i8 73 ] STIRLING AND HEGEL 73 



the vindication of Hegel in the mathematical reference, 

 partly criticising my paper, partly giving new statements 

 of Hegel s doctrines on this head. 



Were the controversy thus reopened, one merely 

 personal between Dr. Stirling and myself, it would be 

 unfair to claim for it the interest of the literary public. 

 But the little history which I have just given will suffice 

 to show that the cause of which I appear as advocate is, 

 in fact, the cause of mathematics, and particularly of 

 Newtonian mathematics, impugned by the head, in our 

 country, of a great metaphysical school. And while I 

 alone am responsible for the way in which the cause is 

 conducted, the interests at stake are not merely those of 

 my own literary reputation though that certainly must 

 suffer a severe shock if Dr. Stirling s strictures are just- 

 but essentially the interests of mathematical science, and 

 especially of that physico-mathematical school which is 

 the heir of Newton s methods and ideas. So much Dr. 

 Stirling evidently feels when he &quot; laments the compromise 

 I have brought upon important interests &quot; (p. 105), and 

 when he associates with my paper &quot; the rabid nonsense, 

 not only in English, but even in French, that our mathe 

 maticians have written against him&quot; (p. 139). The last 

 allusion must necessarily be obscure to the public ; but 

 those who have followed the controversy in its earlier 

 stage will judge that the reference is to a translation in a 

 French journal of the remarks of Professor Tait and Sir 

 William Thomson, already referred to as forming part of 

 the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Let 

 me observe, in passing, that the words of these leaders of 

 science were confined strictly to the mathematical point 

 involved in Newton s process. Dr. Stirling, I imagine, 

 is the only man in Europe who would care to apply to such 

 a statement of such men the words &quot; rabid nonsense.&quot; 



But while Dr. Stirling is correct in assuming that I did 

 not step forth in this controversy without the conviction 

 that I have the mathematicians on my side, he has fallen 



