142 Pi'of. Play fair on the University of Cambridge. [Feb. 



It is unnecessary to make any separate answer to the obser- 

 •vations of Mr. Stewart ; * as even if we allow his assertions, 

 they will not imply any thing very disgraceful to us. They 

 amount to this ; that the philosophy of Newton was 'publicly 

 taught at Edinburgh and St. Andrew's before it was generally 

 'adopted at Cambridge. That this was after it had been publicfy 

 taught here, I think I have proved. The Scotch were fortunate 

 in possessing in the Gregorys men of great mathematical talents, 

 of minds open to conviction, and of industry and capacity to 

 master in a short time a new system of the universe ; but even 

 they, we may suppose, could not transfuse these qualifications at 

 once into the whole body of their pupils. After what time the 

 Newtonian doctrines had been studied in Scotland to the extent 

 which the facts above mentioned indicate with respect to Cam- 

 bridge, the very different constitution of their academical esta- 

 blishments from ours, gives us no means of judging. 



Without attempting to trace further the history and progress 

 of that philosophy which is now so zealously cultivated in the 

 University of Cambridge, I have, I trust, sufficiently shown that 

 the assertions with respect to the tardy influence of Newtonian- 

 ism, haVe been hazarded with great inattention to facts ; and I 

 may be allowed to add, that it seems very doubtful whether 

 evidence equally strong can be produced of its early prevalence 

 in any other academical institution. The respect and admira- 

 tion which are attached to the names with whose authority the 

 assertions in question have come to us, feelings in which I sin- 

 cerely participate, make it highly desirable that their inaccuracy 

 should be exposed. In reply to misrepresentations so extraor- 

 dinary, I have not allowed myself to go beyond a plain statement 

 of facts. ^ I am. Sir, 



Your obedient servant. 



♦ It would be exceedingly interesting, and might throw some light upon the question, 

 to see a copy of the " Compend of Newton's Principia," of which mention is made in 

 Hutton's Dictionary, and quoted by ^Ir. Stewart, and which is there said to have sup- 

 plied Theses for academical disputations at Edinburgh in 1 690. The interval between 

 the publication of the Principia and the date of this document is extraordinarily short : 

 ihe candidates for degrees who could in 1690 defend such a series of positions, must have 

 begun to study that work the moment it issued from the press ; except we suppose that 

 then, when the ideas it contained were so new, and when the preparatory mathematics 

 were so much more laborious than they are now, it occupietl a shorter time than it is 

 found to require from a modem student. 



