Popular Errors, Explained and Illustrated: A Book for Old and Young (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Popular Errors, Explained and Illustrated: A Book for Old and Young

Expositions of Error, or works exclusively devoted to that pur pose, are not so rare in olden as in modern literature. About two hundred years since, Sra Tnom Bnowrm, a man of extensive learning and research, published his volume of Inquiries into Vulgar and Common Errors, which enjoys high reputation to the present day. This work may be said to have first suggested the popular Enaons; though, while -i have been stimulated by the seal of Bnom, I have not followed his disinclination to admit new positions, or his elaborate study of rare books, or his fondness for the embel lishments of classic story and quotation, such as might be expected from a physician of the seventeenth century. To Errors long since exploded I have been content to refer as the antiquities, or curi osities, of the subject, since my object has been to explain the Errors of the present day; even to catch them living as they rise. Moreover, I have striven to make the expositions of practical utility in the business of every-day life. I do not, however, profess to instruct the reader how to tell the clock by algebra, nor to drink tea by stratagemz the aim in the present volume is rather to be ac curate and agreeable by way of abstract and table anecdote, so as to become an advantageous and amusing guest at any intellectual nrc side.

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