HO LIMITS AND FLUXIONS 



computist, who was his instructor, that he was 

 afraid to trust his own understanding even in cases, 

 where the maxims, he had learnt, seemed to him 

 contradictory to common sense " (p. 30). This 

 master was John Bernoulli. 



143. Never losing an opportunity to engagé in 

 controversy, Jurin wrote a treatise in reply. ^ We 

 refer only to such parts of this pamphlet, and the 

 ones which followed it, as bear on fluxions or the 

 parties engaged in the discussions on fluxions. 



In the preface Jurin says : " I, it seems, am the 

 Reputed Author of the late dissertations under the 

 name of Philalethes Cantabrigiensis, and the other 

 Gentleman [Dr. Robert Smith] is . . . suspected of 

 being my associate. . . . If Dr. Smith were to teli 

 Mr. Robins, what he has often professed to other 

 persons, that he had no band in those papers ; if to 

 confirm this he were to remind him, that Philalethes 

 has declared more than once, he wrote alone and 

 unassisted ; if I — But what signifies pleading, when 

 the execution is over ? Mr. Robins has already 

 vented his Resentment to the utmost. ..." 



144. Not without interest is the following refer- 

 ence to young Euler in St. Petersburg, whose 

 scientific achievements bave been so very extra- 

 ordinary. Jurin says that to make no reply to 

 Robins's criticisms " might be such a discouragement 

 to the hopeful young writer, whose name is prefixed 



^ A Reply to Air. Robins^ s Remarks on the Essay upon Distinct and 

 Indistinct Vision Published at the End of Di-, Smith^s Compleat System 

 of Opticks. By James Jurin, M. D. , London, MDCCXXXIX. 



