ANNALS 
OF 
PHILOSOPHY. 
FEBRUARY, 1816. 
ArrTIcLeE I. 
Observations on the present State of the Mathematical Sciences in 
Great Britain. 
(To Dr, Thomson. ) 
SIR, 
I HAVE read with considerable interest in the 34th number of 
the dnnals of Philosophy your liberal and judicious remarks on the 
present depressed state of the need sciences in this country; 
a country which, with regard to the analytical branches of them, 
may be considered as their native soil; a country which boasts of 
having produced a Newton, a Barrow, a Cotes, and many other 
mathematicians of the first order, whose names will ever be immor- 
talized in the annals of those sciences. 
You have endeavoured to point out the cause of this humiliating 
reflection; and I perfectly agree with you to the extent to which 
you have carried your observations; but I think more might be 
said, and ought to be said, on the subject ; and I hope, therefore, 
you may be induced to give publicity, through the medium of your 
Journal, to the following remarks, which, whatever may be their 
defects and inaccuracies, are certainly dictated by no other motive 
than an anxious and honourable feeling for the scientific character 
of England. 
It is to me, and doubtless to every Englishman, a painful con- 
sideration when he reflects that this country, once the favourite seat 
of the mathematical sciences, and the character of whose natives is 
so well calculated for penetrating to the depths of those speculative 
truths, should have fallen from the first rank of scientific nations 
~ Vou. Vil, N° IL G 
