Mr. C. R. Weld on the Invention of Fluxions, 35 



or at least no more than I have always found to accompany 

 hydrogen, which with a small residue of nitrogen was the gas 

 given off in this experiment. 



[To be continued.] 



v. Invention of Fluxions. By Charles Richard Weld, Esq. 

 To the Editors of the Philosophical Magazine and Journal. 



Gentlemen, 



IN the course of my researches in the archives of the Royal 

 Society, with reference to a history of the Society which I 

 am compiling, I have been much struck with a very remark- 

 able discrepancy on a most important point, connected with 

 the celebrated dispute of the invention of fluxions, between the 

 original Minutes of the Society and the statements of writers 

 on this subject. 



Sir David Brewster and Professor De Morgan, following 

 others, state that at a meeting of the Society held on the 20th 

 of May 1714, a resolution was inserted in the Minutes, that 

 " it was never intended that the report of the committee was 

 to pass for a decision of the Society *." This alludes to the 

 report presented by the committee appointed by the Society 

 to determine the question of the invention of fluxions. Now 

 the exact words of the minute are these: — 



" It was not judged proper (since this letter was not directed 

 to themf) for the Society to concern themselves therewith, 

 nor were they desired so to do ; but that if any person had 

 any material objection against the Commercium or the report 

 of the committee, it might be reconsidered at any time J." 



There is nothing here to show that the Society resolved (and 

 this is the word Mr. De Morgan uses) upon repudiating the 

 report of their committee ; so far from this, the opposite con- 

 clusion is at once obvious, which is in keeping with the ori- 

 ginal resolution of the Society adopting the report of their 

 Committee, nemine contradicente. The point is of great mo- 

 ment ; for had the Society come to the resolution as repre- 

 sented, a strong case would be made out against Newton. I 

 have examined the Minutes of the meeting in question with 

 the greatest care, and confidently assert that there is no other 

 allusion to the dispute between Leibnitz and Newton. In 

 conclusion, I wish to state that it is at the request of some of 



* See Life of Newton by Brewster, p. 211,and Life by De Morgan, p. 93. 

 f Alluding to a letter of Leibnitz to Cliamberlayne, complaining of the 

 report of the committee. 

 |. Journ. Book, vol. xi. p. 431. 



D2 



