4-56 On the La-jo of the Nulritioyi of Animals. 



ciently describ'd to any intelligent Person," is rendered by 

 " In hac autem Epistola Methodus Fluxionum idoneo harum 

 rerum cognitori evidenter satis describitur." If not from 

 carelessness, this version arises from an intention, that no 

 foreigner might see the assertion that Newton had written on 

 Fluxions to the comprehension of any intelligent person, ma- 

 thematician or not. Perhaps some may think that the word 

 intelligent had not then obtained its modern signification of 

 general power of understanding. Perhaps it had not, quite: 

 but that the thing was monstrous, even at the time, is made 

 evident by a contemporary writer, who certainly did not strain 

 at gnats, finding this rendering rather too much of a camel. 

 Raphson it was who, in his history of Fluxions (printed both 

 in English and Latin), showed his power of going all lengths 

 by declaring his belief that Leibnitz had discovered Newton's 

 cipher (which we all know was not a cipher, being only the 

 letters of a sentence placed in alphabetic order), and thereby 

 discovered fluxions. But rather than print the assertion about 

 an intelligent person, he adopted the Latin as the original, 

 and printed an English translation of his own, in which, 

 instead of" to any intelligent person," we read "to any proper 

 judge of these matters." 



The more the whole matter is looked into from its beginning 

 to its end, the more will the evidences of reckless injustice 

 thicken about the inquirer. The Newtonian partizan may 

 find a poor consolation in balancing the sins of a like character 

 committed by the opposite party against those of his own. 

 But all who do not allow a set-off to be pleaded in matters 

 of right and wrong will, I think, if they look for themselves, 

 find it necessary to disavow the cause and the conduct, and 

 to regret the consequences. 



LXII. The Law of the Nutrition of Atiitnals pointed out 

 hy Dr. R. D. Thomson, illustrated brj F. Knapp, Ph.D., 



Professor of Technology and Chemistry in the University of 

 Giessen *. 



/^N the farm of Boussingault at Bechelbronn, in order to 

 ^-^ ascertain the quantity of milk produced, seven cows 

 were subjected to an accurate series of experiments extending 

 over a whole year. They received daily 30 pounds of hay, 

 or of those roots similar in composition, and yielded together 



• Translated from Knapp's Lehrbuchder Chemischen TVcAno/ogie, band ii- 

 by Mr. John Brown. 



An English translation of the first volume of this work by Messrs. Ro- 

 nalds and Richardson has just appeared. 



