'You will be – he is a mad letter-writer and a protégé of Huygens – a devotee of Pansophism – he has lately been smothering us with curious documents. You haven't heard about him because Mr. Oldenburg has been passing his missives round to Mr. Hooke, Mr. Boyle, Mr. Barrow, and others, trying to find someone who can even read them, as a first step towards determining whether or not they are nonsense. But I digress. For every letter Mr. Oldenburg reads , he receives a dozen – why so many?'