in its erection. Reginald retired for a few minutes to the corner of the room, and returned with the beautiful lines,—

No hammer fell, no ponderous axes rung;
Like some tail palm the mystic fabric sprung.
Majestic silence! etc."

In later editions the lines were changed thus:

No workman's steel, no ponderous axes run?;
Like some tall palm the noiseless fabric sprung.

There seems to be a faint reminiscence here of Cowper's description of the ice palace reared by the Empress Catherine of Russia:

Silently as a dream the fabric rose;

No sound of hammer or of saw was there.

The Task, Book v., 1. 144.

Panel-game, an American thieves' trick. A place is specially fitted up with sliding doors or movable panels. Hither a woman entices a victim. Her accomplice obtains admission to the room through the secret entrance, empties the victim's pocket-book, and then silently retires to bang loudly on the genuine door of the apartment, clamoring for admission as the woman's husband. The victim, rudely awakened, gladly makes his escape by another door which the woman points out to him. Naturally, even after he has found out the trick played upon him, he is not often inclined to prosecute. The lair of a panel-thief is called indiscriminately a panel-house, panel-crib, or panel-den.

Panem et circenses (L., "Bread and the circus games"), a passage from Juvenal {Satires, x. 81). "That people," he says, '* which formerly gave away military command, consulships, legions, and everything, now contains itself, and anxiously desires only two things,—bread and the games of the circus." The phrase is often used as a synonyme for moderate yet diversified desires.

Ennui is an evil that should by no means be under-estimated; it ends by imprinting real despair upon the face. It causes creatures who have so little love for one another as men have to seek their fellows, and thus it becomes the source of companionship. Public precautions are taken against it as against other general calamities, and this is a measure of wise politics, because the evil is one which may drive men to the greatest excesses, like its opposite, famine. The people need panem et circenses. The stern penitentiary system of Philadelphia makes the mere ennui of solitude and inaction its punishment,—a punishment so terrible that it has caused convicts to commit suicide. As necessity is the lash that tails upon the common people, so ennui is the lash of the upper classes. In middle-class life it is represented by Sunday, as necessity is by the six weekdays.—Schopenhauer: The World at Will, i. 369.

Pantisocracy, the name given by Coleridge to a Utopian society which he, with his friends Southey, Robert Lovell, and George Burnet, had, in his younger days, dreamed of founding in America. It was imagined that they and others of congenial tastes and principles should join together and leave the Old World for the woods and wilds of the young republic of the West. Possessions were to be held in common: each would work for all. The daily toil was to be lightened by the companionship of the best books and the discussion of the highest things. Each young man would take to himself a fitting helpmeet, whose part it should be to prepare their food and rear a new race in pristine hardihood and innocence. "This Pantisocratic scheme," writes Southey in 1794, "has given me new life, new hope, new energy; all the faculties of my mind are dilated." But the money requisite for putting it into practice was not to be had, and ere long he and Coleridge married and settled themselves down to the conflict with the actual life around them.

Par, Above and below. Par as a commercial term signifies the nominal or face value of a share or security, with neither premium nor discount Pot may then be considered to signify the normal average or level. In slang or familiar speech, one is above par when in health or spirits he is above his own average condition; one is below par in intelligence or enterprise when he is inferior in these respects to the average of people about him.

Paradoxes and Puzzles. We have Milton's word for it that philosophy is not "harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose." Certainly it was not always so. Like every other institution, human or divine, it went through its period of juvenility, when, at rare intervals, it would forget its usual occupation of rearranging the universe—a feat for which the omniscience of youth is so particularly well fitted—and indulge in some of those playful tricks that are a still more engaging feature of the adolescent mind.

In the days of old, which are called so because they were really the days of youth, the greatest philosophers were fond of disparting themselves in all sorts of ingenious fallacies.

There was Diodorus Chronos, a most acute and subtle reasoner. He proved that there was no such thing as motion. A body must move either in the place where it is or in the place where it not. Now, a body cannot be in motion in the place where it is stationary, and cannot be in motion in the place where it is not. Therefore it cannot move at all.

It was in answer to this paradox that the famous phrase "Solvitur ambulando" (" It is solved by walking") was first formulated,—a solution as practical as Dr. Johnson's famous refutation of the Berkeleyan theory, of the non-existence of matter. "I refute it thus!''' cried Ursa Major, striking his foot with great force upon the ground.

Diodorus was brought up roundly by another densely practical intelligence. Having dislocated his shoulder, he sent for a surgeon to set it. "Nay," said the practitioner, doubtful, perhaps, whether so subtle an intelligence might not euchre him out of his fee by some logical ingenuity, "your shoulder cannot possibly be put out at all, since it cannot be put out in the place in which it is, nor yet in the place in which it is not."

Then there was Zeno of Elea, who proved many things; for example, that there is no such thing as space. If all that exists must be in space, he argued, then must that space itself be in some other space, and so on ad infinitum; but this is absurd; therefore space itself cannot exist, as it cannot be in some other space.

In a dispute with Protagoras, Zeno inquired whether a grain of corn or the ten-thousandth part of a grain of corn would make any sound in falling to the ground.

"No," said Protagoras.

"Will a measure of corn make any noise in falling to the ground?"

"Certainly," was the answer of the other sage, stroking his beard, probably, and trying to look wise.

"But," said Zeno, and we can imagine the triumphant self-satisfaction with which he enunciated this bit of imbecility, "since a measure of corn is composed of a certain number of grains, it follows that either a grain produces a noise in falling or the measure does not."

This recalls to mind a more modern paradox, which is based on the law of acoustics. A sound is produced by the setting in motion of certain waves, which, striking the ear, give us the impression of sound. Now, suppose there be no ear present to listen, is there any sound?

The most famous of Zeno's paradoxes is that known as Achilles and the tortoise.

Achillea, who can run ten times as fast as the tortoise, gives the latter a hundred yards' start. While Achilles is running the first hundred yards, the tortoise runs ten; while Achilles runs that ten, the tortoise is running one; while Achilles is running one, the tortoise is running one-tenth of a yard; and so on forever. This sophism has been considered insoluble even by Dr. Thomas Brown, since it actually leads to an absurd conclusion by a sound argument. The fallacy lies in the concealed assumption that what is infinitely divisible is also infinite.

But a paradox which looks like it at first sight is absolutely irrefragable. A man who owes a dollar starts by paying half a dollar, and every day thereafter pays one-half of the balance due,—twenty-five cents the third day, twelve and a half the fourth day, and so on. Suppose him to be furnished with counters of infinitesimal value, so as to be able to pay fractions of a cent when the balance left is less than a cent, he would never pay the full amount of his debt, even though, Tithonus-like, he were endued with immortality; there would always be some outstanding fraction of a cent to his debt.

The famous "Syllogismus Crocodilus" is not Zeno's, but dates from an unknown antiquity. A crocodile seizes an infant playing on the banks of a river. The mother rushes to its assistance. The crocodile, an intelligent animal, promises to restore the child if she will tell him truly what will happen to it. "You will never restore it," cries the mother, somewhat rashly. The crocodile astutely rises to the occasion. "If you have spoken truly," he says, "I cannot restore the child without destroying the truth of your assertion. If you have spoken falsely, I cannot restore the child, because you have not fulfilled the agreement; therefore I cannot restore it whether you have spoken truly or falsely."

But the mother, too, exhibits logical powers that are rare indeed in her sex.

"If I have spoken truly," she says, "you must restore the child by virtue of your agreement. If I have spoken falsely, that can only be when you have restored the child. Therefore, whether I have spoken truly or falsely, the child must be restored."

Mother and crocodile may still be arguing out that question. History at least is silent as to the issue. It is one of the unsolved problems, like that o( "The Lady or the Tiger?"

Another paradox equally astute is closely parallel. Young Euathlus received lessons in rhetoric from Protagoras, who was to receive a certain fee if his client won his first cause. Euathlus, however, being lazy, neglected to accept any cause. Then Protagoras brought suit. Euathlus defended himself, and it was consequently his first cause. The master argues thus: "If I be successful in this cause, O Euathlus, you will be compelled to pay by virtue of the sentence of the court; but should I be unsuccessful, you will then have to pay me in fulfilment of your contract." "Nay," replies the apt pupil, "if I be successful, O master, I shall be free by the sentence of the court; and if I be unsuccessful, I shall be free by virtue of the contract."

The judges were completely staggered by the convincing logic on each side, and postponed the judgment sine die.

A similar dilemma puzzled Aristotle half out of his wits, and drove Philetas, the celebrated grammarian and poet of Cos, into an untimely grave. It is known as " The Liar," and is stated as follows: •• If you say, • I lie,' and in so saying tell the truth, you lie; but if you say, * I lie,' and in so saying tell a lie, you tell the truth."

The sophism of The Liar reappears in another form in the argument of the lying Cretians. St. Paul says (Titus i. 12, 13), "One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. This witness is true." Now, this witness cannot be true: the Cretians being always liars, the prophet, as a Cretian, must be a liar, and lied when he said they were always liars. Consequently, the Cretians are not always liars. And yet, again, the witness may be true. For if the Cretians are not always liars, then the Cretian prophet was not always a liar, and told the truth when he said that they were always liars.

And are not these sophisms identical in essence with the famous legal case of the Bridge, which was decided by His Excellency Sancho Panza, when governor of the island of Barataria?

Here are some more paradoxes of Attic origin:

"The Veiled Man."—There is a man standing before you with his face and form entirely hidden by a veil. Do you know who this man is? No. Do you know who your father is? You say you do. But this cannot be so, for the veiled man happens to be your father, and you just said you did not know who he was.

"The Horns."—What you have not got rid of you still have. You agree to that. But you have not got rid of horns: therefore you have horns.

"The Bald Man."—You say that you call a man bald when he has only a few hairs. What is the difference between few and many? Would ten be a few and eleven not? Where shall the line be drawn? You say that there are such things as few and many, and that there is a difference between them. Define the difference, then. Such an examination makes it plain that the difference between few and many is not anything in particular, which is as much as to say that it has no particular existence.

In one of Plato's dialogues, Euthydemus, a skilful hand at this sort of

work, tangles up a young man named Ktesippus in this fashion:

"Have you a dog?" it yes ti

"Is he yours?"

"Yes."

"Has he any puppies?"

"Yes, and they are the plague of my life."

"Is the dog their father, then?"

"To my certain knowledge."

"Then the dog is a father and is yours, therefore he is your father."

This unexpected revelation fairly takes away Ktesippus's breath, and before he can recover Euthydemus goes on:

"Do you ever thrash that dog?"

"Yes."

"Then you are in the habit of thrashing your own father!"

But as the talk goes on, Ktesippus gets even with Euthydemus. For the purpose of his argument he wants to make Euthydemus confess that men like to have gold.

"No," says Euthydemus, "you can't lay that down as a general principle. Men don't always like to have gold; they only want it under certain special conditions. No one would want to have gold in his skull, for instance."

"Oh, yes," answers Ktesippus. "You know that the Scythians use skulls for drinking-cups, and inlay them with gold. Now, these are their skulls in just the same way that you said the dog was my father. So the Scythians want to have gold in their skulls."

Euthydemus has no answer ready for this, and Ktesippus carries off the honors.

A modern dilemma of a somewhat similar sort proves that the much-used maxim, "All rules have their exception," is self-contradictory, for if all rules have exceptions, this rule must have its exceptions. Therefore the proverb asserts in one and the same breath that all rules have exceptions and that •ome rules do not,—a clear case of proverbial suicide.

Every school-boy, to use Macaulayese, is familiar with the good old paradox which proves that one cat has three tails: No cat has two tails; one cat has one tail more than no cat; consequently one cat has three tails.

A famous old problem opens out a fertile but somewhat hopeless subiect of inquiry: *• If an irresistible force strikes an immovable body, what will be the result?"

There are a number of more or less familiar problems which are not catchquestions, and which at first sight seem extremely simple, yet require considerable ingenuity to arrive at a correct result. And the correct result, when arrived at, proves to be the exact opposite of the simple prima fcute answer that had sprung immediately to mind.

Can a ship sail faster than the wind? Undoubtedly. Ice-boats, especially, which meet with little or no frictional resistance, can, with a very light wind, be sent ahead of a fast express-train,—an experiment frequently seen in action on the Hudson River. But even an ordinary yacht can be propelled twelve or fifteen knots an hour by a breeze blowing only ten knots an hour.

Of course this cannot happen when the ship sails straight before the wind. In that case it must travel more slowly than the wind, on account of the resistance made by the water. ** But," you may say, •' that is the only way to get the full effect of the wind. If the ship sails at an angle with the wind, the wind must act with less effect, and the ship will sail more slowly."

Plausible. Yet every yachtsman and every mathematician knows it is not true.

Suppose we illustrate. You put a ball on a billiard-table, and, holding the cue lengthwise from side to side of the table, push the ball across the cloth. Here, in a rough way, the ball represents the ship, the cue the wind, only, as there is no waste of energy, the ball travels at the same rate as the cue; evidently it cannot go any faster. Now, let us suppose that a groove is cut diagonally across the table, from one corner-pocket to the other, and that the ball rolls in the groove. Propelled in the same way as before, the ball will now travel along the groove (and along the cue) in the same time as the cue takes to move across the table. The groove is much longer than the width of the table,—double as long, in fact. The ball, therefore, travels much faster than the cue which impels it, since it covers double the distance in the same time.

Just so does the tacking ship sail faster than the wind.

When a wheel is in motion, does the top move faster than the bottom? Nine people out of ten would cry "Nonsense !" at the mere question. Both the top and bottom of the wheel must of necessity, it would seem, be moving forward at one and the same rate,—1>., the speed at which the carriage is travelling. Not so, however, as a little reflection would convince you. The top is moving in the direction of the wheel's motion of translation, while the bottom is moving in opposition to this motion. In other words, the top is moving forward in the direction in which the carriage is progressing, while the bottom is moving backward, or in an opposite direction.

That is why an instantaneous photograph of a carriage in motion shows the upper part of the wheel a confused blur, while the spokes in the lower part are distinctly visible.

You want more proof? Very well; try a practical experiment Take a wheel, or, if none is convenient, a silver dollar, which you are sure to have about your person. Mark points at the top and bottom, as A and B. Make a mark at the starting-point, directly beneath A and B, upon whatever surface the wheel or dollar is rolled. Roll the wheel forward a quarter revolution, which brings A and B upon the dividing line between the upper and lower halves of the wheel. It will be seen that A moves upon a radius equal to the diameter of the circle, and, by actual measurement, th&tA has moved a much greater distance and described a greater curve than B.