THE 

 LONDON, EDINBURGH and DUBLIN 



PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE 



AND 



JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



[THIRD SERIES.] 



AUGUST 1844. 



XII. Desultory RemarJcs on Academic and Nan- Academic 

 Mathematics and Matheinaticians. By J. J. * 



THE general utility of the mathematics as a mental disci- 

 pline will not perhaps be disputed. The study which 

 consists of a constant reference to fundamental principles, ge- 

 nerates habits of strict reasoning and fortifies the mind against 

 casuistry and plausible assertion. Dugald Stewart ascribes pe- 

 culiar and supereminent advantages to mathematicians, in 

 consequence of the definite phraseology that they employ. 



The benefits which have resulted to mankind from the cul- 

 tivation of the mathematics cannot be denied. All our na- 

 tional greatness that rests on commerce, arts or arms, is based 

 on mathematics actually applied to the concerns of life. How- 

 ever, the usefulness of mathematical learning appears to be ge- 

 nerally admitted : at our principal seminaries it receives beco- 

 ming attention. Oxford has lately made it a subject by which 

 her favourite sons may gain distinction. At Cambridge it 

 leads to the highest honours which that University has to 

 confer. Cambridge has long been justly celebrated for its pe- 

 culiar favour to mathematics, and the number of eminent ma- 

 thematicians that it has produced prove that that seat of learn- 

 ing deserves the celebrity so generally ascribed to it. Those 

 who have been so fortunate as to be members of that Univer- 

 sity know, and those who only attentively consider the pub- 

 lished proceedings of the examinations, &c. may easily con- 

 vince themselves, that Cambridge does not lag in the progress 

 of mathematical science ; if it be cultivated in other quarters, 

 there it is forced on by every conceivable stimulant. To be- 

 come all that Cambridge can make a student in three years — 

 to become one of her choicest specimens in mathematical ac- 

 * Communicated by the Author. 



PhiL Mag, S. 3. Vol. 25. No. 164. August 1844.. G 



