He accepted this. It was not beneath his dignity to accept their tuition, and he alone charged a higher rate than that which the University set for all the other Chairs. He would accept the money but not the attendant responsibility to educate his students. He would only lecture in Latin, which the newer students were not fluent in. He would not allow questions, as some of the younger Chairs would; instead, he demanded absolute quiet. Then, he would choose only the most obscure and obtuse subjects within the Calculus to describe. And this was only when he did lecture, which was only every other scheduled meeting. For the alternate classes, he would send a proctor to grade the students’ homework. The solutions to these assignments, being the same every year, were easily obtained from every boardinghouse in Basel.
Why, then, did anyone, let alone high-spirited University students, endure this regimen? Certainly it was not for the purpose of learning the Calculus, which none would understand, or want to understand, any more at the end of the term than at the beginning. There was even a risk in that a student who annoyed the Master, even inadvertently, would be marked for a dunce through his entire career in Basel, and might even be hounded out completely.
No, the reason was that Master Johann’s prestige was so great that the mere right to say, “I have attended his lectures!” was worth all the pain and suffering. Indeed, it was a rite of passage in Basel. I myself made something of a profit, as well, off his students, as this was my main source of Latin tutoring.
His public lectures were better. Here, with the citizens of the city and eminent guests, he burnished his reputation with chamois rather than with sandpaper.
The lecture that day was on a very basic principle of Calculus, the statement that if a function has a certain value, then increases or decreases in any way while staying continuous, and at a later time returns to that same first value, then there is at least one point in between where the function must have been level. Monsieur Rolle of Paris, and who was a member of the Academy there, first stated this principle.
Of course, Master Johann’s description was far more clear and more easily understood than I could have attempted. He smiled, gestured, was even humorous. He gave examples, that there must always be a top to a hill and a bottom to a valley, to make his audience understand.
The lecture hall was filled with Basel’s gentility. The Chairs’ lectures were a powerful bond between the City and the University, allowing each to be acquainted and improved by the other.
And not only the City attended, but several students, also. There were a few new to the University taking the opportunity to first see the famed Master Johann; there were a few who had a sincere interest in the Calculus, though this was a very few; and there was an occasional unfortunate who had fallen under the cloud of Master Johann’s disapproval and was trying to regain favor. I remembered Gottlieb’s appointment concerning a student who’d shown disrespect to a Master; and I saw a student I knew, named Gluck, in the second row, who was usually proud and joyful but was now desperate, eager, and ignored.
That night Grandmother asked about Master Johann’s Theology and Philosophy. “Leonhard, you’ve said that Master Johann was accused of being a Cartesian. Tell me how it was heresy.”
“The Mathematician Descartes a hundred years ago said that only what was sensed or touched was real. So he determined to reason, from only his own senses, what he believed.”
“Then does he say that God is not real?”
“No, the Monsieur claimed that he was able to reason that God was real.”
“Is it heresy?”
“Some people say it is, because they say God’s word makes a thing real, not a man’s reason. But Descartes said he didn’t know God’s thoughts, that he only knew his own thoughts, and he would have to decide for himself what was true.”
“What does Master Johann say?”
“I think he is very thoroughly a Calvinist. But for him, there’s a world of Theology, and a separate world of Mathematics.”
“For you?”
“They aren’t separate. One is the rain and one is the river.”
10
THE REMEMBERED METEOR
Thursday morning Nicolaus tapped my shoulder as I was carrying a sack of flour into Mistress Dorothea’s kitchen from her cellar. “I think we’ll talk today,” he said.
Then later when I, in black and white and beneath my tricorne, left my house for a lecture with Master Desiderius, Nicolaus was beside me in the street. I knew better than to wait for Nicolaus to start a conversation. “I tried to talk with Daniel about Master Jacob,” I said. “And he doesn’t want to hear a word.”