithmetical series to have ascertained what is called the law of the series, does not hesitate to fill up any number of the succeeding terms without repeating the calculations.
Whenever we had a public exhibition, George was our show-card. The rapidity with which he would fill the blackboard, in solving difficult problems in quadratics, was almost bewildering. It was not every teacher even that could follow him in his quick but exact evolutions of complex algebraical formulæ.
The interval of time which occurred between the commencement of his labour of love and the end was always sufficiently long to allow his mind, which had been for a moment abstracted by his pleasure, to be brought back to the constant objects of his meditation that is, to geometrical problems or algebraical formula.
But from the first move in the game of chess no especial second move follows of necessity. In the algebraical question, as it proceeds towards solution, the certainty of its operations remains altogether unimpaired.
"Well," said Jervis, laying down the document as Thorndyke detached the last sheet from his writing-pad, "I have met with a good many idiotic wills, but this one can give them all points. I don't see how it is ever going to be administered. One of the two executors is a mere abstraction a sort of algebraical problem with no answer." "I think that difficulty could be overcome," said Thorndyke.
The first, if they condescend to love you, love you as the biggest doll they have yet dandled, and for a doll's good qualities, your pretty blue eyes and your exquisite millinery. The last, if they prudently accept you, do so on algebraical principles; you are but the X or the Y that represents a certain aggregate of goods matrimonial, pedigree, title, rent-roll, diamonds, pin-money, opera-box.
I need not recount the proceedings of the Belgian police; how they interrogated Robert concerning a letter from Mary St. John which they found in an inner pocket; how they looked doubtful over a copy of Horace that lay in his coat, and put evidently a momentous question about some algebraical calculations on the fly-leaf of it.
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