i8 73 ] STIRLING AND HEGEL 83 



matter is plainly on a level with Hegel s, for, without 

 admitting or denying the justice of my comments on so 

 ludicrous an error, he simply shrinks behind the aegis of 

 Lagrange. He repeats Hegel s citation from Lagrange, 

 and the philosopher s own remark, in one continuous 

 quotation, and adds : &quot; What part Lagrange has in this 

 must be determined by others. Hegel certainly begins 

 by quoting Lagrange.&quot; Now, I will not urge that Dr. 

 Stirling was bound to consult Lagrange s book for himself ; 

 but it was his duty to observe that Hegel carefully 

 distinguishes, by the use of indirect speech, between 

 Lagrange s statement and his own comment. To ignore 

 this implies either serious philological inaccuracy, or a 

 conscious imitation of the tactics of the ostrich when 

 overtaken by her pursuers. 1 



Perhaps the most absolute proof of Hegel s incompet- 

 ency to criticise the doctrine of the calculus, as set forth 

 by mathematicians, is to be found in the fact that he never 

 learned to understand such fundamental notions as limit, 

 variable, and continuous quantity. This fact was brought 

 out in my paper with the aid of a certain array of mathe 

 matical symbols which I cannot reproduce here. But as it 

 is precisely this part of my work which has been most 

 vigorously impugned by Dr. Stirling, I shall leave my 

 symbols to fight their own battle, which they are very well 



1 These are not the only cases in which Dr. Stirling s translation is 

 defective. Thus, in the passage cited at p. 120, there is no contrast 

 between generative and generated magnitudes, but only between 

 generated and vanishing magnitudes. Again, at p. 112, a variation 

 from the text of Hegel, which I ventured to point out, is defended as a 

 necessary emendation against &quot; the air of correctness to the contrary 

 due to Mr. Smith s judicious collocation of passages.&quot; This sneer is 

 uncalled for, as I simply pointed out a fact, in justification of a trifling 

 divergence from the translation given in the Secret. But I have no 

 hesitation in saying that Dr. Stirling s emendation is based on absolute 

 misapprehension of Hegel s meaning, which is not that &quot; Newton now 

 proceeds to explain what is to be understood by such and such an 

 expression,&quot; but that it was the custom of the time merely to explain 

 the way in which terms are to be understood. Dr. Stirling s rendering 

 does violence to the context, and demands, not simply the change of 

 nur to nun, but of wurde erkldrt to wird erkldrt. 



