The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1869-10-15
MISCELLANEOUS.


The word o5lige is subject to paradoxical
construction. When you oblige man TO
do thing which he does not want to do,
you may disOblige him at the same time.
Il has been remarked that there is a very
treat difference between q church where
the gospel is dispensed, and one where II
is dispensed with. We have often heard
the story of how the captain of canal
boat cried Look out!" to his passengers
when they were going under bridge, and
how Frenchman looked out accordingly
and received bump on his head but it
has never been decided that the French
man took any incorrect or unusual signi1-
cation from the words. 1t has never been
decided whether o house burns up or
down. The question whether man who
falls from a boat and is rescued from
drowning is pulled out or pulled in
depends mainly whether you are speaking
primarily of the water or the boat. Some
one has noticed that people say they shell
peas when they unshell them; that they
husk corn when they unhusk it; that they
skin buffalo when they unskin it; that
they scale fishes when they unscale them,
and their gardens want wedding when they
are weedy enough already.
These paradoxes in words are the foun-
dation of the puzzles in logic which are
so common. For instance, the trite syllo-
gism to the effect that because no cat has
two tails, and because cat has one tail
more than no cat, thereforea a cat has three
tails the trouble arises in the paradoxical
use of the phrase "no cat" While it is
quite true in one sense that no cat has two
tails il is not true in the sense in which it
is employed, in the syllogism, because q
"no cat" being nonenity has no tail.
Similar it is argued that Oxford must, from
all antiquity, have been either somewhere
or nowhere. Where was it at the time OF
Tarquinius Priscus? Itwas nowhere, then
it surely must have been somewhere.
Where was it? Aristotle and Philetus,
and don't know how many others, are
said to have bothered themselves very
much with a proposition something like
this. If you say Of yourself, II lie" and
in saying so tell the truth, then it is quite
evident that you lie; but if you say 81
lie," and you tell q lie in saying 1t, then
either cases you lie and tell the truth al
the same time.
have heard somebody make the fol
lowing proposition. Suppose, for example
that man 30 years old marries girl
wears old. He is seven times rs old as she
They live together five years and the gir
is 10 years old Then the man is 40 years
old, or only four times as old as the girl
They live together five years more and
she is Is. The man then is 45, or only
three times as old. They live until she il
30 and the man GO. He is then only twice
as old. Now, how long will they have tC
live to make the girl as old as the man?
Although, in this case, the girl is catch
ing the man very fast, the reasoning Il
similar to that by which,it was long agt
argued that man never could catch tor
toise which had mile the start While tn,
man runs a mile the tortoise goes one-tentl
of mile; while the man runs one hundretl
of mile, the tortoise goes one-thousandtl
of n mile; while the man runs Onc-thou
sandth of a mile, the tortoise goes on,
tenth thousandth of mile, and so on t.
auy extent of which the decimal notation
is capable-the tortoise always being SOM
infinitesimal fraction Of space ahead of thu
man.
Twill give only one illustration more o
this character. Roe wishes to study Law
with Doe, and offers to pay the customar,
fee when he shall have won his first sui
at law. To this Doe agrees and Roe be
comes student. Doe gets tired of wait
ing for his fee and determines to sue Ro'
for the amount Doe reasons: "If gain
the case, Roe will be compelled to pay MI
by the decision of the Court; if lose it
he will have to pay me by the condition
of our contract, as he will have won hi
first lawsuit" But Roe also reasons:
/ succeed and the award of the Court i
in my favor, of course ] s.iall not hav,
to pay the money if the Court decide
against me shall not have to pay it
according to the terms of our contract, fol
shall not then have gained my first sui
at law"
The discerning reader will easily per
ceive that a great many of the metaphysi
cal, political and doctrinal discussion
which are going on in the earth, get thci
principal fuel in the different sense o
words and phrases. I will not moraliz
extensively on this proposition, thougl
there is abundant opportunity to do 50.
deem illustration more entertaining thai
dissertation.-Galary