(105 ») 
ON THE 
MEASURE 
‘MOVING FORCE. 
BY MR. PETER EWART. 
(Read Nov. 18, 1808.) 
CWS 
Ix the theory of mechanics, forces ate, 
understood to be mathematical quantities, 
capable of being measured and compared with 
as much certainty as lines, or surfaces, or any 
other mathematical quantities. Respecting 
the principles, however, of this measurement _ 
and comparison, various doctrines have been 
held. A controversy on this subject, after 
having been long and warmly agitated by 
learned men in different parts of Murope, ap- 
pears, about seventy years ago, to have gradu-. 
ally subsided ;* and since that Fe dade it has been 
the eta opinion with mathematicians, 
* Dr. Reid says, «it was dropt rather than ended, to the 
no small discredit of mathematics, which bath always bozsted 
of a degree of evidence inconsistent with debates that can .. 
be brought to no issue.” Essay on Quantity. — Philosophical 
Transactions, 1748, 
oO 
