JURIN V. ROBINS AND PEMBERTON 139 



Debate over Robins's Review of Treatises written by 

 Leonhard Euler, Robert Smith, and Jurin 



142. Being in a somevvhat combative mood, 

 Robins made attacks upon Euler's treatise on motion, 

 Dr. Robert Smith's optics,and Jurin's essay on vision.^ 



Robins's criticisms of Euler concern mainly the 

 philosophy of the Calculus. Robins quotes Euler's 

 third proposition, " That in any unequal motion 

 the least element of the space described may be 

 conceived to be passed over with an uniform motion," 

 and then says, this ''is not universally true," as, 

 for instance, ''when those spaces are compared 

 together, which a body acceleratcd by any force 

 described in the beginning of its motion ; for the 

 ultimate proportion of the first of two contiguous 

 spaces, thus described in equal times to the second, 

 is not that of equality, but the ratio of i to 3, 

 as is well known to every one acquainted with 

 the common theory of falling bodies " (p. 2). In 

 another place (p. 4) Robins argues that the path 

 assigned by Euler to a certain body " is false even 

 on the confused principles of indivisibles." Some 

 passages in Robins involve the Leibnizian notation 

 in the calculus, and look quite odd in an eighteenth- 

 century publication prepared by a Briton in Great 

 Britain. Robins concludes that most of Euler's 

 errors " are owing to so strong an attachment to 

 the principles, he had imbibed under that inelegant 



^ Kemarks on Mr. Euler's IVeatise of Motion^ Dr. Smith's Covipleat 

 System of Opttcks, a7id Dr. Jnrins Essay upon Distinct and IndistÌ7ict 

 Vision. By Benjamin Robins, London, 1739. 



