the mensuration and configuration of the osseous or bony parts of human noses, in any given tract of country, except Crim Tartary , where they are all crush’d down by the thumb, so that no judgment can be formed upon them—are much nearer alike, than the world imagines;—the difference amongst them being, he says, a mere trifle, not worth taking notice of;⸺but that the size and jollity of every individual nose, and by which one nose ranks above another, and bears a higher price, is owing to the cartilaginous and muscular parts of it, into whose ducts and sinuses the blood and animal spirits being impell’d and driven by the warmth and force of the imagination, which is but a step from it (bating the case of idiots, whom Prignitz , who had lived many years in Turky , supposes under the more immediate tutelage of Heaven)—it so happens, and ever must, says Prignitz , that the excellency of the nose is in a direct arithmetical proportion to the excellency of the wearer’s fancy.
It is for the same reason, that is, because ’tis all comprehended in Slawkenbergius , that I say nothing likewise of Scroderus ( Andrea ) who, all the world knows, set himself to oppugn Prignitz with great violence—proving it in his own way, first logically , and then by a series of stubborn facts, “That so far was Prignitz from the truth, in affirming that the fancy begat the nose, that on the contrary—the nose begat the fancy.”
—The learned suspected Scroderus of an indecent sophism in this—and Prignitz cried out aloud in the dispute, that Scroderus had shifted the idea upon him⸺but Scroderus went on, maintaining his thesis.
My father was just balancing within himself, which of the two sides he should take in this affair; when Ambrose Paræus decided it in a moment, and by overthrowing the systems, both of Prignitz and Scroderus , drove my father out of both sides of the controversy at once.
Be witness⸻
I don’t acquaint the learned reader—in saying it, I mention it only to show the learned, I know the fact myself⸻