CHAPTER VI 



MACLAURIN'S TREATISE OF FLUXIONS, 1742 



164. Colin Maclaurin was educateci at the Uni- 

 versity of Glasgow, and through the influence of 

 Newton was elected professor at the University of 

 Edinburgh. Maclaurin's hook on fluxions has been 

 considered the ablest and most rigorous text of 

 the eighteenth century. It was pronounced by 

 Lagrange "le chef d'oeuvre de geometrie qu'on 

 peut comparer à tout ce qu' Archimede nous a 

 laissé de plus beau et de plus ingénieux."^ 



In the preface to his Trcatise of Fluxions^ 

 Maclaurin says : "A Letter published in the Year 

 1734, under the Title of the Analyst, first gave 

 Occasion to the ensuing Treatise. ... In the 

 mean Time the Defence of the Method of Fluxions, 

 and of the great Inventor, was not neglected. 

 Besides an Answer to the Analyst that appcared 

 very early under the Name of Philalethes Canta- 

 brigiensis ... a second by the same Hand in 

 Defence of the first, a Discourse by Mr. Robins, a 



^ Mém. de tAcad. de Berlin, 1773 ; quoted in the art. " Maclaurin " 

 in Sidney Lee's Dict . of National Biop-aphy. 



^ A Treatise of Fluxions in 'fwo Books. By Colin MacLaurin, A.M., 

 Professor of Mathematics in the University of Edinburgh, and Fellow 

 of the Royal Society. Edinburgh, MDCCXLU. 



