12 KEWTCW g FBJSCIPIA. 



nmable view of the more general principles of the system, 

 pnbfifhed about the middle of the last century. On the 

 Continent they made their way far more slowly; nor was 

 it until Voltaire employed his great JMBMII of clear ap 

 prehension and toad statement to give them currency, 

 that the Cartesian prejudices of our neighbours gave 

 way, and the true doctrine found a general and a willing 



MMffcHMM. 



It must be admitted that the manner in which the truths 



the slowness of the world at large in qdbmcMg them, b ut 

 has also contributed to the reluctance with which men 

 bare generally undertaken the task of reading that great 

 work, and satisfying themselves of the proofs upon which 

 its doctrines rest fWfiifsjiiaj is every where rigorously 

 studied, Nc^ only does the author aroid aU needless pro 

 lixity and repetition in unfolding bis iliofflpMsn^ but he 

 leaves out so many of the steps of his demonstration, and 

 assumes his reader to be so expert a geometrician, that 

 the lAsw of following him is often sufficient to deter 

 orfhiff students from malfiBg; the effort. If matbe- 

 Mtkd MMfag II MPfll tK&amp;lt;: r.ar/j* pajV;kir,d of operation 

 with other studies, the perusal of the Princi[/ia is emphati 

 cally an actire exercise of the min&amp;lt;L For what, to the 

 intititire ^ilfm of him who could discover tbe theorem 

 or solve the problem, appeared too plain to require any 

 proof, may well stop common minds in their progress 

 towards the point whither he is guiding them ; tbe dis 

 tances which he can stride at MM over this difficult 

 path must, by weaker persons, be divided into many 

 portks, and twvelled by successive steps. Add to which, 

 that, as tbe method of proof is throughout synthetical, 

 and a it is geometrical, the helps of modem analysis are 

 thus withheld. Upon tbe whole, therefore, a most valuable 



