. 
816 On the Measure of 
principle was extended and brought forward 
in a manner very unfavorable to its general 
reception. It was adduced by Leibnitz* as an 
argument against Des Cartes; and afterwards 
_by Bernoullit and others, as a principle which 
must supplant or supersede some of the lead- 
ing doctrines of the Newtonian philosophy. 
Great opposition was naturally excited by 
these last pretensions ; and, as it invariably is 
the case in intemperate controversies, the ad- 
vocates on both sides were led into many in« 
consistencies. It soon became quite a party 
question, and the prejudices against one side 
became so strong, that if any one ventured to 
consider the absolute force of a body in motion 
to be as the square of its velocity, he was 
pitied or condemned, as if he had lapsed into 
a dangerous heresy. It is to be regretted that 
these prejudices, if such they are, are not yet 
entirely removed. For myself I must ac 
knowledge, it is a matter of some concern 
to me, that in consequence of the explanations 
which 1 have thought it necessary to adopt in 
endeavouring to understand this subject, I 
have, by some of my very good mathematical 
friends, whose favorable disposition it is my 
wish to conciliate, been considered more in 
the light of a perverse schismatic than in that 
* Act. Erud. Lipsiz 1686. p. 161. + Works vol. ili. 
