Notices respeciing New Books. 147 



pendix to Dr. Cave's Historia Literaria, the Wickliffian age (ia 

 which new doctrines were contending lor superiority with old), 

 and through her Iiterar\ or lefornicd age, commencing with the 

 revival of literature, at the Reformation : we must follov/ her 

 now to her last, that is, her mathematical age." 



Chap. IX. ^ 



Mathematics — Dr. Barrow, Sir Isaac New/o/i, Mr. IJldstov, 

 and others. 



-" Mathematics, by the ancients, was called by eminence the 

 learning, and diva mathesis, the divine ma (hem alios; yet not 

 till a late period did Cambridge University cultivate it, witii 

 much devotion or success *: but having, at length, found 

 the true avenue to its temple, they have approached to its most 

 intimate recesse§. 



" Though there were doubtless (before the time of Dr. Barrow) 

 men of much mathematical knowledge at Cambridge (of whom 

 notice will incidentally be taken in the proper place), yet the 

 mathematical age properly commences with him ; his Proslectio- 

 nes Mathematicas being the book that preceded in course of 

 due mathematical investigation. He was born in 1630, and was 

 appointed Master of Trinity College by Charles II. Other 

 eminent mathematicians were nearly contemporary with him, 

 such as Dr. Smith, and Mr. Cotes, of Trinity College, and Mr. 

 Whiston, of Clare Hall, and others. But they may all be conr 

 sidered as the precursors, or the genuine successors of Sir Isaac 

 Newton. Nevv'ton was of Trinity College, was born at Wools- 

 tliorpe, in Lincolnshire, in 1642, and lived to a good old age, 

 though all his discoveries were made and completed in the earlier 

 period of his life. He died in 1/27. 



" His great work, Naturalis PhilosophicB Principia Mathema- 

 tica, was first printed in 1GS7. It was the same light which 

 beamed on Bacon, which guided Newton to his discoveries : 

 what the former considered as desiderata, the latter supplied. 

 Prior to their time, the mode of philosophizing consisted in as- 

 signing to each species of things their specific and occult qualir 

 ties, from wliich all the operations of bodies, by some unknown, 

 mysterious order, proceeded : this was the philosophy of the Peri - 



Pudet ha2C opprobria nobis 



El tlici potc.isse, et non potuisso refclii. 



Wlilston goes on : Et pnrlrat nobis non iiTimciito ; liis prsesertim tempori'nis, 

 fjiiihus scientia; mathctnatira,- flnieiit alias ubiq., et eNColuiiiiir ; quibusq. verara 

 I'liysicani a Malhesi (1< -pendt-ro uuitp, sit adeo certum et expldraiuin. Qiiiniico 

 illiid vcl niaximc fnit opprobrio, quod jam turn matbcmata nobis academicis tni- 

 /i'uuTc tiieruut ciira;, cuiii Diiccm rl ProAtj-sorcm ipsuni Newtotiuin, Gt'omt'tiarrin 

 hiijiis ,£vi, ne quid auiplius .jam dirntii, faeili Piincipcin, habuerimtis. Prseltc. 

 ,ii.lron. llab. Can'ab. Anlcluquiuui. 1707. 



K 2 patetics i 



