268 LIMITS AND FLUXIONS 



it. Says Hales : " It is far superior indeed to the 

 subsequent explanations of professed commentators ; 

 and it is a high gratification to myself to find, that 

 the mode of explanation, which I adopted of the 

 Doctrine of Limits, is precisely the same as Robins's; 

 long before 1 had seen his admirable treatise, which 

 did not fall into my hands until lately, a considerable 

 time after the publication of the Afialysis Fluxionum.'" 

 Maseres calls the Discourse oi Robins ''the ablest 

 tract that has ever been published on the subject." 

 Hales's text and the appendices to it contain con- 

 siderable historical material, consisting mainly of 

 references to and quotations from earlier writings. 

 In view of the testimony of Laplace, Legendre, and 

 Lacroix on the superiority of the method of fluxions, 

 " how was it possible," asks Hales, that the eyes of 

 the Monthly Reviewers **could stili be so holden 

 . . . as stili to assert, that Newton himself was not 

 perfectly satisfied of the stability of the ground on 

 which he had established his Method of Fluxions ! " 

 Hales's motive in opposing Continental ideas was 

 probably partly theological. D'Alembert, con- 

 sidered by him a hostile critic of Newton, is called 

 *' a philosophizing infidel," one " of the originai con- 

 spirators against Christianity," **at once the glory 

 and disgrace of the French Academy of Sciences," 

 whose last words were *'a terrific contrast to 

 the death of the Christian Philosopher," Colin 

 Maclaurin.^ 



The publication of Hales's Fluxions in large 



^ Maseres, Scriptores Logarithmici^ voi. v, pp. 176-182. 



