An Elegant Solution(22)

“No you won’t. Come with me. I see what you’re doing, you’re sulking.”

“Well, I am.” He brightened. He’d hold a grudge forever, but not tightly. “I was only strolling and I forgot where I was. It’s not fair for his house to stand in my path.”

“Ignore him,” I said.

“That I won’t. Not ever.” He said it with a smile. Lest I think he wasn’t part serious, though, he said, “It’s only logical that I wouldn’t.”



Two years before, when I was sixteen and beginning to understand the ways of the University, the Chair of Logic came open. It was an interesting Chair, tasked to lecture on Dialectic, Rhetoric, Logic, and Geometry. It had for many years been held by Master Grimm, whose lessons had so solidified over his tenure that I doubted they varied even by a word from one year to another. Of course, logic didn’t change.

But then he left. It may have been that he went to visit a sister in Leipzig. His absence became prolonged, and finally, undeniable. An Inquiry was held, which was a serious undertaking, and a request for information was sent to the Court in Leipzig. In the end his Chair had been declared vacant and an Election was held to fill it.

A University Election in Basel was the city’s most complex and obscure ritual.

The design was this: Three committees of professors and high University officials would be formed, with six in each committee. Each committee would then nominate a candidate to the empty Chair, and a stone, or lot, for each candidate was then placed in an iron box, to which only the Provost had a key. Each candidate then gave a lecture on the Chair’s subject; Anatomy, Physics, Law, Theology, or whatever. The lecture was only final proof of the candidate’s expertise. It had no bearing on the Election itself, except that a very poor lecture might disqualify a candidate. The lectures might take place in just the few days after the nominations, or over a longer period if a candidate wasn’t in Basel and must be notified, and travel to the city. Finally, after the lectures, the box would be opened and the Provost would blindly choose one lot from the three.

It would seem a reasonable and elegant procedure. Three qualified men, and one chosen at random. No bribes, no secretive bargains, no personal prejudices or nepotism could influence the selection of the Chair. Even if the winner wasn’t the most qualified man, he’d be one of the three-most.

In practice, factions did prevail within the committees, with each party advancing its own favorite. So, the random choice was meant to stymie those improper influences.

However, it was not certain that it did.

Three candidates were nominated that year for the Logic Election. Daniel was one, chosen by professors enamored of his charming ways. The thought of an invigorated, lively Chair of Logic was beguiling. I, of course, as lowly a student as I was, was all for his Election. It seemed so grand a picture, to have him pacing the streets in his black robe, his students tripping to keep up with him. But it wasn’t to be.

The two other candidates were an odd Polish gentleman from Cracow, as it has been customary to nominate at least one candidate from outside the city, and Cousin Gottlieb. Gottlieb was nominated by Master Johann. The committees’ deliberations were in secret, so it would never be known what was discussed. Gottlieb was a respectable and dry lecturer in Law, and generally avoided. I attended his lectures and considered them perfect specimens, competent and parched, as Gottlieb himself was. Actually, his real competence was Mathematics. Though his only book was his uncle’s Ars Conjectandi, he’d managed correspondence with most of Europe’s great Mathematicians: Hermann, de Moivre, Montmort, and Leibniz himself. He finished his Doctorate in Mathematics under his uncle Master Johann before he took his Chair in Padua. But Gottlieb returned to Basel years ago, before I started at the University, and he made a poor comparison to his cousin Daniel.

When the lot was chosen, though, it was his.

I remembered very well the next few days. My Master’s house was like an armory of swords and maces, all at hand and often used. Then Daniel decided that a Basel with Cousin Gottlieb was worth less than an exile without Cousin Gottlieb. In only two weeks, Daniel announced his own Election to the Chair of Mathematics in Padua that had been vacated by his brother Nicolaus, and he was gone.



And now he was back, glowering at Gottlieb’s house. “It was by chance,” I said.

“Chance, you say?”

“The chance of the draw.”

“That is your conjecture, your Conjectandi. He wrote his book about chance, didn’t he? But I don’t believe in chance. Not when there’s a Chair at stake. Chance wouldn’t be given a chance.”