TEXr-BOOKS, 1736-1741 153 



they are less than any assignable quantities, and 

 yet may then retain ali possible varieties of pro- 

 portion to one another. Becoming stili more deeply 

 involved in the metaphysics of the subject, Colson 

 adds " that these Moments are not chimerical, 

 visionary, or merely imaginary things, but have an 

 existence sui generis^ at least Mathematically and 

 in the Understanding, is a necessary consequence 

 from the infinite Divisibility of Quantity, which 

 I think hardly anybody now contests " (p. 251). 

 This he qualifies, ''perhaps the ingenious Author 

 of . . . The Analyst must be excepted, who is 

 pleased to ask, in his fifth Ouery, whether it be not 

 unnecessary, as well as absurd, to suppose that 

 finite Extension is infinitely divisible " (p. 251). 

 By ultimate ratio Colson means the ratio when the 

 arguments ''become Moments " (p. 255). Fearing 

 that moments, infinitely little quantities, and the 

 like, **may furnish most matter of objection," he 

 says (p. 336) that the symbol at first represents 

 a finite quantity, which then diminishes continually 

 till " it is quite exhausted, and terminates in mere 

 nothing. " But *'it cannot pass from being an 

 assignable quantity to nothing at once ; that were 

 to proceed per saltum, and not continually " ; hence 

 " it must be less than any assignable quantity what- 

 soever, that is, it must be a vanishing quantity. 

 Therefore the conception of a Moment, or vanishing 

 quantity, must be admitted as a rational Notion " 

 (P- 336). Again : "The Impossibility of Concep- 

 tion may arise from the narrowness and imperfection 



