140 SIMSOX. 



Dr. Slmson is by some supposed to have had at one 

 time the intention of discussing at large the proper 

 limits of the ancient and the modern analysis in the 

 investigation of mathematical truths. This no doubt 

 appears to be the meaning of a passage in his preface 

 to the Conic Sections : " In quantum autem differat 

 analysis geometrica ab ea quae calculo instituitur alge- 

 braico, atque ubi li&c aut ilia sit usurpanda, alias dis- 

 serendum" Professor Robison thought he had seen a 

 portion of the work; but he must have been mistaken; 

 for in answer to Mr. Scott's letter urging him to pub- 

 lish this, and referring to the preface in the words just 

 cited, he expressly says, that though this passage 

 might well mislead, he never meant, except by " blun- 

 dering in the expression, anything of the kind, had no 

 paper, and never wrote anything about the matter : " 

 and this was written in 1764, four years before his 

 death, and eleven or twelve years after Professor 

 Kobison attended his class. Nothing can be more 

 clear than that between 1764 and his death, in 1768, 

 he never attempted any work of moment; much more 

 any work such as the one in question, which we thus 

 have his own authority for saying he never had pre- 

 viously entertained any intention of composing. It is 

 much to be lamented that he never did give such a 

 work to -the world. His thoughts had often been 

 very profoundly directed to the subject; and no one 

 was so well fitted to handle it with the learning and 

 with the judgment which its execution required. 



clam celatae) satis conspicui apud Archimedera, Apollonium, aliosque." It 

 is strange that any one of ordinary reflection should have overlooked the 

 utter impossibility of all the geometricians hi ancient times keeping the 

 secret of an art which must, if it existed, have been universally known in 

 the mathematical schools, and at a time when every man of the least 

 learning or even of the most ordinary education was taught geometry. 

 Montucla touches on this subject, but not with his wonted accuracy, 

 (I., 166.) Indeed, he seems to confound ancient with modern analysis, 

 although no one has more accurately described and illustrated the ancient 

 method, (I., 164, 275.) He adopts the erroneous notion of Plato having 

 discovered this method, but he does not fall into the other error of ascrib- 

 ing to him the discovery of Conic Sections, (ib. 1G8.) 



