For myself, I decline to accept them as true, and I hope that others will do the same until we have had time to satisfy ourselves that the hitherto impossible has been made possible." He sat down, breathing hard and white with anger and excitement, and then the trouble began.

The trisectors, the circle-squarers, and the cube-doublers, had seen their long-flouted theories proved to demonstration by one of the most learned and responsible men of science in the world, and one of their most sarcastic and hitherto successful flouters had been compelled to confess that he could find no flaw in the calculations of this mathematical Daniel so unexpectedly come to judgment.

They did not understand his proofs, but that was no reason why they should reject them, and so they rose as one man in support of their champion to demand that Professor van Huysman should withdraw his imputations of jugglery.

He sat still, and shook his head.

He was too disgusted and bewildered to do or say anything more until he had made a searching analysis of these diabolical formulae.
But there were others who wanted to have their say in defence of scientific orthodoxy, and they had it--and the rest was a chaos of intellectual conflict until, at the end of nearly an hour, the President, who now saw with clearer eyes than any of the disputants, rose and put an end to the discussion by remarking that they had not the whole night before them, and that all that Professor Marmion had said and done would be published in the scientific papers; further, that such a controversy would perhaps be more profitably conducted in print than by word of mouth.